The Controversial Mayan Queen: Sak K'uk of Palenque (The Mists of Palenque) (14 page)

Pakal wriggled beside her and grunted through the gag in his mouth. Both Sak K’uk and Ek Chuuah broke gaze simultaneously to look at Pakal.

“Take them both to their palace quarters and guard them there,” he commanded.

Once Sak K’uk and Pakal were taken away by warriors, Uneh Chan returned to the throne to continue orders for the sacking of Lakam Ha’s treasures, food and wealth. He made plans for containment of the city’s leading ahauob and remaining warriors. Most of Kan’s forces would leave in the morning to return home. Usihwitz and Wa-Mut were closer to Lakam Ha, so a contingent of their warriors would remain for a time. Eventually these occupying forces would return to their cities, for Maya rarely stayed to live permanently in cities they raided or attacked.

The Kan ruler believed he had accomplished his primary goal: to devastate Lakam Ha so thoroughly that the city would never regain its prominence and power. He fully expected that the crystal skull had destroyed the portal to the Triad Deities, although he did not possess the extrasensory ability to ascertain this himself. He would consult with the High Priest Tajoom upon his return to confirm this.

Walking down the palace stairs, a minor leg wound annoyed him. During the battle at the Ix Chel plaza, a warrior’s knife had slashed his left leg and cut into the calf muscle. It was not deep and he barely noticed it until the battle had ceased. Now his wound ached and caused a slight limp. It was wrapped, and he felt certain it would heal quickly.

3

For three days Ek Chuuah sat upon the double-headed jaguar throne in the palace of Lakam Ha and held court. Warriors gathered a group of ahauob and herded them to the court, including members of the royal Bahlam family. The ahauob were forced to bring tribute each day and offer it to the “three-day mat person,” as Ek Chuuah was later called in inscriptions. He relished the feeling of power that emanated from the jaguar throne with its sky bar linking the two heads, symbolizing command of the greatest forces in the natural and celestial worlds. The woven mat that covered the throne represented ruling status and presiding over the Popol Nah-Council House. This mat design was reflected in short skirts worn by rulers during ceremonies.

Tribute dwindled over the three days, for the homes of ahauob were raided by conquerors and stripped of most objects of value. Food was quickly becoming scarce; the palace storage chambers were almost empty and every temple was depleted of its reserves. Usihwitz warriors began grumbling and Wa-Mut forces left two days after the attack. Ek Chuuah became concerned that his reduced manpower might prove inadequate for maintaining control. Farmers among the Usihwitz forces were vociferous about their need to return and prepare the fields for spring corn planting. They had been conscripted to augment the number of fighters, and were not happy about it.

By the third day Ek Chuuah tired of his game, finding little satisfaction in the dour faces and unspoken hostility of his artificial court. Even Sak K’uk and Pakal remained contained and distant, offering no response to his taunts. They knelt and bowed unresisting, offered their tribute as required, and kept their silence. Bitterness began to flavor the taste of success, for even as he reveled in assuming the throne he recognized that it was false. The ahauob and people of Lakam Ha would never acknowledge him as a true ruler, as K’uhul B’aakal Ahau.

The following day, Ek Chuuah ordered the Usihwitz forces to leave and by the time that shadows lengthened from the west, their canoes had all departed.

The people of Lakam Ha slowly returned from hiding in the jungles and mountains, shocked by the devastation of their city. In the days immediately following the attack, those who had remained undertook the heart-wrenching yet critical task of burying the dead. Leaving bodies in the hot sun led to rapid decomposition with risk of pestilence. Many buried their family members under the floor in their home, as was the Maya tradition. But time worked against them, and lack of manpower forced many quick burials in trenches dug at the forest edges. Abridged transition ceremonies were performed, but the spirits of many could not receive the expected offerings to facilitate their journey through the Underworld.

Food became a primary concern. The maize, bean, squash and tuber stores in nearly every home and storage chamber in the city were decimated. Household gardens offered a few straggling chaya leaves and peppers, but were just emerging from their winter slumber. Women planted what seeds they still had and retrieved turkeys and dogs as they could. Men ventured into the jungles to find wild fruit, berries and tubers. Some formed hunting parties and sought deer, rabbits, birds and tapirs, sharing their catch with neighbors. Hunger settled onto the people as a way of life for several moons, until their plantings were ready for harvest.

