Jaguar Princess

by Clare Bell

  And then she was poked from behind and made to move on, leaving the tumult and the shouting behind. One last glance over her shoulder let her see the Lord of the Market picking up the jaguar skin. It flopped limply, but the noble would not buy it. He turned and stalked away.

  She felt strangely dizzy and had to be lifted onto the selling platform when the slaves reached it. The fingertips of her right hand tingled. She wondered if in some strange way she had hurt the man who was buying the jaguar skin. Had her anger made him bleed?

  “An arrogant son of powerful men, who blames others for his own clumsiness,” said the old slave softly. “Even a dead jaguar has claws.”

  Mixcatl lifted her head, stood up straight, though her fingers still tingled beneath the nails. Her head cleared. There were fewer market scents in the air about her and she was on the edge of the stone dais so that the sweat and stink of the other slaves blew away in the wind. She focused on trying to find the guide smell, the one that might lead her to freedom.

  So intent was her concentration that she didn’t notice the overseer who had come up behind her. She only caught a glimpse of a scowling face before she was dealt a slap on the side of the head.

  “Stop that grimacing,” he scolded in Nahuatl. “I can’t sell you if you look like an animal.”

  With tears stinging the edges of her eyes, she huddled close to the old slave and buried her face against him.

  “You must stand away from me now,” he said gently. “There are buyers coming.”

  Mixcatl sniffled away her remaining tears and did as he told her.

  The sun crept westward behind the girl, throwing her shadow and those of the few remaining slaves along the square flagstones of the plaza. She could see herself, looking like a stretched black ghost in company with others atop the platform. She curled her stumpy fingers, making talons on the shadow hands.

  And then a man walked up and bought the old man, who was still standing next to her. The transaction was abrupt, with little haggling. The buyer paid the low asking price of three cloth mantles, then motioned the old man down from the platform.

  He held back just long enough to say a few words of farewell to Mixcatl. “Do not sorrow, little one. You knew me only for a day. It is not a bad life that lies ahead of me, for the one who buys me looks like a kind man.”

  Mixcatl stared at the old slave, then away. He looked relieved, almost happy, and she suddenly hated him for his good fortune. She resisted the temptation to look at him once again in order to remember him. Why should she? He had only known her one day. But as the slap of his footsteps faded, the image of his face stayed in her memory.

  She bowed her head and stared sullenly at her feet. They were short, wide and without an arch. Her toes were too short and spread too far apart. But she knew how fast she could run. If she got a chance.

  The sun beat on her naked back. Thirst began to daze her. None of the slaves had been given water for fear that they might choose to relieve themselves on the selling platform. A poke between the shoulders brought her out of her daze, made her stare down at the two men arguing in front of her. One was the chief slave merchant, the other a stocky man in white cloak and gold arm-rings. She had learned enough Nahuatl to understand the gist of their conversation.

  “Not even one mantle for her?” the slave merchant whined.

  “She is ugly, ill-tempered. She is fit only to carry ashes from the hearth. How old is she?”

  “Six or seven, although she is as strong and heavy as a child of ten. And though she looks feebleminded, she is teachable. She already understands our speech.” The customer only grunted as the slave merchant continued in a wheedling tone, “You must also consider the costs of transport. She was brought all the way from the eastern jungles…”

  “Then you might as well have left her there. No one will trade even the most ragged mantle for such a slave.” He took a dirty leather pouch and shook its contents into his hand. “Cocoa beans. The entire pouch for her.”

  “I will be mocked for accepting such a price,” the slaver complained.

  “You deserve mockery for bringing such poor goods,” sneered the other man. “Shall I summon the Lord of the Market?”

  The slave merchant narrowed his eyes at the prospective buyer, then squinted up at Mixcatl. She felt a hot angry lump grow in her throat just above her collarbone. She wanted the slave merchant to refuse the purchase and send the man on his way, preferably with a kick.

  “Loose the hobbles about her ankles so I can see how she walks. And untie her wrists so I can see that her arms and hands are not crippled.”

