Jaguar Princess

by Clare Bell

  A hand drew the doorhanging aside, making Wise Coyote turn his head sharply. At the sight of Ilhuicamina, his throat tightened. He dropped his gaze, following the custom that no one, even the highest nobles, could look Ilhuicamina in the face while at court. At first he thought that the Aztec had come to upbraid him for not joining the feast, but the pensive expression on Ilhuicamina’s face told him otherwise.

  “Look up, look up,” the Aztec ruler said impatiently. “That custom I keep only for those who would otherwise use me to gain their desires. You I count as exempt. Will you accept the company of your old friend?” Ilhuicamina asked, seating himself on the mat beside Wise Coyote. “Here. I have brought two cups of chocolatl.”

  Wise Coyote inhaled the steamy bitter aroma of cacao frothed with vanilla. He sipped, marveling at the fact that Ilhuicamina had served him with his own two hands.

  “I see you have wearied of the feast.” Ilhuicamina arranged his cloak about him and crossed his legs. He had put aside the ceremonial garb and plumes of the morning, though he still wore gold arm-and wristbands, ear and lip plugs. “I too am beginning to find it oppressive. The laughter is too loud, the jests too stale.”

  And the meat might not be to your taste tonight. Wise Coyote thought, knowing that roasted flesh from the thighs of sacrificial victims was probably among the dishes being served in the banquet hall.

  “Perhaps you are thinking too hard about other things to enjoy the feast,” Wise Coyote said cautiously. “If you wish to share your worries, I will listen.”

  A smile widened the impassive planes of the Aztec’s face. “What a prize I have in the prince of Texcoco!” he exclaimed. “Not only are you wise in the ways of the world, but also in the things that trouble my heart. Yet you are younger than I. How did a stripling gain so much wisdom?”

  By living through great trouble. By carrying my father’s body to his pyre with my own hands and setting it alight. By living as a fugitive in the hills for most of my life. Wise Coyote thought.

  He gave no indication that he recognized Ilhuicamina’s words as the false flattery they were. “I do not know where my wisdom comes from,” he said smoothly. “Take it as a gift from the gods and unburden yourself.”

  Ilhuicamina fell silent for a while, staring at the murky surface of his cup of chocolatl. “Do you know,” he said, “I remember the faces of the blessed ones I sacrificed today. I have never had a good memory for faces, yet those are etched in my memory as if they were my sons.” He swirled his drink and Wise Coyote noticed the deep shadows under his eyes.

  He cannot sleep. That is why he comes to me.

  “The priests of Left-Handed Hummingbird keep saying that the victims should die in ecstacy, but ever since I have wielded the altar knife, I have seen only grimaces of fear that would dishearten the most resolute of men. Of course I am more determined than most, since I always kill them without hesitation, but the victims today seemed more reluctant.” Ilhuicamina tipped up his cup, drinking in great swallows.

  “Is it possible that these captives were not previously informed of the reason for their deaths?” Wise Coyote asked. “After all, they were Tlaxcalan and do not speak our dialect.”

  “By the green hair of Tlaloc, I never thought of that.” Ilhuicamina raised his eyebrows. “That must be the reason, of course. I shall order the priests to have interpreters available for the captives of any nation so that they will know they are dying gloriously to feed Hummingbird on the Left.”

  I wonder how many will take comfort in knowing, thought Wise Coyote. He too had the images of faces engraved in his memory and the echoes of screams still resounded in his ears.

  He looked at the lines about Ilhuicamina’s mouth, the hard planes of the cheeks, slicked with sweat although the night was cool.

  “What else troubles you, my friend?”

  Ilhuicamina’s eyes, when he lifted his gaze, were haunted. “Do you think I gave Hummingbird enough sacrifices?”

  Wise Coyote had to clench his teeth together to keep from retching. Enough! He remembered the river of victims that had wound through the plaza and into the city, the killing that had gone on until late in the evening, the heavy odor of blood that still fouled the air of the city. Enough I

  “I think you have been most generous,” he managed to say, and hated himself for it.

