Serpent and Storm

by Marella Sands

“You know, a woman who sells her body to men. There is a guild of them here in the city.”

  Sky Knife was appalled. At home, a woman would be executed if she lay with a man who was not her husband. “What of her husband?” he asked. “Do you mean to say you allow your wives to—”

  “What husband?” asked Whiskers-of-Rat with a smile. “They are not allowed to marry while they are in the guild.”

  Whiskers-of-Rat hooked his hand around Sky Knife’s elbow. “Come on,” he said. “We haven’t even gotten to the center of the city yet! And there is a ballgame this afternoon you must see.”

  “A ballgame?” asked Sky Knife. “But I must see the king. My king has sent me here to—”

  “Yes, yes, no problem,” said Whiskers-of-Rat as he negotiated his way easily through the throngs of people. “The king will be at the ballgame, so you can see him there.”

  “But I must speak to him.”

  Whiskers-of-Rat shrugged and pulled Sky Knife around a knot of women arguing over the carcass of a dog. They weren’t speaking Teotihuacano, and Sky Knife could not tell if they were assigning blame or selling the meat.

  “Well, that may be difficult, Lord Priest,” said Whiskers-of-Rat as the women’s strident voices fell into the background. “The king is very busy. He often has audiences for important foreign guests. Perhaps you could ask his staff for a hearing.”

  “I have been sent…” Sky Knife began, but a passing gaggle of musicians silenced him. The rattles and turtleshell drums were familiar enough, but one musician played a reed instrument by blowing through one or more of the dozen or so reeds that were bound together. The weird trilling was like birdsong. The musician winked at Sky Knife as he went by.

  “You said something?” asked Whiskers-of-Rat. “Ah, here we are.”

  “I said I had been sent by my king, who is Storm Cloud, king of Tikal. Your king is his brother.”

  Whiskers-of-Rat nodded amiably and gestured for Sky Knife to follow him up narrow stone steps. “It is too bad you are not related to this Storm Cloud,” he said.

  “Well, I am,” said Sky Knife, “though only by marriage. My wife is his wife’s niece.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so?” asked Whiskers-of-Rat. “As a relative of the king, you are entitled to very good seats indeed.”

  Sky Knife stopped and stared at the ballcourt. It wasn’t the familiar “I” shape he’d been expecting. Instead, the field was a double “I” with one crossing the other. A depressed circular area took up most of the square that was formed by the meeting of the “I’s.” Sky Knife recognized the shape. It was the quincunx, the shape of time, of the world. Four directions, each equidistant from a circular center.

  Around the field were several layers of wide stone steps on which people stood or sat. Many people had already arrived—at least as many people as lived in and around Tikal itself—possibly five or six thousand. And still others continued to crowd in.

  Whiskers-of-Rat turned and clapped Sky Knife on the shoulder. “We can go over there with the rest of the king’s family.”

  Whiskers-of-Rat pointed toward a gaudily dressed group at the eastern end of the field. The sun glinted off the jade jewelry that encircled the necks, wrists, ankles of the people. The men wore intricately carved ear spools dyed red. Sky Knife’s hand went to the simple wooden ones he had worn while traveling. He had not wished to tempt thieves on the road and had left all his finery at home. Even his small pack contained nothing more than a spare skirt, a second pair of sandals, some dried fruit, and a few objects he used in his daily devotions.

  “Do you have to be related to the king to sit there?” asked Sky Knife. He was sure he wouldn’t resemble the relative of anyone important dressed as he was and dusty from travel.

  “Not exactly, but it helps,” said Whiskers-of-Rat. He threaded his way through the milling thousands. Sky Knife followed.

  Suddenly, a woman’s scream filled the arena.

  2

  Sky Knife whirled to find the source of the scream, surprised that no one else seemed alarmed. Whiskers-of-Rat tapped him on the shoulder and pointed toward the playing field.

