Jaguar Princess (13 page)

The servants were escorting in his late-night guest. The caller was an elderly man, though not as decrepit as the ancient tale-teller. Wise Coyote could tell at once from his dress that he was a slave and from the pigment stains on his hands that he was a scribe.

The old man greeted the king respectfully and introduced himself. “I am Nine-Lizard, glyph-painter of Tlacopan, currently residing in Tenochtitlan.” His head had a crown of curls surrounding a high-domed shiny pate that gleamed in the firelight. Wisps of beard curled around his chin as if trying to hide a plump, homely face. Wise Coyote noticed that there were certain resemblances between the old man’s features and those of the statue in the library. The same high vertical forehead, squashed nose and bowed pursed lips were there, though in less grotesque form. On the statue the face had looked austere and forbidding. The echo of it in the old scribe’s visage only added a touch of pleasant homeliness.

“Are you of the Jaguar’s Children?” Wise Coyote asked, trying not to let his eagerness or his trepidation show.

“I have had my associations with them, tlatoani,” the old scribe replied. His eyes seemed to twinkle with amusement, but behind them. Wise Coyote sensed a wariness.

“You are a slave, as stains on your hands show.” Wise Coyote leaned forward. “You have risked much to come here. A slave who leaves his assigned duties can be accused of escaping and then slain. Why have you come to me?”

“Because I have heard that the tlatoani of Texcoco seeks allies in his opposition to Tenochtitlan.”

“Then they will join me?” Wise Coyote felt a surge of hope.

Nine-Lizard held up his hand. “I am no longer a member of the Jaguar’s Children—I cannot speak for them. I have come on behalf of another.”

“Who?”

“A young slave girl, presently in the House of Scribes. She was taken in from a calmecac when events exposed a great talent for painting and copying. I believe she has other gifts as well, but those gifts, if revealed, may endanger her life. I would advise you to take an interest in this young scribe, for she may help you find the path that you have been seeking.”

Wise Coyote asked more questions, but the old scribe Nine-Lizard, though respectful, would say little else.

At last, frustrated. Wise Coyote said, “Why do you speak in riddles and shadows? I could offer better help if I knew more about the girl and these people who call themselves the Jaguar’s Children.”

“I am practicing caution, as are they,” Nine-Lizard replied. “You know yourself that dealings with the royal houses of Tenochtitlan, Tlacopan and even your honored house of Texcoco have been very dangerous for those whose talents may brand them wrongly as enemies. No. I have given you enough information that you may act if you choose. What you do will tell the truth of your intent.” He paused. “The girl’s name is Seven-Flower Mixcatl.”

Wise Coyote felt as if he were being subjected to a test that would determine if he were worthy to have dealings with the Jaguar’s Children. To be told that he would have to first be judged by the nature of his actions irritated and dismayed him. After all, it was he who was offering these unknown people aid. As king, he had power and resources that they would need.

He put those feelings aside, for he sensed that royal impatience would carry no weight with the old slave-scribe. The old man had already ignored the veiled threat that he could be executed for leaving the House of Scribes without leave from his masters.

He knows that I will not punish him
. thought Wise Coyote.
I am too curious about the girl
.

Aloud, he said, “If you were worried about this young woman, why did you not bring her with you? I can offer refuge at Tezcotzinco.”

“She has been set to work on a special history for Hue Hue Ilhuicamina, who would be displeased if that task was interrupted. No, tlatoani. Because of that…and other complications as well, it is best to leave her in the House of Scribes. You can keep watch on her from a distance—that is something you nobles are very good at doing.”

You are too polite, old scribbler
, thought Wise Coyote.
You do not say that I can depend on my spies
.

Nine-Lizard rose to take his leave. “Keep the little figurine I gave you. It will have a use.”

“To tell you the truth, old man, it is not something I would choose for myself. The flayed face and the atmosphere that surrounds the piece makes me look upon any contact with the Jaguar’s Children with uneasiness. I will think long and hard before I make any move. I want to be sure of what I am stepping into.”

The old man smiled benevolently at him. “Good. That is why I gave it to you.”

He would say no more, but asked instead to be escorted out. To Wise Coyote’s surprise, he would not accept the usual gifts that the tlatoani offered his visitors, but went away empty-handed into the night.

