by Scott O'Dell
The news spurred us to greater effort. Working hours were increased. Fires were built and men toiled in shifts. Silver smiths laid down their tools, fishermen put aside their nets, farmers deserted the fields, everyone joined in to finish the wall that would hold off the army of Hernán Cortés.
In the midst of all this feverish toil came the rites of spring. I wished to delay them for a week, but at a meeting of the Council of Elders the three old men questioned the wisdom of such a delay. The rites were centuries old, they said; the magic chain should not be broken, lest the gods be outraged and vent their wrath upon the city. I would have won out, however, had it not been for High Priest Chalco.
In a black robe, a jaguar mask with catlike eyes and terrifying fangs that covered his sensitive face, he strode back and forth in front of the throne, jerking his short arms, stopping to stare at me from time to time, speaking in a feline voice not his own.
“The city cowers,” he said. “It quakes. It trembles. All be cause this white man appeared mysteriously out of the east, saying that he was sent by a powerful god and king to rule over all the Indian lands, the Azteca, the Toltéca, the Maya, over this city, over everyone. This white man…” Here Chalco paused to let these last words settle in the minds of the three elders. “This white man,” he repeated, “that Moctezuma to his sorrow mistook for the god Quetzalcóatl, known to us as Kukulcán…” Again Chalco paused. My name hung in the air. “…This white man was driven from the streets of Tenochtitlán by the brown Azteca, humiliated and his army slain. Yet our proud city trembles at the word Cortés. And out of fear cannot stop work long enough to greet Xipe Totec and the coming of spring. Shame upon us!”
Two young priests standing to one side of him said, “Shame,” in quiet voices. The three old men whispered to each other. The dwarf crouching at my side said, “Cuidado.” I was silent.
A gentle rain was falling, but through the windows I caught a glimpse of Bishop Pedroza walking bareheaded in the meadow. I saw him stoop to pluck a flower, then cast a prayerful look toward the heavens.
Chalco, following my gaze, said, “We worry about a white man, without an army, far off in Tenochtitlán. But here among us—” He pointed to the meadow. The three elders turned to look. “—we have a white man who has been heard to laugh at our dress. At the way we conduct ourselves. And worse, who scoffs at our gods!”
An elder said, “The rites of spring will be celebrated. Is it possible to rid ourselves of the one who walks in the rain without a cloak, who picks flowers, and who scoffs at the gods?”
“It is possible,” said Chalco.
I rose to my feet. “It is not possible,” I said quietly, aware, should Pedroza die, that I would lose my chance of taking the orders of priesthood. “If this man who walks in the rain with out a cloak is so much as touched, I will see that the one who does the touching pays for it with his life.”
A sweep of my hand dismissed the assemblage.
“God forgive me,” I said, “but I wish this Chalco had breathed his last. Will no one rid me of this upstart priest?”
“Sometimes I, too, have this wish,” the dwarf said. “I have had the wish for some time. He, he, he.”
The dwarf spoke in his usual jocular way, yet beneath the simpering words I detected a note that I had never heard before.
CHAPTER 5
WHILE WORK ON THE GREATSTONE WALL WENTON DAY AND NIGHT, the damaged caravel, which we had towed back from the bay of Ixtlilzochitl, was not neglected. New masts were made. Women set up looms in the square, as they had before, where all could admire their work, and wove new sails, using the best of cotton, blending into them the insignia of Kukulcán, Lord of the Evening Star, a red ball surrounded by a sunburst of golden rays. Delfín Azul was not a fitting name for a Maya caravel, but since it brings ill fortune to change the name of a ship, Delfín Azul she remained, with a blue dolphin as a figurehead.
I was in dire need of workers. The corn from last year’s harvest was running low. Chalco’s tecuítcal—the nourishing green moss he had brought from Tenochtitlán—had flour ished, but there wasn’t enough of it yet to feed the city. To meet the problem of impending hunger I was forced to send the fishermen—some sixty of them—back to sea.