  A tall thin woman stood in the field. A yax-um feather headdress was on her head. The long blue-green feathers were attached to an intricate wooden frame built to resemble a falcon’s head. Shorter feathers formed the center of the design, but the brilliant yax-um feathers at the border drooped down past her shoulders to touch her waist. Around her neck she wore large carved jade beads and in her right hand she held a prismatic obsidian blade. Sky Knife had never seen anything like it—the blade was barely a fingerwidth wide, yet it was nearly a foot long. The woman’s left hand dripped blood onto the dirt of the field. Blood had also splattered her layers of white robes.

  “She always does that before a game,” said Whiskers-of-Rat. “To frighten away the bad spirits, she says. I think she just likes to hear herself.”

  “Who is she?” asked Sky Knife.

  “That’s Lily-on-the-Water,” said Whiskers-of-Rat. “She’s the High Priestess of our goddess. She’ll come over here and watch the rest of the game with the other priestesses and their husbands.”

  “Husbands?”

  Whiskers-of-Rat turned to regard Sky Knife. “You are good at repeating what I say, like a parrot. Perhaps I’m speaking too quickly for you?”

  “No, it’s … it’s just that, in my city, priestesses are not allowed to marry,” stammered Sky Knife.

  Whiskers-of-Rat laughed. “Try getting these priestesses to live with that restriction! It would never happen. Why, these women don’t even limit themselves to one man.”

  “They have more than one husband?” Sky Knife’s head whirled with the concept.

  “No, no,” Whiskers-of-Rat assured him. “Only one husband, but more than one lover. But no one protests—the life of a priestess’ husband is a good one. So if your wife occasionally chooses to spend the night with another man, you don’t complain. I wouldn’t.”

  Sky Knife fought a surge of vertigo that threatened to send him to his knees. The priestesses here not only were married but committed adultery regularly—and no one minded? Sky Knife wondered why Storm Cloud had not seen fit to warn him of some of the stranger practices of Teotihuacan. As it was, Sky Knife was beginning to regret ever coming here.

  Whiskers-of-Rat led Sky Knife to the richly dressed people. A warrior barred the way.

  Sky Knife took a good look at the warrior from behind his guide. Let Whiskers-of-Rat handle the situation.

  The warrior was not quite as tall as Whiskers-of-Rat, though still taller than Sky Knife. He wore elaborately beaded sandals, a purple skirt knotted at the waist, and an odd quilted cotton helmet on his head. The quilted cotton came down on either side of the warrior’s face to meet just in front of his mouth, like the jaws of an ant. The warrior held a spear in his left hand. A knife was tied to his waist.

  “Go on back,” said the warrior, his voice muffled by the strange helmet.

  “This man has just arrived in the city,” said Whiskers-of-Rat. “He is a relative of the king—and a priest, too, as you can see.”

  The warrior regarded Sky Knife for several moments. “Can you prove this?”

  Whiskers-of-Rat made a rude noise and put a hand on Sky Knife’s shoulder. “How is he supposed to do that? Besides, would he—a priest—lie?”

  The warrior frowned but did not give way. A woman in a long green dress walked up behind the warrior. Small blue feathers attached to the skirt of the dress by brilliant jade beads fluttered as she walked. A double line of feathers encircled the woman’s waist while another line fringed the hem. She held a blue shawl around her shoulders. More feathers lined the edge of the shawl.

  Sky Knife looked into the woman’s eyes and could not help staring—the woman’s eyes were green like the leaves of the sacred ceiba tree, not brown. The color of her dress made her eyes stand out like green flame. Sky Knife was mesmerized.

  “Is there a problem?” the wo
man asked. Her accent marked her as a foreigner—her first language had not been Teotihuacano. “The game’s about to start.”

  “No, Minister,” said the warrior.

  “I was just saying to your guard here that my friend is a relative of the king,” said Whiskers-of-Rat. “He is here on business, but of course it will wait until after the game.”

  The woman laughed. “Every business must wait for the game,” she said. She cocked her head and looked Sky Knife up and down.

  “Come sit with me,” she said. “You can talk to the king later.”

  The warrior stood aside. Sky Knife stepped out from behind Whiskers-of-Rat.

  “Leave us,” said the woman to the guide. Whiskers-of-Rat bowed and scuttled off into the crowd before Sky Knife could settle his debt. Sky Knife looked after the retreating figure of his guide with dismay.

