The Seven Serpents Trilogy

by Scott O'Dell

  The two nobles knocked on the door with gold canes. It swung open at once. Both of them slipped through and the door closed behind them.

  After a long wait, during which I heard solemn voices and the reedy wail of flutes, the door opened upon a vista that for a moment blinded me.

  The dwarf, standing at my side, said in a choked whis per, “Mary on the Mount, I do not believe what I see.”

  The room seemed made of gold—the ceiling, the walls, the floor, the air itself—and it all shimmered in the glow of votive urns. Light came from all directions in dazzling streamers. I moved through waves of golden air down a corridor of burning incense, toward a throne where hundreds of golden streamers came together and rested upon a figure in a jaguar robe, a small man with a curly black beard.

  The dwarf whispered, “He, he, it is not the palace of Kukulcán we are in!”

  Speechless, clad in bedraggled clothes, and bare of foot, I bowed my head. A few steps from the throne, ill at ease, I touched my forehead to the floor, once, twice, three times, the third time with a feeling of humiliation.

  From the nobles came gasps of astonishment. And little wonder! When had they seen a young man of my great height, made to look still taller by the dwarf—a man with blue eyes, fair skin, and long blond hair?

  Only the emperor was silent.

  Forgetting myself, I glanced at him, then quickly lowered my eyes. But in that brief moment I saw that he was a man of some thirty years, slender yet of a vigorous build. His hair, cut short above his ears, which were pierced by turquoise plugs, was tied in a knot on top of his head. He had a long, copper-colored face and a well-trimmed beard.

  “Say something,” the dwarf hissed, “lest they think you a dunce.”

  “Great Speaker, Lord of the Black Beard,” I said, using the words that Chalco had given me, “I have traveled far, from a land to the south. I have come to see with my own eyes the emperor whose name is known to all the world and to ask for his friendship. In token of mine, I offer you this gift from the seas of my country.”

  The dwarf danced forward with the bag of pearls and handed it to the emperor.

  “I am told,” Moctezuma said, “that you are a Mayan lord.”

  “That is true,” I answered.

  “I have never seen a Maya before. I have heard that they are a sickly breed, but you belie this. Are all the Maya of your height and breadth and of the same hue?”

  “Not all.”

  “I am told that in your country you are a famous warrior.”

  “A warrior,” I lied, modestly.

  “You have met many of the enemy?”

  “Yes, Revered Speaker.”

  “How many of the foe have you slain?”

  “Twelve,” I said, drawing a figure from the air.

  “How many have you taken prisoner?”

  I counted in my mind, taking my time about it.

  “Ciento cinco,” the dwarf whispered.

  “One hundred and five,” I said.

  Moctezuma showed no surprise at this incredible number. “Your prisoners were sacrificed to honor Uitzilopochtli?”

  I assumed that Uitzilopochtli was the all-powerful Azteca god. “Yes, Revered Speaker, to give him strength for his journey through the sky.”

  The emperor began to tap the toe of his jeweled boot. It glittered in the torchlight and made an ominous sound, the only sound in the quiet room.

  “Among the Maya,” he said, “is it an honor to die upon the stone? Does the slain warrior become a com panion of the eagle? Each day does this soldier fill his hours with song and with mock battles? In time does he become a fleet-winged hummingbird, hovering from bloom to bloom in the summer air?”

  The Azteca world, as Moctezuma described it, was not far different from the world of the Maya. No doubt it was borrowed from us, since as a nation we were thou sands of years older.

  Still tapping his boot, the emperor waited for an an swer. He had left me no choice, unless I wished to insult him by declaring his bloody rite and its heavenly aftermath a lot of nonsense.

  “Cuidado, señor,” the dwarf whispered.

  I took his advice, saying in a firm voice, “Mighty Lord of the Black Beard, this I believe.”

  “Do you believe that there is no hatred between the captor and the one who is captured? That when a man takes a prisoner he says to him, ‘You are my well-loved son’? And in reply the captive says, ‘You are my re verenced father’?”

