Aztec Autumn a-2

by Gary Jennings

  For the dances honoring Old Man and Our Mother, or more recently departed ancestors, the men wore fanlike headdresses, but fashioned either of stiff cane strips or fluttering reeds, rather than feathers. For the dances intended to repel the wicked chapáyekám, every man wore one of those gruesome carved and daubed masks, no two alike. For the dances danced to celebrate a battle victory—or to anticipate one—the men wore cóyotin skins with the dead animals' toothy heads capping their own.

  Then there was a dance done by one man alone, he the acknowledged best dancer in the village. This was the performance done to attract game for the hunters, in seasons when a drought or a disease had diminished the local population of wild animals. It truly was a graceful and exciting dance, and the more enjoyable because it was done without any "music." The man wore atop his head, secured by thongs, a buck deer's head—the handsomest procurable, with an impressive rack of antlers—and he was otherwise naked, except for bracelets and anklets of cocoons and he held in either hand an intricately carved wooden rattle. These provided the only accompanying noise as he various bounded like a startled buck, capered like a carefree fawn, shuffled bent over and wary, jerking his head about, like a hunter on the prowl. He might have to do this dance to exhaustion, many nights in a row, before some scout came to report that the game had returned to their usual habitats.

  The Leader of the Dances confided to me, through G'nda Ké, that the game-attracting dance was much more efficacious in accomplishing its purpose when the dancer could dance around a sacrificial "doe." That would be a human female, tightly bound inside a doeskin. After she had been danced around for the ritual length of time, she would be butchered—just as was done to a real doe—dismembered, cooked and eaten by the men, they doing much slobbering and lip-smacking, so the wild game would sense their gratitude. Unfortunately, said the Leader, the Mayo men had not recently made any female-abducting raids on any alien village, so that part of the ceremony could not be demonstrated for my admiration. There were plenty of expendable Mayo females, he conceded, but they were too tough and stale and stringy to be lip-smackingly eaten. G'nda Ké managed to look affronted and sulky even at being slighted in that regard.

  It mattered not to me that the Yaki men spent half their lives in dancing for reasons that I deemed absurd. What mattered was that the other half of their lives they dedicated to pure savagery, and that was what I wanted from them. When G'nda Ké translated my words to the five yo'otuí, they very pleasantly surprised me by being more receptive to my message than some of the Rarámuri chiefs had been.

  "White men..." murmured one of the elders. "Yes, we have heard of white men. Our cousins, the To'ono O'otam, claimed to have had some of those wandering through their country. They even mentioned a black man."

  Another grumbled, "What is the world coming to? Men should all be one color. Our color."

  And another cautioned, "How can we know if the degenerate Desert People spoke truly? Had they been Yaki, now, they would have taken scalps to prove the existence of such beings."

  And he was reminded by another, "We have never seen scalps of the evil chapáyekám, but we know they exist. And they are of no color at all."

  And the fifth, the elder in charge of warfare, said, "I believe it would do our yoem'sontáom good to fight someone besides their own relatives for a change. I vote that we lend them to this outlander."

  "I concur," said the elder in charge of the village work. "If this outlander speaks truly about the rapacity of the white men, we may someday not have any relatives to fight, anyway."

  "I agree," said the Leader of the Dances. "Let us keep here only the Deer Dancer and enough other dancers to satisfy Old Man and Our Mother."

  "And to repulse the chapáyekám," said the Keeper of the Customs.

  "Surely all others of our color," said the elder who governed religion, "will wish to join in annihilating those of different color. I vote that we invite our cousins the Ópata and Káhita to participate."

  The warfare elder spoke up again. "And why not our cousins the To'ono O'otam as well? This would be the grandest-ever alliance of relatives. Yes, that is what we will do."

