Serpent and Storm

by Marella Sands

  Sky Knife was momentarily taken aback. The merchants paid no attention to Uayeb? He shook his head and added that to the list of strange customs of this metropolis. He decided to change the subject. “I don’t see the one thing I expected to see,” he said. “Where is the obsidian?”

  “Ah,” said Whiskers-of-Rat. “The obsidian is not here. But I will take you to it later.”

  “Are you the Mayan priest?” asked a deep male voice. Sky Knife turned to face an Observer.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Please come with me.”

  The Observer led Sky Knife and Whiskers-of-Rat through the throngs of people. Sky Knife felt a touch of pride in his newfound ability to get through the crowd without becoming disoriented.

  At the northern end of the walled market stood a building that looked much like the king’s palace. The outside was painted in brilliant reds and oranges. Fantastic creatures that looked vaguely like jaguars prowled and leaped in reckless abandon in the colorful murals.

  The Observer motioned for Sky Knife to enter the building. Inside, Sky Knife was confronted with the same flat wooden ceilings he had encountered in the palace. He ducked his head quickly, then stood up, embarrassed. It wasn’t as if he would hit his head on the ceiling, but he was used to soaring vaults. It was hard not to feel that the ceiling pressed down on him.

  At the far end of the room in front of a mural of a strange figure masked with feathers and beads stood a man decorated in multiple jade necklaces. The man’s jade ear spools were intricately carved in fanciful spirals. A jade object sat on his upper lip and curled upward toward his eyes like the tusks of a boar. As the man turned to Sky Knife, Sky Knife saw that the tusks were actually attached to the man’s face by having been run through a hole in his nose.

  “It is only for today and tomorrow,” said the rotund man next to the bejeweled man. “I have feathers to sell. And salt.”

  The jewelled man nodded. “See my assistant. She will take care of all the details. You may trade in the market today and tomorrow only.”

  The rotund man nodded and walked past Sky Knife. A young woman, dressed simply in a black tunic, took the rotund man aside.

  “You’ll be assigned stall eighteen in row twelve,” Sky Knife heard her say. “It’s downwind from the fish vendors—sorry—but at least you won’t have to put up with the dust from the chalk dealers.” The two moved off and Sky Knife lost their conversation.

  The jade-bedecked man smiled and approached Sky Knife. Although Sky Knife was not particularly short among his people in Tikal, in Teotihuacan the men often towered over him. Not so this man—he was Sky Knife’s height. Perhaps even a bit shorter. For some reason, Sky Knife felt relief at this. He bowed to the other man before he had a chance to speak.

  “Ah, Lord Priest,” said the bejeweled man, “my name is Cacao. I am the Administrator in Chief of the Market. My humble apologies for the unfortunate incident which happened earlier. I assure you the vendor responsible has been duly fined and expelled from the market.”

  Sky Knife flushed, embarrassed again. “Really, there is no problem,” he said. “It was just an accident.” There was something familiar about the other man’s voice, but Sky Knife couldn’t place it.

  “Perhaps,” said Cacao. He smiled, but his smile stopped with his mouth. His eyes frowned. “But no one can be allowed to challenge the rules of the market. If you cause problems, you’re out. The vendors like the rules because it helps keep their wares safe. And they obey because they know there are a hundred vendors waiting to take their place if they should lose their trading privileges.”

  Cacao stopped and cocked his head. Slowly, he pointed a finger at Sky Knife. “Wait. I recognize you. You were at the ballgame yesterday when the king died. You stopped the mob.”

  “I was there,” said Sky Knife, unsure he wanted to be credited with too much more. It was Itzamna’s power, not his, that stopped the crowd.

  Cacao smiled again, and this time he smiled with his whole face. “You’re a good man. Humble. Reasonable. A man who can take action when needed. I like that. The priests who come through here usually can’t be bothered to even talk to the vendors directly. When I saw you had a guide, I feared you were like that. But I can see you’re not. And now that I remember you from yesterday, I know you’re not.”

  Sky Knife, unsure of what to say, merely shrugged.

  Cacao laughed. “I like you, Lord Priest.”

  “Sky Knife,” Sky Knife prompted.