In the palace chambers of Sak K’uk, the days of Usihwitz occupation dragged interminably. Pakal and Kan Mo’ Hix were confined with her, and little conversation passed among them. The shock of this stupendous defeat had not worn off; it was too soon for analysis or examination or planning for recovery. At times when her eyes met those of her husband, both acknowledged the prophetic quality of their last normal conversation, but neither wanted to speak of it. Pakal seemed lost in another world, eyes distant and vacant. His expression remained neutral and he never cried, which concerned Sak K’uk. She could only imagine the emotional damage this was inflicting on her son. She felt some relief when Pakal settled against his father as Kan Mo’ Hix wrapped an arm around his shoulders. His father’s presence seemed a comfort. She was surprised that she also felt comforted. They were, at least, all alive.

When Ek Chuuah’s forces departed, a new surge of energy enlivened Sak K’uk and she analyzed what actions to take first. A day spent walking around the residential compounds with Kan Mo’ Hix and Pakal convinced her that first the people must plant, both household gardens and fields on the plain. When farmers cried that they had very few seeds, she sent runners by canoes to Nututun and Sak Tz’i to request more. She organized children to scour every storage chamber, even in outlying temples, for beans, corn and squash seeds that had been missed by invaders. The Temple of the High Priest had escaped being thoroughly pillaged because of its distance and height, and Pasah Chan distributed seeds generously among the townspeople.

Both Sak K’uk and Kan Mo’ Hix met with farmers and gave encouraging speeches. They projected confidence that they really did not have, because it was necessary to show strength in the royal family. When farmers worked in the fields, preparing the soil for maize, squash, tomatoes and beans, they were surprised by visits from the royals offering praise and blessing the fields. Always Sak K’uk kept Pakal at her side, for she could not bear being separated and hoped their bravado would reassure him.

Fires smoldered for many days after the attack, and the haze of smoke hung overhead longer. During the dry season there was little wind to clear it away. The smoke was a constant reminder of their tragedy. Once the planting process was underway, the royals agreed they must face the destruction and take stock of the damage wrought upon Lakam Ha. Two places in particular concerned Sak K’uk: the Temple of Kan Bahlam and the Sak Nuk Nah. She knew that her grandfather’s burial pyramid would be a target, since the core of Ek Chuuah’s vengeance sprang from the Flower War affront. The Sak Nuk Nah was the primary focus of destruction, as she had observed during the attack.

From the palace, they crossed the stone bridge over the east tributary of the Bisik River and approached Kan Bahlam’s temple first. Even from a distance they saw that the roofcomb had fallen, but upon reaching the lower platform they were appalled at the temple’s condition. Fires had been lit in all chambers of the upper temple, using every burnable object and raising temperatures to the point that the wooden door lintels also burned. The lintels supported the upper doorways, so when they burned structural support for the corbelled arches was weakened, causing the arched roofs to collapse. These roofs held the roofcomb; now all upper structures lay in crumbled heaps inside the temple chambers.

With tears stinging her eyes, Sak K’uk climbed the long stairs to the upper temple level. Kan Mo’ Hix and Pakal followed after her. They stood in stunned silence, for the once lovely carved outer piers and interior panels had been axed and chipped until their stucco figures and glyphs fell into fragments. Chips of vibrant colors caught the sunlight amid heaps of blackened ashes. No remnants of Kan Bahlam’s portrait on the middle panel could be identified. She could barely imagine the destructive fury unleashed upon this temple, no doubt expressly commanded by Ek Chuuah.

Shaking her head, Sak K’uk took Pakal’s hand and led him down the stairs. She could think of no comforting words, and her heart ached at the boy’s severe, tearless face. The family walked slowly north toward the Sak Nuk Nah, past several noble residential complexes where they nodded or spoke briefly to ahauob whose confused, distraught expressions spoke more eloquently than their words. Blackened stucco on the walls of many houses marked the sites of multiple fires that racked the city. The three-tiered stone bridge over a wider section of the Bisik remained intact, because it had allowed the invaders passage to the path descending along the cascades to the Michol River below.

