The Empire of Yearning (12 page)

T
HE EARLY PORTION OF
the journey led through sparsely forested flatlands and low hills, but the terrain gradually grew more rugged. The sun rose in a clear sky, and this was a blessing, as parts of the route proved to be as treacherous as the Indian girl had warned—long narrow ridges strung like tightropes from the crests of adjoining hills. The riders advanced along a tenuous path, the earth spinning crazily away, plummeting down nearly vertical cliffs, sometimes on both sides at once.

Beatríz rode first. Diego couldn’t help but admire her coolness. Any misstep might lead to catastrophe, but she seemed oblivious to the danger. She bunched the reins in one hand and swung around to glance behind her, insisting there was no need to mind the narrowness of the path or the perilous descents, as any horse worth its oats could be trusted to put one hoof in front of the other without pitching over a precipice. She suggested it might be best to interfere as little as possible with the horses’ own judgment.

They rode on in silence for a time, until the terrain grew less horrific. Then, without warning, Diego heard a loud groan of pain. He swung
around in his saddle. It was Billimek. The man was nearly doubled over, practically toppling from his horse. At first, Diego thought he must be suffering a bout of vertigo, perhaps a delayed reaction to the unnerving terrain.

Everyone dismounted and waited as the emperor’s physician took charge. Doktor Basch soon produced his diagnosis—an incipient case of dysentery, beyond the shadow of a doubt. The eggs that the scientist had consumed at breakfast were almost certainly to blame.

“I think we had better return to the hacienda,” he said.

“What?” Carlota shivered in horror. “And ride back along those cliffs! Dear God, no.”

“Perhaps a brief rest,” said the emperor. “Perhaps Billimek will recover. It would be a shame to turn back now that we are so close.”

“Your Majesty,” said Basch, “I fear that it is quite impossible for the man to continue. He is too ill.”

“I see.” Maximiliano whacked his crop against one of his tall riding boots. “Well, in that case, I suppose we shall all have to turn back.”

“I have another idea,” said Beatríz. She turned to Diego. It was not a great challenge to reach the caves from here, she said. She could easily point the way. “Look. From that valley over there, you have only to bear up the stream bed.” She pointed toward what appeared to be the meandering course of a seasonal riverbed, flanked by fresno trees. “It will take only an hour or so to reach the caves. When you see a grove of purple plum trees, you are there.” She smiled at Diego. “You can lead the way. It isn’t difficult.”

Diego nodded. “All right.”

“And you?” said the emperor. He meant the girl.

“I shall guide the doctor back to the hacienda. The doctor and the patient.” The others, she said, could continue their journey to the caves. She would try to join them later.

A pair of
mozos
came plodding into view from behind, guiding a pair of donkeys laden with large clay pots of water. The girl said they should divvy up the liquid. Both groups should keep an ample supply close at hand.

Maximiliano promptly overruled her. He said a donkey with its heavy burden would simply slow everyone down. Diego had a feeling the emperor was simply irritated at being deprived of the young woman’s company.

“Besides,” said Maximiliano, “We have Serrano here to guide us. He will deliver us from harm.”

Diego said nothing, suddenly uncertain whether he had understood Beatríz’s directions correctly. He should clarify them, but he didn’t want to seem slow-witted before the girl.

With a leg up from one of the hussars, the emperor remounted his horse and gathered the reins. He nodded at Diego. “Lead on.”

First, Diego swung around in his saddle to watch as Beatríz rode off, mounted upon her tall bay mare. Knotted in a single braid, her dark hair bobbed behind her. She turned and smiled and waved and then vanished beyond the green boughs of a fresno tree. Birdsong drifted down from the higher branches, and Diego found he could breathe more easily at last. He settled back into the saddle and caught the emperor’s gaze. He, too, had been watching the girl as she rode away.

“
¡A las grutas!
” cried Maximiliano. He spurred his horse so that the animal reared back and then leapt ahead, like a charger into battle. “To the caves!”

“Are you sure this is the right way?” said Salm-Salm. “We do not seem to be going up. We seem to be going down. Are you sure you are not mistaken?”

“Quite sure,” said Diego, although he too was feeling some doubts.

The girl had definitely said to proceed
up
the stream bed. By this, he
had assumed her to mean they should trace the course of the bed toward the east. She was an Indian, after all. When a Mexican Indian says
up
, he means east, because the sun comes up in the east. Now, however, he wondered whether she hadn’t instead intended to refer to the route that water would take when flowing through this channel. He and the others seemed to be travelling downstream, along a sandy, waterless trail that wound through a narrow forest. The sun was oppressive, stoking a dry, relentless heat that was heavy, ponderous, soporific. Not a leaf stirred. The only sound was the occasional whine of the cicada, rising slowly in the distance until it stung the ears, before gradually fading away.

