Jaguar Princess

by Clare Bell

  “I will have the manuscript brought,” he said, getting up from the table. “This has been a long but fruitful discussion. We will talk more tomorrow—I am tired.” Motioning his men after him. Wise Coyote left the chamber. On his way back to his own quarters, he got the old book out of the library and ordered a servant to take it to Mixcatl.

  On his sleeping mat that night. Wise Coyote struggled with sleeplessness. It was an old enemy of his, and lately had been plaguing him more. At last he sat up in the darkened room and wrapped his arms about his knees.

  Somehow he could not get Seven-Flower Mixcatl out of his mind. He remembered the sound of her voice and the look in her eyes as she had reluctantly admitted that she also did not trust the truthfulness of the Aztec records from the House of Scribes. There was something else, something that had rung a sympathetic chord in him but had passed away too rapidly. He knitted his brow and pressed his forehead against his knees. Then, her words did come back to him.

  I thought it was my own inability to accept what the books said.

  Her statement echoed words that he himself had said long ago, not once but many times, as he struggled between the demands of religion and conscience. Last night, had she revealed the signs of a similar inward battle, or had he misinterpreted what she had said? Had he heard only what he wanted to hear?

  At last he knew what drew him so strongly to Mixcatl. Not her exotic beauty or the strength in that tall powerful body. Not the titillation of danger remembered from seeing her half-transformed. Not even the frightening promise of seeing her reveal her true nature by taking the shape of the great cat.

  It was loneliness. Not solitude, but a wrenching loneliness that first came when he realized that the world about him had become a blood-spewing nightmare and that no one else was sickened by it. Everyone knelt willingly at the temple steps and lapped the red stream trickling down from the altar. And now he, like a reluctant animal, was having his nose forced into the redness and was being forced to drink.

  No one cried out. No one rebelled. Even the scholars of Texcoco, whose ideals had shaped his own, accepted it as fate. This is the way the world is, they said, and did not acknowledge his own cry that it did not have to be so. He had begun to wonder over the last year or so, who was really closer to madness—Ilhuicamina or himself.

  The most terrible feeling was that he was alone in his inability to bear the world’s horror. In blacker moments he wondered if he had perhaps been born into the wrong age. Perhaps the gods, in their cruelty, had taken a spirit destined for the golden light of Quetzalcoatl’s reign and thrown it into an abyss.

  Even those about whom he cared most deeply could never understand. The women he loved, the many sons he had sired, even the sensitive and sympathetic Huetzin, had all been too well shielded. For them, the pain was dulled, if they felt it at all. For him the pain was sharp and made keener by the inability to share it. Only in his poetry, and perhaps in design, did his desperation emerge.

  The thought that he might at last have found in this strange slave girl a spirit whose struggle was akin to his own made the path ahead seem bearable. Perhaps it was ironic that it took someone who was so distant from the rest of humanity to hear what the humanity in him pleaded for. Could one who was born from loins of the predator be sickened by the sanguineous frenzy growing in Tenochtitlan and threatening to engulf Texcoco?

  Or was this hope also an illusion? Perhaps she would kneel and lap with the best of them. Perhaps, in the end, so would he.

  Jaguar shapes haunted the king’s dreams that night. They prowled the halls of Tezcotzinco, brushing past his thighs as he walked among them. They turned shadowy heads and stared at him. One among them turned noiseless steps toward his chamber and beckoned with a wave of a ghostly tail.

  Dreambound, he could only follow.

  The powerful sinuous lines of the cat seemed to give way to the sleek curves of a woman, although he could not tell in the dream whether she had become one or the other. It did not matter whatever form she took, for she had ignited a powerful hunger in him. It drew him to where she lay on the sleeping mat, and when he lay down beside her, caressing and being caressed, he did not know if he stroked fur or silken skin. When his desire became heated and the urge to couple strong, he did not know whether hands or teeth ripped away the bindings of his loincloth. And when he buried himself in soft warm flesh, trembling both with dread and ecstasy, the soft sounds that came from her and built to a triumphant cry at his final thrust were both the moans of a woman and the echoing roar of the cat.

