by Zoe Saadia
Gasping for air, he scrambled onto his feet, charging ahead and toward the dais, hearing the shouts, glimpsing nothing but the dark spark of obsidian behind his back, pointed at him, its message clear. No more simple shoving away, not for him. Still, he dove into the well-to-do crowds, his previous vantage point, afraid of the people who were after him more than of the guarding spearmen. The warriors wanted him away; the other ones wanted him dead!
The murmur around went up, but it was the thin palm clutching his arm that made his berserk progress slow down. Small and surprisingly cold, it signaled no danger; still, his heart tripled its racing.
“Over here! Quick!”
As in a dream, he stared at the slightly familiar face, all bones and sharp angles, strangely defined, like a stone mask carved with very bold lines, adorned with a wide mouth and a pair of large, well-spaced eyes, their edges slanting sharply, again too decisively. Those peered at him with a measure of urgency, not reassuring but not threatening either. Just insistent, displeased with his slowness.
Come, she motioned again, her head tilting pointedly, eyes urging, hand tugging at his arm with more spirit. Dazed, he hesitated, then let her pull him into a small opening, maneuver their way along the wavering lake of people, diving under the stone of the podium’s base, sneaking alongside it with the nimbleness of a tiny lizard, slender and sure of her step. In another few steps, the brilliance of the sunlight disappeared, replaced by the dimness of twilight and a slightly damp smell. Blinking, he tried to look around, but she kept pulling him on, along the unpolished stones and toward what looked like the next source of light streaming in through a rectangular opening, a crudely made hole.
“Here!”
Releasing his arm, she turned around, eyeing him with an open satisfaction, beaming now. He stared back at her, numb.
“They won’t find you here,” she went on, not taken aback by his lack of response, as it seemed. Her voice was husky and not unpleasant to the ear.
The roaring of the crowds just outside their stony protection soared.
“I suppose the statue finally went to pieces,” she commented, leaning to look out through the dented opening. “At long last. I thought that their rain of missiles would overturn it right away.” Her mouth twisted into the semblance of an inverted grin. “You should have seen it. It was quite a show. One doesn’t see something like that ever. Unless on a battlefield, I suppose.” Her slender shoulders lifted in a shrug. Even though covered by an intricately decorated blouse and a collar made out of interlaced beads and turquoise, it was easy to guess that her shoulders were as bony as her face was. The slenderness of her arms, covered up to their elbows, told him that, their bracelets looking too heavy, out of place.
“Why were you running like a mad turkey instead of watching the slingers?” she asked, peeking out again, not perturbed by his lack of response in the least. “Were you trying to get away from that man who was holding you back in the beginning? I thought it was strange that he held you like that, even before that whimpering spoiled crybaby princess started making faces at you.” Her eyes sparkled proudly. “I noticed you before she began staring at you. Before my father too. I knew there was something wrong with you. What is it?” The flow of words stopped momentarily, arrested by a returned frown. Not a grim frown but a thoughtful one. The strangely tilted eyes were appraising him inquisitively, reflecting an obvious thought process. “Tell me what that man wanted from you, and what the crybaby whiner did?”
He blinked, overwhelmed by so many demands in one outburst of a rapid speech. “Who is the crybaby whiner?”
Her beam was back. “That fat fowl, the Emperor’s former Chief Wife. Tenochtitlan moaner.”
“Your emperor?” he asked blankly. “That man who spoke from the dais? Moqui-something?”
Her frown returned as suddenly as it disappeared. “Yes, Moquihuixtli. Our lawful ruler. Don’t you know who he is?” Now her eyes were mere slits, taking some of her strangeness away, disappointingly so.
He wanted to curse himself for opening his mouth at the first place. Who was this girl? What did she want from him?
The crowds were calming down, their ear splitting thundering receding. He wished to peek out but didn’t dare to move past her in case she got scared and started to scream or something; or maybe ask him many more questions. It was so calm in their extraordinary hideaway, an island of tranquility.