Restless and wakeful. Wise Coyote studied the strange figurine by lamplight. It was late in the evening before he could put it aside and turn once again to his sleeping mat.

LATER IN THE
year, the tlatoani of Texcoco visited Tenoch-titlan. He came in response to a request for his presence at an elaborate new religious ceremony honoring Hummingbird on the Left. It was an invitation he accepted unwillingly.

After the sacrifices and ceremonies, the Aztec Speaker-King gave a feast in his palace. As an invited guest. Wise Coyote could have partaken of the many delicacies and the entertainment, but instead he chose to eat alone in the rooms provided for him. The events of the day lay heavily on him. He needed time in solitude.

Ilhuicamina had thoughtfully given him apartments on the side of the palace away from the temples, but the blood stench hung in the air all over the city. Wise Coyote had been tempted to return home, but he knew that such a gesture would be taken as a slight. Even his dining alone tonight would cause gossip at Ilhuicamina’s court, but Wise Coyote resigned himself to that. He couldn’t face the thought of sitting among the warriors and nobles, listening to jests and laughter while images of the day’s slaughter still haunted him.

Never again would he attend an offering to Hummingbird on the Left
! He had come out of politeness. No, the truth was that he had come in hope of salvaging the rags of friendship that remained between himself and Ilhuicamina after their bond had been torn by the Prodigy’s death.

But now, although he swore he would never again set foot on those blood-slick temple steps, the ceremony seized his mind, as if he were being forced to witness it again.

Tenochlitlan’s streets and plazas were filled with flowers, music and festival. As Wise Coyote rode in a litter to the ceremonial center of the city, the beat of a great drum overwhelmed the noise of celebration.

The drum seemed to echo his own heartbeat, slow and heavy. The sacrifice at the opening of the aqueduct had hardened him. After that, he thought, nothing could make him feel more wretched. But his heart knew better.

The tlatoani of Texcoco glanced out through the hangings that hid him from view. The city’s great central plaza was overflowing with people dressed in colorful finery and decked with flowers. He felt the litter slow as he passed through the crowds.

The palanquin seemed to jolt along, as it had during the muddy climb to Chaultapec’s spring.

It must be my imagination. The bearers would not stumble on the smooth pavement
.

He squashed his impulse to get out and walk. Besides having to contend with the throng, he would be standing in the shadow of the twin stepped pyramids that dominated the plaza. The one on the right he could bear to look at; it had been newly raised to the Toltec rain god Tlaloc. The other honored Hummingbird on the Left.

Ilhuicamina had manipulated him into giving the order that had cut down Hummingbird’s victims at Chaultapec. It was that outrage, not just the number of prisoners or the way they died.

So he tried to tell his pounding heart and grinding gut, even while he strove to draw serenity
across his face.

At last his litter arrived, coming to a halt behind Ilhuicamina’s at the foot of Hummingbird’s pyramid.

Ilhuicamina had descended from his palanquin and was climbing the steep stairs. His footsteps were impatient, carrying him ahead of his escort of priests and courtiers. As Wise Coyote mounted the stone staircase in the Aztec’s wake, he saw, amid the crowd, a file of men all dressed in simple white loincloths. The line ran from the base of the temple itself, across the plaza until it was lost to sight among the other buildings of the city.

He felt the sweat prickle beneath the band of his turquoise coronet and knew it wasn’t just from the exertion of climbing the pyramid’s staircase in the hot noon sun.

He wanted the file to be a line of worshippers, eager to make their devotions to Hummingbird. He did not want to see that their necks were yoked, their hands bound and their eyes dull with fright.

His heart no longer beat to the rhythm of the drum. It was fast, frantic, nearly closing his throat. His earlier thought, that the number of sacrifices did not matter, now seemed to mock him.

He was ready, but not for this. Not for a whole river of victims who stood ten abreast, flowing from the depths of the city to the foot of the temple…

No! This was not devotion. This was a frenzy bordering on madness, and an obscenity in which he should have no part.

He hastened his steps to the summit, determined to speak to the man who still called himself a friend. At the top he was blocked from Ihuicamina by the sheer press of bodies about the Speaker-King. His protest was swallowed in the roar of adulation from the crowd massed below. He could only watch, mute, as the Aztec turned to the throng and lifted his hands.

