Mercy had come to almost like the tatich, but the tata nohoch zul continued to fill her with dread. Uneasily, she followed him as he detoured around the plaza, evidently wishing to see the approaching party before the official meeting.
Cruzob soldiers were massing in the plaza and the thirty-man band began to play vigorously. Down the street from the outskirts of the village came a woman, moving with regal grace, surrounded by a military escort, carrying something red in her arms. Beside her strode a stocky Maya who reminded Mercy of a scarred tree, but she only glanced at him a second before, startled, her gaze shot back to the woman.
That proud head, slanting yellow eyes, full, flower mouth, that bell-like laughter trilling as she spoke to the eagle-visaged chief! How could it be? Yet, undeniably, terrifyingly, it was.
Xia!
21
As the procession moved toward the plaza, saluted at each cross street by a sentry presenting arms, Mercy stood as if dazed. The fierce-looking soldier must be Crescencio Poot. What offer could Xia make that would occasion this state visit and great ceremony? It must go beyond seeking an alliance with Chan Santa Cruz. Mercy had a frightening conviction that Xia’s plan was dangerous to Zarie, or at least to La Quinta.
And what if Xia saw her! Mercy’s stomach knotted and it was hard to breathe. When Xia learned the woman she’d betrayed into Eric’s grasp had escaped him, she’d probably make sure that Mercy never returned to La Quinta.
With Dionisio gone, Mercy’s only protection was her importance to the tatich. She had to hope that would be enough.
“Come, woman,” snarled the spy, giving her a push after the escort.
“I … I’m sick. Please excuse me.”
He gave her wrist a painful jerk. “Not so anxious after all to meet Crescencio Poot? Hurry up! The tatich wishes you to observe. You’ll do so if I have to drag or carry you!”
There was no help for it. Her only hope was to avoid detection. She was wearing a scarf over her hair. As she unwillingly kept pace with the spy, she untied the cloth and draped it as concealingly as possible around her head and shoulders. If she kept her eyes cast down and her face shielded, perhaps she could escape Xia’s attention.
Reaching the plaza with her guard, Xia was being presented to the tatich by the general. She sank on her knees with smooth fluidity, kissing the Cruzob leader’s hand.
“A miracle has come among my people,” she told him in a clear, ringing voice. “I bring a sign and a message, Great Father, for la santísima, the Talking Cross.” Unwrapping red silk from the object in her arms, she lifted high a branch with pale green compound leaves. “The Heart of Heaven has sent new strength and vigor to his Mayan children! He has sent us Pacal, priest-king at the flowering time of the Mayas.” She handed the copal branch to the tatich. “When Pacal appeared among us, this dead branch burst into leaf. I bring it as a sign from God and from Pacal, whose messenger I am.”
“I will hear your message in my house,” said the tatich. “If it’s worthy, the cross will give us an answer.”
He turned to his palace, followed by Xia and the general of the plaza. Mercy hoped she’d be allowed to slip away, but the chief spy waved her toward the palace.
Pacal? What did it mean? What did Xia want? Out of the tumult of questions racing through Mercy’s mind, one stayed constant, a looming dread. Could she avoid Xia’s recognition? If Xia saw her, then what?
The tatich received Xia in his reception chamber, which was filled with officers, the Interpreter of the Cross, the Organ of the Divine Word, and the maestro cantor. Mercy stood near the back of the room, trying to obscure herself behind soldiers and the spy, who kept a vigilant eye on her while listening intently to the exchange of Mayan. Since the tatich and the woman spoke solemnly and slowly, Mercy caught most of the words, listening with growing fear.
Pacal had walked out of the forest, Xia said, and the copal branch, dead these seven years since it was found on the cross, a transmutation of the dead body of her son-sacrifice, had come at the instant into full leaf, and the incense on the altar began to smoke and perfume the air. Pacal had been sent by the ancient ones, but he was ready to revere the Talking Cross and join with the Cruzob in a great holy war that would force the ladinos into the sea, breaking their power forever.
The tatich, who had for years helped maintain the mechanisms and trappings enhancing the cross’s mystery and rule, wasn’t visibly impressed with Xia’s miracles, but he questioned her much as the owner of a theater would interview a magician or stage act, trying to calculate drawing power and effect.
