The Spaniard's Innocent Maiden Page 7

  Chapter Eight

  A familiar voice whispered into Tula’s ear. ‘If you don’t wake up soon, I will be forced to drink this delicious chocolate beverage myself.’

  Tula heard a long, loud slurp. She opened her eyes.

  ‘Aha! I knew that would wake you,’ said Tula’s younger sister Xanca, smiling wickedly. She held the cup of chocolate out to Tula, then pulled it away. ‘It is the final cup.’

  Tula looked towards the kitchen. The light of mid-morning was shining through the open window and a pot stained with honey and filled with spent vanilla pods sat empty in the hearth. Tula thought of the bearded man and felt her heartbeat quicken. He had probably already begun to shout for aid. She had to get back to him. Soon.

  ‘Are you not going to try to stop me?’ Xanca asked, tilting the cup of chocolate to her lips.

  ‘Indeed I am,’ cried Tula, jumping to her feet, ‘for I am your elder and am required to drink before you.’ She plucked the cup from Xanca’s hands.

  ‘It is not the eldest who must drink the chocolate first, but the wisest,’ reasoned Xanca, ‘and that, of course, is me.’

  ‘If you are wise, then I am an overripe guayaba,’ said Tula, laughing. She drank a long, delicious draught. ‘Though I admit that you do make delicious chocolate.’

  ‘You have been asleep all morning.’ Xanca pouted. ‘Why did you return so late last night? And where is your basket? Did you catch any fish?’

  ‘So many questions!’ exclaimed Tula. She glanced at her older sister Pulhko. As always, she sat in the corner of the room, strapped into her loom, weaving in a kind of trance.

  ‘Do you want a sip of chocolate, Pulhko?’ Tula called.

  She did not expect an answer. Still, her older sister’s silence made Tula’s heart ache. ‘Where is Father?’ Tula asked Xanca.

  ‘He spoke of an urgent meeting among the Council of Elders—something about a battle at Potonchan.’

  ‘Potonchan? That is in the south, is it not? A Maya town?’

  Xanca removed the cup from Tula’s hands. ‘I have been too busy doing your weaving to think about it.’

  Tula thought about the bearded men—how they had burst without warning from the depths of the jungle. They had come from the south.

  ‘Well?’ asked Xanca, sighing heavily.

  ‘Well, clearly I must repay you for all of your help,’ said Tula, ‘so I shall tell you about my adventure.’ Tula dived into her tale of danger and discovery, describing the talismanic jaguar fish, the great temple of treasure beneath the sea and the vision of the pole flyers that had saved her life.

  ‘You are raving. You must be struck with the dreaming sickness...or the sickness of love.’

  ‘Love of treasure!’ exclaimed Tula. ‘Of course, you must not tell anyone about this.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Xanca, though Tula could see by the tilt of her younger sister’s frown that she was practically bursting with the news. Xanca excused herself into the next room and after a short time emerged dressed in a red embroidered skirt and matching shawl.

  ‘Where are you going in such finery?’

  ‘Nowhere. To the tlachtli court. I am to meet Xanata there. The teams are practising for the Festival of Tlaloc. Xanata’s husband is the Tlachtli Master now, you know,’ Xanca said. ‘Her brother, Anan, is one of the best defenders.’

  Tula eyed Xanca. ‘Why the sudden interest in ball sport?’

  Xanca’s cheeks took on a colour remarkably similar to that of her skirt. ‘I’ve always enjoyed the game,’ she said. ‘Where is the fish?’ Xanca asked Tula, cleverly changing the subject.

  ‘What fish?’

  ‘The fine jaguar fish that you said you caught yesterday. I can prepare it for our dinner.’

  ‘Ah! That fish!’ Tula exclaimed a little too loudly. ‘I left it in a...small cenote outside of Cempoala.’ Tula consoled herself that in essence she spoke truth. Still, she needed to change the subject.

  ‘Why do you wear Mother’s labret?’ Tula asked suddenly, studying Xanca’s lower lip. It was as if the house had suddenly become a tlachtli ball court and they were deep in a volley.

