Jaguar Princess (5 page)

What did the figures mean? What story did they tell? She was consumed by a desire to know. And a memory came to her of an old hand, veined and wrinkled, dipping a brush into a pot of color and drawing elaborate figures with curls and scrolls. She squeezed her eyes shut. The brush made other figures, fantastic creatures, footprints, jaguar tracks. Jaguar tracks. The number six, shown by a jaguar’s pawprint with the pad and the five toes. She remembered counting on her own palm and fingers. It seemed so distant, like a dream or someone else’s life.

She opened her eyes. The priest’s voice was rising again as his forefinger followed the pictures on the page.

His skin became spotted, his hands

“We sing the pictures of the book,” he chanted. “We sing the sacred hymns. The story of the One-Prince, Plumed Serpent. The story of his disgrace at the hands of Smoking Minor, Tezcatlipoca.”

After the priest had sung or chanted a phrase, he made the boys sing after him, either in unison or one at a time, until they had memorized the words. Thus the recitation went very slowly, but Mixcatl never grew bored. Though she knew nothing of Plumed Serpent or Smoking Mirror, the sound of their names sent chills down her back. They seemed to resonate with something buried deep inside her, something she had not known was there.

She hunched behind the agave, shivering. The priest sang and the boys chanted after him. Even though she did not understand all of the Nahuatl, the words stayed in Mixcatl’s ears and she knew she would remember them long after the priest’s voice had faded. The priest sang:

They say that the One-Prince, Plumed Serpent, was much beloved by his people.

They say that love made others jealous

The magicians of the city became jealous

The greatest of the magicians was Tezcatlipoca, Smoking Mirror

He tried to change the people’s love for Plumed Serpent

He tried to make Plumed Serpent do evil things

But Plumed Serpent would not do them.

Mixcatl listened to the hymn, caught up both in the cadence of its chant and by the images in the book. She thought she could see ties between the pictures and the words. Wasn’t that undulating form a serpent covered with plumes? And there was the shape of a mountain. She strained to see better, wishing that she could sit with the boys. The story went on:

Smoking Mirror decided to deceive Plumed Serpent He gave him the fermented juice of the agave so that he became drunk

He gave him a beautiful woman and said, take your pleasure

And the prince took his pleasure and then slept. But when Plumed Serpent woke, he saw that the woman was his sister and that he was disgraced He was disgraced by Smoking Mirror’s trickery He was disgraced by his own lechery and drunkenness.

He bowed his head and said, “I can no longer rule the city.”

In his grief and anger, he seized Smoking Mirror

Lifted him high and cast him into the sea

High over the mountains into the sea.

And as Smoking Mirror fell, he changed

His skin became spotted, his hands and feet grew claws.

Mixcatl leaned forward from her hiding place behind the agave. The priest’s forefinger was resting on a figure that was half spotted cat, half man. Tezcatlipoca, Smoking Mirror. His tail curled up in defiance, his mouth was open, showing teeth. He bore a feathered shield and above his cat ears, an elaborate headdress.

Though the hymn portrayed Tezcatlipoca as evil, Mixcatl was fascinated by his image. She remembered the incident in the marketplace, the jaguar skin, her hands curling into claws and her arm moving with a sharp raking motion. And how the skin had jerked in the hands of its purchaser, wounding him.

About her the hymn continued:

Smoking Mirror’s cry became a roar as he fell into the sea

He became a jaguar

Whose spotted coat symbolizes the stars of the night sky

He did not die in the sea

For he was a jaguar and jaguars can swim

He came ashore and crept into the jungle

And he lives among us even now.

Silence fell as the priest’s voice halted. Mixcatl suddenly came back to herself. Drawn by the image of Tezcatlipoca, she had emerged from behind the agave. Now, with a shock, she realized she was standing in the open and that the eyes of the priest and all his students were fastened on her.

And then she realized that the black-smeared figure was that of Speaking Quail and the eyes looking at her held wonder as well as annoyance.

Booing and jeering broke out among the boys. Some scrambled to their feet, fists lifted to strike the impudent slave girl who would dare spy on their class. Mixcatl shielded her face with her forearms as the blows began to fall.

