by Scott O'Dell
It was held every seventh year—the number seven had a special magic for the priesthood—on a night of a full moon. Late in the day, after Xipe Totec had ended his dance, the city gathered on the shores of the sacred lake.
Broad meadows formed three sides of Chac Balam, but on the fourth side, which faced the rising moon, there was a high, sheer cliff and at its crest a shelf of rock that served as an altar.
Until night came, tumult reigned in the meadows. Clowns painted in riotous hues of yellow and red tumbled about on the grass. Boys on stilts waded along the shore. Kites flew overhead, though none so beautiful as those I had seen in the Azteca skies. And adding to the tumult was an uproar of drums, trumpets, whistles, rattles, and thousands of voices wild with excitement.
At dusk priests lit copal fires, seven on each side of the altar and seven at the back. Silence fell across the meadow. Far off in the city, dogs began to bark.
I stood behind the altar, unnoticed under a ceiba tree, the dwarf at my side. I had no part in the ceremony. I was only there because my absence at the most important of all the Maya rites could not have been explained. In white-thonged sandals, white gown, and a serpent mask, Chalco stood in front of me. A row of his blackgowned priests surrounded him, holding in their arms spring flowers and ahuehuetl branches.
The dark horizon paled. Conch horns began to moan along the shore and a chorus of voices joined them, rising and falling in a whispered chant to Ix Chel, Goddess of the Moon, God dess of Love on Earth. A star, her herald and outrider, ap peared low in the east. The chanting ceased. In the deep silence the goddess appeared at the door of night, robed in gold.
There was the sound of voices on the far side of the ceiba tree, followed by a muffled protest and footsteps among dry leaves. A girl dressed in white slipped past me, past High Priest Chalco, to the front of the altar. She had black hair that fell to her waist and a garland of flowers on her brow. I could not see her face, but from her lithe figure and youthful move ments, I judged her to be no more than twelve.
She stood there on the narrow ledge, clasping her hands as if she were not quite certain what was expected of her. She turned her head, seeking counsel, and I caught a glimpse of her face. It was the face of a child, a frightened child who was trying to be brave.
Chalco glided forward and took her hand. He said some thing to her under his breath and with his fingers gave her a gentle little push. She now clasped her hands upon her breast and took a halting step toward the ledge. She glanced down into the black waters of Chac Balam and drew back.
A murmur rose from the meadow, a vast sigh of adora tion. I am not certain that I heard Chalco say, “Ix Chel looks down upon you.”
The full moon shone upon us. Fires were burning on both sides of the altar. Yet I am not certain of what next took place. The dwarf ran past me, this I know. I saw him hold up his hands. I saw the child move forward and without a word, her white dress gathered about her, the garland of flowers still binding her hair, leap out into the night.
There was a moment of awful silence. The sound of the waters parting and the faintest of cries. Then I saw that the dwarf had run forward, seemingly in an effort to reach the child, and had somehow become entangled with Chalco. Or, in an attempt to stop the dwarf, had Chalco reached out and grasped him as he ran past?
It did not matter. I rushed out to separate the struggling men. Before I reached them, Chalco had managed to free himself. As he did so, he took a step backward, stumbled, and vainly trying to catch himself, tumbled headlong over the cliff, screaming as he went.
Riding homeward in a litter borne by six quiet retainers, through a stunned crowd, I said little to the dwarf and that about nothing. Not until we were in the throne room, with the servants sent away and the doors bolted, did I ask him to explain what had happened at Chac Balam.
“He, he, he,” the dwarf laughed, doing a few steps of the jota. “High Priest Chalco fell off a high cliff and got himself drowned.”
“Chalco’s death is not something for laughter,” I said.
“You wish me to cry?” the dwarf asked. “Since you’re not shedding tears, I’ll be glad, if you wish, to shed them for you.”
“What took place? Whose fault was it? Chalco’s?”
The dwarf started to laugh again, pointed a toe for a jota step, then straightened himself as he met my eye.