  Cacao’s smile got even wider. “Well, well. And I may call you by your name?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then, Sky Knife,” Cacao pronounced the name carefully as if he were truly honored to call Sky Knife by name, “I would like to repay your kindness.”

  Sky Knife glanced toward the door. Whiskers-of-Rat had not been invited in with him, but the guide stood by the doorway, waiting. Sky Knife wished Whiskers-of-Rat were here now to aid him. Did Cacao really intend to repay Sky Knife? And for what? All over again, Sky Knife felt out of his depth in this strange city.

  “Repay?” said Sky Knife. “I have done nothing.”

  Cacao laughed and clapped Sky Knife on the shoulder. “Nothing, he says. Lord Pr … Sky Knife, please, honor my house by sharing a midday meal with me.”

  Sky Knife wasn’t sure he wanted to spend more time with the other man, but something stopped him from declining right away. He finally realized why Cacao seemed familiar. “I remember you, too,” he said. “You’re the one who ordered the warriors back to the palace to protect the young king.”

  Cacao bowed slightly. “I’m honored you remember me.”

  Sky Knife bowed in return. “I would be glad to come eat with you. Perhaps you can tell me more of your city and of the people here.” Perhaps the other man knew more of the king and who might want him dead.

  “My house is in the district to the east of the market,” said Cacao. “I’m sure your guide knows where it is.”

  “Then I’ll see you at midday,” said Sky Knife.

  Cacao bowed again. “The hours will pass slowly until we meet again.”

  It was as strange a parting as Sky Knife had ever heard, but he assumed it to be a local custom. He turned and left the building.

  “Where shall we go next?” asked Whiskers-of-Rat. “Or do you wish to shop for your wife?”

  “No,” said Sky Knife. “Not right now.” He scanned the throngs in the market. Suddenly, a surge of homesickness caught him that almost brought him to his knees.

  “Home,” he whispered in Mayan. How long had it been? He wished he could just be there now and never leave it again. Whiskers-of-Rat seemed to think it strange the Maya rarely left their home cities, but why leave home when it contained all you wanted? All you needed.

  “What?” asked Whiskers-of-Rat.

  “Are there other Maya in Teotihuacan?” asked Sky Knife. “Any at all?”

  “A few,” said the guide. “I know where they live. Do you want to go see?”

  “Yes,” said Sky Knife. “Yes, I do.”

  Whiskers-of-Rat took off at a swift pace through the market. Sky Knife followed, determined to find something comforting and familiar in this city. Anything at all.

  10

  Whiskers-of-Rat led Sky Knife out of the market and westward through narrow streets choked with people. Sky Knife didn’t have as much difficulty this time in following his guide’s embroidered tunic. In fact, instead of concentrating so hard on following Whiskers-of-Rat, Sky Knife took the opportunity to glance around at the buildings and people.

  Most people in the street were clad in the standard undyed Teotihuacano tunic, although a few sported white, yellow, or orange. Occasionally, another guide in a red embroidered tunic, like the one Whiskers-of-Rat had worn yesterday, walked by with his group of visitors.

  The buildings themselves were high-walled and without windows. White plaster coated the walls, although the walls were mud-coated near the ground. Each compound was 150 to 2
00 feet on a side. Alleys only wide enough for dogs or small children separated the individual compounds.

  “The apartment compounds of Teotihuacan,” said Whiskers-of-Rat, “house the entire population of one hundred thirteen thousand people. Each compound houses several extended families, generally from sixty to one hundred people.”

  Sky Knife didn’t want to invade the privacy of the families living in the buildings, but he couldn’t help but sneak a quick look in several of the open doorways. Small muddy courtyards were all he could see.

  “From fifteen to twenty compounds will make up a well-defined neighborhood,” said Whiskers-of-Rat. “Each compound sends a representative to a neighborhood council, and each neighborhood council sends a representative to the Great Council.”

  “What’s that?” asked Sky Knife.

  “The Great Council is one of the arms of the king,” said Whiskers-of-Rat, “along with the bureaucracies, the ballplayers, the priests and priestesses, and the gods. The Great Council lets the king know of the general mood of the people. It’s a way for word of what the people do to get to the king, and for his word to get to them. Also, the Great Council works with the planning and construction ministries because sometimes the compounds require repair or new ones need to be built and the ministries have to see to it.”