  So it was arranged. Bakúm would send a warrior "bearing the staff of truce" to relay my message to all the others of the Eight Sacred Towns, and a second messenger to the far-off Desert People. I promised two things in return for such generous cooperation. I would appoint one of my own warriors to lead all the Yaki men south to our gathering place at Chicomóztotl, and the other to wait here in Bakúm to guide the Desert People's warriors when they came. I would also, when all those yoem'sontáom got to Chicomóztotl, equip them with obsidian weapons far superior to theirs of flint. The elders accepted my offer of guides, but indignantly rejected the offer of weapons. What had been good enough for Old Man, and for their every male ancestor since, was good enough for modern warfare, they said, and I prudently did not argue the matter.

  I was glad we had reached agreement when we did, for thereafter I was deprived of my means of communicating with the Yaki. G'nda Ké claimed to be feeling ever more ill, and incapable of even the exertion of interpreting. Indeed, she looked ill, her complexion having faded almost to the pallor of a white woman, so that her freckles were her most visible feature. When even the elder in charge of work, and the women who had worked her so hard, allotted her a domed hut of her own in which to lie and rest, it seemed they had decided—since she was not about to give birth—that she must be about to die. But I, knowing G'nda Ké, dismissed that notion. I was sure that her prostration was just another of her ruses, doubtless her way of expressing her vexation at my having been more cordially accepted by her own people than she had been.

  XXIV

  While we waited for the men of the other Yaki branches to assemble, Machíhuiz, Acocótli and I occupied our time in doing a sort of training of the Mayo warriors of Bakúm. That is to say, we mock-fought against them with our swords and javelins of obsidian edges and points, so that they would learn to parry such assaults with their primitive weapons. It was not that I expected the Yaki ever to be battling against the men of my own army. But I was fairly certain that when my army fully engaged the Spaniards, they would add to their ranks many of their native allies, such as the Texcaltéca who had helped the white men in their long-ago overthrow of Tenochtítlan. And those allies would not be carrying arcabuces, but obsidian-bladed maquáhuime and spears and javelins and arrows.

  It was rather a slow and awkward process, training these yoem'sontáom without someone to translate my commands and instructions and advice. But warriors of every race and nation, probably even the white ones, share an instinctive understanding of each other's movements and gestures. So the Mayo men had not too much trouble learning our Aztéca arts of thrusts and slashes and feints and withdrawals. They learned so well, in fact, that I and my two companions frequently got bruised by their dense-wood war clubs and pricked or scratched by their triple-flint spears. Well, of course, we three gave as good as we got, so I kept the Tícitl Ualíztli always in attendance at our training sessions, to apply his arts when necessary. And I gave no thought whatever to the absent G'nda Ké until, one day, a Bakúm woman came and timidly tugged at my arm.

  She led me—and Ualíztli came along—to the little cane hut that had been lent to G'nda Ké. I went in first, but what I saw made me instantly back out and motion for the tícitl to enter instead. Clearly, G'nda Ké had not been pretending; she appeared to be as near dying as the villagers had earlier supposed.

  She lay stretched out naked on a reed pallet, and she was copiously sweating, and she had somehow got extremely fat, not just in the places where well-fed women often do, but all over—nose, lips, fingers, toes. Even her eyelids had become so fat that they practically closed her eyes. As she once had told me, G'nda Ké was freckled over her whole body, and now, with that body so bloated, her countless freckles were so large and distinct that she might have grown a jaguar's skin. In my one brief glance, I had seen the Mayo tícitl squ
atting beside her. I never yet had glimpsed that man's face, but even the grim-visaged mask he wore seemed now to have a puzzled and helpless expression, and he was only listlessly shaking his curative wooden rattle.

  Ualíztli emerged from the hut, looking rather perplexed himself, and I asked him, "What could they possibly have been feeding her, to make her so grossly fat? In this Yaki land, I have never seen a woman more than meagerly fed."

  "She has not grown fat, Tenamáxtzin," he said. "She is swollen with putrid fluids."

  I exclaimed, "A simple spider bite could have done that?"

  He gave me a sidelong look. "She says it was you, my lord, who bit her."

  "What?!"

  "She is in excruciating agony. And much as we all have loathed the woman, I am sure you would wish to be a little merciful. If you will tell me what kind of poison you applied to your teeth, I might be able to give her a more easeful death."

