Jaguar Princess (19 page)

He took a sip of his own drink and replied, trying to sound unconcerned. “I believe you have made allowances for my convenience that are really not necessary.”

Ilhuicamina smiled, but there was a hard look in his eyes that told Wise Coyote that he knew exactly what he was doing.
Careful. You are within his grip. Lose your temper now and you will be crushed. Play along with him, but do not make it too easy
.

“Before we proceed further, I have a request to make of you.” Wise Coyote felt the tightness of
the muscles between his shoulders and wished he had a slave to massage them. “The favor is but a small one. There are two excellent glyph-painters in your House of Scribes. I wish to have them at my court. One came recently from Tlacopan. The other is a gifted apprentice.”

Ilhuicamina pursed his lips, then picked his teeth. “The scribe Nine-Lizard Iguana Tongue and his apprentice are working on a history that I commissioned. Could you not take two others?”

“The history could be completed at Texcoco,” said Wise Coyote, using his silkiest tones. “If those scribes also had the use of my library, it would improve the accuracy of their work.”

“Do not let me catch you sticking in anything about your Tloque Nahaque,” Ilhuicamina said petulantly, then slapped Wise Coyote’s shoulder and laughed. “None of your scholar-gods for my kingdom of warriors.”

“I would not dream of doing any such thing,” said Wise Coyote. “May I have the two scribes?”

Ilhuicamina grumbled to himself, rubbing his chin. “There was something about that apprentice—Snake Woman was too lazy to look into it so I had another official inquire. Oh, yes, now I remember. Some incident with a young cleric. There were accusations involving the bewitchment of a jaguar skin.” He frowned.

Wise Coyote waited, forcing himself to breathe evenly. He had no idea that the incident with the young priest had traveled this far up in Aztec officialdom.

“The priests of Hummingbird wanted to have the offender sacrificed,” Ilhuicamina said with a yawn. “In fact I intend to give my permission once the history is complete.”

“I have no interest in the life of a glyph-painter,” said Wise Coyote, trying to sound indifferent. “But I need the talents of both scribes, for the history and for research of my own.”

“Because it is you, I agree,” said Ilhuicamina, putting his arms behind his head. “But remember, the girl has been accused of sorcery. If I hear rumors of such doings at your court, I will be greatly displeased.” He sat forward, his eyes gleaming with eagerness. “Now, about the temple to Hummingbird.”

Wise Coyote wet his lips. He had secured the two scribes and perhaps had bought the girl’s life, but was it worth the price Ilhuicamina was asking him to pay?

It makes no difference. If I do not agree now, Ilhuicamina will force me and give no favors in return
.

Taking a breath Wise Coyote began, “In choosing a site, I must bear in mind considerations other than a supply of stone.”

“Yes. The devoutness of the workers who will labor and the people who will worship is most important. I am told that the city of Texcoco eagerly awaits Hummingbird on the Left. Who am I to deny the hunger of your people?”

Especially when I have resisted bringing his bloody abomination into my city. And well he knows that
.

“My request is that of one friend to another,” said Ilhuicamina, picking up his glazed mug of chocolatl. “Let it remain so.”

“I will be honored to undertake the task.” Wise Coyote picked up his mug, but the drink had become suddenly bitter on his tongue.

Ilhuicamina clapped his hands to summon a servant. “Enough! I tire of talk. Let there be drums, juggling and well-fleshed women to dance for us. Friends should enjoy themselves, prince of Texcoco!”

Wise Coyote leaned back against the stuffed pillows of his icpalli. He had wrested a small compromise from the prospect of utter defeat. The girl Seven-Flower Mixcatl and the old man Nine-Lizard Iguana Tongue would soon be on their way to the palace at Tezcotzinco. Soon he would know more about the mystery that was beginning to ensnare him, but the prospect left a chill in his gut that could not be warmed by draughts of agave wine. Nine-lizard had spoken of dangers and he had already seen for himself that the old man’s words were not just senile babblings.

And the specter of a blood-washed shrine to the Aztec sun god standing nearly on his doorstep in Texcoco was a nightmare that had already begun to haunt him.