  The slave merchant gestured at his helper, who undid the knots that linked Mixcatl’s wrists together, whipped the thongs from around the girl’s ankles and paraded her back and forth on the selling platform before the customer. She tried to limp or drag her feet. The idea of being sold to this man made her shudder.

  But the man was already gesturing acceptance and the slave merchant was taking the pouch of cocoa beans. Mixcatl grimaced, searching again for the scent of the king’s menagerie. For an instant she caught only market smells, but a breeze, gusting from behind her, brought traces of the animal and bird odors she had caught while passing the king’s house. Just a trace, but enough to give her direction.

  With a bound she was down from the stone platform and running through the market, her heels smarting from the impact. From the comer of her eye she saw the purchaser try to snatch back his pouch of cocoa beans, but the slave merchant jumped out of reach, crying, “You bought her, you catch her!”

  With a roar of dismay, Mixcatl’s new owner gave chase. She glanced back and saw that his big belly hung out over his knotted loincloth, but his arms and legs were heavily muscled. The girl fled as fast as she could, slamming the calluses on her feet against the paving. Panic peeled her lips back against her teeth and people in her path jumped out of her way.

  She gasped, heard her pursuer coming closer. She cut the corner as she scuttled around a stack of melons, sending the fruit bouncing and rolling into his path. She heard a wet crunch, dared a look behind and saw that he had put his foot through a large rotten melon and was dancing about on one leg, trying to shake it off.

  Grinning, Mixcatl flashed away, but soon the pounding of feet behind told her she hadn’t lost him. He was coming fast, with long strides. She tried all the tricks she knew from the games of her jungle childhood and panic helped her invent new ones. She careened into baskets of loose parrot feathers, sending them billowing into the auto form a madly swirling curtain between her and her pursuer.

  She bounded over rows of stacked jars, landed in the midst of ceramic pots, sending them clattering. She knocked down stall awnings, set caged birds screeching, squashed a tomato underfoot and then ran across stacks of gleaming white mantles, leaving dirty tomato footprints.

  The shouting of outraged vendors mixed with the raucous laughter from people thronging the market as Mixcatl hurtled past them. To her surprise and relief, none joined in the effort to catch her. Laughter and havoc rolled around Mixcatl, carrying her like a wave until at last she broke free of the market and sprinted across the open plaza. The smell was growing stronger in her nostrils and she imagined that she could hear the cries of the birds in the king’s menagerie. But heavy panting and shouting behind told of her purchaser’s tenacity.

  The collar bound Mixcatl’s throat, not letting her breathe as deeply as she needed to. Now she was running along the canal, whipping around one comer, streaking for the next. Ahead of her, above the roofs of surrounding buildings, she could see the shimmer of white walls. Hope leaped in her, blinded her with grateful tears as she scurried around the last corner, thinking how it would feel to slap her hand against that wall and come away free.

  She didn’t see the flower-seller until the last instant, when she tried to leap aside. The startled woman did the same and down they both went in a multicolored tumble of petals, bouquets and baskets. Shaking, Mixcatl scrambled free, her ey
es darting frantically in the search for a footbridge across the canal to the king’s house. She had seen one in the moment before she collided. She sighted the bridge once more and launched herself for it just as her pursuer rounded the corner and startled the disoriented flower-seller into jumping in the canal.

  The long run and the collision had cost Mixcatl her speed. Her legs were wobbly and each movement seemed impossibly slow. She ran wide of the footbridge, nearly went past it, but caught a stone pillar in one hand and flung herself onto the bridge. Panting grunts sounded close behind her. There was the sound of air whistling through woven reeds and a yell of triumph that made her jump as if a whip had cracked behind her.

  The wall loomed just ahead, barely a handstretch away. Mixcatl leaped, both hands extended, chest heaving and sobbing. She would be free, she could go back to her village and find her grandmother…

  And then a rattan barrier came down between Mixcatl and the gleaming white wall. She landed hard on stomach and elbows, tried to thrust her hand beneath the edge of the rattan, scrabbling and stretching for the wall. So close, so close, but now beyond her reach. She screamed and threw herself against the inside of the heavy basket that had been clapped down on top of her. Again she thrust outward with her free arm, but her captor stamped on the rim of the basket, pinning and bruising her arm until the pain forced her to pull it back inside.

