The Mayan Codex (56 page)

‘I turned towards the square and pointed to the dead men littered across its wastes. “All these could read the ancient scripts. And also the chief whose eyes you started out of his head with your garrotte. They are now dead, and he is blind. So the books are blind too. None are left to call them out.”

‘Friar de Landa stared at me for some little time. I felt then that he was delving into my soul like one Death and Seven Death, the Lords of Xibalba, in the Place of Fear – that his eyes were piercing through me to the five levels of creation that made me up.

‘This is when the terrible fear came upon me that our understanding of the five levels of creation would be lost forever were I, too, to be killed. Which Chilan would be left to teach our children the knowledge of the first level of stone and fire that makes up their bones, their heart, and their gall? Who could tell them of the second level of plants, flowers, and trees, that makes up their flesh? Of the third level of waters, lakes, and rivers that makes up their blood, their nerves, and the liquid essences of their body? Who could describe to them the fourth level of wind and animals that encompasses their breath and their vision? Who would be left to tell them of the fifth and final level that makes of them “earth fruits”? That makes of them human beings, similar in essence even to Friar de Landa?

‘“And you?” he said to me. “Can you read these books and write this script? I conjure you, upon your Christian oath, to speak truly.”

‘Then came upon me the spirit of the Lak’ech. The spirit of our Maya code of honour. The Halach Uinic had called upon me to mould myself,
pari passu
, with the Spanish. To defend our people from my place of concealment. To this end there was a saying amongst us: “I am another
yourself.” Before this day, I had attempted to put this into practice. To understand Friar de Landa – to place myself in his shadow and understand his doings to the extent that I was able. The time for understanding had now passed.

‘“On my Christian oath, I cannot.”

‘“And the thirteenth crystal skull? The so-called ‘singing skull’? The skull that the most credulous amongst your people think activates the twelve skulls stolen from Nachi Cocom’s secret library? My soldiers and my friars have searched everywhere, and put many people to the question, and still they have not found even one of the thirteen. I know these skulls exist, for I have seen them. Who has them now?”

‘I pointed to the greatest of the dead chiefs. “He does. He was the guardian of the skulls.”

‘Friar de Landa smiled, and his smile was terrible. “Shall I put you to the question, too, Salvador, my son?” Here he used the name the Spaniards had given me. My so-called baptized name. The name by which I was known to all but the dead.

‘“I am your loyal servant, and a loyal servant of the Church. I will answer all of your questions, however they are posed to me.”

‘Now the friar laughed. How he laughed. He clapped his hands together and he danced a dance, his skirts swinging in the dust. He shouted to his soldiers, his voice like the song of the macaw. “Bring me their books. Bring me their idols. Bring me their altar stones.”

‘The Spanish soldiers drove our people who were their slaves before them, staggering under the weight of our patrimony. Now the sacred books that Nachi Cocom had shown to Friar de Landa were laid out like strips of maize across the square. As were the sacred objects. As were the sacred altar stones. Stakes and shafts of wood were piled
across them, then brushwood was placed on top of these. Incense was interleaved inside the branches, and crosses made from withies were planted on the periphery of the pile. Soon, the skeleton of a great bonfire was revealed, twenty feet high, and one hundred feet around in its circumference, and designed in the form of a volcano.

‘Night was falling. I, Akbal Coatl, the “night serpent”, whom the Spaniards call Salvador Emmanuel, had never feared the night. Now I feared it.

‘Our people stood in lines around the unlit bonfire. Some vomited. Others took out knives and slit their own throats.

‘I stood next to my master, Friar de Landa. I raised my pen and wrote as he dictated. The friars had provided me with a lectern for my convenience. They also brought me water to drink, from the very same source they had used to fill the mouths of their victims. I brushed it away. My throat was parched. My eyes were streaming. I could scarcely see the vellum on which I wrote for tears.

‘A soldier brought the Friar a burning branch, swathed in cotton and liquor. The flames from the branch played over the Friar’s face.

‘I thought of our code, the Lak’ech. I thought of our saying, “I am another yourself.” I knew then that this friar was no part of me, or of anything that I represented or believed in. I was glad that the thirteenth crystal skull had been given into my possession. Glad that I knew the location of the greatest of our sacred books. For through me, the future of the Maya might be secured. Through me, our customs and beliefs would not be lost when the skull and the book were once again reunited at the end of the period known as the Cycle of Nine Hells.

‘For was I not Chilan and
ak k’u hun
– priest and chief guardian of the sacred books? Was I not the friend and devoted servant of the friars? Party to their confidence,
and privileged witness to their outrages? Was I not destined to travel back to Spain with Friar de Landa and visit the monasteries and libraries of our order when the time for an accounting came? Had I not sacrificed myself sufficiently to placate the gods?

‘Friar de Landa turned to me. He pointed to the skeleton of the mighty bonfire. He made the sign of the cross over me and he smiled. “Here.” He handed me the burning branch. “You light it.”’

‘No more. It is enough. The road of words must end here.’

The Halach Uinic’s voice echoed out over the assembly. The light from the guttering candles reflected back off his face, which was drained of all colour, like a corpse’s.

