Jaguar Princess

by Clare Bell

  Mixcatl, who had not yet seen any of the priests or their students, became curious, but she knew she dare not ask Maguey Thorn any questions. When one of the other girls ventured a comment, the matron became gruff, saying that it was not the business of servants to gossip about their betters. “And don’t you go blabbing about what I said,” she added, lifting one lather-covered fist at the hapless drudge. Grinning to herself, Mixcatl dumped another load into the washpot and went to retrieve more. She remained curious about the priests and their students, hoping to catch a glimpse of them as she went about her tasks.

  Late one morning, she was returning a scrubbed out chamber pot to the priests’ quarters when she caught sight of a tall, black-smeared figure striding along the hallway. Quickly she ducked out of sight, but her eyes followed the priest. He wore an elaborately knotted loincloth with a tailpiece. His mantle, knotted over one shoulder, was made of orange, red and white squares sewn together. He wore gold ear ornaments and wrist rings that stood out against his paint-blackened skin. A wild mass of uncut and unbrushed hair spilled back from his forehead. Mixcatl wrinkled her nose at the stink wafting back from him. There was the acrid reek of the body paint mixed with the smell of oily hair, and underlying it, the scent of dried blood.

  As the slap of the priest’s sandals died away, Mixcatl crept from her hiding place, shivering a little. She wished her sense of smell were not so acute. She sensed that the priest had killed something recently. Whether it was an animal, bird or a human, she didn’t want to know. Quickly she returned the pot to its place and hurried away.

  Later in the afternoon, she got her first glimpse of the calmecac’s students through the curtained door leading into the center courtyard of the school. They were all boys, ranging in age from about eight to those in their upper teens. They sat, crowded together in the courtyard while the priest-tutor conducted lessons. They wore white mantles edged with red or brown, and squirmed on their mats while they listened. The teacher knelt with a length of fig-bark paper unfolded on his lap and followed the images painted on it with his forefinger as he recited. Mixcatl suddenly wished she could be seated among the boys, for ever since she had seen the folded books in the marketplace, she wanted to know more about the odd little pictures in them.

  A slave girl had no business even thinking about joining a class made up of nobles’ sons. Putting the thought aside, she went back to work.

  3

  WISE COYOTE WAITED at Tezcotzinco until the spies returned from the Prodigy’s palace with their report. “The Prodigy is boasting that he will be a great tlatoani,” said the spies. “Weapons gleam on the walls and he talks of conquest. When the Prodigy becomes the Great Chichimec, Texcoco will rise again to its former glory.”

  Wise Coyote grew more unhappy as he listened. Aspiring to kingship before the reigning tlatoani had grown too old was a crime of treason, to be punished by death. Wise Coyote paid the spies well and sent them away. Then he summoned his queen, Ant Flower, and told her of the prince’s indiscretion.

  “Dear one of the honest eyes,” he said, using his favorite name for her, “I wish I did not have to tell you what I must do now.”

  “He is a young man, and young men brag. I’m sure he intends no treason,” answered Ant Flower gaily, but he saw that she was trembling.

  “And do young men gather armies and speak of their father’s weakness?” Wise Coyote asked sternly. “The people know the penalty for treason. If they see that the prince goes unpunished, they will know that I deal two kinds of justice; one for my sons and one for my people.”

  Ant Flower turned from him and buried her face in her hands. “My previous two sons died for your justice. One for adultery and the other for coupling with a man. The Prodigy is the last, for I am too old to bear more. He is my only son. He cannot die.”

  Wise Coyote turned his wife to him, drew her hands from her tear-streaked face. “And he is the son of the woman I love the most.”

  “Then scold him for his pridefulness and strip him of his honors, but do not stain this marriage with a third death.”

  Wise Coyote tilted her chin up to him as he had done with Huetzin. “Do you think that if I went to his palace he would kneel humbly at my feet? Not after all those boasts he has made before his warriors. Hands would reach for those weapons on the walls and either he or I would die. And so would everything I have tried to make here in Texcoco.”

  “There must be another path,” Ant Flower cried. “I do not want to lose my son or my husband.”