Diego gritted his teeth. “This route will take us to the caves.”

“It had better.” Salm-Salm removed his straw hat and ran his shirt sleeve across his brow. “You are aware, I suppose, that the welfare of the emperor and empress of Mexico rests in your hands.”

“Felix …” Salm-Salm’s wife reached over and placed a hand on her husband’s shoulder. “Please.”

It was clear to Diego that Salm-Salm’s words were really intended for the emperor. It was equally apparent that he himself was in the wrong. He should have insisted upon keeping at least one of the donkeys and its cargo. As the only Mexican in the group, he alone understood the punishing effect of the heat at midday. Now their only supply of water was on its way back to the hacienda at Cocoyotla.

The emperor stood up in his stirrups again and gazed ahead, like a general assessing the fortunes of battle. He turned to Diego. “A grove of trees, did she say? Some kind of fruit trees?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. Plum trees.”

“Your Majesty,” said Salm-Salm, “I fear your secretary is leading us astray. I say we should turn back. I cannot put the matter too strongly. Our lives hang in the balance.”

The emperor called for Bombelles. The count considered the matter for several moments before leaning toward Maximiliano. “Your Majesty,” he said, “I vote we carry on as we are.”

“You do?”

“Yes. It is a well-known tenet in the lore of soldiering that, when in doubt, one should proceed downstream. It is in the nature of human settlements that they are built near water. By riding downstream, we are sure to come across a town eventually.”

Disgruntled and weary, the travellers fell into line and coaxed their horses forward. They plodded through the dull languor, the dead brown leaves crackling underfoot. An hour passed, mostly in silence, until at last Diego caught sight of a grove of small fruit trees not far from the sandy bank, near a bend in the stream bed.

“Plums!” he cried out.

It was as if the party had stumbled upon the Promised Land. Here were plums to eat—plump, luscious fruit, something to ease their awful dryness and craving. Diego and the others all urged their horses up through a barricade of large boulders and onto the stream bed’s banks and then straight into the copse of plum trees, where they at once began gorging themselves upon the fruit. Soon rivulets of violet syrup ran down every chin, staining their clothes, but no one cared.

The emperor was the first to remember their purpose in having ridden all this way. “I expect it will be cooler inside the caves,” he said. His eyes lit up. “We might even find water.”

Quickly, they dismounted, looping their reins around the branches of trees. They left the horses under the care of two of the hussar guards. Several large pine torches were unpacked and lit. The caves themselves were easy to find. The main entrance was as large as a church gate and stood only twenty
varas
or so from the stream bed, partway up a severe, densely forested hillside. The emperor insisted upon leading the way. A pair of tall
amate
trees flanked the cave mouth. Maximiliano hesitated, then squared his shoulders, took a step forward, and was suddenly swallowed by darkness. One moment, he was the emperor of Mexico, his ruddy hair and beard illuminated by the midday sun. The next moment, he was gone.

I
T WAS
B
OMBELLES WHO
acted first. He tightened his grip on one of the pine torches, barged ahead, and disappeared. The remaining travellers briefly held back but then seemed to reach the same unspoken decision. One after another, they ventured into the cave, passing instantly from the glare of day into the cavernous night. Diego was third in line. The remaining hussar guards brought up the rear, both bearing torches that provided a fitful illumination that danced against the craggy walls. The light was sufficient to let everyone grope his way forward—and downward. They descended along the uneven floor of the tunnel, unable to see more than a
vara
or so ahead. Before long, the passage veered off to the left, narrowed abruptly, and then just as quickly widened into a sort of underground salon. Here, they encountered the emperor and Bombelles, both of them standing against a damp slab of rock, each holding a torch, waiting for the others to catch up.

Maximiliano raised his free arm in a gesture of welcome. “
Mi
casa es su casa.
”

His words echoed through the chamber and beyond. It occurred to Diego what a fascinating mixture of boldness and reserve was contained
in the man’s temperament. He could debate with himself for half an hour over an innocuous piece of correspondence, yet here he had charged into the subterranean darkness without a scruple of any kind.

“Halloo! Halloo!” the Countess Kollonitz called out in a high-pitched voice. The word repeated itself over and over in a hollow echo that seemed to recede further and further into the earth. The only other sound was the regular ping of water falling upon water.

“Come,” said Maximiliano. “Let us tour the rest of our new abode.”