What have I done
, he thought, fighting to keep despair from showing on his face. Slumping back into his icpalli, he forced himself to watch the dancing girls.

A BOAT CAME
at night to take the two glyph-painters from the House of Scribes across the lake. Mixcatl had already been told by Nine-Lizard where she was going and why. When the touch came on her shoulder she woke quickly and, without asking any questions, took up the bundle in which her brushes, paints and blank books were packed. Silently she bid farewell to the House of Scribes and followed Nine-lizard down the stone steps into the night-damp air.

She thought that they would embark at once, for she saw the shape of a waiting craft lying in at the dock near the House of Scribes. Instead, Nine-Lizard led her away from the quay, across a plaza and into the courtyard of a large house. A man hailed him, he answered and the door flap was pulled back, allowing them to enter.

“Do not let the girl touch anything,” a voice said, and as the speaker came forward, Mixcatl saw that he was robed as a healer. “Have her walk on these mats and bring her into this chamber.”

Though puzzled and a little angered, Mixcatl followed Nine-Lizard as he crossed the mats and entered a small room, brightly lit with torches. It too was floored with mats.

The healer and an assistant came in behind Mixcatl and Nine-Lizard.

“Remove your garments, both of you,” said the assistant gruffly to Nine-lizard.

The old scribe narrowed his eyes. Clearly he had not expected this. Mixcatl felt her uncertainty and irritation grow into anger. “What is this? Are we being stripped like some common slave at market, so your master may see more clearly what he is getting?”

“My master. Wise Coyote, has requested that you and your companion be examined and found free of disease or infirmity before embarking for Texcoco,” the healer said calmly.

Mixcatl felt Nine-Lizard’s hand, warm and callused, on her shoulder. “What he asks is reasonable,” he said softly. “Wise Coyote knows what happened to you that morning in the city. He just wants to make sure that you do not have an illness you could give to others. They will do us no harm.”

Slowly Mixcatl began to untie the shoulder knot of her cloak. The marks on her arms and hands were fading, but still distinct. She wondered if the healer would scowl at her because of the disfigurement.

Her hands trembled a little on the hem of her huipil blouse as she began to pull it off over her head. When she was younger, she had run about barechested and unconcerned, but now she was aware of her young breasts. She understood why the examination had to be done, but she found herself resenting the fact that as a female slave, she was allowed less modesty than she would have if freeborn.

Out of politeness, Nine-Lizard turned away. The healer’s expression was pleasant, but she still found it difficult to undo the ties of her short skirt and let it fall about her ankles.

Once all her garments were off, the healer went over her briskly and efficiently, but gently. He did raise his eyebrows at the marks. He felt the shape of her head, muttering to himself uneasily.
Opening her mouth, he felt her teeth gingerly, as if expecting them to be sharp, then dictated to his assistant, who was scratching down some crude glyphs on a piece of fig-bark paper.

“These marks on her arms,” the healer said to Nine-Lizard. “How did she acquire them? It does not look like the result of wounding or burning.”

“It is a condition of the skin that occurs periodically in her family. It is not contagious. I can say nothing else about it,” the old scribe answered. From the tone of his voice and the expression on his face, Mixcatl knew that Nine-Lizard was stating the truth, or as much of the truth as he could. But she sensed that there was more that he knew, but could not or would not reveal. It was the same look that had come across his features when she lay in her chamber and begged him to tell her what had happened to her.

“I cannot tell you now, for I am not certain,” he had said then, smoothing her sweaty forehead. “If I tell you my fears, it will only worry you, and I may be wrong. No. It is better that we wait and see what happens.”

And she’d had to be content with that.

Although the healer treated her with courtesy, he made his examination much more thorough than she would have liked. Soon the coolness of the air on her unclothed skin and the discomfort of having an unfamiliar man touching her body made her wish for the ordeal to be over. She couldn’t help wondering, half resentfully, if Wise Coyote would have to be subjected to the same sort of intensive scrutiny before he was allowed to meet her!

The healer finished and spoke over his shoulder to his assistant. Then, while Mixcatl was dressing, the healer went over Nine-lizard, speaking his findings to the assistant, who jotted them down as best he could.