  Xanca fondled the small jade lip ornament. ‘No reason,’ said Xanca. ‘It looks well with my red skirt.’

  ‘Who is the one struck with the sickness of love, I wonder?’

  Xanca’s eyes sparkled with the delight of a secret. ‘I am simply going to spend a few hours with my friends. I will be home before Father and probably before you, too. Your fish sounds monstrous.’

  Before Tula could respond, Xanca had exited through the thatched doorway in a whoosh of youth and red cotton.

  A suffocating silence settled upon the room in her absence. Surely Pulhko had heard everything, but as usual she said not a word. ‘She will have to present the young man to us,’ Tula reflected. ‘No marriage can take place without the approval of kin—both his and hers.’ Tula watched as Pulhko looped her shuttle with a dull brown thread, her ears unhearing, her sunken eyes bereft of life.

  ‘I am going to fetch my fish now,’ Tula announced. She peered out of the front window. The Sun God was at the height of his triumph and would provide her with plenty of light to find the cenote, rescue the man and steal his treasure. With the gods on her side, she would return home in time for the evening meal.

  ‘Until later, Pulhko,’ she muttered, and stepped out on to the porch. Cempoala’s central plaza spread before her like a mural. Women in colourful dresses flitted about the open space like birds, trading goods and gossip with the merchants, whose baskets overflowed with the offerings of the jungle and the fields.

  It seemed so eternal and unchanging—as if she might always be able to rely on this radiant scene. Above it all loomed the Great Temple, its slanted walls gleaming white, its flat shaded apex swarming with priests. The venerable old men did their own kind of trading, burning copal incense and making the sacrifices necessary to keep Cempoala’s debt to the gods paid.

  As a Council Elder, their father was also tasked with Cempoala’s safekeeping, though not from the wrath of the gods. He had been granted one of the dozens of stone homes around the plaza so that he, like the other elders and priests, could keep close watch over their city. When he wasn’t hunting birds or training soldiers, Tula’s father was sitting here, on the porch of their home, ever vigilant.

  Tula and Xanca would often join him here, for there was nothing more pleasurable than to watch the daily parade of Cempoala’s tens of thousands of vibrant souls.

  Pulhko was the only one who never came to the porch. Since her family had been taken, she had not allowed the Sun God to caress her face. Now, as Tula gazed upon the well-worn wooden bench where she, Xanca and her father always sat, it occurred to her what a short distance there was between joy and sorrow. Sometimes only a few paces.

  ‘Tamales,’ called a passing woman, carrying a tray full of the delicious corn cakes. Tula hailed the woman with a fistful of cacao beans and soon held a warm tamale inside her pocket.

  She was far too nervous to be hungry herself, but Tula guessed that the man would be famished. It was a silly notion, now that she thought about it—to rescue him from the cenote and then hand him a tamale. But perhaps it would endear her to him in some way and he would let her kiss him again. Then she could surely sneak her finger back into his pocket.

  Of course, the correct thing to do would be to present the matter to her father. The bearded man was a stranger who had invaded Totonac territory and by law he should be brought before the Council Elders and the Chief. Like any high-born prisoner taken in battle, he could then explain to the Totonac leaders why they should not make him a slave.

  But Tula had not taken him in battle. Unless their chase through the jungle had been a battle, in which case she had certainly lost.

  * * *

 
; Tula arrived at the large maize field where he had outwitted her. The thought of seeing him again gave her energy and she found that she had broken into a trot. Soon, she was peering over the rim of the same cenote into which she’d fallen just a dozen hours before.

  ‘Cristo!’ she called, her heart beating with excitement. There was no answer, nor any movement in the water below. She waited for several moments, then said the word again. Nothing. She sat down beside the well, overcome with disappointment.

  Finally, a voice echoed softly from below. ‘Tenoch-it-lan,’ it whispered.

  Chapter Nine

  He felt his heart begin to thrum as he saw her peer over the cenote’s edge. ‘Tenoch-tit-lan,’ she corrected, and her chiding voice echoed in the chasm like music.