  The woman took Sky Knife’s arm. “My name is Amaranth,” she said. “I’m the Chief Minister of City Planning.”

  “Sky Knife.” Sky Knife sat where Amaranth indicated. “I’m the Chief Priest of Itzamna in the city of Tikal. My king, Storm Cloud, sent me here to meet his brother.”

  Amaranth frowned, then her expression cleared. “Oh, yes. When he was here, we called him Cloudy Sky. And how is Old Rugged Rump these days?”

  “Who?” asked Sky Knife, unsure if Amaranth were teasing him or merely repeating a boyhood nickname of his king’s. “Storm Cloud? He is well. He and his wife have four children, two of them sons. Our city has been prosperous and lucky since he came.”

  “Mm,” said Amaranth neutrally. She stared at the field. “I think they’re about to start.”

  Sky Knife stared out over the heads of the people in front of him to take in the sight. A priestess in white robes turned to look at him. Her brown eyes met his without the modesty he would have expected from a woman of his own city. The woman blinked languidly, then turned back to the ballcourt.

  Ten men, each in a short red skirt and wide black sash and carrying a stick, entered the field. Two men went to each of the four ends of the field and the remaining two stepped down into the circle in the center.

  To Sky Knife’s right stood a hefty man decked with multiple jade necklaces. Except for his greater weight, the man looked like Storm Cloud. His short hair had been greased back and five vertical lines had been tattooed on his forehead. A snake tattoo wound its way up one of his arms, across his chest, and down the other arm. This had to be the king or another one of Storm Cloud’s brothers.

  The man cleared his throat and raised his hand. The immense crowd in the arena became silent.

  “You all know what’s at stake here,” said the man. The people around him laughed good-naturedly. Those in the crowd smiled and nodded their heads. “I, Tattooed Serpent, King of Teotihuacan, have bet my good friend Amaranth, Chief Minister of City Planning, one year’s profits from the obsidian mines that her team cannot best mine in a single match.”

  Beside Sky Knife, Amaranth stood. “And I have bet one year’s labor of five hundred of my construction workers against his obsidian profits.”

  The crowd clapped enthusiastically. Sky Knife followed their example and hid his embarrassment at being so close to the center of attention in unfamiliar surroundings.

  Amaranth sat down.

  Tattooed Serpent removed one of his jade necklaces and handed it to one of his warrior escorts. “This goes to whoever scores the first goal. Now, begin the game!”

  There were gasps from the crowd and Sky Knife echoed them. A jade necklace—such finery belonged only to the king or his family. No one else, at least at home in Tikal, could afford such things. But even more precious than that, the necklace had lain around a king’s neck. Some of his divine luck would remain attached to it. The winner of the necklace could expect to reap supernatural rewards more important even than the jade itself.

  Tattooed Serpent sat down. The warrior with the necklace made his way down to the field. He held the necklace above his head briefly. The jade beads clacked together in the silence that engulfed the arena. Then the warrior tossed the necklace down inside the playing area. As soon as the necklace hit the ground, the crowd erupted into earsplitting howls and whoops.

  A man in front of Sky Knife tossed a rubber ball into the field. The ball was about the size of a man’s head. Sky Knife was glad at least one aspect of this ballgame was familiar.

  One of the players hit the ball with his stick toward the center of the quincunx. The second player on that arm of the field got in front of it and hit it back toward the first player.

  Sky Knife leaned toward Amaranth. “Who plays on what team?”

  “East and west, the outer players are the king’s and the inner players mine. North and south, the inner players are the king’s and the outer mine. The two in the center don’t belong to any team—they try to keep the ball from falling into the circle, no matter who hits it toward them. Only the outer players can make a goal. The game is played until one team has scored seven goals.”

  Amaranth turned toward him, frowning. “Don’t you play the ballgame in Tikal?”

  “Not this one.”

  Amaranth’s expression cleared, and she turned back to the game. “Oh, of course. How stupid of me. I’ve lived here so long, I forget sometimes that the stick game is only played here at Teotihuacan. The field represents the world, you know that, right? And so in this game, the circle in the center represents the center of the world.”

  “Teotihuacan itself,” said Sky Knife, not taking his eyes away from the action on the field.

