Bride of Thunder

by Jeanne Williams

  She drank when she was thirsty and dug some of the meat from the pocket around her waist, sucking new strength from the salty, flavorsome taste. She could be moving about twice as fast as on land, the current aiding her strokes.

  But was it in the right direction? And even if it was, would the stream emerge before she died? The river might flow right under La Quinta, but that wouldn’t help unless it surfaced.

  How long had she been in the river? Judging from the number of candles used, she’d been in the corridors for about five hours before taking to the water. Eric had certainly returned by now, but even if he got through the first crawl-way, he couldn’t force through the narrow upward aperture that led to the final chamber before the river. She didn’t see what he could do, unless he happened to know of an exit or where the river would flow out.

  She ate a guava, willing herself to concentrate utterly on the texture and sweetness, gain a respite from where she was, but when she swallowed the last bit, the oppressive, moist darkness seemed even thicker. She was very, very tired. Slipping over, the water slapping softly around her ears and chin, she let it carry her.

  Would she stay on the surface if she went to sleep? How long could she endure?

  A sound penetrated her exhaustion, a rushing turbulence that charged the suddenly urgent river. There was a distant sound of crashing. Righting herself as the tumult rose, she glimpsed a dim glow ahead, then was swept toward it.

  She didn’t fight the inexorable grip of the current. Falls must lie ahead. How high they were, whether they crashed on the rocks below, whether she’d survive—all were futile questions. There was no way out of the stream, no way back.

  And there was light ahead!

  It would be ironic if she reached it a battered corpse. But if she had to die, she was glad her body might drift out at last into the good air and warm sun. She had tried. She had done her best.

  The crashing became a roar.

  Father, Thou knowest.…

  Sound and force, an irresistible streaming, thundering chaos pounding, dissolving, absorbing, scattering body and mind. She was the water, she was the fall, her consciousness ceased. Then she was floating, her feet dragged to the bottom, her numbed bones and flesh and muscle began to reunite and fit together with blood and breath. Her brain belonged to her again.

  And up ahead was a brilliance that hurt, a glory of luminous sky brighter than any jewel, more wonderful than any heaven. For the rest of her life, Mercy would be a worshipper of light.

  Coughing out water, she swam weakly for the entrance. The dress and its contents had been wrested from her waist in the waterfall. It didn’t matter. None of that did—not the darkness and fear, not the cave and the river. She had come out of them, out of death, and surely her love waited, surely there’d be a way to avert the Cruzob attack or at least warn of it. There’d been a way through the maze. There had to be a way, now, through anything.

  The water was so shallow that she tried to stand and wade. Her legs wouldn’t hold her. So long supported by the water, her body felt grossly heavy, ponderous. Floundering to where there was only a foot or so of water, she sat rubbing her legs and ankles, coaxing energy back into them, becoming again a creature of land.

  When she staggered up again, she managed to walk, falteringly to begin, but with increasing certainty as the feeling of unbearable weight gradually worked out of her. The cavern grew sunnier by the moment.

  Once, once only, she glanced back and shivered at the glint of tumbling water spilling down from mysterious blackness.

  She could see trees now, craggy limestone. The entrance was only large enough for a tall man, but it opened into the world. Mercy had control enough to listen carefully and peer out before she followed what was now a gentle stream into a bowl-like cenote. She was able to stay above it on a limestone ridge, then rejoiced as she saw a path leading through the forest. This was a water supply for some village. If only it weren’t Cruzob!

  She realized that even her sweatband had been lost. Except for the coral necklace, she’d come out of the cave as naked as when she was born. As she followed the path, she collected leafy vines and soon had enough twined around her to afford at least some cover. Then she saw a stone figure ahead, majestic amid ruins, and she gasped.

  Hurrying forward, she touched the jaguar, unable to believe, then began to laugh hysterically. This was the jaguar Salvador and Jolie had showed her. She was just outside the village, only minutes from La Quinta! Weak with relief and joy, she leaned on the altar till her head cleared and then began to run.

  She slipped through the space between the mayordomo’s house and the great one. It was noon, the time of rest during the summer heat, and no one was at the well or in the center compound.