  Wise Coyote clasped his wife to him. Ant Flower was a small woman, and he taller than most men, so that her head lay beneath his chin as he held her. But her eyes, when she looked at him, were deep and utterly clear, even while brightened by the tears of grief. And when those honest eyes saw and judged. Wise Coyote wondered how he would fare in the judgment.

  “There is another path,” he said softly into her hair. “The Prodigy’s crime is against the Triple Alliance as well as Texcoco. I will summon the other two kings of the Alliance and hand over the case to them. It is the right thing to do. I cannot be an impartial judge.”

  Ant Flower closed her eyes. “Then you would hand your son’s fate to the Aztec Hue Hue Ilhuicamina. The tlatoani of Tlacopan is merely a pawn of Tenochtitlan.”

  Wise Coyote tried to soothe her. “Ilhuicamina is severe, but at heart a good man. I fought by his side on many a campaign. He too has seen rebellion among his sons and knows how to deal with it.”

  And inwardly he thought, Ilhuicamina is involved in this whether or not I wish him to be. If my Prodigy is not punished, he will challenge Tenochtitldn. If I come to open war with my son and I am killed, Ilhuicamina will annex Texcoco. If the Prodigy is killed, there will be no tlatoani after me, the kingship will lie open and Ilhuicamina will see that it is filled in his favor.

  The Ilhuicamina he had fought with, sharing hardship as well as victory, had been a good man. But something had changed Ilhuicamina, making him fearful on the inside and harder on the outside. Was it the years of drought, when prayers to the gods had brought nothing but dust and fire in the earth? Ilhuicamina had sworn that those times would never come again, for he would keep the Aztec sun and war god. Hummingbird on the Left, well fed with sacrificial blood.

  Do I know Ilhuicamina, Wise Coyote asked himself. Can I trust him to find a balance between firmness and compassion? Or has his service to Hummingbird twisted him? Whatever I fear does not matter. Ilhuicamina will come.

  He sent messengers to the two rulers of Tlacopan and Tenochtitlan, asking them to Texcoco. He also sent a message to his warrior-son to prepare a welcoming feast for them at his palace, though he did not tell the prince the reason for their visit.

  Several days later, Wise Coyote greeted the two other kings as they came ashore from the royal dugouts they had used to cross the lake. Ilhuicamina was resplendent in a plumed headpiece and a mantle of iridescent quetzal feathers that shone and shimmered like the sun on chips of obsidian. He also wore the turquoise-blue coronet that was the symbol of the Speaker-King. The king of Tlacopan was old, wizened and wore more somber garments.

  Next to Ilhuicamina, he resembled a rock dove beside a phoenix.

  Wise Coyote took the two kings to Texcoco and sat them down on the judgment seats in his great hall. Set into the arm of each seat was a human skull, positioned so that each king could lay his hand on it and speak what words he thought just. Wise Coyote did not take his seat among them. Instead he said, “Remember that the prince is still young and has gained skill in war and not wisdom. Chastise him as is just but show him no leniency because I am his father.”

  Then he stood in his hall and heard the kings call the witnesses one by one. The witnesses came in secret for fear that someone would take their names for later vengeance. Wise Coyote’s young son Huetzin was brought to testify, holding the same jade songbird that he had offered his half brother. The concubine with the golden skin spoke, as did the queen Ant Flower. Wise Coyote gave his own acco
unt of what he had heard from Huetzin.

  After all the witnesses had departed as secretly as they had come, Ilhuicamina rose and stretched. The judgment throne, though beautiful, made the occupant’s back stiff.

  “Have you made your decision?” Wise Coyote asked.

  Ilhuicamina swept his quetzal-feather mantle about his shoulders and stood on the stone dias near the throne so that he would not have to look up to the king of Texcoco.

  “You summoned me for this purpose and have given the case over into my hands,” Ilhuicamina answered him. “You have removed yourself from it. Now go to your gardens at Tezcotzinco and wait until I come.”

  The tlatoani of Tlacopan said nothing, merely bobbed his head in agreement with Ilhuicamina.

  Wise Coyote’s mouth felt dry. Not even to know his son’s fate once it had been decided! He started to protest, then fell silent. It was his bidding that had brought the two kings to his judgment hall. If he tried to interfere now, Ilhuicamina’s easily ignited wrath might fall on him. He bowed his head and went to Tezcotzinco.