Ilhuicamina’s magnificent feather-fan headdress of emerald quetzal feathers, beaten gold and precious stones shimmered as he tilted his head back to face the noon sun. Sweat ran down the planes of his upturned face. The king of Texcoco, rocked with horrors, shuddered with yet another; that the Aztec would blind himself by staring too long at the sun.

Emotion stilled Wise Coyote’s tongue for an instant too long. His attempt to speak was drowned by the beginning of the Speaker-King’s rant.

“Hummingbird on the Left! Never again will you hunger! Never again will you thirst!” Ilhuicamina thundered at the sky, clenching his hands. “The previous rulers of this city neglected you and in return you struck with drought and famine. Never again shall this happen, for the city of Tenochlitlan shall be a fountain from which the gods may drink forever!”

A black-smeared priest with wildly tangled hair handed Ilhuicamina an obsidian knife. With a push they sent a captive stumbling up the steps. Others on the steep stairway hastened the victim upward, for he was so numbed by fright that his eyes stared at nothing and his knees buckled. He crawled up the last few steps.

Ilhuicamina turned to Wise Coyote with a triumphant smile and for an instant the tlatoani of Texcoco thought that the knife would be handed to him to do the killing. With a swirl of embroidered robes and swish of feathers, the Aztec ruler turned toward the altar.

The sacrifice staggered to the top and was met by wild-eyed priests who bent him back over the sacrificial stone. Ilhuicamina plunged the knife into the heaving breast.

Wise Coyote closed his eyes, but he could not shut his ears to the sounds of tearing flesh and breaking bone that told him that the heart was being taken from the corpse.

Streams of blood splashed on the flagstones and began their cascade down the steps of the temple.

Ilhuicamina called for another blessed one to ascend, met the victim on the top step and killed him where he stood, letting the body tumble down. He then handed the knife back to the priests, evidently tiring of the effort involved in killing. Wise Coyote wished that the sacrificing would end, but foresaw what must follow. Victim after victim stumbled, was shoved or dragged up the slick steps to be bent back over the altar stone and slain.

The king of Texcoco felt sick with disgust. He cursed again the servility of the Deer’s heart that had brought him here. It made him accept his son’s death at Ilhuicamina’s hands without rebelling and had made him embark on the construction of an aqueduct to bring water to those masses whose upturned faces now shone with bloodlust.

The deaths continued, though the manner of the killings varied. Some victims gave their hearts, to be burned in a lava bowl on the altar to Hummingbird on the Left. Some were flayed and their skin worn by priests in honor of the dread Xipe Totec. Some of the black-smeared priests danced around costumed in the fresh skins while others set fire to a great paper snake wound around a pole.

Wise Coyote watched with a growing revulsion and anger that showed only in his clenched fists, hidden beneath his robe. He knew that Xipe Totec was not one of the original Aztec gods. Nor did the flayed god appear in the traditions of his own people, the Chichimecs. It was an import from the savage Zapotecs to the south and deserved no place among the sacred Aztec rites.

The savagery and frenzy of this new rite were probably what appealed to Ilhuicamina, Wise Coyote thought in dismay. He wanted desperately to leave, but could not. If he showed his revulsion by descending from the ternple, it would be seen by others as a sign of weakness and, even worse, disloyalty.

He had endured the rest of that day by distancing all thoughts and sensations from his brain, and putting a mask of indifference on his face. He had used his body as a refuge, turning away from the evil outside, hiding behind his eyes like a coward.

And now, as he sat in his quarters at Ilhuicamina’s palace, he remembered and was bitterly ashamed.

Could I not have done something to stop it
?

He laughed, then cursed himself for a fool as he put aside his turquoise coronet and tried to eat.
He remained on the throne of Texcoco only under Ilhuicamina’s sufferance and by the ties of a family friendship. Trying to interfere with Ilhuicamina’s religious ceremonies would earn him disfavor, perhaps even death. Texcoco might flaunt its independence, but it was a state of scholars and philosophers and would never stand up to the might of the Aztecs.

It is not death itself I fear, but what will happen to my people
, he thought, staring without appetite at the tamale between his fingers. It was stuffed with that greatest and rarest of Aztec delicacies, the flesh of hairless dogs. He returned it to the dish.
Were I not king, I would stand up against these excesses. Or do these excuses come from the heart of the Deer, whose sign has followed me since birth
?