At last, rubbing his plump chin, he asked abruptly, “Why should the cross aid this Pacal? What does he offer that we don’t have?”
“A fresh miracle, Great Father.” Xia bowed her head respectfully. “In the weeks he’s been among us, he’s visited and won the support of a number of villages along the frontier that don’t presently serve the cross. At least a thousand men will follow him. And, Great Father, he will lead in battle himself, an inspiration to the soldiers.”
Was the tatich’s cold stare a rebuke for Xia’s subtle reminder that he no longer led excursions and attacks? He summoned forward Crescendo Poot, and he examined him with careful, deliberate questions that were answered with the same dispassionate caution.
Had the general of the plaza talked with this Pacal? Was he an impostor?
Pacal was magnificent, fit to be a king. As the tatich knew, it was sometimes more important to have the appearance than the fact. There was no doubt that Pacal had captured the enthusiasm of the frontier Mayas.
Was he capable of leading them?
Most capable. And lead them he undoubtedly would, with or without the Cruzob.
The tatich stared at the aging but formidable soldier who, with him, ruled the Cruzob. “Does this mean, old friend, that you, general of the plaza, would be willing to fight beside Pacal?”
“Yes!” Poot’s answer rang out like clashing machetes. “Whether he really is the returned king of Palenque, I don’t know or care. He can make even Pacificos eager to fight. You know already, Great Father, that I believe we should take advantage of the ladino revolution to reclaim the whole country. If we waste this opportunity, can the cross forgive us?”
Pondering, the tatich suddenly ordered all the soldiers out except for Poot. “Now,” he said, “we can consider this matter without fear of false impressions getting out. General, you need not guard your words. Tell us in detail your observations of this Pacal.”
Poot did so, clearly finding in Pacal a hope for achieving the long-awaited Mayan dream of freedom from the dzuls, with Mayan country wholly back in Mayan hands, united by the Talking Cross.
Next the tatich cross-questioned Xia. After probing her at length about Pacal, he rapped out suddenly, “Your child was crucified for power. Through his death, you won the place you enjoy. What will you not do to dominate men’s minds?”
Xia’s eyes glowed. She controlled herself with obvious effort. “My brother sacrificed my son, as commanded by God, to give the Mayas a savior. It pleased God to replace my son with a copal branch that has worked many cures and is much revered. As a mother, I mourn my child. As a Maya and servant of the Heart of Heaven, I’d offer him again if it would hearten our men to overcome the foreigners!”
“If a dead copal branch can be replaced with a leafed one, such a branch can also be substituted for a boy’s body.” The tatich’s dark eyes bored into the priestess. “Did you hide your son away in some village? Does he still live?”
Mercy cast a side glance at the spy. Could his men have uncovered the truth about Salvador? Or was the tatich attacking to learn all he could?
“I didn’t change my son’s body,” returned Xia. “I saw my child on the cross and swooned and prayed and wept. When I roused, the branch hung there.” She added softly, “It was a sign from God. Whatever else, it was that.”
Novelo motioned her to one side and called the tata nohoch zul forward. It was soon clear that h
is spies had learned nothing to discredit either Xia or Pacal.
The tatich seemed lost in meditation. At last, sighing, he said, “Where is this Pacal?”
“He fasts and prays at a sacred grotto an hour’s journey from here,” said Poot.
“Send for him.”
The general knelt, was blessed, and left the chamber. The tatich commanded that Xia be given a room in his palace, and he called in a guard to escort her to it. She passed within a few feet of Mercy, who shrank as much as possible behind the chief spy, averting her half-covered face, holding her breath as Xia moved past her without a glance.
“Now, señora,” called the tatich, “I will hear your thoughts.”
Her weakened knees slowly regaining the ability to carry her, Mercy obeyed his gesture and sat on the stool he indicated. “I hardly know my thoughts, señor. I have only questions.” Thinking fast, she decided, why not be open with him? What had she to lose? “That’s the woman who betrayed me to the Englishman,” she said, “the one I already told you about. Of course, I don’t trust her. Where did she find this Pacal? Who is he, really?”