  "By all the gods!" I raged. "I have long known that G'nda Ké is criminally insane, but are you?"

  He quailed away from me, stammering, "Th-there is a horribly gaping and suppurating sore on her ankle..."

  Through gritted teeth I said, "I grant you, I have often contemplated how I might most ingeniously slay G'nda Ké, when she was of no more use to me. But bite her to death? In your wildest imaginings, man, can you credit that I would put my mouth to that reptile? If ever I did that, I would be the one poisoned and suffering and suppurating and dying! It was a spider that bit her. While she was gathering wood. Ask any of the drabs who first attended her."

  I started to reach for the Mayo woman who had fetched us, and who was goggling at us in fright. But I desisted, realizing that she could neither comprehend nor answer a question. I simply flailed my arms in futile disgust, while Ualíztli said placatively:

  "Yes, yes, Tenamáxtzin. A spider. I believe you. I should have known that the witch-woman would lie most atrociously, even on her deathbed."

  I took several deep breaths to calm myself, then said, "She doubtless hopes that the accusation will reach the ears of the yo'otuí. Worthless though they hold every woman, this one is a Mayo. If they give heed to her perjury, they might vengefully refuse me the support they have promised. Let her die."

  "Best she die quickly, too," he said, and went again into the hut. I suppressed several different kinds of repulsion, and followed him inside, only to be further repulsed by the sight of her and—I noticed now—the rotting-meat stench of her.

  Ualíztli knelt beside the pallet and asked, "The spider that bit you—was it one of the huge, hairy sort?"

  She shook her fat and mottled head, pointed a fat finger at me, and croaked, "Him." Even the Mayo tícitl's wooden mask wagged skeptically at that.

  "Then tell me where you hurt," said Ualíztli.

  "All of G'nda Ké," she mumbled.

  "And where do you hurt worst?"

  "Belly," she mumbled and, just then, a spasm of pain must have stricken her there. She grimaced, shrieked, flung herself onto her side and doubled over—or as far as she could, her distended stomach folding into fat rolls.

  Ualíztli waited until the spasm passed, then said, "This is very important, my lady. Do the soles of your feet hurt?"

  She had not recovered sufficiently to speak, but her bulbous head nodded most emphatically.

  "Ah," said Ualíztli with satisfaction, and stood up.

  I said, marveling, "That told you something? The soles of her feet?"

  "Yes. That pain is the distinctive sign diagnostic of the bite of one particular spider. We seldom encounter the creature in our lands to the south. We are more familiar with the big, hairy one that looks more fearsome than it really is. But in these northerly climes there is found a truly lethal spider that is not large and does not look especially dangerous. It is black, with a red mark on its underside."

  "Your breadth of knowledge astounds me, Ualíztli."

  "One tries to keep well informed in one's trade," he said modestly, "by exchanging bits of lore with other tíciltin. I am told that the venom of this black northern spider actually melts the flesh of its prey, to make it the more easily eaten. Hence that ghastly open sore on the woman's leg. But, in this case, the process has spread within her whole body. She is literally liquefying inside. Curious. I would not have expected such extensive putrefaction except in an infant or a person old and infirm."

  "And what will you do about it?"

  "Hasten the process," Ualíztli murmured, so that only I might hear.

  G'nda Ké's eyes, from between their puffed lids, were anxiously asking also: What is to be done for me? So Ualíztli said aloud, "I shall bring special medicaments," and left the hut.

  I stood gazing down at the woman, not pityingly. She had regained breath enough to speak, but her words were disjointed, her voice only croaks and rasps:

  "G'nda Ké must not... die here."

  "Here as well as anywhere," I said coldly. "It appears that your tonáli has brought you to the end of your roads and your days, right here. The gods are far more inventive than I could possibly be, in devising the proper disposal of one who has lived ever evilly, and already lived too long."

  She said again, but stressing one word, "G'nda Ké must not... die here. Among these louts."