  “I could get more,” said Ilhuicamina, in the tones of a small child trying to please his teacher. Then he struck his fist on the matting. “I vowed that Hummingbird on the Left would never have reason to turn from us again. My predecessors were mangy curs. Their stinginess cursed us with the years of want.”

  Wise Coyote drew a deep breath. If he confined his answers to mindless agreement, he would help bring about a future where the temple steps would be washed with blood day after day. If, on the other hand, he used friendship and influence to reason with his fellow ruler, he might be able to turn Ilhuicamina aside from such a course. But he would have to use the utmost tact and delicacy.

  “My brother king,” he said. “You have praised me, but you yourself are a man of great learning and wisdom. You have surrounded yourself with scholars who study the stars, the weather, and all other happenings in this world.”

  He saw that he had made a good opening. The Aztec ruler sat up straighter and expanded his chest.

  “Use of that wisdom in explaining the world can exist side by side with reverence,” Wise Coyote continued. “In fact, it complements devoutness. Any simpleminded fool can worship without understanding, but when an educated man understands and still worships, then that is a rare gift and the gods value it greatly.”

  “Yes, that is true,” said Ilhuicamina, nodding with his chin on his hand.

  “We can use wisdom to explore the nature of the gods as seen by our ancestors, who wrote the sacred texts. Those men recognized that the giving of life to the gods was the most sacred act they could perform. As befits a unique gift, they reserved the ‘precious water’ for the most special and auspicious occasions.”

  Ilhuicamina interrupted, “Did the gods not consider our ancestors to be mean and niggardly in their offerings? Were those rulers and their people not punished?”

  “No,” answered Wise Coyote. “The texts say nothing of divine displeasure. Crops were fruitful; people flourished. There were offerings of animals, fruits or flowers. The few victims who gave their lives each year were more than enough.”

  “Are you suggesting that I return to those ways?” The Aztec’s brow wrinkled beneath the band of his royal blue coronet. Wise Coyote plunged on, feeling a coldness on the skin of his chest, as if an obsidian sword blade were touching him there.

  “I am only saying that Hummingbird’s thirst may not be as great as you assume,” Wise Coyote said earnestly.

  “The priests tell me that he is always thirsty. He has always been thirsty. The drought came because he was left unsatisfied.”

  I have learned that priests tell you what will benefit them, not their god. Wise Coyote left the thought unspoken. Instead he said, “If that is true, how then did our ancestors flourish, grow their crops and build cities?”

  “Are you sure that they went unpunished?” Ilhuicamina asked.

  “I will show you the sacred texts and you can read the truth for yourself.”

  “Perhaps the gods become thirstier as they age,” Ilhuicamina grumbled to himself, but Wise Coyote could see that he did not accept his own argument.

  He pressed on. “Would it not relieve your heart to discover that Hummingbird is not so demanding as you fear? That he does not really need the blood of the many that you have generously given and he is not angry because you cannot give more?”

  There. He had said it. If Ilhuicamina were to condemn him for heresy, it would be now. Perhaps his position as creator of the aqueduct that Tenochtitlan so badly needed would save him from the Aztec’s capricious wrath.

  For an instant the Aztec king looked at him doubtfully, but then a look of wonder came across Ilhuicamina’
s face, making his expression as radiant as a child’s. “The god has not been angry with us? Oh, how wonderful it would be if that were really true. Then I could sleep and not feel so afraid.”

  “Why can’t it be true?” asked Wise Coyote gently, putting a hand on his friend’s shoulder, yet inside he had to fight to overcome feelings of outrage and anger. He knew he would have little sleep tonight after having witnessed a river of people meet their deaths on the temple steps. Why should Ilhuicamina expect an untroubled sleep?

  “Why can’t it be true?” the Aztec whispered, staring ahead at nothing. “Oh, to be freed from this burden. A part of me sickens of endless war and temple-building, although I would have no one know it but you.”

  “Listen to the part of your heart that speaks so.” Wise Coyote chose his words with care, praying that he had at last found a way to reach his friend. He sensed that Ilhuicamina was standing on the threshold of a new turn in his life, a new freedom and joy for himself and perhaps for his people.