“No!” cried another voice, stronger and deeper than the high-pitched shouting of the boys around her. She peeked out between her fingers. It wasn’t Speaking Quail, for he stood on his teacher’s mat, trying to quiet the remains of his class. No, this was one of the students, an older boy, with a sidelock of brown hair falling past one ear and a face that might easily assume a grin. Right now his eyebrows were drawn together over his nose as he glared at his schoolmates. Sullenly they withdrew.

Mixcatl began to tremble. Soon the noise would bring Maguey Thorn into the courtyard. Hadn’t the matron told her explicitly not to enter the presence of the priests or their students? Now she would be beaten and dragged back to the slave market to be sold. She flung herself on her knees, bending her head down into the dust to beg for mercy. But the boy caught hold of her wrists so
that she could only bow her head down before him and kneel, shaking, in his grip.

“They won’t hurt you,” he said. “I won’t let them and I’m stronger than they are. Why did you sneak in here?”

But Mixcatl, terrified, couldn’t answer. She heard the slap of a priest’s sandals, caught the scent of black body-paint.

“Let her go, Six-Wind,” Three-House Speaking Quail said softly, then raised his voice. “And the rest of you, put away your fists and grimaces, for your victim is one beloved of Tezcatlipoca. Six-Wind was right to stop you.”

Speaking Quail went to the courtyard entrance, thrust his head between the belled strands. Mixcatl saw him peer back and forth, as if to make sure the way was clear for her. He drew the hanging aside so carefully that the curtain made little noise. She scurried past, then stopped to look back at him with wide eyes. As she hastened along the corridor, she could still hear the voices as the priest admonished his class.

“Are you turkey pullets that you rise gabbling and threatening when a harmless creature comes into your midst? A scholar should let nothing disturb his studies. And a noble should take no pride in raising his hand against a slave.”

Mixcatl gave a huge sigh from her place in the corridor. The way Three-House Speaking Quail shamed the boys would prevent them from bragging about the incident or mentioning it to Maguey Thorn. She hoped so. But this was a Speaking Quail that she had never seen, calm and self-possessed, instead of the nervous little man who went about dodging the burly matron. Perhaps the hymn had given him strength.

And what had he meant when he said that she was one “beloved of Tezcatlipoca”? The thought made her flush and shiver at the same time. The image of the dancing jaguar was so beautiful that she ached to see it again, yet the hymn said he was evil. Did that mean that she also was evil? The thought saddened her as she went about collecting kitchen scraps and emptying refuse pots, but she could not forget what she had seen.

As evening drew on and she heard the students gathering for the last meal of the day, she hid behind a wall and trembled, fearful that someone would tell what happened in the courtyard that morning. Although the boys chattered as they ate, there was no mention of the courtyard incident. She hoped that they would soon forget it.

But one, however, did not.

The following day, she was withdrawing from the empty students’ quarters with pots to empty. As she backed out the door, she felt someone behind her and spun, nearly spilling the pots’ contents on a pair of sandaled feet.

The boy Six-Wind stood before her, his legs apart, his fists pressing his mantle against his hips, his head cocked. “You!” he said. “The little pisspot carrier.”

Mixcatl began to back away from him.

“I won’t hurt you. I didn’t before, remember?” He paused. “Can you answer or are you dumb?”

Mixcatl drew the back of her hand across her mouth. Her tongue was dry. “I can answer,” she croaked in Nahuatl.

“That’s better,” said Six-Wind. Mixcatl saw that he had an open, pleasant face when not scowling. “I thought you might have some wit to your tongue when I saw you peering at the book.”

Mixcatl’s mouth fell open. “Maguey Thorn. Please, don’t tell. She will whip me. Sell me.”

“Old Earthquake Bosom is busy in the kitchens,” said Six-Wind, a mischievous glint in his hazel eyes. Even in her fright, Mixcatl couldn’t help a nervous giggle at Six-Wind’s name for the matron. It described her perfectly.

The boy took Mixcatl by the wrist and led her to a small chamber nearby. For a minute she resisted, but his grip was too strong and she feared any commotion would bring the priests or Maguey Thorn down upon the two of them.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Six-Wind said, a touch of impatience in his voice. “I just want to know what happened yesterday morning.”