  The ball, struck by Amaranth’s player on the north, zoomed by the king’s player and dropped into the circle before either of the two men there could deflect it. The crowd cheered as the man jogged over to the jade necklace and claimed it.

  “Oh, good!” Amaranth stood and clapped. She sat down after the ballplayer saluted her. “That’s Leather Apron,” she said. “He’s one of the best ballplayers we have.”

  One of the men in the center of the quincunx picked up the ball and tossed it out toward the east.

  “How does he know where to throw it?” asked Sky Knife.

  “East,” said Amaranth. “Always east in honor of the Fire God.”

  “So the bettor with the player on the east has the advantage. How do you decide who has the east–west axis?”

  Amaranth laughed. “The king does, always. Who else?”

  Amaranth’s inner player on the east batted the ball to his teammate on the south. The south player hit the ball with his stick, but the king’s man deflected the ball toward his own player on the west.

  Sky Knife watched the game, interested and intensely aware how close Amaranth sat to him. Her shoulder brushed against his almost constantly. She did not seem to notice his discomfiture. Sky Knife glanced around and noted that everywhere in the arena, men and women sat close enough to touch. He tried to reassure himself that this was merely a local custom, but he couldn’t help but feel an urge to scoot away.

  By noon, the score was five–three in Amaranth’s favor. Lily-on-the-Water stood and called a break. The players, their hair slicked down with sweat, trotted off the field.

  Amaranth put her arms over her head and stretched. “Ah, only two goals to go and the king owes me a year’s worth of profits,” she said.

  “Would you or your guest care for a drink, Minister?”

  Sky Knife glanced up. A man carrying a large deep bowl stood behind him. Amaranth stood, and Sky Knife did the same.

  “Yes, thank you,” said Amaranth.

  The bowl was covered with a red cotton cloth. Amaranth lifted the edge and reached inside. She drew out a smaller bowl and handed it to Sky Knife, then took a second for herself.

  Sky Knife looked in the bowl. A strange mush floated inside. The heavy sweet smell of crushed fruit drifted up from the bowl. Sky Knife lifted the bowl to his lips and sipped. The liquid was sweet and terribly cold. Sky Knife looked in the bowl again.

  “What magic is th
is?” he asked. “How can you get it so cold?”

  Amaranth finished what was in her bowl. “Drink it quickly, or it will melt.”

  “Melt?” Sky Knife wanted to know more, but moved to obey. The mush turned to liquid on his tongue. Sky Knife finished the cold fruit juice with relish.

  “Yes, melt,” said Amaranth. “It’s not magic—it’s snow. We send runners up into the mountains to collect it and bring it back. Then we put it in our drinks. It’s quite refreshing, don’t you think?”

  “Snow?” Sky Knife tried out the unfamiliar word.

  “Water that’s very cold,” said Amaranth. “It falls from the sky onto the mountains. Sometimes here, too, but almost never. We do get frost here, though.”

  Sky Knife wanted to ask frost? but held his tongue. He’d been parroting others enough for one day. Besides, he wouldn’t learn everything about Teotihuacan in one afternoon. There would be time.

  Sky Knife cast about for something to talk about. “Um, your husband—is he not with you today?” he asked.

  Amaranth laughed. “My husband died several years ago.”

  “Ah,” said Sky Knife. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Amaranth took his bowl and handed it as well as hers to a passing servant. “It was long ago. Come, sit,” she said. “The game should begin again soon. And the sooner I beat the king, the better.”

  Sky Knife sat down beside Amaranth, but this time made sure there were several inches of space between them. Below, the players ran back out onto the field.

  The old man tossed the ball back into play. The king’s player in the east struck it with his stick.

  A woman screamed. Sky Knife glanced around, wondering if this were another new custom, but this time, the people around him seemed alarmed.

  “The king!” shouted the woman. “Help him!”

  Amaranth leaped up and ran toward the king, Sky Knife on her heels. But even though they reached the king only a few seconds later, Sky Knife could see they were too late.

  The king had slumped backwards into a woman’s lap. His eyes stared up into the noontime sky, glassy and lifeless.