“You don’t even consider that he could be the king resurrected?”
“No more than you, señor.”
A slight smile edged his lips at that. “Leaving that aside, if the Mayas rally, if they overwhelm the ladinos, what do you think would happen? Would the outside world leave us in peace?”
“I’m no prophet, señor. Ask your H-men or the Talking Cross.”
“I ask you!”
Mercy shrugged. “I would guess that Mexico couldn’t blink at a rebellion or the loss of Yucatán’s products. The only way you could hold them off would be through an alliance with some major power.”
“Like England?”
“Yes. But if you make such a pact, the United States would see it as a European intrusion. As you yourself said, señor, Yucatán might become a battlefield for two foreign powers.”
The weary eyes lanced into her. “You’re to marry a wealthy dzul. You say what you think will help him.”
“I say what I think, as you ordered, señor.”
“Why did the priestess lure you for the Englishman?”
“She greatly desired my fiancé.”
“You hate her?”
Mercy thought back to Eric’s assaults, to the times she’d suffered in his hands, but even more to how those she loved at La Quinta must have despised her for presumably running away to the States. “What’s hate?” she said at last. “Xia is to me a deadly viper.”
“You don’t want her to know you got away from Belize. That’s why you draped that absurd scarf over your head.” When Mercy didn’t answer, the tatich surveyed her under down-dropping eyelids. “I thought to use you for a miracle to strengthen Chan Santa Cruz, but now we have a leafy copal branch and nothing less than Pacal! If he impresses me as much as he has our general of the plaza, there’ll be no need for you at the shrine. The batab can have you.” The tatich chuckled softly. “Strange, wouldn’t it be, if the batab sold you to your dzul in time for you to be our prisoner again?”
He made a sign of dismissal. The chief spy followed Mercy out, saying harshly in her ear, “You will not wander in the woods today or until I give you leave. The tatich may want you.”
Mercy didn’t answer. He knew, damn him, that she had to obey. As she made her way along the edge of the plaza, where soldiers still talked excitedly and peered toward the palace, she hoped desperately that this Pacal would annoy or disappoint the tatich; otherwise, it seemed all too likely that the cross would speak, decreeing war.
Was there any way to warn La Quinta? Any chance that Poot would somehow arrange to spare one ladino hacienda? In all-out war, that seemed impossible, though the general’s gratitude might stretch to sparing Zane’s life if it rested in his hands.
And Xia? Why did she plot the destruction of the man she loved? Could it be this Pacal was now her lover, that she no longer wanted Zane?
If only Dionisio were back! He might be able to sway the tatich. And at least Mercy wouldn’t have felt so sinkingly, horribly alone with her worst enemy likely to see her. Had it been wise to tell the tatich that Xia was her foe? He may have known, anyway. With his network of spies, his bits and pieces of information must be like a magpie’s trove, full of glittering bits, some useless, some to be patched together for valuable clues.
Unless Pacal’s group traveled at night, which it almost surely wouldn’t, it couldn’t reach Chan Santa Cruz before tomorrow.
It would be an excruciating wait.
Her sleep was full of nightmares. A dead Mayan king pursued her with a copal branch writhing with serpents’ heads while Xia smiled at the tatich, who kept his back to her. Dionisio fell into a swamp, then sank out of sight till his outstretched hand was swallowed up. Zane came home to a La Quinta burned and overgrown by the jungle, while she screamed soundlessly from the tower, which flamed around her.
Unrefreshed, both desiring and fearing the dawn, Mercy was up at the first light. Avoiding the palace area, she went to the cenote and did her laundry, spread it to dry around the bushes by the hut, and wished she had more work, something to keep her busy. After a breakfast of coffee and a leftover tortilla with honey, she brushed her hair, braided it, and, deciding the tatich wouldn’t want to see her that day, settled down with her father’s letters. How she wished she had some of Zane’s!
Why didn’t that war end so he could come home and see to things? While revolutionists were trying to take Mérida, a Mayan attack could demolish both sides, and if the man she loved hadn’t been in the line of fire, she could almost have hoped the Mayas would win.
