Jaguar Princess

by Clare Bell

  A tear started at the comer of her eye. If she did not re-create the figures, she would lose them and there was little chance she would be able to see the book again.

  She took another twig, one that had a sharper point than the first and could make a finer line. The figure she wanted most to make was that of Smoking Mirror. How wonderful he had looked, with his crest of plumes, his feathered cape and his jaguar claws. And the great roar he gave, shown by the sound scrolls issuing from his open mouth. Yes, he was there in her head. And she felt he would die and wither if he were not set free.

  With her tongue clamped between her teeth, Mixcatl bent over a soot-blackened tile. She drew his head and body, the spotted arms with wristlets, the elaborate knotting of the loincloth. She drew his clawed feet, and then, beneath one foot, the shape of a strange shining circle, ornamented and patterned. Speaking scrolls also emerged from the disk, as if it too had a voice.

  As she made Smoking Mirror, her heart beat faster. How beautiful he was. How could he be evil? She went back to the head and frowned. How did the headdress go? And how did it fit about the jaguar ears? There were so many bands and curls and plumes and drapes and she couldn’t remember how they all fit together. She tried, but it didn’t look quite right. But it had been years since she’d glimpsed the picture and all the details weren’t there.

  She leaned over the drawing, feeling tears of frustration well up in her eyes. He must be perfect. He must! But her attempts to repair the headdress only smudged it. She tried to scrape up more soot from the hearth and sprinkle it over the bad lines, but she lost a few good ones as well. With trembling fingers, she made the eyes, but they seemed to glare at her, accusing her for her clumsiness.

  She backed away, a teardrop spilling down her face to land on another tile, making a gray splotch. Six-Wind was wrong. She didn’t have any great talent. She had failed to make Smoking Mirror as he should be. Angrily she snapped her scribe stick in two. She was just an infant, scratching in the dust as she had done long ago at her village. For an instant she wanted to wipe out the drawing, but something in the figure forbade it. Instead, she turned and ran from the hearthside to her small room with its bed of rushes. She flung herself down and wept in a way she never had before, not even when she had been abused as a slave. At last, still sobbing, she fell asleep.

  She was woken by shrill cries that rang along the hallway. Sitting up, she wiped crusted tears from her face. Howls and lamentations were coming from the kitchen.

  “It is an omen,” one voice cried. “Cactus Eagle is not yet in his shroud, yet the image of the Mocker appears, graven on our very hearth! One-Death is among us!”

  Another voice joined the clamor. “Send for the high priest who oversees all the calmecacs. Only his magic is strong enough to stand against this!”

  And then came a voice that Mixcatl recognized as Speaking Quail. “Wait. Is it not possible that this has another explanation? The image is the same as in the sacred book I use to teach the boys.”

  “But what young whelp could have drawn this? It is by a masterful hand. No, Speaking Quail. There is more at work here than the skill of a scribe. Do you see how it is done among the soot of the hearth? What better place to strike at a household than at the place of the life-giving fire?”

  “That may be.” said Speaking Quail firmly, but quietly. “Yet I will question my students. Until we rule out a human agency, we should not invoke a divine one. Cover the tile so that the women may prepare the morning meal without seeing or disturbing the image.”

  In her room nearby, Mixcatl heard the voices and huddled, her arms about her knees. She noticed a black smear of soot on her hand and quickly wiped it off. She remembered her drawing. Was it that which frightened them so? Smudged and muddled as it was?

  She got to her feet, meaning to creep out of her room before the priests left their discovery at the hearthside. But she was too late. She heard the slap-slap of sandals behind her. She couldn’t help a quick glance back and she caught Speaking Quail’s eye. She saw his eyes widen and his step falter for just a beat before he matched pace with the other priests. She feared that just then he had recalled her long-ago intrusion into his class and her heart thudded with fear. If he connected the incident with Smoking Mirror on the hearth, she would be killed for sacrilege.