“It’s only temporary,” she volunteered as though reading his thoughts, leaning toward the opening once again, her turquoise necklace ringing, weighing on her slender neck. “They’ll be getting excited once again soon.”
“What were they screaming about?” he asked, curious against his will.
“Before now?” She made a face. “I told you already. They put up this huge stone statue, in the form of a man. A tall and a broad fellow, I must say.” She snickered. “It held a pretty shield and an obsidian sword of a size one doesn’t see around often.” Another smirk. “Like a truly huge thing, with twenty blades on each side. I counted them!” The unreserved wideness of her grin was contagious. He couldn’t help but chuckle himself. “Our Revered Moquihuixtli must have paid so much for that statue. It was made out of stone, you see. Not a simple wooden carving or something.”
“And what did he do with it?” he prompted when she began frowning again, as though calculating the possible cost of such undertaking.
“Oh, he invited all those warriors, the ones you must have seen out there even though you were too busy with your silly running around to pay attention.” The pronounced reproach in her words made him wish to snicker as well. But she was something else, this girl, a thing out of storytellers’ tales. “Anyway, their first test was to take that statue down, make it fall, or maybe even break it. They were to shoot their slings and not to miss one single throw.” Her dancing eyebrows related what she thought of such an ambitious undertaking. Nothing good. “The one who shot the best was to be rewarded by the Emperor himself and with great pomp.”
He remembered the words of the orating ruler. “So he is rewarding someone right now?”
Her shrug was brief, disinterested. “I suppose. But for you, I would have known that.”
“You… you helped me out there. I’m grateful. Very much so.” He hesitated, not knowing what to say. “I will repay you, somehow.”
She grinned with one side of her mouth. “That would be nice.” Then the smile widened, evened out. “You can repay me now. Tell me what your story is. Why were you running all over as though all the worst spirits of the Underworld were after you?”
“It’s a long story,” he said, feeling surprisingly at ease, not threatened or even troubled for a moment. But it was good to be here in this hideaway, to relax for a little while, not to think of all the terrible things, from the games of Tenochtitlan or Tlatelolco nobility to the kidnappers who were after him to the troubles that awaited him back in the workshop. His mood began to plummet once again. “What are they going to do now, these people out there on the plaza?” he asked, thinking about his possibilities. “Go home?”
She made a face at him, opening her huge eyes too widely, her eyebrows arching in different ways. A funny mask. “You wish!” Her thin arms flew up, outlining wild pictures. “I told you it was just the beginning. Now as we speak, or so I’d say, they are cleaning the pieces of the stone statue, rewarding the best shooters and all that.” Pursing her lips, she fell silent, leaning toward the opening once again, the image of attentive listening, an exaggerated one. “Yes,” she confirmed, nodding in confirmation to her own words. “He is speaking now. Can’t you hear? Rewarding the winner or winners, I bet.”
“And then?” he prompted. “What will he do afterwards?”
“Oh, then they’ll put up a wooden statue to replace the stone one. And they’ll make the other young warriors, those who brought along spears and bows and atlatls, to show their skills, against a wooden enemy this time. But it’ll be as huge and as heavily armed, I can promise you
that. To represent all sorts of enemies, you know.” Her grin again turned uneven, one corner of her mouth climbing up, the other down. “Like presumptuous Tenochtitlan brutes, eh?”
“Tenochtitlan?” he asked, frowning. “But your islands are not at war!”
Her eyebrows lifted high again. “Maybe not now, but that may change. They do presume to tell us what to do. All the time they do that. And they are violating our rights, and sometimes even our citizens. Think about it.” One of the narrow palms came up, extending a long slender finger. “They violated those girls on the marketplace not so long ago. Then, only a market interval later, they filled up our canal one night.” Another finger thrust forward. “And they have been full of all sorts of demands, all because our ruler put that fat whiny fowl aside, preferring my sister in her stead.” She nodded sagely. “And my sister is so much prettier than the complaining turkey, so much more fitting to be the Emperor’s Chief Wife.”