A hand drew the doorhanging aside, making Wise Coyote turn his head sharply. At the sight of Ilhuicamina, his throat tightened. He dropped his gaze, following the custom that no one, even the highest nobles, could look Ilhuicamina in the face while at court. At first he thought that the Aztec had come to upbraid him for not joining the feast, but the pensive expression on Ilhuicamina’s face told him otherwise.

“Look up, look up,” the Aztec ruler said impatiently. “That custom I keep only for those who would otherwise use me to gain their desires. You I count as exempt. Will you accept the company of your old friend?” Ilhuicamina asked, seating himself on the mat beside Wise Coyote. “Here. I have brought two cups of
chocolatl.”

Wise Coyote inhaled the steamy bitter aroma of cacao frothed with vanilla. He sipped, marveling at the fact that Ilhuicamina had served him with his own two hands.

“I see you have wearied of the feast.” Ilhuicamina arranged his cloak about him and crossed his legs. He had put aside the ceremonial garb and plumes of the morning, though he still wore gold arm-and wristbands, ear and lip plugs. “I too am beginning to find it oppressive. The laughter is too loud, the jests too stale.”

And the meat might not be to your taste tonight
. Wise Coyote thought, knowing that roasted flesh from the thighs of sacrificial victims was probably among the dishes being served in the banquet hall.

“Perhaps you are thinking too hard about other things to enjoy the feast,” Wise Coyote said cautiously. “If you wish to share your worries, I will listen.”

A smile widened the impassive planes of the Aztec’s face. “What a prize I have in the prince of Texcoco!” he exclaimed. “Not only are you wise in the ways of the world, but also in the things that trouble my heart. Yet you are younger than I. How did a stripling gain so much wisdom?”

By living through great trouble. By carrying my father’s body to his pyre with my own hands and setting it alight. By living as a fugitive in the hills for most of my life
. Wise Coyote thought.

He gave no indication that he recognized Ilhuicamina’s words as the false flattery they were. “I do not know where my wisdom comes from,” he said smoothly. “Take it as a gift from the gods and unburden yourself.”

Ilhuicamina fell silent for a while, staring at the murky surface of his cup of chocolatl. “Do you
know,” he said, “I remember the faces of the blessed ones I sacrificed today. I have never had a good memory for faces, yet those are etched in my memory as if they were my sons.” He swirled his drink and Wise Coyote noticed the deep shadows under his eyes.

He cannot sleep. That is why he comes to me
.

“The priests of Left-Handed Hummingbird keep saying that the victims should die in ecstacy, but ever since I have wielded the altar knife, I have seen only grimaces of fear that would dishearten the most resolute of men. Of course I am more determined than most, since I always kill them without hesitation, but the victims today seemed more reluctant.” Ilhuicamina tipped up his cup, drinking in great swallows.

“Is it possible that these captives were not previously informed of the reason for their deaths?” Wise Coyote asked. “After all, they were Tlaxcalan and do not speak our dialect.”

“By the green hair of Tlaloc, I never thought of that.” Ilhuicamina raised his eyebrows. “That must be the reason, of course. I shall order the priests to have interpreters available for the captives of any nation so that they will know they are dying gloriously to feed Hummingbird on the Left.”

I wonder how many will take comfort in knowing
, thought Wise Coyote. He too had the images of faces engraved in his memory and the echoes of screams still resounded in his ears.

He looked at the lines about Ilhuicamina’s mouth, the hard planes of the cheeks, slicked with sweat although the night was cool.

“What else troubles you, my friend?”

Ilhuicamina’s eyes, when he lifted his gaze, were haunted. “Do you think I gave Hummingbird enough sacrifices?”

Wise Coyote had to clench his teeth together to keep from retching. Enough! He remembered the river of victims that had wound through the plaza and into the city, the killing that had gone on until late in the evening, the heavy odor of blood that still fouled the air of the city. Enough I

“I think you have been most generous,” he managed to say, and hated himself for it.

“I could get more,” said Ilhuicamina, in the tones of a small child trying to please his teacher. Then he struck his fist on the matting. “I vowed that Hummingbird on the Left would never have reason to turn from us again. My predecessors were mangy curs. Their stinginess cursed us with the years of want.”