  Quickly she began her duties. How could anyone even begin to think that a lowly dull little slopjar carrier had anything to do with the image on the hearth? And why were they all so upset by it, badly done as it was? She tossed her head, flipping her black bangs from her eyes. She should have rubbed it out, destroyed it. Even now, she could run into the kitchen and sweep her hand across the tile.

  But she knew she couldn’t do that either. She had made the image. She could not bring herself to obliterate it. And what if someone caught her in the act? Then they would know without a doubt. The best thing she could do now was go about her regular routine and keep her hands from trembling too much.

  There were few pots to empty. Students and teachers alike had spent the night in the courtyard, praying. Now they were clustered about Cactus Eagle’s quarters, wailing and lamenting. The sound carried through the whole school. Mixcatl bit her lip. Did this mean that the old man was dead? Had she hastened his death by making a drawing whose power she didn’t understand? Or by making it badly?

  As she came out of a side hallway, she heard someone running. It was Six-Wind. His hair was disheveled and his loincloth dingy and stained. With a moan, she ducked back, but it was too late. He had seen her. In a few steps he was on her, grasping her arm in a hard grip, taking the pots from her and dropping them carelessly in a corner.

  “Speaking Quail wants you. Hurryl”

  He hustled her along the corridor, ducking out of sight when the slap of sandals or the murmur of voices warned that someone else was near. But there were few such incidents and they reached a larger chamber which held only one sleeping mat and a low lapdesk with pots of color beside it. There was also a rattan shelf that held more of the folded texts.

  “Bring her in here,” said Speaking Quail. “Away from the curtain, for those passing can see through.”

  With trepidation, Mixcatl looked up at him. His face was gentle, but haggard and weary from his night of vigilance. Multiple gashes across the backs of his forearms were crusted with scabs and a few still oozed.

  He knelt before Mixcatl and stared deeply into her eyes. “Child, Cactus Eagle died last night. This morning an image of the Black Tezcatlipoca was found on the hearthstones. Many believe it is an evil thing and the sight of it has caused even more grief than Cactus Eagle’s passing. Six-Wind has given me an explanation I can hardly believe, but he has always been truthful.”

  Mixcatl looked at Six-Wind out of the corner of one eye.

  “Remember, I warned you,” the boy hissed back at her.

  “Is it true, as he says? Do you have the skill to make such images? And to remember them exactly even though seasons have passed?”

  Again she glanced at Six-Wind. If she played dumb, the boy’s story would crumble. He was the only one who had seen her make the other figures under the creosote bush long ago. And he had wiped them out with his sandal.

  At her silence. Speaking Quail turned to Six-Wind. “Boy,” he said mildly, but there was a graveness that brought out a new severity in his features, “if this is an untruth, then you have disgraced yourself. A priest may not twist words wrongfully, nor may he take advantage of a time of sorrow to draw attention to himself. If your accusation against this slave is false, you will be expelled from the school and your father notified.”

  Beneath his bronze, the boy flushed and then went pale. Mixcatl could only guess what it had cost him to dare tell his story to any of the priests, even one as gentle as the scholarly Speaking Quail.

  Again she hesitated. She could keep herself safe, at the price of Six-Wind’s future. But it was he who had kept the other boys from attacking her in the courtyard and it was he who understood, e
ven though he was frightened. Perhaps Speaking Quail might also understand.

  She lifted her head to Speaking Quail and, with a mixture of pride and dread, answered, “Six-Wind is truthful. I made the picture on the tile.”

  She felt Speaking Quail’s hands start to tremble as they slid from her shoulders. He picked up her wrist, stared at her stubby fingers with their grimy nails. Carefully he held her thumb, scraped a little of the black from beneath her nail with his own and sniffed the residue.

  “Soot,” he said. “But that does not complete the proof.”

  Six-Wind bent down and picked up one of Speaking Quail’s brushes, offered it to Mixcatl. “This will,” he said, pointing at the fig-bark paper spread across the low desk.

  Mixcatl crouched before it, dipped the brush and held it over the paper. Again the sacred text was spread before her and its figures came to life in her mind. She dare not do Smoking Mirror; he was too dangerous. Instead she painted the undulating serpent decked with plumes.