  Mixcatl raked the rattan with her fingernails, attacked with her teeth until her mouth bled. The taste of her own blood drove her into a frenzy. Her vision went red, then white. She writhed on her back, kicking, scratching, tearing. Her voice became stronger, more piercing. New strength expanded her arms, flowed down to reshape her hands. She yowled, splintered rattan with fingers that seemed to have curved and sharpened into claws.

  But the rattan would not yield. She felt her captor bouncing on top of the basket, trying to squash her down. The white fire of rage consumed her and then, at its peak, froze and shattered, leaving only blackness.

  The first sensation to return was pain, from her bleeding lip, torn fingers and bruised arm. The next was her sense of smell. Hot pavement, the weedy stink of the canal, the anxious sweaty smells of people gathered about her. Dizzily she sat up, found that both her hands and feet were hobbled. She had been moved across the canal from the palace wall to prevent any sudden lunge for freedom.

  The basket that had trapped her lay on its side. A man with a spear, his hair bound up in a warrior’s tail and wearing the robes of an official, stooped, peering into the basket. Others did the same, although none touched it. The man who had bought her stood by, looking red-faced and triumphant, holding a rope knotted to her collar. There was an odd wariness in his eyes and he stood as far away from her as the rope would allow.

  Mixcatl pushed herself up on her hands, peered into the basket. The heavy rattan was splintered, in some places bitten through.

  The official got up, faced Mixcatl’s new owner. “She didn’t touch the palace wall?”

  “I swear she didn’t reach it,” the man replied. “I had her under the basket before she got close.” He extended a hand to the drenched flower-seller who was gathering up what remained of her scattered merchandise. “That woman is my witness.”

  “I’ll be a witness that you stole my best basket!” the flower-seller shouted, her grimace and wizened face making her look like an enraged monkey. “Look how the brat has ripped the inside!”

  “Old liar. It was worn and broken,” the man sneered, then jerked Mixcatl’s rope, pulling the girl to her feet. A bitter sob welled up in Mixcatl’s throat as she remembered how close she had come to freedom. With the hobbles, she had no chance, except to fling herself into the canal and drown.

  “You will pay, greasy thief.” The flower-seller shook a fist in the man’s face. “The Lord of the Market will have you tried by the Court of Six and stoned.”

  With a contemptuous laugh the man pushed the flower-seller aside and began to drag Mixcatl away through the crowd that had gathered to watch the pursuit and capture. She stumbled after him, head bowed, trying not to think of what her new life would be like. Something inside made her wonder how she had managed to damage the basket, for she knew it was stout and strong, not old, as her captor claimed.

  She resented how the crowd seemed to part as if making way for her new master. Then she glanced up and realized that the people ahead were not stepping aside for him but for someone else coming the other way. The crowd thinned, letting three barechested warriors through.

  To Mixcatl’s astonishment, they seized the man who had bought her and held him until two more people arrived. The first was the slave merchant, angry and shaking. He waved his fingers in the man’s face, but before he could speak, there came the flap of a slate-blue cloak and a flash of gold as the Lord of the Market came through the crowd.

  He set his plumed staff firmly on the flagstones and turned his stern gaze to Mixcatl’s new master. “You are accused of trading with goods of false worth,” he said, holding up the leather pouch of cocoa beans.

  The man paled, started to back away, but the guardsmen held him firmly.

  The Lord of the Market shook a brown bean into his hand, held it between thumb and forefinger and squashed it flat. “Wax mixed with amaranth dough,” he said.

  “Honorable one, I did not know. I accepted the beans in barter earlier today. Had I known…”

  The slave merchant began to shout and other vendors in the crowd began to boo and jeer. Several cried out that they knew this man and that it was not the first time he had tried to pass off counterfeit cocoa beans.

  “You are sentenced to be tried by the Court of Six,” said the Lord of the Market. “Your purchase is to be surrendered.” He turned on his heel and walked away.