The nacom suggested that since I had drained all the men from Zaya, Uxmal, and Tikan, I might visit a town he had heard of called Chichén-Palapa, three days’ sail to the south.
I decided to make the journey, not only to gather workers to replace the fishermen, but also to try out the Delfín Azul, her cannon, and her crew. The night before my departure I sent for Bishop Pedroza, thinking that I might lighten his days by giving him something to do besides walk in the meadow glued to his breviary.
He came to the dining room as I was finishing my evening meal. Although he knew the custom, observed by everyone else, of appearing barefoot, eyes downcast, touching the floor with the brow, he walked in stiffly as he had before, his heavy boots creaking, squinting at me out of his cold gray eyes.
I had not seen him in weeks, except for fleeting glimpses as he strolled about in the meadow. He looked even paler than he had before.
“Your Eminence,” I said, letting him stand, “I leave tomorrow for Chichén-Palapa. It’s a town some hundred leagues to the south. I go there to enlist the aid of its ruler, Matlazingo, against any attack that Cortés might launch against my island.”
Pedroza glanced about the vast room and after a while cas ually in my direction. I could tell that he wanted to know how Hernán Cortés was faring, but would rather be put in chains than ask.
“Cortés,” I said, “has pulled parts of his beaten army to gether and collected his Indian allies. From reports I received two days ago, he has blocked the roads that lead into Tenochtitlán and has placed the city under siege.”
Bishop Pedroza betrayed no emotion at this news.
“The Azteca nation is divided, its leaders fighting among themselves, killing each other,” I said. “Cortés will take ad vantage of this. He’ll starve the city into submission before the year is out.”
The bishop stirred himself. “Since you believe this,” he said, “would it not be better for me to go on to Tenochtitlán and deliver the governor’s message and speak a word in your be half ? Then in the spring, when, as you say, Cortés knocks at your door, he will look more kindly upon you and the island.”
“In the first place, Bishop, I doubt that you would say one single word in my behalf. Second, knowing Hernán Cortés, I am certain that if you did, he would not listen. Hernán is not a listener.”
Servants brought in a steaming jug of coca leaf tea and I offered the bishop a cup, which he refused.
“You must have some mission,” I said, “more important than delivering a message from the governor of Hispaniola. This could be done by a page boy.”
“The message is important,” Pedroza said. “After it has been delivered, I will turn my attention elsewhere. To the thousands who are in grave danger of losing their immortal souls. Your savages have a great attachment to their heathen gods. I marvel at it. I wish that many Christians possessed half their zeal. It should not be impossible, therefore, to give their zeal a different direction.”
“Not impossible, sir, but difficult. I brought you here to tell you what I have done. It is this. Every morning I appear in the plaza and greet the rising sun with a few of Christ’s words. I speak in Latin and Spanish and Maya. But it doesn’t matter what language I speak. It’s the sound of the voice rather than the words that holds the Indians. And in Maya, Christian words have little meaning. They never translate well.”
The temple drum boomed out the hour. Its echoes faded into the drumming of the rain. Pedroza stood stiffly erect, looking down at me, a sudden, suspicious glint in his gaze.
“Do you speak Maya?” I said. “I know that you under stand it. You were following my conversation with the nacom.”
“I understand more than I speak,” Pedroza said. “I studied Maya as well as Azteca in Hispan
iola. The church has a class in Indian dialects. Maya is a strange language. It rolls around on the epiglottis like a mouthful of square pebbles. It reminds me…”
“When I leave tomorrow,” I said, “you will take over my religious duties. I’ll introduce you to the people at dawn. There’ll be a thousand of them, at least. Don’t overburden them with talk. And don’t be surprised when, as dawn breaks, they prick their fingers with thorns, then hold the bright blood up to the rising sun.”
Pedroza twisted his ring, the only sign that he had been taken by surprise.
“In the years I have been here, Bishop Pedroza, I haven’t conducted mass or heard confessions or given hope to those who were dying. I couldn’t, for as you know, I am not a priest.”