  Would Zane be here? Was the war over? She, wanted to shout, know everything at once, tell everything in a breath, wanted most of all to be in Zane’s arms. But there were steps to run up, the arcade to cross—and Zane was in the doorway of his office, staring in disbelief, then springing forward. Those arms she dreamed of enclosed her, his mouth took hers, and he swept her up and held her against his heart.

  “My love,” he said, choking. “Oh, love …”

  She began to tell him her story.

  Within an hour she had eaten, dressed, and helped Zane make a plan which, though desperate, might save Dionisio and even destroy the scheme for Cruzob conquest. While Chepa anointed her cuts and swellings, administering refreshing brews and muttering that Mercy needed bed and care for a week, while Jolie clung to her hand, watching with fascinated eyes someone who’d been thought to be in the United States, while she was actually a prisoner in Belize and Chan Santa Cruz, Mercy explained why she thought that her appearance at the shrine city might serve to shatter the plot.

  Everyone knew she was sacrificed. When she exposed their Pacal as a white man who’d used this trick to get her for himself, it would discredit Xia for being allied with him. The tatich had never been keen on the crusade, fearing to forfeit what the Cruzobs had attained with much agony. Since the appeal and enthusiasm rested largely on Pacal’s challenge to arms, his downfall might well dash the ordinary Cruzob’s zest for battle.

  The tatich and general of the plaza would have to repudiate the plotters to retain their leadership and somehow cover the Talking Cross’s gullibility.

  Zane had immediately sent messengers to Peto, Tekax, and Valladolid with instructions to be on the alert, though not the offensive. He’d sent Vicente to Mérida with a complete explanation to Peraza, who had conquered and held that city since a treaty was signed on June 15, two weeks ago. Zane had been back at La Quinta only a few days and had still been stunned with wounded disbelief by Mercy’s letter when he saw her running up the steps of the veranda.

  Since time was so important, they decided to leave at once. Because of the massed troops at the shrine, it seemed useless to take armed men. They had to gamble on Mercy’s “resurrection” to win them the chance to proclaim publicly the deceit of Eric and Xia.

  Mayel had been listening, her eyes shining with joy as she helped take care of Mercy. Now she said with soft firmness, “Let me come with you. Jacinto Canek, my martyred forebear, would want me to speak against this bad white man. I can swear that all Doña Mercy says is true, tell how he came here with her husband, trying to get her. I can speak for Canek!”

  She pulsed with fervor and beauty. Thinking of the danger, Mercy started to refuse. Then she thought of Dionisio, who needed a wife. And whatever the Cruzob did to Mercy and Zane—for even if they were believed, they might be murdered or enslaved—it wasn’t likely that a lovely young girl of Canek’s blood would meet with anything but cherishing and acceptance.

  Mercy was bruised and weary as Zane lifted her into Lucera’s saddle. An hour could make the difference for Dionisio if the batab had returned, and Eric’s fury at her escape might impel him to urge immediate mustering of outlying Cruzob and allies.

  “Be careful!” Jolie begged, tears in her eyes
as she hugged Flora to her, standing with Salvador and Chepa as the three riders started out of the stableyard.

  “We will,” promised Zane. Macedonio was already organizing a defense in case it was needed.

  “Go with God!” called Salvador.

  Mercy was very glad he didn’t know that Xia was his mother.

  It was over eighty miles by road to Chan Santa Cruz. Mercy’s underground route, aided by the speed of the river, had vastly reduced the distance and time, but because of the falls, it could only be followed from the other side—not that Mercy would have undergone it again if there was any alternative.

  Since Mercy was exhausted and they’d have to spend several days on the road, Zane halted them while it was still light and made Mercy rest in a hammock while he and Mayel took care of the horses and prepared dinner. After they had eaten, Mayel tactfully retired and Zane carried Mercy to a bank of thyme where he spread out a sheet and gathered her into his arms, caressing and kissing her, touching her face, laughing with tender delight.

  “When I read that letter … oh, my darling! I couldn’t believe it, yet there it was!” His tone hardened. “If the Mayas don’t get him, I’ll make sure Kensington never bothers you again!”