  The guardsmen marched after him with the counterfeiter between them, followed by the angry old flower-seller, still berating him shrilly about her damaged basket.

  The slave merchant took the rope tied to Mixcatl’s collar, but she could see he did not look pleased.

  “All that time and effort wasted without a real sale/’ he complained. He glowered at the girl as he led her back to the selling platform, and she heard him muttering that he would rather drop her in the canal than haul her back to the jobbing lot in his boat if she were not bought by the day’s end.

  “That would be a waste of one who is strong in body and spirit,” said a light voice above Mixcatl’s head. She turned, stared up at a young man with cropped black hair, a dark purple mantle with embroidered golden stars and a thin, ascetic-looking face.

  “She is a young wildcat, better drowned than sold. I will be the one dragged before the law courts if she escapes from you and runs wild again.”

  “I am a tutor at the priests’ school. We need a sturdy young slave to draw water and carry out slopjars.”

  The slave merchant only growled and spat. Mixcatl felt her eyes widen. She measured the new arrival, wondered how fast he could run.

  “I will give you two cotton mantles for her,” the young tutor said. “They are not new, but freshly washed.” He brought out a bundle from beneath his cloak.

  The slave merchant looked relieved. “Done,” he said, with only a quick glance at the contents. “Take her and go quickly. I warn you, you will only have yourself to blame if she wrecks your kitchens and runs wild among your pupils.”

  He placed the rope end in the young man’s hand. Mixcatl studied her second new owner of the day. She balanced on her toes, wondered if she could jerk the rope from his hand and make a second run. She felt weary, heard her stomach growl. Freedom seemed suddenly less attractive than food. At least eating would give her time to think.

  The young man knotted the rope about his wrist, ending any chance of losing his grip to a sharp jerk. He gave Mixcatl a keen look. “I don’t like tethering a child, but until we’re out of the market, it will help you resist any temptation.”

  Thinking of hot corn tortillas baking on a stone griddle, Mixcatl put aside her t
houghts of freedom, bowed her head and followed her master.

  2

  IN THE SUNRISE direction from the Aztec city of Tenochtit-lan lay a city-state called Texcoco. It stood on the eastern shore of Lake Texcoco, the swampy, shallow body of water surrounding the Aztec capital. Independently ruled by an allied tribe called the Chichimecs, Texcoco had long been a flourishing trade center. Wise Coyote, Tex-coco’s tlatoani or Revered Speaker-King, saw that his city could not compete with the Aztecs’ military strength. Instead he had entered into an alliance with them and concentrated on making Texcoco the capital of art and learning for the Aztec Empire.

  In addition to his estates in the city itself. Wise Coyote owned lands at Tezcotzinco, in the hills above the lake. Here he had built a palace of sapphire-blue stone and surrounded it with gardens full of rare and exotic flowers. Whenever he tired of life in the city, he retreated to Tezcotzinco.

  Today he had come to the gardens to bathe. A fresh wind blew between the hills, but the sun was strong and warm on Wise Coyote’s back as he pulled his knotted mantle off over his head. He laid the cloak on the grassy bank beside his turquoise headband, loincloth and blue sandals, then waded into a pool that nestled among the rocks.

  Had the pool been formed naturally from the gathering of mountain streams, the king would have dipped quickly and shivered back into his clothing. Human hands and the will of the tlatoani himself had changed the form of the hills and the flow of the streams. Now water gathered behind stone dams, trickled into shallow collecting basins and ran along troughs of sun-warmed rock until it spilled into the bathing pool.

  Wise Coyote lay back on his elbows, his head and shoulders in the sunlight, the rest of his body in the water’s soothing caress as it made its way to the outflow and cascaded down into the channels and pools below. Idly, he lifted a foot and touched the center one of three stone frogs who sat by the poolside. He’d had them made, half in jest, as a present for his queen. The frogs represented the cities of the Triple Alliance in the Valley of Mexico. The two on the outside were the cities of Tlacopan and his own city of Texcoco. The center frog, and the one with the most severe goggle-eyed stare (at least it seemed so to Wise Coyote) was the Aztec city of Tenoch-titlan, the self-declared center of the world.