  He sat up in a cold sweat, the dream falling away like strands of an enfolding shroud. A clammy stickiness beneath his loincloth told him that his body had indeed responded to the illusion that the dream had created. At first he felt a surge of revulsion as he mopped himself up and put on a fresh loincloth. How had he become so degraded to fantasize coupling with a beast?

  Perhaps it was the lateness of the night that had stolen away his ability to reason and intensified his despair. He should just pull his cloak over himself once more and lie down on the mat. If Mixcatl is a child of the divine jaguar, then she is herself a goddess and my desire is not unnatural. The legends say that men united with jaguars to sire the first ancient kings.

  He felt himself relax as sleep approached and his thoughts began to wander. Perhaps it was time for the great cycle of change to renew itself. Perhaps he was the one chosen to bring about the rebirth of mighty people.

  If she is indeed the jaguar’s daughter, what a son I could breed by her! Texcoco would have an heir, a replacement for my murdered Prodigy, and more.

  Wise Coyote lost himself in a vision of a dynasty of jaguar-blooded Texcocan kings. What men such a blending of lineages might produce! The infusion of the jaguar strain into the noble Texcocan descendants of the Toltecs could create a people even greater than any who had previously arisen. Before such warriors, the Aztecs would wither and crumble and Hummingbird on the Left would have the cup of “precious water” struck away from his greedy lips.

  How well they would rule and how wisely, for they would have the heritage of their mother’s line combined with the gentleness and scholarship of their father’s.

  Then Wise Coyote remembered Mixcatl in the grip of her beginning transformation.

  Would I want any child of mine to have to endure that?

  He could create the dynasty he dreamed of and he could watch his progeny struggle with the threat of transformation. What had life been like for the original jaguar-blooded ones? Had they rejoiced in the freedom to run wild as beasts, or had they dreaded the change that seized them?

  Perhaps the reward would be great enough to overshadow the cost. Perhaps not.

  Wise Coyote knew that the timidity of the Deer had held him back too long. It had cost him his elder son and threatened to cost him his throne. He had to act. Begetting a new heir would not be enough; the boy, if the child was a son, would have no time to come of age. Indeed, he probably would not even have time to be born before the Aztecs took Texcoco.

  And there was also the question of legitimacy. If a son by Mixcatl were to be chosen as his heir, she would have to displace Ant Flower as his primary wife and queen. Such a thing could be done, but it would take time and care.

  If he displayed her ability to his own people and they accepted her as divine, then the change would be easy. Texcoco would be eager for its ruler to wed a goddess and acclaim her child as a demigod.

  As for the Aztecs, witnessing Mixcatl’s transformation would convince them of his alliance with a divine power. They would have no choice but to back off or risk divine wrath. The rise of a real goddess could shake Tenochtitlan down to its blood-soaked foundations!

  And perhaps the homage paid to one of their own kind would bring others of the Jaguar’s Children out of hiding. They might be useful allies if the Aztecs chose to be foolish.

  Wise Coyote was starting to smile sleepily to himself when another problem occurred to him.

  H
e had yet to see Mixcatl shed her human skin completely to take on animal shape. Could she really do it?

  14

  THE BRIGHTNESS OF morning helped to chase the lingering dream shadows from Wise Coyote’s mind. Yawning and stretching, he got up from his sleeping mat. He felt a bit foolish about his maunderings the night before. Despair and hope had gotten the best of him.

  Now, refreshed and strengthened by sleep, he could examine events with a more detached and scholarly attitude.

  As servants laid out his garments and brought his morning meal of amaranth cakes and chocolatl he thought about what he had learned about Mixcatl and decided that it was not enough. He might be better acquainted with her probable background and heritage than she was, but he knew little of her character.

  Well, he had given her the book by the outcast scholar who claimed that Obsidian Serpent had deliberately falsified Aztec records. Her reaction to that might give some insight.