“I am surprised that you should ask,” he said. “I guess you’ve forgotten that not long ago—it was the day you had the argument with the high priest—you said, and I repeat your words, ‘God forgive me, will no one rid me of this up start priest?’ ”
“Words shouted in anger.”
“You may remember that King Henry of England, speaking of Thomas à Becket, also shouted in anger so loud that all could hear, ‘What cowards have I about me that no one will deliver me from this lowborn priest?’ ”
“What has King Henry to do with me?”
“Well, there were men around the king who were not cowards. Four of them. And they stabbed Becket as he knelt in prayer.”
It took me a moment to gather my wits. “You mean that you weren’t trying to save the child?”
“No, she had leaped already.”
“You meant to kill Chalco?”
“You saw what happened. Did it look like murder?”
“It happened too fast. I don’t know what I saw.”
“You saw Chalco grab my thin little arm. Give my poor body a horrible twist.”
“I saw the two of you struggling on the cliff ’s edge.”
“A frightful moment. I thought I was a goner.”
“You may be a goner yet. Chalco’s cohorts won’t take his death lightly.”
The dwarf frowned. “How do you take his death? Does it disturb you as Becket’s death disturbed the king? Truthfully.”
“Truthfully, less. It’s the child’s death that disturbs me.”
“She was too young to die,” the dwarf said. “And so is Guillermo Cantú. For a few days, until this event blows over, it may be wise for him to disappear. Take up residence on the Santa Margarita.”
The dwarf wouldn’t stay for dinner but hurried off, and when it was served I turned my back on it and got down on my knees in prayer.
The child’s death obsessed me. I had watched hundreds die on the stone altar, their hearts lifted out and dropped in the votive jars or thrown to the waiting throng. The scenes had sickened me, more at first than of late, yet all of them together had not been nearly so disturbing as the death of this one child. What was her name? What mother would mourn her loss? What friends? Or would she be mourned at all?
She looked to be the same age as my sister, no older than nine. Yet it was not my sister I thought of while I prayed.
Nor the sight of the child plunging to her death. It was the cry that escaped her lips when the dark waters gathered her in that haunted me, a cry which was little more than a whis per, not of fear but of regret at leaving a life she had never lived.
CHAPTER 7
AT DAWN I WAS BORNE OUT TO THE SQUARE TO FACE A CROWD MUCH larger than I had seen for weeks, drawn there by Chalco’s death. Afterward I went to the harbor to talk with Cantú.
He was in the hold, making a tally of the treasure he had accumulated in the past two years—the gold from Isla del Oro, the gold that quietly, unbeknownst to me, he had stripped from the walls and sarcophagus of the king’s tomb, and the gold bars Cortés had divided among his men on the night he fled from Tenochtitlán. A mammoth hoard—more than twenty three tons, by the dwarf ’s careful computations—so heavy that while it would serve as good ballast in a storm, it burdened the Santa Margarita so much that she now had little space between her decks and the water.
“There’s a lot more in El Caracol,” the dwarf complained. “Five tons alone, in the door to the king’s chamber. More inside…” “Leave it,” I said. “The ship has scarcely enough freeboard as things stand. She’ll be a slow sailer even in a gale. In fair winds, she’ll sit still. It m
ight be wise to lighten her. Put some of the weight on the Delfín.”
“I don’t trust her crew. When I came aboard last night one of them
greeted me. A sharp-eyed little Indian I had ordered off the Margarita Santa once before. He wanted to know where all the gold had come from. I ordered him off the ship again and told him not to come back. I don’t trust any of them over there on the Delfín.”
“This ship will make a marvelous fort,” I said, “but not a fighting ship. We can station the fort out in the harbor, around the first of the channel markers. Move all of her cannon to port. Anchor her forward and aft, broadside to the direction that Cortés must appear from. In other words, we will block the channel.”
“He, he, he,” said the dwarf. “¡Excelente! When will we do all this?
Tomorrow?”
“Today. The crowd this morning was buzzing about Chalco’s death. I heard your name spoken. We’ll move the ship. Get her away from the wharf and any of the crowd that might take a notion to come here wanting to talk.”