  “Your government supplies the houses for the people?” asked Sky Knife. “How can the king afford it?”

  Whiskers-of-Rat laughed. “The king doesn’t have to. The planning and construction ministries collect levies from the neighborhoods on an annual basis. So when repair or construction is needed, the ministries can pay for it.”

  Sky Knife stared at the compounds as they passed, stunned. At home, a family would construct a house for themselves. When it became too old to use, they simply built another one next to it. But here, people had to have been living in these compounds, in these same spaces, for hundreds of years, in houses laid out, planned, and built by paid laborers.

  Sky Knife and Whiskers-of-Rat passed a set of buildings where most of the brilliant plaster coat had chipped off. Rotting vegetables filled the street. Naked children rummaged through the vegetables and threw bits at each other with high-spirited glee. The odor of the children and the vegetables nauseated Sky Knife. He held his breath and walked as quickly as possible. Rancid liquid squeezed out of the vegetables as Sky Knife stepped on them, and it slid into his sandals and between his toes.

  Whiskers-of-Rat hurried his pace, too, and they were soon past the ramshackle neighborhood.

  “Who lives there?” asked Sky Knife with ill-disguised disgust.

  Whiskers-of-Rat turned to regard the neighborhood they had passed. “Hard to say,” he said. “When people come into the city from other lands, they often end up in such neighborhoods at first. Sometimes they stay there, but usually they move on to better neighborhoods once they become established.”

  “But why would they live like that?” asked Sky Knife.

  Whiskers-of-Rat grinned and gave a bark of laughter. “I would have thought you would be tired of hearing it by now. But this is the center of the world—why wouldn’t everyone want to live here no matter what?”

  Whiskers-of-Rat took off down the street again, Sky Knife close behind. Sky Knife glanced back briefly, but the odiferous neighborhood was soon out of sight. Center of the world or not, Sky Knife couldn’t understand leaving one’s own community to live in such squalor.

  Still, now that he thought about it, he wondered why the entire city wasn’t like that. At Tikal, with only a few thousand people, there was no such problem. Most people lived on their milpas and those few who lived in the city were scribes, artisans, priests—people whose lives were important to the city, but who did not exactly exist in multitudes. Here, where a hundred thousand people lived, ate, and slept in close proximity, garbage and waste must be a big problem.

  “What about these other neighborhoods?” asked Sky Knife. “Where is their garbage?”

  “Most of it is taken away on a daily basis to a place outside the city,” said Whiskers-of-Rat. “Believe it or not, there’s a great demand in some areas with poor soil for the city’s waste. Also, there are drains.”

  Whiskers-of-Rat’s speech transcended Sky Knife’s vocabulary. “What?” he asked in frustration. “What was that word?”

  Whiskers-of-Rat waved his hands as if trying to pantomime a concept, then gave up. “You’ll see in the home we go to.”

  “How much farther is it?” asked Sky Knife. “I’m supposed to be at Cacao’s house for the midday meal.”

  Whiskers-of-Rat nodded. “No problem. You will be back. It will not seem as far when we return, you’ll see. It seems farther when you don’t know where you’re going.”

  Finally, the children playing in the street seemed more familiar than foreign. They were shorter and stockier than the Teotihuacano children, their noses pronounced, and their foreheads flat. Several of them were cross-eyed and beautiful. Sky Knife swallowed a lump in his throat. One day, Itzamna willing, he would have children like this. Mayan children.

  “Here we are,” said Whiskers-of-Rat unnecessarily. He paused by the courtyard doorway.

  “Good day, friends,” he called inside. Three of the children in the street rushed over and ran into the courtyard, shouting in Mayan about the visitors.

  A Mayan man, shorter and stockier than Sky Knife, came to the doorway. His gaze passed over Whiskers-of-Rat, dismissing the tall, gaudily dressed Teotihuacano, and came to rest on Sky Knife.

  “Lord!” he said and dropped to his knees. His wife, coming up behind him, looked confused for a moment until she, too, saw Sky Knife. She barked orders to her children and knelt, touching her forehead to the courtyard pavement. The children followed suit, although they bobbed back up right away to stare at Sky Knife with unabashed curiosity.