  Before she had even finished. Speaking Quail took down a book from the shelf, opened it on the mat and spread before her the same page she had glimpsed that day in the courtyard. He laid the two figures side by side. Except for the fact that the girl’s drawing was done in a single color of brown paint and the figure in the book was brightly hued, the two were similar. Mixcatl could see some flaws in her painting, but Speaking Quail reacted in amazement.

  “Where did you leam this? Were you given schooling?”

  Mixcatl shook her head. The only thing she remembered was the veined hand laying brushstrokes on rough paper. She didn’t know who that hand even belonged to. Her grandmother?

  “I bought you,” said Speaking Quail, running a hand distractedly through his tangled hair. “I have responsibility for you. But if I had known…why didn’t you tell me?”

  Mixcatl had no answer. Until she saw the book, she herself hadn’t known. But would Speaking Quail believe that?

  “Well, one thing is clear. We must bring the truth into the open. Cactus Eagle’s funeral rites will not be marred by rumors that an evil sign appeared out of nowhere to disturb his journey to the underworld.”

  Mixcatl looked up at him. Dare she ask the question that had been troubling her since she heard of the old man’s death? “Did my picture make him die?”

  “No, child. He was very old. Everyone knew that his end would come soon, although they did not want to accept it.” A corner of Speaking Quail’s mouth twitched. “But because of that, we still have a problem. I don’t believe that what you did harmed him or will cast any evil influences over his spirit, but there are other priests who would be quick to see otherwise.”

  “If we are the only ones who know, then why tell the others?” asked Six-Wind.

  Speaking Quail pointed to the brush that Mixcatl still held. “Because such an extraordinary talent and memory is a gift that can not lie unused. And it will not, even if she has to scratch in the dirt outside. Do I speak the truth, little scribe?”

  Mixcati closed her eyes. She knew that she could not keep from drawing any more than she could stop breathing or eating or making water. Slowly she nodded.

  “Will you go before an assembly of the calmecac and show them the truth behind the tile-painting?” Speaking Quail asked the girl. Again she nodded.

  Six-Wind had been looking more and more worried as Speaking Quail questioned Mixcatl. “Honorable teacher, won’t they just kill her?” he burst out. “Even if the priests believe that the work is by her hand, they might argue that some evil influence possessed her.”

  “There is that chance,” agreed Speaking Quail. “But by the same token it could be said that such a child might be blessed by the gods. Was it not Plumed Serpent himself who brought us the art of setting down the sacred hymns and histories in books? Should we kill a slave-child for having that art? No. That is how I will argue.”

  “You are a teacher of literature, not oratory,” said Six-Wind softly.

  “My tongue is not as quick nor as flowery as that of some, but it will serve.” Speaking Quail gave Mixcatl and Six-Wind a tired smile. “Besides, if the judgment goes against her, I will suffer too. I brought her among us.”

  Six-Wind took a shaky breath, then straightened his shoulders. “I’ll stand by you. If any teacher has made me see what is right, it has been you. Speaking Quail.”

  The tutor clapped him on the shoulder and Mixcatl could see that the boy’s allegiance made his eyes shine brighter. She felt a sudden surge of hope. With two such friends beside her, perhaps she had a chance.

  “I think you should be apprenticed to the priests who keep records,” said Speaking Quail to Mixcatl. “They can teach you far more about the art of glyph-painting than I or anyone else here.”

  Her heart began to beat fast. To be among others who had the same talent and who would share it with her. It seemed like a dream beyond anything she could hope for.

  But she also felt a new hunger. To know about those figures in the sacred books and what they meant. To know the stories behind the names. The questions came so rapidly she could not sort them out.

  “Please,” she blurted awkwardly. “Tell me more about Smoking Mirror.”

  Speaking Quail glanced at Six-Wind. “I have done this girl an injustice,” he said. “Assuming she was dull witted, I didn’t think she needed the kind of schooling that is the right of every child in Tenochtitlan, whether slave or freeborn. All right, little scribe, listen and I will tell you.”