  He walked the paths of his garden, bathed his feet in its pools, but could find no pleasure in its beauty. For a day and a night, he roamed the palace halls and garden paths, refusing to eat or sleep, listening for the tread of sandals that would bring him the news of his son’s fate. He knew that if the Prodigy died so would Ant Flower’s love for her husband.

  At last guardsmen came to him to announce that the king of Tenochtitlan had arrived. The king of Tlacopan had gone home, for there was no need for him to come. Wise Coyote met Ilhuicamina on the shaded portico of his palace, offered him greeting and refreshment.

  “In trying this case, I recalled the times when my own sons spoke of war and rebellion,” Ilhuicamina began. “The young wolves must challenge the old, for it is their nature. Even so, young men often make more war with their tongues than with their obsidian swords.”

  Wise Coyote listened, growing hopeful. Perhaps Ilhuicamina knew the meaning of mercy.

  “But, of course, I had something else to do with my snapping cubs. If they wanted a taste of war, why not let them have it? At the edge of my empire where their bloodthirstiness could buy me new lands and peoples.”

  “So you want to send my son to extend the territories of the Triple Alliance? But have you not taken all the lands and peoples you can control? If the empire could still expand, why then does the Prodigy have to win his manhood by challenging me?”

  Ilhuicamina laughed. “Well are you named, tlatoani of Texcoco. It is true that the empire is spread as far as supply lines can reach. The young no longer have the opportunity to prove themselves in true war. That is why I bring you this.”

  With one hand Ilhuicamina reached beneath his mantle and drew out a garland of magnolia. The blooms were crushed, broken, and the string stained with red.

  “I went to the feast prepared for me at your son’s palace and an excellent repast it was,” he said, rubbing his belly with the other hand. “I went up to the prince to offer my thanks and to place a wreath about his neck. The garland was too large and thus I drew it tighter and tighter…”

  Wise Coyote cradled the flowered garrote that Ilhuicamina had used to kill the Prodigy. Tears stung his eyes.

  “Did you not know what I wanted from you?” he cried aloud.

  “Tenderness? Mercy?” Ilhuicamina’s voice was mocking. “Does mercy keep the Fifth Sun in the heavens? Does mercy strengthen Hummingbird on the Left in his war with the demons of the moon? What use is tenderness when the earth burns and hunger clenches the belly?”

  “Once, you knew,” Wise Coyote whispered, dripping tears on the broken flowers.

  “Once,” Ilhuicamina answered. “But those were the days when you let yourself be driven from the throne of Texcoco and were known as the Hungry-Coyote-of-the-Hills.”

  “So a man must be hard,” said Wise Coyote bitterly. “But remember this, Ilhuicamina. The hardest wood comes not from the live tree, but the dead one that has dried beneath the sun.”

  The tlatoani of Tenochtitlan shrugged his shoulders beneath his shimmering quetzal-feather robe. His eyes turned to flint as he answered, “You could have kept the judgment for yourself.”

  Wise Coyote made no answer to those words. There could be none. He became acutely aware of Ilhuicamina’s gaze on him.

  “Have you completed the plans for the water channel from Chaultapec to Tenochtitlan?” Ilhuicamina asked.

  For a moment Wise Coyote’s anger flared. How could this man come to him after killing his son and then demand an accounting of him as a taskmaster would demand of a craftsman? He was not bound to the building project; he had offered to perform it as a favor to Ilhuicamina and to demonstrate that his engineering skills had a use beyond creating pleasure pools and gardens.

  Then reason cooled his anger, although he wasn’t sure that the timidity of the Deer had not crept in. He would build the aqueduct for the people of Tenochtitlan, not for Ilhuicamina. It would be shortsighted of him to punish the thirsty population of that city for its ruler’s lack of compassion.

  Quietly he said, “Yes, the plans are done. The work will begin on the day of Five-House.”

  Ilhuicamina’s eyes brightened. “It will be wonderful to see good fresh water rush into the city and spew up out of a fountain. The prices demanded by those who sell water by the jug are burdensome to my people and so they must mix it with the bilge of Lake Texcoco. Your name will be greatly praised.”