After tilting to the left, the tunnel led downward and grew steadily narrower, so that they all were obliged to duck their heads to avoid brushing against the ceiling. Soon the tunnel widened again and then opened into a large cavern, where they could easily stand upright. The light from the torches seemed to flare around and above, glancing against several massive stalactites that projected downward from a high stone ceiling. A broad pool of water filled most of the chamber, its deep expanse seeming to glow in the reflected light of the torches, an eerie spectacle of luminous and variegated blue. The effect was uncanny—as if the water were somehow being irradiated from below, as if some mysterious source of light beamed upward through the pool. Aquamarine at its edges, the water darkened to a mass of liquid cobalt at the centre. So this was the reason for the name
—las grutas luminosas.
The shining caves.

Diego felt as though he were trespassing somehow. Water dripped from the ceiling of the great sunken hall and spattered against the surface of the blue pool, just as it must have done for centuries. His throat was dry, and he struggled to swallow, uneasy amid the ghostly surroundings. He felt an urge to escape.

For his part, the emperor seemed calm, almost delighted. He said he wished to enjoy a swim. He handed off his torch to one of the hussars and balanced himself by a large damp rock. He began to yank off his boots and stockings. He rose to his feet and then lurched forward, stumbling barefoot into the pool.

“Eureka!” he shouted, and the word repeated itself over and over before gradually fading. He threw himself forward onto his chest and
plunged beneath the shimmering surface, gliding through the light like a dense blue shadow. Something caused Diego to follow the man’s example. He, too, wanted the sensation of water. He tore off his boots and stockings and darted toward the pool, splashing through the shallows before diving headlong into the strangely radiant lagoon.

The water was shockingly cold, and when he breached the surface his skin seemed to ripple uncontrollably. But soon enough he grew accustomed to the temperature of the water, bitter as it was, and basked instead in the pleasure of being immersed in this shining blue element.

“Ah, don Diego. Is that you?”

It was the emperor, swimming easily on his side.

Without a word, as if by some silent agreement, he and Maximiliano began to stroke in the direction of the opposite bank, dimly visible as a series of shadows in the aquamarine light. Before long, Diego’s hand nudged up against the hardness of rock, and he managed with some difficulty to haul himself up on to a low ledge. The emperor did the same. For a time, they remained where they were, hunched side by side in their dripping clothes, gazing out at the strange blue evanescence of the pool, at the dancing shapes cast by the torchlight upon the ceiling of the cave, and at the dangling blades of the stalactites.

“Serrano, you’ve acquitted yourself admirably. Well done.”

Diego put back his shoulders and smiled to himself. It was no unpleasant feeling to have bested Salm-Salm, and it was rendered all the more gratifying by the emperor’s words.

At his side, the emperor had begun to shiver. “Dear God, I do feel a chill. Don’t you?” His teeth chattered as he spoke.

Diego began to shiver, too. The prospect of immersing himself again in the painfully cold water suddenly seemed like a kind of torture. He reached back with his right arm to steady himself and felt his hand brush against a rock, or something like a rock. He thought somehow of a small unripe calabash and immediately knew what it was he was touching. He closed his hand around the thing and drew it out into the faint blue light.

He was holding a skull, a human skull. It leered at him with an expression
that should have been fixed but seemed strangely changeable, as if it were laughing through the havoc of shadows and light. He felt a weight behind him, a burden he had not sensed before. He did not need to turn. He did not need to look. But he was unable to resist. He did turn—and there they were, jumbled behind his back, a great hummock of bones piled atop a broad stone ledge. There must have been hundreds. Maybe thousands. What crime had been committed here? Some massive execution? He held the skull up in the dim light.

“God in heaven!” cried the emperor. He, too, turned and looked before plunging back into the pool and ploughing away through the ice-cold and shattering water. He gasped and spluttered, his arms flailing at his sides. Diego flung the thing away and threw himself into the lagoon. He swam toward the emperor. Before long, both men were clambering through the shallows and up onto the bank where the others waited.

Maximiliano said nothing but only rooted about for his boots and stockings. He staggered away barefoot, and Diego followed, clutching his own stockings and boots to his chest. The two of them blundered ahead through the darkness. Diego was vaguely aware of the other members of the party trailing somewhere behind, their voices dashing against the walls of successive caverns and tunnels. The climb seemed to take far longer than the descent, but at last he rounded a final turn, the light seemed to explode, and he stumbled out into the bright midday sunshine.

The heat seemed to pulse from every surface, from the dirt, the stones, the branches of trees, the brittle leaves crackling on the ground. Maximiliano stumbled off alone, bearing in the direction of the grove of plum trees. He was still barefoot, his boots and hosiery cradled in his arms.

Diego’s mind raced. He wondered what chain of events had ended in that underground chamber, leaving that immensity of bones. He pulled on the first of his boots and was cursing under his breath as he struggled with the second when the torrid air seemed to split apart, pierced by a man’s high-pitched scream.