“When do you look for Cortés?” the dwarf asked. “The road weasel that came in last week said he had recaptured Tenochtitlán.’’ “Word yesterday was that this happened a month ago. What’s important is that while he laid siege to Tenochtitlán, Cortés was also building ships at Vera Cruz. They are ready to sail. In the meantime, he’s sent Alvarado—you’ll remem ber him as the captain who was always about to choke Moctezuma—started him south with a small army. Cortés himself is on his way to Vera Cruz. He could sail any time.” “With how many ships?”
“The spies don’t know.”
“He might sail in here any day.”
“It’s possible.”
The dwarf grew serious. “Can the bishop be of help to us? Cortés, you’ll remember, is very religious. A bishop, especially one with a message from the governor of Hispaniola, should carry weight with him. That is, if worst comes to worst.” The dwarf paused to cross himself. “And we are forced to sue for peace.”
“I have already talked to him about this, but he will not help us. I am on my way now to have another talk with the bishop. On a different matter.”
I found Pedroza in his room, looking out at the meadow where the grass was turning green and larks were flying. From his window he had a fine view of the lake and the cliff above. He must have watched the procession wind past on its way to Chac Balam, heard the tumult as the people celebrated the coming of spring, the hush as they watched for the moon to rise, seen fires burning on the cliff and the child waiting in her white gown and garland of flowers to offer herself to Yum Kaax, the god of corn.
“You were there to watch,” the bishop said. “To partic ipate.” “Only to watch,” I said.
“To watch and not to raise your voice against it is to participate. Being there, your very presence condoned this…this”—Pedroza had difficulty with the word—“this bar barous rite.”
“The rite is very old,” I said. “Hieroglyphics show that it took place before Christ was born. That long ago. Do you think I have the power to end something that ancient? How is this done? By decree?” “Cortés managed it with the Azteca. I have seen his letters.” “By slaying the Azteca. By destroying their temples.”
“And using the stones to build Christian churches.”
Pedroza had grown a beard since I saw him last. Black and flowing, it gave him a powerful, untamed look that could have belonged to God in one of His angrier moods.
“From the sea at Vera Cruz,” I said, “to the mountains of
Tenochtitlán, Cortés cut a bloody path, maiming and killing and destroying. He will do the same here if he gets the chance.” “Cortés,” the bishop said, “is conquering pagan lands for the king and the glory of Christ. While you cheat the king and mock Christ. Yesterday I went to the square at dawn. I stood in the crowd and heard you sing the Salve Regina and speak of the Redeemer. Then, in the next breath, you were a pagan lord thrusting a bloody finger toward the sun, like the thou sands that pressed about you.”
“A token, Your Eminence.”
“In the kingdom of Christ, there are no tokens.” The bishop shook his fist. “ ‘ Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or likeness of any thing that is in heaven above or that is in the earth below or that is in the water under the earth.’ ”
His thundering words echoed in the room. He turned away and came back.
“Go to the temple,” he said in a gentle voice. “Go and stand on the terrace before the god house, surrounded by the shades of the thousands who were slain there, and announce to all that you are a humble Spaniard and not the Lord Kukulcán.”
“Who would believe me?” I asked, trying to picture myself on the terrace, blurting out such a confession. “Who?”
“You yourself would believe,” Pedroza said. “This belief and the confession of guilt is what matters. They are the first steps you must take to save your soul from the eternal fires of hell.”
I was growing impatient. I hadn’t come here to be lec tured. “When I arrived in the City of the Seven Serpents,” I said, “the streets were clogged with fallen stones. People wandered through them lamenting the days of Kukulcán. They had never heard Christ’s name spoken. Now they have. I was rebuilding the city when Cortés appeared among the Azteca. I was spreading Christ’s message as best I could. Now, when the people are in peril, you ask me to desert them.” “Your soul is more important than a city inhabited by savages,” Bishop Pedroza said.
The big drum boomed in the temple, announcing midday. It shook the room, scattered the birds in the meadow, and caused the bishop to put his hands over his ears.
“A heathenish sound,” he said. “But when Cortés captures the city we shall hear the celestial voice of bells. They will come from the best foundries in Spain.”