  Wise Coyote said nothing, wondering if it was indeed greatness of heart or the Deer’s cowardice that had shaped his reply.

  As Ilhuicamina turned away, he added, “I will expect you in Tenochtitlan for the sacrifices to Hummingbird on the Left. After you have had sufficient time to mourn, of course.”

  “I am grateful for such favor,” Wise Coyote muttered beneath his breath as Ilhuicamina and his retinue departed from the palace.

  He went to his chamber and sat alone, running the bloodstained garland through his fingers. He was no stranger to those means by which kings sought and held their power. Had he not sent Homed Mask, Ant Flower’s previous husband, to his death in the War of Flowers so that he might marry the lovely girl and make her his queen? Hadn’t he pursued the Tepcanecan tyrant Maxtla into the round steambath house, where Maxtla had taken refuge, dragged him out, cut the heart from his body and lifted it as a sacrifice to the gods of war?

  Who was he to speak of mercy?

  Perhaps it is that llhuicamina is more honest in his cruelty than I am.

  And Wise Coyote bowed his head and mourned bitterly, not only foe his son, but for llhuicamina and himself as well.

  Two years passed and Mixcatl continued to live in the calmecac, doing the simple tasks that she had been given. Though Maguey Thorn still grumbled about her appearance, the matron was grudgingly satisfied with her work. There was no more talk about selling her.

  Summer had come again and the day was bright and hot. Eight-year-old Mixcatl, her hands still wet from the morning’s wash, stepped into the courtyard. Her head was still full of Maguey Thorn’s banter and she didn’t stop to see if the courtyard was clear before she entered.

  Immediately she saw her mistake. A class was in session, listening to their teacher-priest recite from a fan-folded book that spilled across his lap. He was speaking so loudly that the noise had covered up the sound of the copper bells on the door flap, and Mixcatl thought she might slip back through without being heard. As soon as she took a step in that direction, the priest’s voice sank down to a sibilant whisper as he dramatized his recitation.

  Instead of trying to leave as she had come, and risk the betraying noise of the copper bells, the girl slipped along the inner wall of the courtyard and crouched behind a ceramic pot containing an agave plant. The teachers often plucked its spines to punish lazy or disobedient students. Mixcatl hoped that the boys would all be on their best behavior so that their teacher would not need to visit the agave.

  From her refuge behi
nd the pot, Mixcatl could see the end of the sacred book as it sprawled from the priest’s lap like a great flattened python. Unlike a python, the manuscript was formed in segments, each stiff page bound to the next so that the entire text stretched out in a long strip. With her sharp eyes, she could make out some of the larger figures. Fascinated, she leaned out as far as she could from behind the agave without risking discovery, and squinted across the distance at the codex. The shapes of warriors and kings, dressed in elaborate costumes and headdresses, marched across the page. She saw the form of a temple split by an arrow, then flames curling up about a bundle of reeds.

  What did the figures mean? What story did they tell? She was consumed by a desire to know. And a memory came to her of an old hand, veined and wrinkled, dipping a brush into a pot of color and drawing elaborate figures with curls and scrolls. She squeezed her eyes shut. The brush made other figures, fantastic creatures, footprints, jaguar tracks. Jaguar tracks. The number six, shown by a jaguar’s pawprint with the pad and the five toes. She remembered counting on her own palm and fingers. It seemed so distant, like a dream or someone else’s life.

  She opened her eyes. The priest’s voice was rising again as his forefinger followed the pictures on the page.

  His skin became spotted, his hands

  “We sing the pictures of the book,” he chanted. “We sing the sacred hymns. The story of the One-Prince, Plumed Serpent. The story of his disgrace at the hands of Smoking Minor, Tezcatlipoca.”

  After the priest had sung or chanted a phrase, he made the boys sing after him, either in unison or one at a time, until they had memorized the words. Thus the recitation went very slowly, but Mixcatl never grew bored. Though she knew nothing of Plumed Serpent or Smoking Mirror, the sound of their names sent chills down her back. They seemed to resonate with something buried deep inside her, something she had not known was there.