“I understand. Yes, a seminarian. It was wise of you not to conduct yourself like a priest. To assume powers that did not belong to you.”
His voice was churchly, soft and understanding, but be neath it lay a hard little thread of disapproval. Candlelight winked on his violet ring, spread a luminous sheen upon his fine violet vest. For a fleeting moment, as once before, I was shaken by envy.
“More could have been done, Your Eminence, had I been blessed with priestly power. There has been a hollow place where my heart should be. It has haunted me. It still does.”
“It should,” Pedroza said, but not unkindly. “There’s the beginning of a seminary in Hispaniola. Five students. How many years of study do you lack?”
“One. Less than one.”
“I suggest that you go there and resume your studies. I will give you a letter to the governor, which will go a long way toward absolving you of the…from the crimes committed here.”
It was on my tongue to shout an angry reply. But I waited for several moments, listening to the rain and the far-off thunder, cooling my tongue.
“It occurs to me,” I said, in the most logical tone I could summon, “that by the simple laying of your hands upon my head, you can ordain me a priest.”
Pedroza took a step back. He muttered something in Latin—an appeal to God, I believe.
“My vocation has been approved by Archbishop Sosa in Seville,” I said. ‘There are only a few months of study left to me. What I would learn in that time is not half of what I would learn here among the Indians. Not one hundredth of what I have already learned.”
“Learned as a pagan king?”
“Learned,” I said.
Bishop Pedroza was retreating toward the door. He stopped and stood a moment in silence. “Give up this heathenish busi ness,” he said. “Cleanse your soul by saying a thousand Hail Marys. During the night I will think of other, more severe penances. Go to Hispaniola and resume your studies. I will see that you are ordained. That I promise.”
I did not seek an answer. “Keep your penances,” I said. “You may need them yourself.”
Bishop Pedroza did not appear in the plaza at dawn.
CHAPTER 6
WHILE PEOPLE CHEERED FROM THE NEW EMBANKMENT, DRUMS BEAT, and trumpets screeched, the Delfín Azul sailed out on a fresh wind, splendid under her new sails.
The Santa Margarita remained at the wharf, since she held the vast treasure from Isla del Oro and the priceless Azteca hoard the dwarf had collected in Tenochtitlán. He had placed a heavy guard upon her and moved aboard himself to keep an eye on the ship, now that there were those in the city who had learned the value of gold.
After a brief tilt with a storm that ripped our foresail, we arrived at the port of Chichén-Palapa late in the afternoon of the third day.
The village—reported by the nacom to be a town—lay inland at the head of a deep-water lagoon lined with palms. As we approached it shots from thefalconets announced our arrival. A fleet of canoes came leisurely from some hidden place, carrying warriors in black paint and red macaw plumes.
Their leader was a spindly little man in a huge monkey mask that had a monkey’s long tail dangling out behind it. I shouted down to him to come aboard. He thought for a while, then pointed in the direction of a beach where the rest of Chichén-Palapa was beginning to gather.
I had a well-armed crew row me ashore, and there on the sand, with a crowd around us and pink crabs scuttling underfoot, the cacique and I warily faced each other and began to talk, one slow Mayan word at a time.
He had never heard of the Island of the Seven Serpents, and since he took me at once for a Spaniard, I made no mention of being Kukulcán, Lord of the Winds, God of the Painted Arrows. Gerónimo de Aguilar he had seen and talked to soon after the shipwrecked Spaniard had become the cacique of a neighboring village.
“Aguilar is a good man,” the cacique said. “Therefore you are a good man, too. All men in that country over there you call Spain are good men.”
“Not all,” I said. “There’s a man you may encounter some time who is not good. He has red hair and a red beard and white skin like a dead man. If you do something he does not like, he will cut your foot off. Or your hand. Or perhaps your head.”
“He is from Spain? No.”
“From Spain. He is called Hernán Cortés.”
The cacique made a chattering sound between his teeth, a sign of disbelief, and though I described the massacre at Cholólan, with blood running in the streets and parts of people lying around, nothing I said about Cortés changed his mind. He still made the little monkey-like sounds.