His head reeled from so much information, delivered again in a breathless rush. But what was she talking about, this strange, curiously chatty girl?
“Also, our city is not a tributary of Tenochtitlan. They can’t lord it over us as though we were nothing but a tiny village. They can’t tell us what to do!”
He watched her eyebrows knitting, creating a single line below her high forehead, her expressions changing as rapidly as her spilling words, too rapid to follow.
“Will you slow down?” he asked when she paused for a heartbeat, probably in order to draw a quick breath. If she dove under water, she would be able to stay there for a long time, he decided, longer than many boys he knew. It would be funny to see her taking part in such a competition. Would she stay down after everyone surfaced, defeating them all with her ability not to breath for a long time? “Tell me how to get away from this plaza without drawing all these thousands of warriors’ and onlookers’ attention. There must be a way to do that.”
She wrinkled her nose, contemplating him thoughtfully. “After they’ll be heading out there, to the lake shores, to watch the rest of the competition. I suppose then you’ll be able to sneak away easily.” Her eyes lit again. “The last part of the competition will be the most thrilling. The slingers will be at it again, but not assaulting a helpless statue this time.” Her gaze was boring at him, glowing with excitement. “They will be shooting waterfowl in flight. Imagine that. Hundreds of missiles flying all over, hitting those birds! No one will be allowed upon these shores, naturally, no one but the commoners who will be spooking the birds from the reeds. Imagine that!”
He didn’t bother with any of it, perturbed. “Won’t it be possible to sneak away before that?”
Her glow dimmed. “Wouldn’t you want to see it, this huge hunt and all? It won’t be something you’ll see every day, you know.” Even the bracelets adorning her thin arms seemed to lose some of their spark along with the rest of her, so unduly disappointed.
“Yes, it would be nice to see it, yes,” he muttered, curiously unsettled, wishing to see her return to her previous enthusiastic state. “But I don’t think I –”
“It won’t take them long to get over with this other statue,” she pleaded, her eyes clinging to him, full of anticipation. “They took that stone statue down quickly enough. The sun has not even reached its zenith and it began when it was already high enough.”
“Oh well, yes.” He felt as though a whole day had passed since being dragged to this plaza, pushed at the base of the dais, forced to wait for all eternity, until the warriors and the nobility and the onlookers filled every corner of the spacious square. And then the fight, and the flight, and these people probably killing his abductor, but for what purpose? Were they connected to the scary man from the imperial dais? After all, his people were the ones to kidnap him in the first place for sniffing around their tunnel filled with weaponry. Why weaponry? Was all this connected to the warlike intentions of those same Tlatelolcans the girl was talking about?
Oh mighty deities, but it might be just that! And the imperial sister from the Tenochtitlan royal house, a fat whiny fowl, according to this girl, having one of the kidnappers to snatch him from the original ones, eager to have him deliver messages to her little brother back in Tenochtitlan, repeating what the ruler of this other island had said, or what he made his warriors do. But after this girl’s words, it was clearer what the haughty noblewoman wanted. A fat whiny fowl? He snickered against his will. She was complaining aplenty, indeed, that spoiled royal princess, but her beauty was not something one would doubt or argue against.
“Don’t you want to see them taking the wooden statue down with their spears?” the girl was pressing, all expectancy now, her eyes open wide again. “I don’t want to miss them, and they might start doing it any moment. Hear the crowds?”
Indeed, the commotion outside was growing again. He dared to near the opening, rewarded with nothing but a view of brightly decorated cloaks and densely packed backs.
“You go back there,” he told her helplessly. “Just don’t tell anyone about me being here. Will you? Please?”
She frowned once again, pondering. “Yes, I can’t bring you up there and into our dais, I suppose. Too many prettily plucked eyebrows would go up in indignant surprise. Not to mention my father. He will be the most indignant of them all.” One of her own eyebrows was climbing up fast. “Why was he looking at you, do you know? And why were you staring at him the way you did?”