The Chilan who had been reading the codex handed the book to the Halach Uinic. The Halach Uinic held it at a distance, as if he was scared that it would burst into flames and consume him. Freed from his burden, the Chilan stumbled and nearly fell to the ground. Some of the younger priests hurried forwards and helped him away.

The Halach Uinic closed his eyes. ‘Bring the thirteenth crystal skull.’

A sigh passed over the crowd.

Acan stepped forward. He unwrapped the crystal skull and offered it to the Halach Uinic.

‘Give it to the shaman.’

Acan hesitated. It was clear that he did not know to which shaman the Halach Uinic was referring.

Ixtab gently took the skull from her son’s hands. She passed it to Sabir. Her movements were so forceful that Sabir had no choice but to accept the skull.

‘Why are you giving it to me? I’m no shaman.’ Sabir tried to pass it back, but Ixtab shook her head.

Sabir looked wildly around him. ‘Look. We came here with no idea of finding anything like this. No idea at all.’ He looked entreatingly at Calque and Lamia, as though they might be persuaded to intercede for him in some way. ‘I don’t understand what is going on.’ His words trailed off irresolutely.

The Halach Uinic lowered his voice so that only those nearest him could hear it. ‘Of course you were sent here to find this. There is more written in this book than was read out by the Chilan. Much more. There are urgent questions I must ask you. Questions to which you may not consciously know the answer. A secret which is not a secret. But for this we need a
touj
.’

‘A what?’

‘Later. Later I will explain everything to you.’ The Halach Uinic turned back to his people. He stood waiting, the codex held high in his left hand.

Sabir’s eyes opened wide. It dawned on him that the entire assembly, including the Halach Uinic, was patiently waiting for him to act.

He looked around himself in ill-disguised panic. Here he was, after a week spent trying to outrun and outwit the eleven brothers and sisters of a man he had inadvertently – or as far as the Corpus Maleficus was concerned, very much advertently – killed. And all he could think of to do was to stand on top of a pyramid in the Yucatan, with a thousand strangers drinking in his every move, and wave a crystal skull
over his head. Was that some kind of dumb, or was it not?

No sooner had this absurd thought flashed through Sabir’s mind than an extraordinary sense of well-being began to flow through his body, as if he briefly added up to more than the actual sum of his parts. He glanced at Ixtab, certain that the support he felt was coming from her.

She smiled at him and nodded.

All at once Sabir knew exactly what to do. He walked towards the Halach Uinic, holding up the crystal skull so that the crowd below could see it. He bowed before the Halach Uinic and then stretched the crystal skull out before him, as though he were about to throw it down the steps of the pyramid. Then he motioned to Lamia with his head.

She hesitated, and then stepped towards him.

‘I want you to translate for me. My Spanish is too rough. It will mean calling out to all these people in your loudest voice. Do you think you can do it?’

Lamia hesitated once again. Then she inclined her head

He mouthed the words ‘I love you’ to her.

She held his gaze with hers and mouthed the words back to him.

‘Tell them that a great man, who died almost four years to the day after the events they have been hearing about, showed us, more than four centuries later, and seemingly from beyond the grave, where to find the skull.’

Lamia frowned. But then her face cleared in sudden understanding, and she began to translate his words.

‘That this great man intended the skull as a gift to the Maya people. A gift of something they had once possessed and must now possess again.’ He paused, waiting for Lamia to translate his words. ‘That we from across the sea ask them to accept this gift in the same spirit as our
friend from Veracruz has offered them the return of their sacred book.’ Sabir glanced around, searching for inspiration. The fresh words came to him in a sudden rush, as though they had been banked up behind the others, just waiting to pour out. ‘That we foreigners are proud to have been the unwitting guardians of the location of your treasures – the only two objects saved from Friar de Landa’s annihilation. That we offer them back to you with the greatest respect, and in only partial restitution for the evils done to your people in the name of our Christian Church.’

Sabir knew that these were not his own words he was speaking, but the words that Ixtab and the Halach Uinic desired him to speak, channelled through his lips. The hidden, super-rational part of him still resisted the possibility that one could be fed words via other people’s thoughts.

The Halach Uinic accepted Sabir’s offer of the skull. He held the skull and the book high above the assembly for a moment, before handing them to the attendant priests. ‘The book will be copied and translated. What it contains will be available to all as soon as the work has been completed.’ He waited for the murmuring of the crowd to die away. ‘The skull can only be reunited with the remaining twelve skulls on the final day of the Cycle of Nine Hells, which falls on 21 December 2012. Only then may we learn what the thirteen skulls have to say to us. Is this acceptable to you all? Will you permit me to represent you in this matter? If not, I will step down and make way for another.’

A great crashing and banging began from below. Sabir squinted into the gloom. He shook his head in wonder. The Maya women had brought their cooking implements with them in preparation for the forthcoming feast, and now they clashed their saucepans over their heads while
their menfolk twirled their machetes, smashing them one into the other as in a sabre dance.

Sabir sat down on the top step of the pyramid and put his head in his hands. He felt drained. Unwitting. Incapable of action. Lamia crouched beside him and rested her head against his.

‘You did the right thing. What you said was beautiful. How did you grasp so perfectly what was needed?’

Sabir leaned across and kissed her tenderly on the mouth. Then he tilted back his head, looked at her speculatively, and kissed her again. ‘If I told you, you’d never believe me.’