  There was so much to tell, so much to ask, but Mercy was so fatigued that she kept drifting off to sleep. After the cold, dark river, it was bliss simply to lie in Zane’s arms and hear his voice. But his hands trembled on her breasts, she sensed the ardor behind the controlled gentleness of his kisses, and she knew what his restraint was costing him.

  “Zane …”

  He laughed shakily, then kissed her fingers one by one. “No, love, not while you’re like this. I never want our times to be anything but wonderful for us both.”

  “It … it’s not because of Eric?”

  His hands tightened on her for a moment. “I’ll kill him if I have a chance for what he did to you—but that’s over, sweetheart. Just you get rested so my conscience won’t smite me for showing how I want you, and you’ll have no doubts! Now, kiss me nicely and I’ll carry you to your hammock.”

  As they rode the next day, he told her more of the siege and fall of Mérida. Colonel Traconis, who’d been feted in the plaza when Mercy arrived in Yucatán for his holding out at Tihosuco for fifty days, had fought off Peraza’s army for fifty-five. Contesting the capital house to house and street by street, Traconis had hoped that somehow the Imperial forces could retreat to Yucatán and use that as the nucleus of a brilliant Central American empire.

  Cannon fire blew up buildings, snipers fired from the roofs, and news came of the emperor’s capture of Querétaro.

  The empire had fallen, the people were famished, and ammunition was gone. Peraza, a gallant soldier who’d been on the losing side often enough to sympathize with men in that position, guaranteed there’d be no executions or confiscation of property and offered safe passage out of Yucatán to Imperial leaders.

  Meanwhile, General Garcia, who’d vanquished Campeche, was shooting his Imperialist prisoners, and he wanted Peraza to follow his example. When Peraza declined, Garcia sent a squadron to intercept the fleeing Imperial commissioner off Sisal. Peraza warned Garcia that he’d defend his prisoners, and so the Imperialists had sailed variously for New York and Havana about the time news came that Maximilian had been shot between two of his loyal officers on the Hill of Bells, the Cerro de las Campanas, outside Querétaro, on June 19.

  “He never belonged here,” Zane said. “But he died well. Up to the very end he had chances to escape, but he refused to go without his officers. His dying wish was that his blood be the last shed, and he met the volley with a shout of ‘Viva Mexico!’”

  “Poor Carlota!”

  “Poor Mexicans. Because of Napoleon the Third’s ambition and Maximilian’s credulity and Hapsburg stubbornness, so many humble peasants died, ravaged by both sides.” Zane shrugged. “Maximilian’s death was the finest thing about his life. He won some glory and respect by it, which he wouldn’t have had if he’d fled, beaten, to Europe to hang around the rest of his life as a superfluous member of the Austrian court. Anyway, thank God, it’s over. Mexico’s wounds can start healing, and so can those of Yucatán—provided we can head off this new war.”

  He wanted to know then more about conditions in Belize, the Icaiche raids, and the position of the unallied Mayas. “So Crescencio Poot is ready to forget, for large enough stakes, the debt he owed my father.” He frowned. “If the Cruzob had attacked Peraza a month ago, caught us between them and the imperialists, and then taken Mérida at their leisure, it might have worked. But they’ve missed the time. Peraza’s governor now and in control, and morale’s high. Garcia would be only too delighted to march up from Campeche and indulge his thirst for slaughter. For the Mayas’ own sake, I hope we can squelch the rising. They’d lose most of their warriors, and, pushed to it, Peraza might decide to counter-invade their territory and crush them forever.”

  Mercy thought of the great mass of the balam na, the crosses at the Four Directions, and the grotto in the valley where the Talking Cross first heartened a desperate, starving remnant. “They’ve earned Chan Santa Cruz,” she said. “And I think the general of the plaza will listen to what you say about having lost the strategic moment. I’m sure Dionisio would counsel for peace.”

  Riding ahead, Zane glanced back, a strange questioning in his gray eyes. “You seem to admire this batab.”