Finally the healer finished and washed his hands in a bowl of agave suds.

“Let it be stated that I have examined the glyph-painters Nine-Lizard Iguana Tongue and Seven-Flower Mixcatl. To the extent of my skill and knowledge I affirm that they are free of any fevers, agues, wastings or other ailments that could pose a danger to the House of Texcoco.” He nodded to Nine-Lizard, who was still dressing. “The boat awaits you. You may go.”

Mixcatl followed Nine-lizard back past the House of Scribes to the waiting craft. Torchlight gleamed on the polished sides of the canoe and on the backs of the men who paddled it. The wind from Lake Texcoco made the firebrands flutter and sent a chill through Mixcatl, huddling beneath her cloak, clutching her bundle. There were three passengers to be picked up, herself. Nine-lizard and an escort from Ilhuicamina’s court, who was to oversee the transport of the partially completed history from the House of Scribes to Wise Coyote’s palace at Tezcotzinco.

Who was Wise Coyote? Mixcatl had heard only a little about him from Nine-lizard. The old man described the ruler of Texcoco as a wise and scholarly man. She was still not entirely sure why the king would want her at his palace, although she suspected that the incident with the priest and the jaguar skin had much to do with it. She did not think her life would change—after all, she was still a slave and moving from one master to another would not change that.

She thought of Six-Wind, the boy at the calmecac who had promised that when he came of age he would buy her and set her free. He had been at least three or four years older than she and by now must have gained manhood.

Where was he now? She couldn’t remember when he had last seen her. Perhaps he had found prettier girls and regretted that hasty promise. Perhaps he had told himself that he need not honor a vow made to a slave. Or he had just forgotten.

Nine-lizard sat beside Mixcatl, and when the boat left the shelter of the canals for the open lake, he wrapped a portion of his cloak around her. Neither spoke, for the escort was sitting just in front. And even if he hadn’t been there, she would have remained quiet. To the questions she wanted to ask, she knew that Nine-Lizard would have no answer.

She listened to the soft splash as the paddles were dipped and the liquid gurgle as they were drawn back and up again. With every stroke, she felt the boat pull forward. She could hardly believe she was finally leaving Tenochtitlan. During the last few days she had become a guarded prisoner in her chamber, under suspicion of sorcery and threatened by death. Frightened as she was, she had kept painting, for only by losing herself in work could she keep calm.

Now the danger was behind her and growing more distant with every paddlestroke. She had no idea why the king of Texcoco had bargained for her safety, but she was too grateful to question. Texcoco would be a refuge for her and Nine-Lizard, where they could work on the history in peace.

Even as she pictured the life to come, it was overlaid with images from the day in the plaza when the schoolboys tormented her and the later incident with the youthful priest. Would things like that happen in Wise Coyote’s house? Mixcatl knew she had left a part of the danger behind, but another part she could not be rid of. It traveled with her, inside her. And she sensed that it had only begun to awake and grow.

She hoped that Wise Coyote did not wear a jaguar skin and then weariness overwhelmed her and she sank into slumber.

Mixcatl peered up through the mists of sleep at the thin gray dawn that hung over the lake. The dugout was no longer moving forward, but rocking and bumping. Knuckling her eyes, she saw that the boat was moored at a stone dock at the base of a steep hillside. Nine-Lizard rose, took her arm and helped her out.

After a night on the canoe, Mixcatl found herself weaving and staggering along the stone dock, and when she saw the stairway cut into the sharp slope, she feared she would be too dizzy to climb it. Determinedly she shook away the giddy feeling and mounted the steps, Nine-Lizard behind her. Her legs were aching from the long climb before they were halfway up. The rising dawn turned the damp stone pink and touched the clouds to the west with fiery orange.

At last they reached the top, where a flagstoned walkway led between little pools and waterfalls. Spring water ran in glazed troughs from pool to pool and fed the luxuriant gardens that had been planted. The flowery scent and the humming of the bees about the dew-moist blossoms got into Mixcatl’s head and made her dizzy.