  I shrugged. "They are your own louts. This is your own land. It was a spider native to this land that poisoned you. I think it fitting that you should have been felled not by an angry human's hand, but by one of the tiniest creatures inhabiting the earth."

  "G'nda Ké must not... die here," she said yet again, though it seemed she spoke more to herself than to me. "G'nda Ké will not... be remembered here. G'nda Ké was meant... to be remembered. G'nda Ké was meant... somewhere... to be royalty. With the -tzin to her name..."

  "You are mistaken. You forget that I have known women who deserved the -tzin. But you—to the very last, you have striven to make your mark on the world only by doing harm. And for all your grandiose ideas of your own importance, for all your lies and duplicities and iniquities, you were destined by your tonáli to be nothing more than what you were and what you are now. As venomous as the spider and, inside, just as small."

  Ualíztli returned then, and knelt to sprinkle plain picíetl into her leg's open sore. "This will numb the local pain, my lady. And here, drink this." He held a gourd dipper to her protuberant lips. "It will stop your feeling the other pains within."

  When he rose again to stand beside me, I growled, "I did not give you permission to relieve her agony. She inflicted enough on other people."

  "I did not ask your permission, Tenamáxtzin, and I will not ask your pardon. I am a tícitl. My allegiance to my calling takes precedence even over my loyalty to your lordship. No tícitl can prevent death, but he can refuse to prolong it. The woman will sleep and, sleeping, die."

  So I held my tongue, and we watched as G'nda Ké's swollen eyelids closed. What happened next I know surprised Ualíztli as much as it did myself and the other tícitl.

  From the hole in G'nda Ké's leg began to trickle a liquid—not blood—a liquid as clear and thin as water. Then came fluids more viscous but still colorless, as malodorous as the sore. The trickle became a flow, ever more fetid, and those same noxious substances started issuing from her mouth, too; and from her ears and from the orifices between her legs.

  The bloat of her body slowly but visibly diminished, and as the taut-stretched skin subsided, so did the jaguar spots of it shrink to a profusion of ordinary freckles. Then even they commenced to disappear as the skin slackened into furrows and creases and puckers. The flow of fluids increased to a gush, some of it soaking into the earthen floor, some of it remaining as a thick slime from which we three watchers stepped warily well away.

  G'nda Ké's face collapsed until it was just a featureless, wrinkled skin shrouding her skull, and then all her hair wisped away from it. The leakage of fluids lessened to an ooze, and finally the whole bag of skin that had been a woman was empty. When that bag began to split and shred a
nd slip downward and dissolve into the slime on the ground, the masked tícitl gave a howl of pure horror and bolted from the hut.

  Ualíztli and I continued to stare until there was nothing to be seen but G'nda Ké's slime-glistening, gray-white skeleton, some hanks of hair, a scatter of fingernails and toenails. Then we stared at one another.

  "She wanted to be remembered," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "She will certainly be remembered by that Mayo in the mask. What in the name of Huitztli was that potion you gave her to drink?"

  In a voice about as shaky as mine, Ualíztli said, "This was not my doing. Or the spider's. It is a thing even more prodigious than what happened to that girl Pakápeti. I daresay no other tícitl has ever seen anything like this."

  Stepping cautiously through the stinking and slippery puddle, he reached over and down to touch a rib of the skeleton. It instantly broke loose of its attachment there. He gingerly picked it up and regarded it, then came to show it to me.

  "But something like this," he said, "I have seen before. Look." Without any effort, he broke it between his fingers. "When the Mexíca warriors and workers came with your Uncle Mixtzin from Tenochtítlan, you may remember, they drained and dried the nastier swamps around Aztlan. In doing so, they dug up the fragments of numerous skeletons—of both humans and animals. The wisest tícitl of Aztlan was summoned. He examined the bones and declared them to be old, incredibly old, sheaves and sheaves of years old. He surmised that they were the remains of persons and animals sucked down in a quaking sand that had, at some time long forgotten, existed in that place. I got to know that tícitl before he died, and he still had some of the bones. They were as brittle and crumbly as this rib."