  “Down, down,” ordered their father, motioning to them with one hand while keeping his head down. The children paid no attention—they had eyes only for Sky Knife.

  “Please, get up,” said Sky Knife. “Please,” he said again when no one moved.

  Slowly, the man rose. His wife sat back but stayed on her knees. When her daughter tried to stand, she jerked the child back down.

  “Lord, our house is too humble a dwelling for you to pollute your holiness by coming inside,” mumbled the man. “Please, I ask your forgiveness for its unworthiness.”

  Sky Knife was at once thrilled to hear the Mayan tongue again, albeit with a coastal accent, and at the same time appalled to be the recipient of such unabashed adoration.

  “Um, no forgiveness is, um, necessary,” Sky Knife said. He was aware of Whiskers-of-Rat’s look of delight. “I would … uh, I would appreciate, ah…”

  Sky Knife stopped, unsure how to continue. The family continued to look at him as if he were Itzamna himself. Sky Knife suddenly wasn’t sure he wanted to visit them. If he wanted to speak his own language and relax with his own traditions and customs, perhaps waiting until he reached Tikal again was not a bad idea. Although Sky Knife had to deal with worshipful citizens in Tikal, it had never been this bad before.

  The man finally stood and bowed slightly. “It has been a long time since we left Altun Ha,” he said. “It seems we have offended you. We mean only to honor you, Lord.”

  “I know,” said Sky Knife. “And I’m grateful you respect our customs and our gods. But, please, get up, all of you. I asked my guide to bring me here so I could be among my own people again.”

  Reluctantly, the woman stood. Her children bounded up and leaped for Sky Knife, crowding around his knees. He knelt and hugged them eagerly, envying the couple their children, eager for the day the children he hugged would be his own.

  “Children, no…” said the woman.

  Sky Knife stood and gave the children a gentle nudge toward their mother. The fear on her face alarmed him. The husband, however, had a glint of humor in his eyes.

  “My name is Tree Conch,” said the man. “This is my wife
Corn Husk and our children. Please, come in. You and your guide are welcome in my house.”

  Sky Knife grinned and entered the courtyard. Tree Conch motioned him and Whiskers-of-Rat toward some benches against the wall. Sky Knife sat gratefully. Whiskers-of-Rat sat on a bench by himself, apparently willing to wait out the visit while the others spoke in a language he didn’t understand.

  Tree Conch pulled up another bench. The low wooden benches were Mayan in style, but Sky Knife didn’t recognize the wood they were made from.

  “What brings you to our house, Lord?” asked Tree Conch. He seemed more at ease now than before. Sky Knife was relieved.

  “The uh, the city is so big and strange, I asked my guide to show me some Mayans if there were any in the city. He brought me here.”

  Corn Husk approached with large, shallow bowl filled with water. A cotton towel was draped over her shoulder.

  “I see you’ve been through some of the more squalid neighborhoods,” said Tree Conch. “Out of necessity, we have adopted some of the local customs. Please, allow my wife to wash the filth from your feet.”

  Sky Knife made no objection while Corn Husk removed his sandals. She placed Sky Knife’s feet in the bowl and then dried them with the cotton towel. Although she was probably several years older than Sky Knife and her hair was touched with a hint of gray, Corn Husk was a beautiful woman. Her forehead was flattened to an ideal angle and her nose was large and aquiline. Her simple undyed cotton dress covered her from neck to mid-calf in modest Mayan style. She wore no jewelry except a single strand of painted wooden beads around her neck.

  Corn Husk picked up Sky Knife’s sandals, but made a face of disgust. She tossed them in a small trash heap in the corner of the courtyard, stood up and left.

  Sky Knife looked down at his bare feet.

  “She will bring you another pair, Lord,” said Tree Conch. He looked plain beside the beauty of his wife. His eyes were not the slightest bit crossed and his nose was small and crooked. Broad-shouldered and well-muscled, Tree Conch’s body and rough hands showed the evidence of years of hard work in the fields. Sky Knife wanted to ask why a Mayan man would bring his family to a place like this, but he couldn’t. He merely nodded and waited for Corn Husk to return.