And then came another smell, one that made her widen her eyes and lift her chin. What it was, she didn’t know, at least she could not have spoken it. In her mind however, the scent raised shadows—fleet shadows with long legs and strange crowns of horns. The thoughts made her hunch her shoulders and change her gait, so that she walked with a slow, measured step.

“There are animals here,” she said to Nine-Lizard. He glanced at her with an odd look, as if the tone of her voice had changed. She felt strangely dreamy, yet alert and intensely excited. “Take me to see them!”

Nine-Lizard only muttered under his breath, then took Mixcatl’s arm and hurried her along the path. “I did not think that our host indulged in the princely habit of keeping tame deer on the palace grounds,” he grumbled. “I hope he will take my advice and pen them, or move them elsewhere.”

The musky scent in the damp morning air intoxicated Mixcatl. The thought came into her head that, if she struggled, she could probably escape Nine-Lizard. She felt strong enough to overpower him. Once she was free, her nose would lead her to the source of the scent.

Even as she tensed to wrench herself loose, the odor faded in her nostrils and a part of her mind flashed a warning at her. Turn against Nine-Lizard? Her friend, teacher and mentor? He had kept the angered priest from plunging a knife into her that day in the House of Scribes.

The shock of what she had wanted to do drove the thoughts away. A breeze blew in her face, damp with the wind from Lake Texcoco. She drank it in, letting it cleanse the strange feeling from her mind.

Another flight of stone steps and then another walkway brought them to the palace of Tezcotzinco.

It was a handsome edifice, made of sapphire-colored blue and green stone, inlaid with mosaic tile. It was built into the side of a hill, so that it had more than the usual two or three levels. Mixcatl noticed that several of the little streams which tumbled down the hill had been redirected to run underneath the palace’s foundations and emerge in covered troughs.

Here the escort that Ilhuicamina had sent with them departed, to be received in a manner worthy of his status and class. The two slave-scribes were taken in through an unobtrusive side-entrance by servants. They were received by a man who introduced himself as an assistant estate manager. His job was to look after the small staff of slaves and servants who maintained Tezcotzinco when the king was not in residence.

He showed the two slave-scribes to a large, airy chamber that looked out over the lower gardens. A partition was set up to separate Mixcatl’s sleeping mat from Nine-lizard’s, but otherwise, they shared quarters.

The assistant estate manager informed them that Wise Coyote would not be arriving for many days, as he had business in his capital city. They were to make themselves at home and continue their work on the document for Ilhuicamina. If they needed or wanted anything, they could make a request of a servant, who would then convey the message to him.

Mixcatl, who had been needing to relieve herself, noticed that there was no pot available for the purpose. When at last she asked a servant, she was shown to a small chamber, almost a niche in the rock walls of the palace. The little room was narrow but deep, curtained off for privacy. Mixcatl expected to find a vessel akin to the pisspots she had emptied while in the calmecac, but instead she found only a low stone slab with a hole in it. From the hole came rushing and gurgling sounds that dismayed her. When she did peer through, she saw a stream of water running beneath the hole.

Why Wise Coyote had made a stream run under his house, she did not know, but when she used the hole for its apparent purpose, she realized that the swiftly running current swept everything away so that there was no remaining smell. Another trickle of water to one side continually filled a stone basin and drained down into a channel on the floor. There was an empty bowl she could use to dip and rinse with as well as drying cloths hung on pegs.

What a clever man Wise Coyote was, she thought. With a little room one could go to there was no need for chamberpots which stank or, worse yet, overturned and spilled their noisome contents unless they were quickly emptied. She wondered if there were other little chambers for other rooms in the palace. How nice it must be for Wise Coyote’s servants, not to have to collect all the pisspots and go outside to dump them.

She told Nine-lizard of her discovery and he inspected the water room, nodding, although he declined to make use of it. Then the two ate breakfast served to them on a turquoise-inlaid tray. After that, they began work on the history.

Though painting the document was absorbing, Mixcatl occasionally grew weary and needed time away from her paints and brushes. She asked for permission to go beyond the confines of her quarters. The assistant estate manager sent word that she might explore the gardens and the palace, as long as she did not enter any rooms or go too far from her quarters. She soon realized that, apart from herself, Nine-Lizard and the resident staff of servants, the palace was empty.