  She demonstrated the long rope she carried, then disappeared from view. He could hardly believe she was real. He wanted to jump and shout with joy. He wanted to burst out of the infernal pit and kiss her, his little saviour, though he reminded himself that he was not saved yet. There could be an army of painted warriors behind her, just waiting to take his map and steal his golden ring and finish Benicio for ever.

  Somehow he doubted it. She did not seem like the kind of woman who liked to share. Then he laughed to himself. Of course she had returned for him—it was suddenly so clear. She wished to take the ring for herself once again. Benicio shook his head. How had he not seen it? He had spent the entire night worried that she would never return for him, forgetting that he held something she found valuable enough to risk her life to obtain.

  In minutes she returned and tossed the rope over the edge. It was thick and fibrous and resembled the ropes used for rigging Spanish ships. Benicio gripped the familiar rope in his hands and gave several test tugs. He was preparing to begin his ascent when he heard a sudden rustling in the trees. A colourful bird had jumped down and perched itself at the edge of the cenote across from the woman. The bird had a brilliant red chest, which he dipped and bobbed, as if heralding her somehow.

  At length, the bird turned towards the jungle and its two long, thin tail feathers descended into the cenote. As long as Benicio’s legs, the two feathers twisted loosely around each other in a dance of vivid green and blue. Benicio could not help but marvel at their beauty and he remembered that the Maya priest had worn such feathers in his headdress.

  The bird was probably sacred and he imagined quite valuable. He did not blame the woman for her obvious enchantment with it. She signalled for Benicio to wait, then approached the bird. It fluttered its wings just enough to propel itself somewhere beyond the edge of the cenote.

  The woman stepped out of view. Sensing an opportunity, Benicio began to climb up the rope. If she was far enough away when he reached the top, he could easily sneak away from her. Then he would have a decision to make: to return to Spain with his diamond prize, or to seek her help in learning the location of the enigmatic Tenochtitlan.

  He was not a quarter of the way up the rope when he heard the voices.

  Chapter Ten

  The quetzal bird fluttered out of Tula’s reach. She did not wish to harm it—only to pluck its long tail feathers, which were worth a small fortune. They would grow back soon enough and the creature would be not be harmed.

  But this quetzal knew how not to be caught. It shuttled from tree to tree, staying just ahead of her, as if it wished for her to follow. She stepped carefully through the dense underbrush, marvelling at the bird’s fearlessness, until it fluttered to a high branch and abruptly ceased to move. Tula stopped, as well.

  Something was wrong. There was something unnatural in the breeze—a vaguely foul scent that wafted into Tula’s nose like a warning. Instinctively, she dropped to the ground, concealing herself behind a fallen trunk.

  There was a man standing at the cenote’s rim—not the bearded man she was trying to rescue, but a man wearing a black cape that stretched the length of his body. Tula could smell his matted locks of hair, even from her hiding place, and she knew that they were caked with blood. She beheld a Mexica priest.

  Another man joined the priest at the edge of the cenote. He wore a colourful, embroidered cape that hung in long strips against his gilded loincloth. The man held a yellow flower to his nose to indicate his nobility, though it was not the flower that caught Tula’s attention. It was the colour of the man’s slick, tightly bound hair. Black.

  The man was a Mexica Tribute Taker.

  Tula felt her body begin to tremble. A Taker and a Mexica priest, travelling together. What bloody mission were they on? She prayed that the bearded man had been clever enough to conceal himself on the shadowy side of the pool. If he had not, then he was surely doomed.

  The Taker studied the rope that Tula had dropped into the cenote. He appeared fascinated by its thickly woven fibres and peered curiously into the depths where it led. Meanwhile, several dozen Mexica warriors surrounded the cenote, their thick, obsidian clubs glinting menacingly in the dappled light.

  Tula could not stop trembling. A dead leaf cracked beneath her foot and she watched the fern in front of her flutter against her heavy breaths. She needed to stay calm. She could not allow herself to be discovered.

  She heard the victim’s soft whimpers before he came into view. He was a young Totonac man who could not have seen more than four and ten years. He struggled with his four warrior escorts, writhing and twisting in vain against their merciless grips.