  “Yes,” I said, but not believing it.

  “Do you believe, young man of the light hair and blue eyes, that a warrior who takes a prisoner and watches him die upon the altar should know that sooner or later he will follow him into the hereafter by the same kind of death? That he should say to this man, Today it is you, tomorrow it is me’?”

  “Yes, Revered Speaker.”

  “A lord of Texcála, whose name I have forgotten,” the emperor said, “was taken captive by the Azteca, but they loved him so much that instead of ending his life they gave him command of an army. However, after his triumphant return from battle, having gained a glorious victory, he would not accept their acclaim. He insisted upon death and died upon the sacrificial stone. Would you, traveler from the country of the Maya, give the same answer?”

  I glanced at the emperor, compelled to do so. Our eyes met for an instant, until with a faint movement of his lips—it was not a smile—he turned away.

  An intricately woven gold screen was placed between us. It shut the emperor off from view and served to end our meeting.

  Remembering Chalco’s admonition, we backed out of the throne room, making the gesture of kissing the stones as we went.

  We were met in the alcove by two guards, who escorted us to a building on the opposite side of the square and showed us to our quarters, which consisted of five rooms furnished with benches, a sheaf of ten wool spreads that could either be slept upon or under, depending upon the weather, and three large rooms where gold urns were burning incense.

  “What do you make of our meeting?” the dwarf asked.

  “The meeting puzzles me,” I said.

  It was the first we had spoken since we had left the palace.

  “Moctezuma never asked what you did,” the dwarf said. “Only if you were a warrior. How do you suppose Chalco introduced us when he arranged the meeting? My guess is he told Moctezuma that we were a pair of freaks—a giant and a dwarf. Did you note how the nobles stared?”

  “I heard their chatter. One said that I must be an al bino and that you, señor, were the handsomest dwarf he had ever seen, not wizened like the others in the royal court. You’ll probably end up there,” I said, trying to make light of it.

  “More likely in the emperor’s zoo.”

  “Yes, both of us may find ourselves in a cage. I’ve heard that Moctezuma has thousands of oddities, col lected from all over his empire. A man with two heads, a dog with six legs and no tail. We’ll make fine additions.”

  “He, he, he,” Cantú said.

  I went to a window that looked out upon the square. One bright star showed in the east. A lamplighter was hurrying along with his torch. He passed close and in its glow I saw that the two guards who had shown us to our quarters were standing not far from our doorway.

  “We are watched,” I said.

  The dwarf came to the window and glanced out. The two men had moved away from the light, but their shad ows and the shadows of the long obsidian clubs they carried were cast on a nearby wall.

  “Do you remember,” the dwarf said, “that Mocte zuma was only interested in whether you’re a warrior or not?”

  “I remember.”

  “And what you thought about a warrior’s death? If you were pleased by the thought of being a humming bird and flying around among the flowers of an eternal spring?”

  “I remember, word for word.”

  It had grown dark in the room. I could not see Cantú’s face, but his voice was suddenly strained.

  “I think that the em
peror has plans to offer our hearts to the war god,” he said. “We should disappoint him. We should leave and lose no time about it.”

  I pondered the idea, but before I could answer him, a messenger appeared at the door with news from high priest Chalco. He had gone to the distinguished city of his birth on important business. He would return for us in three days, sufficient time, he hoped, for me to gain some knowledge of Tenochtitlán. Also, he had arranged for one of the nobles to be my escort.

  “I think more than ever,” the dwarf said, “that we should leave Tenochtitlán without delay.”

  “Soon, Don Guillermo, when I have learned what I have come here to learn.”

  CHAPTER 16

  AT MIDMORNING OF THE NEXT DAY, THE NOBLE ESCORT CHALCO HAD promised me arrived at our door and introduced himself as Lord Tzapotlan, a nephew of the Revered Speaker, Moctezuma.

  In the company of attendants carrying umbrellas—gray skies promised rain—a phalanx of palace attendants with spears, and a pretty girl clutching a basket of flowers, handfuls of which she gave to both Cantú and me, we set forth for the temple of the war god, Uitzilopochtli.