  With that in mind, the king sent word by his servants that he wished to speak with Mixcatl. This time he would see her in an empty chamber adjacent to the scribes’ quarters. Nine-Lizard, working on the history, would not be in the room, but near enough to be summoned. Wise

  Coyote decided to have men discretely posted outside the room, but none inside.

  As a last precaution, he reluctantly tucked an obsidian-bladed dagger into the band of his loincloth and hid it beneath the folds of his shoulder-cloak. If the young woman should suffer a seizure and turn on him, he wanted protection. It was for her sake as well that he had assumed his own defense. If something did happen and guards were present, they might slay the girl in their haste. He, on the other hand, could wound to disable without killing.

  The meeting chamber was much the same as the scribes’ quarters, having a low table where manuscripts could be laid out and studied. Mixcatl was there waiting for him, the folded text underneath her arm and a serious look on her face. She also bore slight shadows under her eyes, making Wise Coyote wonder if her sleep had been as delayed or as restless as his.

  At his entrance, she greeted him in the formal way, but before she could stoop to touch her forehead to his sandaled feet, he raised her up. Touching her skin and inhaling the musky sweetness of her scent brought back the previous night’s dream with a rush. With difficulty, he let her hands go.

  As if she sensed his disquiet, she cast her gaze down, although he noticed that she glanced up every once in a while, as if measuring the effect her presence had. For an instant the king wondered if she would dare to entice him. The notion outraged his sense of propriety even as it tempted. A noble might proposition a slave, but he could not imagine the situation being reversed.

  Mixcatl broke the awkward moment by kneeling down with the book she carried and unfolding it on the table. “I am grateful that you showed me this, tlatoani.”

  “I am surprised at your gratitude. If I were you, I would find this text unsettling. Unless, of course, I did not accept it.”

  She flushed slightly, color deepening the bronze of her cheeks. He wondered if the cause was anger or embarrassment at being caught in a polite lie. She said, “I might not accept the author’s accusation if this text stood alone, but the other evidence supports him.” She paused and he could not help hearing a slight sigh in her words. “As you say, Obsidian Serpent must have burned the old books and replaced them with false texts.”

  “Does knowing this trouble you?”

  “I learned glyphs from copying the records in the House of Scribes. I know them well—they are old friends.” She shrugged. “If old friends prove false, I will make new ones. It is better to know now than later.”

  “And your faith?”

  “What beliefs I have, lord king, are not changed by this. The sacred books are written by men, not gods. Finding that the texts are false does not mean the gods have lied.”

  He found himself surprised and oddly pleased by her response.

  “You are telling me that your belief does not rest on a foundation so weak that it can be easily undercut,” he said.

  “No.” She eyed him. “Does yours?”

  The question was unexpected and caught him off balance. As a king speaking to a subject, he had the right to ignore Mixcatl’s inquiry, but somehow there was something about this woman that placed her outside established roles and beyond those boundaries.

  “I do not place my faith entirely in the gods,” he answered, and was relieved when she accepted that and did not ask him to explain further.

  She gathered up the text spread on the table, folded it and wrapped it with its cord. “I will return this to the library, tlatoani. I am finished with it.”

  “Wait,” he said. She halted, her eyes widening. He took the book from her hands and laid it back on the table.

  “The text is safe here. Take my arm. We will walk in the garden.”

  “I should resume work on the history,” she faltered.

  “Nine-Lizard is working on it. Come.” He offered her his elbow—the one opposite the side where the dagger was hidden in his loincloth. With a hesitant smile, she slid her arm through his.

  Together they left the room, going down the tiled hallways, down the bluestone steps and out into the garden.

  The trees and bushes were brilliant with flowers, some tiny and delicate, others large and lush. Bumblebees and butterflies flitted above them, through air made rich and hazy by their perfume. As he escorted Mixcatl along the flagstoned walkways, he showed her the plants that he was most proud of, for they had been brought long distances from their native lands and carefully tended so that they might thrive. Here stood a dark-leafed tree bearing aromatic red-brown beans. It had been brought from the far south, a range of hills beyond the borders of the Aztec Empire. There, shaded from harsh sunlight were tiny belled flowers mixed with buds of a glowing orange-gold. Those had been brought from the seacoast far to the west. And those orchids whose roots wove into the bark of a jungle tree had been carefully transported from the hot wet lands to the east.