But not quite—not to butcher Doña Elena or the helpless, or slaughter thousands who’d been born and reared in Yucatán and knew no other home. If war was agreed upon, Mercy knew she’d have to try to find some way to send a warning before the frontier started going up in flame.
The head spy’s voice broke into her thoughts. “Why haven’t you come to the tatich, woman?”
Mercy got up from the log stool. “I didn’t think he’d want to see me today.”
“It’s not for you to think,” returned the spy sourly. “Come immediately!”
Grabbing her scarf, Mercy arranged it as protectively as possible around her face while she accompanied this most detested of her captors. She’d hoped the tatich would be in his private rooms, where Xia would be less likely to appear, but Novelo was at his usual ease in the hammock on the arcade.
“Tell me all you know of this Xia,” he said at once. He consumed several mangoes with lime juice while Mercy told him what Zane had told her, except for the substitution of the copal branch for Salvador and what had become of the boy. She was determined to reveal nothing that spies couldn’t easily learn.
“You’ve said the priestess had a lust for your dzul,” the tatich mused. “She’s very lovely. Do you think him so virtuous as to refuse her?”
Mercy flushed. “He … admired her.”
“They were lovers?”
“How would I know? I have no tata nohoch zul.”
The tatich laughed but persisted. “Women know such things.”
“You must remember that we became engaged only a few days before Señor Falconer left. Till then I was his employee—bond-servant, really. It was not my place to pry into his personal affairs.”
“How decorous!” scoffed the mestizo. “You almost persuade me, though I know women in love are governed by nothing—certainly not by etiquette!”
“Nevertheless.” Mercy spread her hands.
The tatich flashed ivory teeth. “You will watch when this Pacal arrives. Who knows, he might be some ambitious soul lured off your dzul’s hacienda! What I must know is: Is he Xia’s tool, or is she his, or are they evenly matched?”
“I can’t judge,” Mercy protested. “I met Xia only once. That last time, in the dark, scarcely counts.”
The tatich smiled and mimicked Mercy’s gesture of widespread hands.
“Nevertheless.”
It was doubtless part of his strategy of learning all he could about everybody that led the tatich to command Mercy’s presence at Pacal’s reception. And if Xia recognized Mercy, her reaction would give the tatich, that wily manipulator, further insight into her aims and character.
Getting out the cloth she’d cut from the bottom of one leg of her second divided skirt in order to walk more freely, Mercy opened the wide hem and fringed the material. It made a respectable shawl, much better for concealment than her small scarf. This took a long time, which seemed longer because, as her fingers unraveled threads, her mind tugged vainly at the snarled tangle entwining her life and love with Xia, the Cruzob, and this mysterious Pacal.
She was sipping corn gruel when the Buddha-like young spy came to the door, tinkled the bells, and said she was wanted in the tatich’s reception room. Pacal was approaching.
Again there were sentries at the cross streets, the band playing incongruous polkas, and soldiers massing in the plaza. Her escort took Mercy through the crowd to the palace. The tatich’s throne-like chair was empty, but his religious assistants were there and there were enough officers and guards for Mercy to hide behind.
The tatich came in, followed by the tata nohoch zul, who took a truculent stance behind the chair of state. Voices and shouts swelled outside, rising above the music.
“Pacal! Pacal!” “Death to the dzuhls!” “On to Mérida!” And running through it all was the chant: “Pacal!” “Pacal!”
Mercy thought the tatich’s mouth hardened at the tribute. He couldn’t like this popularity of another leader, though to survive as he had, Novelo knew to a hair’s fineness how to use enthusiasms and men. He could temporarily grant prominence to Pacal, but he would see that the would-be hero vanished or was discredited when his purpose was served.
“Pacal!” “Pacal!”
The cries grew to a roar, filling the plaza, pressing into the tatich’s audience room. Rumor had swiftly permeated the barracks, or Xia’s followers had excelled in conversions. This eagerness to believe, to applaud a new crusade, must prove to the tatich that his people had reached a level of security and well-being that could become stagnation if they weren’t challenged, drawn out of their personal lives by a new miracle.
Bride of Thunder Page 38