  A slave lit a brazier and placed it in the priest’s hands. The priest held the copper pan above his head. Its coals made eerie ribbons of smoke that wove slowly towards the sky. ‘Like a painting we will be erased,’ the priest intoned. ‘Like a flower, we will dry up. Like the plumed vestments of the precious bird, that precious bird with the agile neck, we will come to an end. We give you this gift, Great Huitzilopochtli, God of the Sun and War, Guardian of Tenochtitlan, that you may keep this world another day.’

  The warriors brought the young man to the edge of the cenote and laid him down on his back, his neck stretched out beyond the rim. The priest placed the brazier upon the ground and pulled a long obsidian knife from beneath his robe. He held it out over the young man’s neck, chanting incomprehensibly.

  Sacrifice was necessary, Tula understood that. There had been Four Worlds before this one—all destroyed by dissatisfied gods. To keep this world—the Fifth World—alive, the gods needed to be fed and kept satisfied. That was the purpose of war, after all—to take prisoners who could be used to feed the gods. Tula doubted that this young man was a prisoner of war, however. He appeared to be a simple farmer. And he was far too young to die.

  Now the young man screamed as the priest raised his knife to his throat. ‘We give you this sustenance, God of the Sun and War, protector of the floating city,’ the priest said.

  Suddenly, a deep, bellowing voice emerged from the depths. ‘No!’

  The priest dropped his knife in terror. It fell into the cenote without a splash. The throng of mighty warriors jumped back from the edge of the chasm.

  ‘Stop!’ boomed the voice from below.

  The men gaped in fear. Several dropped to their knees and kissed the ground, clearly believing they had just been addressed by a god. An angry one.

  Moments later, Tula watched in amazement as the bearded man climbed out of the cenote, his large arm muscles flexing as he deftly ascended the rope she had secured for him. The warriors gasped in horror as the towering spirit stepped before them, the priest’s fallen blade clenched between his teeth.

  To Tula, he was magnificent. His pants clung to the muscles of his legs, which seemed to flex unbidden, and his massive chest heaved with his breaths, threatening to break his animal-hide vest. He surveyed the company without any sign of fear, then plucked the blade from the grip of his jaws and held it in his hand.

  The Tribute Taker stepped forward. ‘Bearded god,’ he bega
n in Nahuatl. ‘I know that you travel with Captain Cortés. I have visited your captain and brought him gifts from my city, Tenochtitlan.’

  ‘Captain Cortés?’ asked the man in confusion. ‘Tenoch-it-lan?’

  ‘I am an emissary of Montezuma, the ruler of the Mexica,’ said the Taker more slowly. ‘We have welcomed your captain and bestowed upon him many gifts. Now we ask that you take your floating temples and go home.’

  The bearded man stood silent, his long beard concealing his expression. At length, the Taker spoke again. ‘Allow us to escort you back to your brethren.’

  Tula could see that the bearded man understood none of what had been said. Surely the Taker could see it, too, though he did not seem to care. It was as if he were reading some obligatory passage from a scroll. Still, beneath the Taker’s placid gaze Tula read a clear command. Leave this land.

  The Taker turned to the four warriors who had restrained the boy and bade them rise. ‘The gods have decided to spare this fortunate young man,’ he said. He released the young man, who gave a confused yelp and darted off into the forest. ‘Accompany the bearded one to the camp of the bearded ones. Tell Captain Cortés that he is yet another gift from the Great Montezuma, who urges him to return home.’

  The warriors eyed the bearded one warily, as they might watch a capture jaguar. The Taker motioned for four additional warriors to join them. Soon eight Mexica warriors had surrounded the bearded man and the group started southward.

  Tula crouched low as they walked past her, holding her breath. ‘Tenoch-it-lan,’ the bearded man uttered as they passed, and she knew it was a message meant only for her ears. ‘Tenoch-it-lan.’

  * * *

  Tula stayed behind the log until long after the deadly entourage had departed. She stared out into the shady jungle in a kind of stupor. If the quetzal bird had not come when it did, if it had not led her away from the cenote, she would have surely been caught by the Tribute Takers and become a gift to the Sun God herself.