“I was staring?” he repeated, baffled. “At whom?”
“My father. You were staring at him. Plenty of times. And you looked frightened too. Really terrified.”
He felt the air escaping his lungs all at once. “Your father is not… not the man… the one from the… the…” For the life of him, he could not finish that phrase.
“The one from… where?” She was eyeing him, openly amused, as though pleased with making him frightened again. “My father is the Emperor’s Head Adviser, Revered Teconal. You know, the man closest to the Emperor, the father of the Emperor’s Chief Wife.” She rethought her words, then snickered. “Which isn’t me, obviously. My sister is dreadfully pretty, and she is well educated and the best mannered girl in the entire world. Much better mannered and educated than the fat Tenochtitlan’s fowl. My sister draws beautiful pictures and she can draw plenty of glyphs and she weaves beautifully too. She is so accomplished!”
He didn’t listen. Teconal? The man from the warehouse, the name the princess and the nobleman from the shed used with so much loathing and resentment. Oh mighty gods! He fought the urge to turn around and run.
“We can try to peek from under this podium if we go up a little, try to see from under the dais,” she was musing, unaware of his agitation or indifferent to it. “Wouldn’t you want to look from there? It’s high enough and we could see nicely far.”
“I need to get out of here,” he mumbled, eyeing the corridor they had slipped through while coming here in the first place. If he chanced going out the way they had come, would he manage to do so without drawing attention, mostly that of his pursuers? Were they still prowling out there, looking for him?
“Well, you can’t.” Her lips pursed again with decisive practicality. “So why not make the most out of it while you are waiting for your chance to get away? It would be most sensible, wouldn’t it? You can help me up there and climb after me.” Narrowing her eyes, she measured him with a businesslike gaze. “Yes, you look strong and able, like commoners do. Are you a commoner?”
He shrugged, still too perturbed to feel angered or offended. After the calmecac boys, he knew well enough what the word ‘commoner’ meant. Nothing complimentary. And a fitting description too. Even Patli was considered a commoner by those snotty noble boys’ judgment.
“Come, we’ll do it quickly,” she went on, imploring. “It won’t be difficult and we’ll keep so quiet no one will ever notice. Come!” Catching his hand once again, she pulled, her smile urging, curiously appealing in its mischievous pleading, difficult to resist. �
��Come! I promise nothing will happen to you. Please! And then, when they are done killing that other wooden enemy of theirs, when they’ll be still busy rewarding warriors or making speeches, I’ll show you the best way to escape this plaza. It’ll be the easiest thing, I promise you!”
Chapter 16
“You all wait here while I go and sniff around and get help.”
Shutting her eyes against the fierce glow of the strong midmorning sun, Chantli tried to make her headache go away. It was daunting, those clubs pounding inside her skull, trying to squash it and make her eyes wish to pop out of their sockets. It felt as though they had popped out already.
Pressing her palms to her face in a helpless attempt to ease the pain, she glanced at her companions from between her fingers, too spent to participate in their disagreements. It was just too much, all of it. Their adventures, or rather misadventures, back in the temple and the tunnel, and under the causeway, none of which came even close to the dread of the open lake. Oh, but what a horrifying experience it was! Even now, in the softness of the high morning sun, she still couldn’t bring herself to think about it without her back breaking out in a bout of cold sweat, the ghastly sliminess of the overturned boat and its suffocating dampness as she had flung around, trying to break from its clutches, finding no way out, crazed with fear, the dreadfulness of the water everywhere, so cruel and eager to swallow her, the darkness so hopeless, closing indifferently, as though they had all already been dead.
After Necalli had dragged her out and away from the trap that apparently was their overturned boat – she had been too terrified to realize that before, the problem and the easiness of the solution, she who could swim like a fish – it became better, of course, with the mere possibility to breathe freely. Clinging to the overturned vessel helped, but Patli kept slipping off of it, murmuring something incoherent every time he was pulled back by either of the calmecac boys, themselves as battered and spent but still acting like heroes, like true warriors, true men.