  And then something mean and petty, born of long-held grief, rose up in Wise Coyote.

  Why should he know happiness? He killed my son!

  The words that might have helped Ilhuicamina cross the threshold, throw off the bonds of fear that bound him to his god, remained unspoken. There was only silence between the two men. Wise Coyote saw the moment of enlightenment slip away, then the doors of fear slammed shut again, locking Ilhuicamina’s soul behind them.

  “No. I dare not even dream of the possibility. I must keep Hummingbird on the Left sated or all will crumble. I must root out any weakness that keeps me from that duty. Do not tempt me, old friend. Tenochtitlan cannot become another scholar’s paradise like your Texcoco.”

  Wise Coyote tried again, using other lines of reasoning. He spoke of the original reason for human sacrifice. Its power came from its gravity and rarity, he said. To pile bodies before the altar like sticks of cordwood only cheapened the value of such offerings. Like any man overfed on sumptuous dishes, the god’s palate would surely grow jaded.

  He also pointed out that the grotesque flaying rites of Xipe Totec were not part of the original Toltec or Aztec religions at all, but were imported from the savage Zapotecs of the south.

  It made no difference to Ilhuicamina. Wise Coyote heard his own voice grow hollow in his ears. All the wisdom and reason in the world could not sway a man driven by consuming dread of the divinities he was forced to serve.

  Perhaps the Aztecs had come too far on the path of blood and fire to turn from it now. The subject peoples and even the states of the Triple Alliance seethed with resentment against the Aztecs. Ilhuicamina spoke the truth, bitter as it was. If he halted the wars of conquest and the taking of sacrificial victims, the entire Aztec edifice might well crumble or Ilhuicamina would be overthrown by the powerful priesthood and the warrior class.

  Yet Wise Coyote was haunted by the feeling that if he had found the right words, Ilhuicamina could have found the right ways. The greatest restraint on the Aztec was not the threat from priests or warriors but his own gut-consuming dread of the god he had been raised to serve.

  He found Ilhuicamina eyeing him narrowly and wondered if the Aztec resented him for waving such an impossible temptation or despised him for his weakness in not being able to tolerate this new version of sacrifice on such a mass scale.

  And today’s slaughter, Wise Coyote thought in despair, is only the beginning.

  “I will leave you now,” said Ilhuicamina, draining his cup. “Your words and a draught of octli will help me sleep.” He rose, bid Wise Coyote good evening, then disappeared through the doorhanging.

  The king of Texcoco stared numbly at the tapestry, still swinging from Ilhuicamina’s passage.

  If I had truly cared, if I had spoken to him out of the fullness of my heart, I might have eased his terror so that his wisdom could come forth. Wise Coyote thought. Instead I let myself become distracted by hate. I wanted him to suffer and bleed, like the victims he has slain. Like my son. Oh gods, it was such a little weakness, yet such a great one!

  With a sigh, he lay down upon his mat. As drowsiness numbed his mind, he wondered how long the Aztec state would be able to sustain Ilhuicamina’s increasing demand for victims.

  Remember, thought Wise Coyote, recalling the blood-splashed image of Hummingbird on the Left and addressing it directly in his thoughts. You took two pairs of sandals when you left home as a young warrior. One to stride forth in victory, the other to return in defeat. You are wearing the first pair now, but the time will come when you must change to the second.

  9

  THE WARMTH OF the morning sun tempted Mixcatl to leave her quarters in the House of Scribes and go down into the courtyard. She decided not to.

  The throat-choking odor of burned blood hung like a shroud over the city. To the other scribes and apprentices, the stink was disturbing and annoying. To Mixcatl, with her acute sense of smell, the odor was a torment.

  The first day of the ceremony, she stood with the other apprentices, who craned their heads out of the large upper window of the House of Scribes, watching the crowds that filled the streets, and the line of victims that marched up Hummingbird’s pyramid to the altar at the top. The House, though within the walls of the temple precinct, was distant enough from the pyramid so that the young apprentices could not see the details of slaughter. They had to make do with imagination, but for Mixcatl, the black plume rising like smoke from a volcano spoke not only of endless death but of terror so intense as to bring on madness.