  “I do.” Mercy spoke evenly, though her heart missed a beat. “Those crocodiles would have had me if it hadn’t been for him, and even without that I’d probably have been picked up by the Cruzob long before I could have reached La Quinta.”

  “I’m in his debt for that.”

  “No. I kept him from being whipped to death. I’m sure Dionisio feels, as I do, that we’ve paid our debt to each other and owe each other only friendship and goodwill.”

  Zane’s jaw hardened. “He’s young? Strong?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then he must hope for more than that.”

  Faced with the issue she’d hoped to avoid, Mercy was almost glad it had been raised, that it wouldn’t lurk between them as tacit deceit. Well enough for her to argue it made no difference to how she felt about Zane, that it would never have happened if Dionisio hadn’t kept her in Chan Santa Cruz. It had happened. If Zane thought it mattered, it did. She’d no right to make that decision for him.

  Mercy swallowed, straightened her shoulders. “Zane.” She had to make her voice louder, brace against the swift darkening of his eyes, the shock worse than anger. “Dionisio had more.”

  Seared by Zane’s gaze, Mercy bit back a flow of explantations and pleadings, though she cried wordlessly, Oh, my love, understand! It has nothing to do with you; it was his gentleness, his sharing with me his world.

  Zane turned his back, sent Kisin faster along the trail. “We’ll talk of this tonight.”

  During the rest of that unending afternoon, when he spoke to her it was in a courteously detached manner, but neither had much heart for conversation. Mercy imagined the train of his thoughts. Philip, her husband. Eric, who carried her off. Now this Dionisio, when she was supposed to be in love with me, when I’d asked her to be my wife, though she was my bond-slave and I could have had her anytime, the way others did.…

  They made it a long day, hoping to reach Chan Santa Cruz by noon tomorrow. After Mayel had shyly wished them good night, Zane and Mercy walked far enough away not to disturb her. Mercy felt as if she were bleeding inwardly, for, though when she tripped Zane quickly steadied her, he removed his hand at once—as if she were unclean, as if he couldn’t bear to touch her.

  “Now,” he said, pausing by a large tree, “tell me about it. Did he drug you, the way Xia did? Get you drunk?”

  On his words, on sunlight, on frangipani flowers.

  “No.”

  “I suppose he’d be too noble!”

  “Yes. He wanted me, but he wouldn’t use tricks.”

  Zane’s lau
gh was bitter and short. “It would seem he didn’t need to! Did he ask you to marry him?”

  “There was no question of that, of anything after he brought me to La Quinta. He … he knew I loved you.”

  Long fingers bit into her shoulders. “And you thought it was perfectly all right to share his hammock and then marry me?” She couldn’t answer. He shook her fiercely. “Well?”

  “I’m sorry that I’ve hurt you. I’m sorry if it makes you think I loved you any less.”

  “Aren’t you sorry you let him have you?”

  Mercy listened to the center of herself, tried painfully for honesty, because whatever came of it, she and Zane must accept or reject the truth about each other. “I’m not sorry.” She spoke without defiance. “He gave me his world, his sweetness. Because we shared, I’m wiser, and I think I’m better.”

  “My God! The next thing you’ll say is that I should be grateful to him!”

  He didn’t understand: the birds of the yuntzilob, the mantled tree of dead babies, the young corn. But, then, how could he? She wouldn’t have, either, unless she’d lived as a Maya, cut off from her own culture and people, while loved and instructed by someone who wanted her to know.

  “All I can say is that he didn’t take anything that was yours, and his loving left me more than I was.”

  “He took your body. Wasn’t that your betrothed’s?”

  The old question, going far, far back: to Philip’s debasing use of her, his wagering of her at cards; to Eric’s treatment of her as a possession; to Zane’s wish to shut her in the tower. Strangely, only Dionisio had imposed no bonds. Though he’d constrained her to spend one month with him, beyond that he’d demanded nothing, and he had been willing to deliver her to Zane. Anger tinged Mercy’s distress. She drew herself up proudly.

  “My body’s my own.”

  “Then you may keep it, madam!” Zane released her so abruptly that she almost fell. “Come, we have to make an early start in the morning.”