“Cortés will not capture my city, Your Eminence. If he tries, he will be killed.”
The bishop glanced at me to make sure that I was in earnest. “I see that besides your other sins you have turned against Spain, your own country.”
“Not against Spain,” I said, “only against those she sends here. Like Cortés and his lieutenants.”
“These brave men may find their graves in the land of the Azteca,” the bishop said. “But in Spain thousands are anxious to take their place. In Hispaniola hundreds crowd the harbor waiting for ships. Draw back from the abyss, Julián Escobar, before it is too late…”
The sound of chanting interrupted his lecture. A line of priests wound slowly up the path that led from Chac Balam to the Temple of Kukulcán. The last six were supporting a litter, on which rested the remains of high priest Chalco. In their black gowns that were stiff with blood, with their long, unwashed hair hanging like hanks of rusty metal halfway down their backs, they looked like a procession of carrion birds.
The bishop held his nose, as if he smelled a carrion odor. His amethyst ring caught the sun. His gown and violet-colored vest were clean. How different he appeared against the procession of Maya priests, how civilized and elegant!
Behind Pedroza was the power of the Holy Roman Empire, the Church, the king, the Council of the Indies, the powerful governor of
Hispaniola, the long line of tradition, of civiliza tion itself. And here was I, a seminarian masquerading as a god, the ruler of a half-ruined city inhabited by pagan Indians who, after months of exhortation and Christian love, still wor shipped the sun and sacrificed girl children to celebrate the planting of corn and the coming of spring. “Your Eminence,” I said as the chanting faded in the dis tance and the room grew quiet, “I have spoken to you before about this matter. Our conversation was brief and unsatisfac tory. I asked you to honor me by bestowing upon me a priest hood. You refused to do so, giving me instead some undigested advice and a long list of penances.” Pedroza began to worry his violet ring, slowly turning it round and round on his finger.
“I am making the request again, sir. This time I expect you to grant it.
Cortés or one of his numerous captains, all of them scoundrels, are making a sweep southward along the coast. They will arrive here any day, any hour. You are aware that we will defend ourselves. And that it will be a time of turmoil. My people will be injured. Some may die. I wish to have the power of administering absolution and last rites.” Pedroza gave a polite snort. “How can you absolve someone who has no soul? A savage? Or say last rites over a soulless creature?” “There are ways,” I said, “and I will find them.”
“Not as a priest,” the bishop said, “for I refuse your request. Now, today, and tomorrow. Take heed. Hernán Cortés is an emissary of the church and the king. Do not oppose him.”
“He comes searching for gold.To find it he’ll ran sack the temples, turn the city upside down, and slay anyone who threatens or resists him.” “Welcome Cortés with flowers and song, and I will see that he does no harm to the people.”
“With songs and flowers Moctezuma welcomed him into the city of the Azteca. And Cortés burned the temples and slew the people.” On the table beside his bed was Pedroza’s Bible. I picked it up. “There are verses I want to read, Your Eminence. Things I have forgotten. Tomorrow we’ll meet for further discussion.”
The bishop frowned, not pleased that I had his Bible. “There is nothing to discuss,” he said. “Give up this play acting. Welcome Cortés to the city. Go to Hispaniola and again take up your studies. Only then will I discuss the matter with you.”
“We’ll discuss it tomorrow,” I said and closed the door softly behind me.
CHAPTER 8
THE COUNCIL OF ELDERS CAME TO SEE ME SHORTLY AFTER THE PRIESTS went by with Chalco’s body. The old men wished to declare the full week of mourning demanded by the death of someone of importance. I tried to convince them that the city was in hourly danger, that it could ill afford to spend that much time in lamentations.
Two of our most reliable weasels arrived while this argu ment was taking place. They came separately and with different stories. One reported that an attempt had been made on Cortés’s life, led by a soldier named Villafaña. The plot was discovered, and the culprit had tried to swallow his list of conspirators—among them prominent men in Spain and Hispaniola—but failed and was hung at once from his win dow ledge.