“Why do you talk about that? Why do you pull me in here?” Mixcatl protested as he pushed her down on a mat, for the room was empty except for hangings and mats. “The other boys forgot it. Why can’t you?”

“Who kept you from getting beaten?” Six-Wind whispered. “If they’d all gone for you, a whipping from Maguey Thorn would have felt like the touch of a feather in comparison. Sit up and stop whimpering.”

Mixcatl shook the hair out of her eyes, sat back on her heels. “What do you want?” She tried to keep her voice from trembling. She knew that sometimes boys, even ones as young as Six-Wind, took girls into closed rooms and did things said to be shameful.

For a minute Six-Wind stared at her, then tipped his head back in laughter. She knew he had read the suspicion in her solemn little face.

“You think I want you for
that
? Gods no, although I don’t think you’re as ugly as some say.”

She waited.

“Why did you sneak into the courtyard and hide behind the agave pot?” Six-Wind asked. “You put yourself in danger, you know. Slaves aren’t supposed to see the religious books. You were lucky the teacher was Three-House Speaking Quail or else you might be back at the slave market right now, being sold for sacrifice.”

Another pang of fear went through Mixcatl, but instead of starting another bout of trembling, it made her bristle. This boy wasn’t her owner and had no right to frighten her with threats of being sold. She retorted in her best Nahuatl, then folded her arms defiantly, unafraid of his words or blows.

Six-Wind only laughed again. “What a little fighting cat you are! I almost would have liked a scrap in the courtyard, just to see what would have happened.”

Some of Mixcatl’s anger evaporated and she stopped pursing her lips at him. He was too easygoing to be malicious. “I didn’t mean to do anything bad,” she replied. “I thought that the courtyard would be empty. Then once I was there, I was afraid that the door curtain would ring if I went out, so I hid.”

“Well, you were lucky you didn’t get close enough to really see the texts or hear the chant. That’s why Speaking Quail let you go, you know. It’s not just because he’s kind.”

Mixcatl felt her temper start to bum. She knew that she would be safer if she kept quiet, but the truth pushed itself out. She had seen the text and heard the songs. Her face might be ill formed, but her eyes were sharp and her ears keen. And she remembered all she saw and heard. It was something to be proud of, especially when there was little else. Six-Wind’s assumption stung that pride.

“I
did
see the book,” she blurted.

Six-Wind put a hand across her mouth. His palm tasted salty and she could feel the calluses against her lips.

“No you didn’t,” he said gently. “You were halfway across the courtyard, in back of the class. You couldn’t have seen anything.”

“I did!” Mixcatl hissed.

“You’re crazy, girl. A hawk could not have seen the figures from that distance. And you only caught a quick glimpse.”

“I saw them. A temple falling over. An arrow coming down.”

“You didn’t,” said Six-Wind.

Mixcatl stuck out her chin. “I did.”

“Prove it,” the boy challenged.

Mixcatl stood up. Again came the memory of a veined hand holding a brush and from the tip came swirls of color and shape. She had no brush or paper, but a stick and the damp earth by the canal bank might serve. Her heart beat fast. This might get her into trouble, but the danger seemed to fade before a burning hot desire to show this mocking boy that she was more than a dull-witted slave.

“I
will
prove it,” she said.

This time she led the way, walking swiftly through the corridors of the school, carrying her chamber pots in a businesslike manner, but anyone who passed could see that her eyes glittered. She was glad no one came by. Behind her Six-Wind walked, keeping his distance so that it wouldn’t appear that he was accompanying her.

She went to the canalside behind the school, emptied the pots in the big jars, then ran down the canal and ducked behind a clump of creosote bushes. A short time later Six-Wind crept around the wall, looked both ways and scurried over to her hiding place. He knelt, flinging his mantle over his shoulder to keep it out of the dirt.

Mixcatl cleared a space on the ground, brushing away the leaf litter with the palm of her hand. The sandy clay beneath was moist. Wrinkling her nose at Six-Wind, Mixcatl snapped a dry twig off the creosote bush. Holding it between her stubby fingers, she pressed the end into the dirt and drew a slanted line. Then another that met it. And several more, parallel to the first.

“You are making a house, such as little children draw. And you aren’t even making it right, for you have tipped it up on one corner,” said Six-Wind scornfully.