  She could not stay among the other slaves at the window, but fled to an inner room, her hands over her nose, her body shaking so badly that she staggered. Sick and sweating, she fell onto a pallet, buried her nose in the reedy smell of matting and tried to gain control of herself. She raged at the strangeness within her that she knew was at the root of the attack, the same strangeness that had made her draw a dancing jaguar on a soot-blackened tile in the calmecac and had made a spotted pelt in the marketplace come to life and wound its buyer.

  And now it had betrayed her by making her feel panicked and nauseated by the smell of mass offerings. She had fought long and hard to push away all the revulsion she had felt for this aspect of the religion, and finally, she felt, she had won. She believed what Speaking Quail had taught her. Sacrifice preserved the world from the disaster that threatened to fall upon it at any moment. Nothing was born, nothing endured, without the gift of the ‘precious water’ from the human breast.

  Yet she, because of the strangeness within her, could not bear the way that the world had to be. At that realization, she despaired and wept, soaking the matting through with tears. How could she continue in the House of Scribes now that all the apprentices knew her weakness? How would Speaking Quail react when he discovered her failure?

  The soft sound of a door flap opening made Mixcatl cower. Surely a report of her behavior had reached the Master of Scribes. Now he was coming to upbraid her, to demand that she be dragged to the marketplace and unceremoniously sold.

  Unable to bear the tension of not knowing who had entered, she lifted her tear-slick face from her hands. Her eyes widened. It was not the Master of Scribes at all, but her tutor and gadfly, Nine-Lizard Iguana Tongue.

  At the sight of him, she felt both relief and dismay. Since their first encounter after his arrival, she had met the challenge that he offered, struggling to bring her drawings up to his standards. As he predicted, sharp words had often been exchanged between them. After her initial frustration, Mixcatl had begun to feel the exhilaration of having her ability stretched and worked by a teacher worthy of her best effort.

  “I saw you go flying past my chamber, Seven-Flower, and I thought I’d better see what was happening,” said Nine-Lizard as he let the door flap drop behind him. “What is all this about, hey?”

  Mixcatl was strongly tempted to tell him to take his iguana’s neck and tongue somewhere else, but she caught a fresh wave of the burned-blood scent on the air that Ni
ne-Lizard had let into the room. Queasiness and despair overwhelmed her once again.

  In the midst of her retching sobs, she felt a cool dry hand touch her arm. An open deerskin bag was put into her hand and guided to her face. She inhaled the aromas of spicy herbs and mountain flowers, finding that it helped to banish both sickness and terror.

  She breathed gratefully, trying to keep her tears from falling on the brushed deerskin and making stains. Then, as the worst of the feeling dissipated, she found that she could hold the open bag beneath her chin so that she could speak while still inhaling the perfume of its contents.

  “I do not know what is the matter with me,” she said at last. “I was standing at the window, watching the ceremony, although I could not really see it since the pyramid is too far away. When the smell came, it filled up my mind with horrible things. I did not even think. I just ran away.”

  With fear starting to thin her voice, she said, “Everybody saw me. They will all think I hate the ceremony. I tried hard with Speaking Quail. I believe what he taught me, I really do. But when the Master of Scribes hears what I did, I will be thrown out.”

  “I do not think so,” said Nine-Lizard gently.

  “But I am a troublemaker. I lose my temper and call you names. I try to paint differently than I should. And when the priests do good things, like burning hearts to keep the sun in the sky, I run away from the smell.”

  She faltered, for at the phrase “good things,” Nine-lizard had let a grimace cross his face.

  “Oooh,” she breathed. “You do not like it either!”

  The old scribe looked a little discomfited, as if he had not meant to reveal his feelings. He looked away.

  “I saw your face,” said Mixcatl.

  Gruffly, Nine-lizard replied, “All right. It is true. It is not just the smell I dislike. I find these events excessively bloody. That is why I spent the day in my quarters instead of down in the plaza with the other scribes.”