  The two guards who had slept all night outside our window followed us at a distance.

  An army of cleaners were washing off the temple stairs. An army of painters moved along behind them, coating everything with lime and mica that glittered even on this sunless day.

  We climbed to the summit of the pyramid—a long, steep climb, some twenty steps higher than the Temple of Kukulcán.

  Two small god houses faced each other and between them stood the sacrificial stone, which the cleaners had not yet washed. The stone and the two broad gutters that led from it to the stairs, thence down the face of the pyramid, were thick with blood from the latest ceremony. A cluster of priests whose hair and gowns were also caked with blood stared at us from the doorway of one of the god houses.

  God judged it better to bring good out of evil than not to let any evil exist.

  “I have heard,” the dwarf said to the young lord, “that the emperor has sacrificed as many as twenty thousand prisoners in a single day.”

  Lord Tzapotlan laughed. “Twenty thousand in a year, perhaps. In a day the most he ever sacrificed was two thousand. That was when he celebrated the victory over Quaunáhuac.”

  “I noticed as we came here that painters were at work,” the dwarf said. “You must be making ready to celebrate something important.”

  “Of special importance,” Lord Tzapotlan said. “It’s the ceremony held every nineteen days in honor of the war god.”

  Cantú glanced at me, a wordless message that I did not miss.

  “I am sorry that we’ll not be here for the ceremony,” I said.

  For a moment a half smile played around the mouth of Lord Tzapotlan, but he said nothing in reply. He made a sweeping gesture and said haughtily, “Tenochtitlán!”

  And there it was in all its grandeur!

  The clouds had burned away. Below me stretched the city, its three encircling lakes and ring of vassal cities.

  “It reminds me of Venice, pearl of the Adriatic,” said the dwarf, who had visited everywhere in the world, or so he boasted. “It’s like something you might see in a dream.”

  And it was a city from a dream—shimmering in the sun, floating on the green waters like a beautiful white flower.

  Overcome with unchristian envy, I thought, “And how different from our ruined city!”

  Lord Tzapotlan led us down into the pyramid to show me the emperor’s storehouse of skulls, which was many times the size of the one at home. I saw rooms filled with strange gifts from vassal cities, nooks where fanged gods looked out at us, dank corridors lit by votive urns tended by dozens of black-robed priests who flitted about on secret missions, barefooted and reeking like carrion birds.

  The second day was of more interest. We visited the marketplace with its hundreds of stalls and mountains of produce, much of it grown on the small islands that dotted the lakes. Of special interest to me were enormous mounds of a watery substance that looked like green scum. This was tecuítcal, the plant that Chalco had brought from the city and planted in our lagoon.

  The armory was even larger than the marketplace—endless rooms and courts stacked with bows and arrows, round leather shields, oblong shields of layered cotton made to cover most of the body, rows of clubs and stone-tipped lances.

  Though tempted, I said nothing about the powder I had stored away, one keg of which could reduce the armory to a pile of rubble. Nor did I mention the muskets, which could mow down ranks of bowmen like so many rows of corn. Nor did I speak of the cannon, which could topple their highest pyramid.

  I came away with the knowledge that every man in the city was either a warrior or aspired to be one. That any town or city or province that was free and intended to stay free was considered a rebel. That it was their business to make war and other people’s business to work and die for them.

  I saw the warehouses where the tributes from vassal cities were stored as they were brought in from time to time. I learned how the accounts were kept, what the tributes consisted of and in what quantities.

  The province of Xochipilli, for instance, sent the emperor each year 4,850 loads of women’s clothes, 725 loads each of loincloths and skirts, 550 loads of chili peppers, 11,300 bunches of parrot feathers, 10,600 balls of rubber, fifteen packets of quetzal plumes, 130 large sheets of agave paper, 360 live birds, and seventeen gold bars.