  Wise Coyote watched his companion as she smiled at the flowers, inhaled their fragrance and often touched them gently. Though she was clearly enjoying the walk, she said little. Was she just shy, he wondered. What did she think of him? Did she look upon him as a savior? After all, he had given her refuge from the dangers in Tenochtitlan. Or did she fear him? Even a benevolent king still had the power of life or death over the subjects of his household if they displeased him.

  “Have you found life here pleasant?” he asked, at last.

  “Yes. Nine-Lizard and I spend the mornings working on the history. In the afternoon sometimes I go in the gardens near the house. I have never seen so many different flowers.” Then she added, with a little daring in her voice, “Someday I will paint them.”

  Wise Coyote glanced at her, puzzled. He didn’t understand. What did she mean by “painting”? Making glyphs for the flowers? As far as he knew, there were none, since signs for exotic flowers were not required for official documents.

  “My pictures are not glyphs,” said Mixcatl awkwardly and he sensed that she regretted bringing the subject up at all. Yet he was intrigued. The idea of making images that were not part of a document or map, of making lines on paper for the sake of beauty alone, was an idea that had occurred to him, but he had not yet dared to try it. If the girl was dabbling in untried arts, she might have even more to her than he suspected.

  “Will you show the pictures to me later?” he asked.

  “If you wish, tlatoani.” Her answer was guarded, as if she sensed that she was talking of things forbidden to most people. He decided not to push her. He would learn more later.

  He noticed that, as Mixcatl walked, she sniffed the air and her brows came together. It was not the expression of someone just enjoying the aroma of the gardens. He tested the air, but could find nothing.

  “Is some ill scent spoiling the fragrance?” he asked affably.

  “No, tlatoani. It is the absence of a scent that
puzzles me.”

  “What do you find missing? A creeping vine of your homeland, perhaps?”

  She demurred, saying that it did not matter/but when he pressed her she said, “I noticed that when you met Nine-lizard and me, you had guards in the room and outside in the hallway. This morning, when you met me, you brought no guards into the room, but seven armed men stayed in rooms nearby. That is something I expected to find in your royal household,” she added hastily. “Here in the garden, there are no men in hiding. That is what I find puzzling.”

  Wise Coyote felt intrigued, with a tiny warning edge of alarm. How did she know how many warriors he had hidden near the chamber? His household guards were well trained in stealth and moved without making any sound. And even more puzzling, how could she know that hidden watchers were absent from the garden?

  “My nose, tlatoani, can do far more than detect the authenticity of a sacred text. I caught the odor of your men. Each is different, so I could tell how many there were.”

  The king was frankly skeptical that a sense of smell could be so acute. Her pride evidently stung despite her deference to his royal status, Mixcatl suggested that he give her a challenge to prove her claim.

  “What does my own smell reveal?” Wise Coyote asked.

  “You slept badly, you ate amaranth for breakfast and…” She halted, as if her next pronouncement might be too bold.

  “What else?” he prompted.

  “You are carrying a weapon with an oiled wooden handle.”

  Slowly Wise Coyote’s hand touched the haft of his dagger. It had been carefully treated with pumpkin-seed oil to prevent splitting, but the smell had long since dissipated. At least to his nose.

  “Can you scent the very depths of a man’s soul?” he asked, showing her the weapon and trying not to show that he was shaken. She paled as if she feared she had been too bold with him. “Where do you come by this strange gift?”

  “I do not know. It is part of me in the same way that my glyph-painting, peeling sickness and strange fits are a part of me.” She hesitated. “Is that why you carried the dagger? For fear I would fall into a fit? You are right to do so, for I know I have tried to hurt others when the strangeness seizes me.”