  He took a seat on his mat and Mixcatl crouched nearby, hugging her knees. He told legends and sang hymns about Smoking Mirror, who was the Mocker, the Trickster, the capricious god who would raise men’s fortunes on a whim and then cast them down again. Tezcatlipoca was the Black One, whose birth-sign was One-Death, yet he was also the god of youth and the protector of slaves.

  In these myths, he appeared not only as the dancing jaguar that so fascinated Mixcatl, but as a human warrior who fought with other gods and against them. And he could suffer and bleed. One tale told of how he had sinned against the gods and in punishment had been trapped by the knife god Tecpatl within an enclosure of blood-red obsidian blades. When Tezcatlipoca tried to escape, the knife god caught and held him by the foot. Tezcatlipoca wrenched himself free, but left his foot behind. The severed foot was replaced by a smoking mirror that gave the god his name.

  Speaking Quail got out the book with Smoking Mirror’s image and showed Mixcatl how the god’s sandaled human foot projected beneath the pad and claws of the jaguar. There was no foot on the other leg. Instead the jaguar claws rested atop the disk that had smoke-gray curls emanating from its surface.

  She frowned. She had drawn him as a jaguar, not a human cloaked in a jaguar skin. To her he was still the jaguar that danced atop the smoking mirror.

  When she said that to Speaking Quail, he stopped and stroked his beardless chin.

  “Some of the scholars who have studied the most ancient records say that Smoking Mirror’s original name was Tepeyolotli, the divine jaguar called Heart-of-the-Mountain.”

  The name stirred something inside Mixcatl. She had heard it before, or something similar. Where? When?

  She realized that Speaking Quail’s form had fallen into shadow and Six-Wind had silently departed. Stiffly she uncurled and felt a yawn stretch her mouth. Evening had fallen, unheeded by either of them. Mixcatl was too caught up in listening and Speaking Quail in the telling.

  He stirred, as if waking from a trance. “Off to your room now,” he said, getting to his feet. “And don’t worry about tomorrow. It is in the hands of the one I’ve been telling you about, and I think that he smiles on you, child.”

  Mixcatl scurried to her room, curled up on her bed of rushes. She whispered “Heart-of-the-Mountain” to herself several times. Then slowly she drifted into sleep.

  Early the next morning. Six-Wind knelt by Mixcatl’s side and shook her shoulder.

  “Speaking Quail has asked for an assembly of the whole school
,” the boy said as Mixcatl blinked and sat up. “They are already together in the courtyard. Hurry!”

  She straightened her skirt, rumpled by sleep, and drew her mantle about her shoulders, for the morning was cold. The boy led her down the corridor and then out through the belled curtain.

  All the priests were waiting, arrayed in their black bodypaint and richly colored cloaks. Gold arm-and wristbands shimmered in the early sunlight. A few wore gold lip plugs or earlobe disks. The students huddled together in small groups of boys their own age. They fidgeted and laughed nervously, but soon fell quiet under a glower from one of the priests.

  Mixcatl looked anxiously for Speaking Quail and found him sitting apart from the others. He too was covered in black, his hair oily and tousled, his cheeks fiercely striped, but his face was somehow still gentle. And in one corner of the courtyard, surrounded by chests and lying upon cloaks even more magnificent than the ones the priests wore, was a bundle about the size of a man lying on his side with his legs drawn up. The bound and shrouded corpse of Cactus Eagle would also be a witness to whatever judgment was made here.

  Eyes fastened on Mixcatl as she came into the courtyard with Six-Wind. Their gazes held wonder, disbelief, grief, rage and hatred. Mixcatl knew she had been invisible to the priests and teachers at the school, just another one of the nameless workers and slaves that kept the school running. Now she had become visible, as if someone had turned over a rock and found something uniquely evil or wonderful underneath.

  Speaking Quail beckoned her to his side. She stood, fingers twined together, her eyes unfocused so that she stared out at the black and bronze faces without really seeing them. Wishing she could become a statue or a block of stone, she stood still while Speaking Quail told the priests and their students how the image of Smoking Mirror had come onto the hearth tile.