When I had finished with Cortés, he took off his mask and opened his mouth and drew forth a small wad of something he had been chewing on, which looked much like a cow’s cud. He spat it out on the sand and at once a servant darted forth and gave him a handful of dried, gray green leaves. The servant then gave some of the leaves to me.
“Coca,” the chief said.
He stuffed the leaves into his mouth until his cheeks bulged, and I did the same with mine. After he had chewed for a while he said, “Good.”
I nodded. It was similar to the leaf brewed into the tea that I drank, only much stronger.
I now noticed that everyone around us had bulging cheeks. And everyone, like the cacique himself, appeared to be happy. Except for the narcotic leaves they were chewing, there didn’t seem to be any reason for happiness. All were barefooted and clad in rags, including the cacique.
Through the trees I could see a row of ruined buildings scattered along both banks of a river. A mound with a cotton tree growing boldly from its top could once have been a temple. Beyond it, an edifice much like El Caracol stood nearly submerged in a sea of vegetation, wild green waves lap ping against it. On the far side of the river were stretches of tumbled walls, like my own before I began the task of rebuilding.
“The city of Chichén-Palapa is fast disappearing,” I said. “In another year it will be gone.”
The cacique wrinkled his wizened little face and smiled sadly. He looked as much like a monkey as he did when he was wearing the mask.
“Sooner, perhaps,” he said, still smiling.
“How many workers do you count?” I asked.
“One thousand. Almost half are farmers. Half fish for pearls. The others are traders. They sell the pearls.”
“Where? We buy pearls, but your traders never come to my island. Why?”
“No, we go to the south with our pearls,” he said, but point ing to the north, “to the land of the Inca. That is where they grow the fine coca. You like this coca? Good.”
The river was wide and ran past the temple toward far-distant hills. I asked the cacique if there was another city on its banks—using the word city because it seemed to please him to think of Chichén-Palapa as a city.
“Many,” he said. “Two.”
“Big?”
“Not so big as Chichén-Palapa.”
“You trade?”
“They bring corn and we trade.”
“Corn for coca?”
“All the time, but this year trading was bad. They have a war down there in the Inca country, so the coca is scarce, so they mix the coca leaves with leaves that look like coca, ceiba l
eaves maybe, and then they mix everything up with lots of lime. You taste the lime? Too much?”
“Too much,” I said and took this as an excuse to remove my cud and quietly bury it in the sand.
“Next year,” the cacique said, losing his smile, “when my traders go to the Inca country, they will take pearls that have little cracks deep down that you cannot see unless you know about them.”
As my stomach ceased to turn and I picked the last of the leaves from my teeth, I began to wonder if the decline of the Maya nation was not due to the use of this coca drug. What had happened in Chichén-Palapa could be an example of what had happened elsewhere, over the centuries. If not the whole cause, it could well have been the principal one.
I had come to the village with the hope of taking back a shipload of Indians, but the Chichén-Palapas were such a miserable lot that I now gave up the idea in disgust. Night was drawing near. I bade the cacique goodbye.
“Come back, Spaniard,” he said. “Spaniards are always welcome in my kingdom.”
“Not the man with the red hair and the ghostlike face,” I warned the cacique. “If you see him, run fast and hide in the hills.”
The cacique shed tears as I climbed into the longboat and conches sounded a sad farewell. When I reached the caravel I had one of the lombards fired in reply. While we were headed into the open sea, navigator Tunac-Eel tattooed his broad chest with a small notation about the port, beside other notes he had accumulated over the years, though I promised him that we would never return to Chichén-Palapa.
He set our course by the North Star, and with fair weather we arrived home just seven days after we had left. In that time my people had quit work and crowded into the temple square to watch Xipe Totec, the god of spring, in the person of one of the young priests, dance from dawn to dusk attired in the flayed skin of a slave.
After he had danced for three days, the rites of spring came to an end with a ceremony at Chac Balam.