  Province by province, city by city, none was exempt from tribute. Those who did not pay or skimped their tax were severely punished—sometimes the people of an entire town would be sold into slavery.

  I was shown the archives, which were many times larger than mine, the whole more conveniently arranged and better kept, with sixty artists and writers busy at work.

  As we walked away from the archives, I decided to thank the lord for his courtesies and inform him that I was ready to leave the city. I had done what I had set out to do. I had seen all that I had come to see.

  I was overwhelmed by Tenochtitlán.

  By its temples and squares, canals and causeways. The streets were clean and lighted and alive with color. Trader caravans spread through the empire and beyond, carrying goods to sell, returning loaded with riches. Tribute in all forms poured into the city. The emperor could call up a hundred thousand warriors with a single blast of a trumpet.

  And the flowers! They grew on rooftops. They came in baskets on people’s backs, by canoe and barge. People wore them and strewed the streets with them.

  And the banners! They flew from house and temple—long streamers as light as air, woven of red macaw feathers, flags of the blue heron, delicate as cobweb, yellow pennons of tanager and toucan. They rode the wind like great bright birds.

  “I leave in the morning,” I told Lord Tzapotlan.

  “But there’s much you haven’t seen,” he objected. “The emperor’s pleasure garden, its pavilions, the foun tains that flow night and day, the zoo, which houses strange beasts from sea and jungle and many oddities of nature, the emperor’s treasure room, unrivaled in all the world. There is much you must see.”

  “Much, I am sure, Lord Tzapotlan. And now that I have seen what a beautiful city it is and how friendly the Azteca are, I will come back again.”

  “I trust it will be soon,” the lord said. “Meanwhile, since you are the first of the Mayan lords to visit Tenochtitlán, the event will be recorded by our best artists. It will be set down in the archives and preserved in pre cious stone.”

  Lord Tzapotlan escorted us to our doorway, bowed, and hurried off as if on urgent business, accompanied by his four servants, who ran along beside him, fanning his person with feathered whisks, for now that night was near the plaza swarmed with insects.

  From the window the dwarf and I watched him dis appear. The two palace guards, or two men in the same yellow and black–striped tunics, were standing not far away. When the lamp tender came past, they moved into the
shadows.

  “It is always better, they say in Seville, to die tomorrow than it is today,” said the dwarf, “so let us leave today. Now! It’s clear that we are to play a prominent role in the rites of the war god. Chalco arranged for that before he left. He’ll not be back. He’s on his way to the coast. When he gets there, what will happen? What happens to the Santa Margarita? What becomes of our gold?

  “The emperor’s guards stand outside our door,” I said. “How far would we get before we’re caught and trussed up like a pair of chickens?”

  “If we stay,” the dwarf said, “in four days we’ll be climbing the temple steps.”

  “We know only one way out of the city. The way we came in.”

  “Fear is a good guide. It finds ways where none existed before. Back of you is a ladder, which I have al ready investigated. It leads to the roof.”

  “Vámonos, Guillermo. Let us go.”

  It was dark now. We built up the fire in the brazier to make the guards think that we were settling down for the night.

  Climbing the ladder, we found that we could walk on the roof and that it joined other roofs to the east and west. We set off toward the east, but when we reached the third building we came upon a gap too wide to leap. Retracing our steps, we tried the opposite direction, only to find that escape was impossible.

  “What do you think?” the dwarf said.

  “We’ll have to wait until morning,” I said, “and slip out when the vendors are on their way to market. The plaza is always crowded at that hour.”

  The stars glittered. A cold wind came up and whipped around my legs. A small fire was burning not far from our doorway. The palace guards were huddled around it, their clubs lying beside them.

  “We go in the morning,” the dwarf said.

  “Early, señor!”

  CHAPTER 17

  IN THE MORNING, AS THE PLAZA FILLED WITH VENDORS AND WE WERE ready to leave, Lord Tzapotlan appeared at the door. He wore lordly regalia—a red embroidered tunic and a blue-feathered cloak—but all was askew, as if he had dressed in a hurry.