Sak K’uk hesitated as the Ix Chel Temple came into sight. She was uncertain whether it was a good idea for Pakal to view the damage to the Sak Nuk Nah, where he had many joyful visits as a young child. His eyes met hers, pools of unfathomable darkness. He looked ahead and began walking with determination. Exchanging glances with Kan Mo’ Hix, she followed close behind her son. The Ix Chel Temple’s roofcomb stood intact, for its interior was not the target. A short distance from the temple, an area of open ground had collapsed into a huge hole. There, she knew, the tunnel and underground chamber of the White Skin House had collapsed, opening to the sky.

Pakal stood on the edge of the ragged hole, clumps of soil and rocks tumbling into the shadowed chasm. His body was rigid for a moment, and then he dropped to his knees and peered down. Sak K’uk hurried to his side, but before she reached him the boy clambered over precarious rocks down into the hole.

“Pakal! Do not go into the hole, it is dangerous!” she cried.

He paid no heed, disappearing into the partially collapsed chamber full of soil debris, charred wood, smashed ceramics and fallen rocks.

Kan Mo’ Hix quickly descended into the hole, Sak K’uk following more carefully. Smells of burnt charcoal, earthy peat, and old excrement assaulted their noses. Most of the chamber roof had collapsed and also part of the tunnel leading to the Ix Chel Temple. As their eyes adjusted to the filtered light, they viewed the total destruction and desecration of their most sacred shrine. Nothing was recognizable, even the floor was disrupted; everything left in tiny fragments or burned heaps. A few fat flies buzzed lazily around dried excrement.

They called for Pakal, unable to see him as their eyes swept the open area. He emerged from the semi-darkness below a tipping section of chamber ceiling, cradling something in his arms. Now tears streamed down his cheeks, splattering into sooty drops on the small ceramic piece he held.

“They killed Unen K’awill, the Baby Jaguar,” Pakal uttered between soft sobs. “Here is his head, but it has no life… he is gone, my friend is gone… Oh why, how could they do this?”

He cradled the decapitated head of the Unen K’awill figurine that once graced the sacred chamber. The chubby flattened jaguar face stared blankly, smeared with dirt and excrement and one stubby ear broken off. Sak K’uk took Pakal in her arms and cried with him. Kan Mo’ Hix stood stiffly, fists clenched in fury and despair.

Moments passed in anguished silence. The remaining royal family of Lakam Ha felt as desecrated and damaged as their holy Sak Nuk Nah. As the morning sun moved more directly overhead, light fell upon the altar still standing in the chamber and a flash of brilliance startled them. Thousands of glistening crystal shards covered the altar and spilled onto the floor below. The sunlight seemed to ignite the fragments and exploded a kaleidoscope of colors into the chamber.

Pakal leapt from his mother’s arms, clutching the Baby Jaguar head to his chest. His surprised parents backed away from the brilliant light.

“It is what did this!” Pakal exclaimed. “Here it is, these are its crystal remnants. It has been shattered by doing its evil work.”

“What are you saying, Pakal?” asked Kan Mo’ Hix.

Sak K’uk approached, shielding her eyes to examine the fragments more closely.

“It has chopped down the Jeweled Tree, it has broken the channel, it has closed the portal to the Upperworld,” Pakal intoned as if entranced. “The portal has fallen. It is closed. It is no more.”

“Look,” Sak K’uk whispered, pointing to a large crystal fragment that had fallen under the legs of the altar throne. “This was a crystal skull, see there is an eye.”

Pakal and Kan Mo’ Hix stooped to see, recognizing the arch of an upper orbit and the hollow space of a partial eye socket now displaced from its position in the skull. Sak K’uk understood from her shamanic training.

“They used a crystal skull, embedded it with a powerful curse that was released to destroy our sacred shrine… and our link to the Triad Deities and ancestors. That must be why the skull shattered, when those forces were activated. This must be the work of a dark shaman-priest using the evil might of the Death Lords.”

She shuddered as the mantle of ominous intentions wrapped closer around, making her acutely aware of evil presence. The dislodged eye socket seemed to fix its gaping stare at her, sending emanations that chilled her bones. Skin prickling and hairs of her arms standing on end, the sensations of danger were intense.

“Quickly, we must leave this place,” she whispered. “Here is great evil intent. The forces of the Death Lords are still present.”

Pakal was also trembling, but she saw it was from fury and not fear.

“They will not escape without suffering for what they did.” His voice held deadly resolve. “It must be rectified. We must avenge this horrible affront and restore our portal. The Jeweled Tree must be raised again.”