The Visionary Mayan Queen: Yohl Ik'Nal of Palenque (7 page)

Trembling at the magnitude of holding this knowledge, she pressed her lips tightly to avoid sobbing as tears continued to gather, sending a trickle down her cheeks. The hardest thing was not being able to talk to her father. She felt disoriented, off balance that he was not privy to such information. Her world was even more deeply shaken than by being designated bearer of the royal blood.

The stares of the priest and priestess caught her in a vise. There was no escape.

“My vow. . it is given . . “

Her voice caught as a sob escaped.

“We are witness to your sacred vow. Soon we will meet again,” said Wak Batz.

Lenghtening shadows reached across the courtyard and a cool breeze swept through columns into the veranda. The family of Kan Bahlam sat on mats as their afternoon meal was served. Food was prepared and consumed outside, since the stone walls absorbed and radiated heat. The well-ventilated pole-and-thatch kitchen serving the Bahlam residence was located just outside the courtyard, keeping its activities away from the more enclosed living quarters. Its earthen floor and open-lattice walls allowed heat and smoke from burning charcoal to escape. Servants did all the cooking and serving, bringing ceramic bowls of stews, platters of fruit and drinks of juices in beautifully decorated cups. Small gourds were used as scoops, or thick maize cakes dipped into savory dishes.

While her parents chatted about daily events, Yohl Ik’nal brooded about her encounter with the High Priest and Priestess. Her head was whirling and her mind felt fuzzy. Why did she have to know this? Resistance swelled and pushed against the knowledge that her people were destined for inevitable decline. . that they were in the final fluorescence before their world unraveled. Hopelessness flooded her. What help could she possibly offer? Yet the High Priest said that she would have an important part in what was to come. It is not possible to help much feeling so desperate, so alone.

Looking at her handsome father, her heart wrenched. He did not know. He went through his days assuming their world would continue. Torn between the aching need to tell him and seek comfort in his wisdom, and the desire to protect him, she could barely stifle her sobs. When food arrived, the pungent spices almost gagged her. She picked at the fruit platter and drowned maize cakes in her stew bowl, hoping her parents would not notice. But her mother did.

“Are you unwell? You have hardly touched your meal.”

“This day has been long, I am tired.” She hoped her mother would not ask about her day.

“What did you today? You were away most of the time.”

“I made a visit to Lahun Uc. I find that I miss being at the temple.” Desperately she hoped to avoid more probing.

“Of what did you speak?” Now her father had joined the inquisition. It was time to use whatever skills she had at dissembling, something she was certain her new status would require. Gathering up her determination, she tried to keep her voice normal.

“We spoke of calendars and the cosmologic structures, these I studied most recently with the Priestess. She wishes to instruct me more, as the lessons were not completed before my ceremony. Should it be acceptable to you, I will continue to meet with her.”

It was certainly close to the truth. Her father seemed pleased and her mother had returned to eating, losing interest as soon as calendars were mentioned.

“Indeed, this you should do,” he said. “One can never learn enough about the calendars, they are so complex and numerous. It does demand great concentration which can be tiring.” He smiled and the jade insets in his teeth gleamed.

“Eat, it will restore your strength,” her mother mumbled with mouth full.

The food was no more appetizing than before, she knew another bite would make her nauseous. Smiling weakly, she signaled an attendant to remove her dishes.

“The food does not sit well upon my stomach. It is no fault of the cook, simply that I am not feeling well. With your permission, I shall retire to my chamber and rest.”

Her mother signaled permission while her father appeared perplexed. She quickly escaped before he could grill her further. Once safely esconced in her chamber, she flopped on her sleeping mat and allowed tears to flow. She cried quietly to avoid alerting her attendant. Pure despair washed over her as a black pall descended. Grasping her knees and rocking back and forth, she wallowed in a pit of darkness, unable to think.

Time passed and the sky turned ebony. Stars sparkled in their distant celestial dances, taunting her through the small window. Emptied by her catharsas, eyes dry, she gazed into the imperturbable Upperworld and found a spring of determination burbling upward inside her.

She was not helpless. She could seek answers for herself. She could use the shamanic skills that Lahun Uc had taught her.

She sat upright on the woven mat, cross-legged and very still. Intention took shape to get information about her dream and how it related to her life. The uncanny sequence could not be accidental: First she was designated bearer of royal blood, then she attended her first Popol Nah and learned of foreboding events, then her dream revealed immense human and planetary patterns that shaped Maya destiny.

Using shamanic practices, she joined her mind with the Jeweled Tree, the ceiba whose roots penetrated down into the Underworld, whose mighty trunk rose through the Middleworld of earth, and whose lofty branches soared into the Upperworld in the sky. She saw herself seated at the base of the tree, merging into its sturdy trunk covered with thick thorns, becoming fluid as its sap so that her spirit could rise. Upward and upward she went through the arteries of the tree, into the branches that became smaller, through the capillaries of the tiniest twigs, until her spirit evaporated out of the cloud-touching tips into the sky above.

Floating in the domain of gods and ancestors, she shaped her questions. Inter-polity conflict and the nature of warfare had not crossed her mind before; now she needed to understand. The messenger in the Popol Nah revealed serious disturbances of social order. First was the discontent within B’aakal cities over the May Council’s decision to make Lakam Ha the May Ku for a second cycle. What forces of change propelled this questioning of long-established, god-given protocols that maintained the balance of power? Second was the escalation of warfare by Kan, violating the venerated flower war tradition that managed ambition and aggression in men. Surely the gods had shown great wisdom in providing this model; by what right and for what purpose would a city overturn it?

The cosmic calendar appeared with cycles of rising and falling stars that formed the eras or “Suns” of Maya timekeeping. As things began, so they ended. As cycles completed, other cycles started. Cycles embedded in cycles, from the most vast to the tiniest. Again she saw the Tzek’eb cycle of K’in Ahau and its planets, moving closer and farther away from the Heart of the Sky. As it moved farther away, the exalted consciousness of the highest age began to wane, slowly at first then more rapidly until times of darkness, of constricted consciousness and all the atrocities this brought, reigned during the farthest point.

As Maya civilization deteriorated in the descending cycle, the social structures given by the gods to maintain harmony began to crumble. Human ambitions and greed began to outbalance the divine wisdom of cooperation and sharing. This phenomenon was underlying the changes reported by the messenger. It was the harbinger of darkness.

Sadness tugged at her heart, quickly replaced by calm acceptance born of the visionary state. Such was the way of the cosmos and the divine forces that shaped and ordered it. The cycle of existence simply was. To dance as a star was her people’s fate, until the ultimate dissolution into cosmic dust.

She felt her awareness being drawn back toward earth and knew her vision would soon end. A final question formed quickly; what was her role, what was she to do?

Times of strife and conflict, betrayal and plotting formed a matrix followed by a burst of brilliant light which transformed Lakam Ha into a large city with magnificent structures, level upon level climbing the steep mountainside, architecture she could not have imagined. A ruler yet to come, of creative genius and incomparable leadership, would shape this new city and leave an unrivaled legacy of Maya civilization. His mission was to preserve Maya knowledge, their wisdom and esoteric practices, their unique relationship with time and the cosmos as reflected on earth.

This great ruler would come from an issue of her body, from her blood and loins and the holy B’aakal lineage of which she was the keeper.

5

Ahkal Mo’ Nab II, K’uhul Ahau of Lakam Ha, Holy B’aakal Lord, mediator with the gods and bringer of abundance as the embodied Maize God, was not feeling well. During the night his thin body was shaken with fever, his bed pallet drenched with sweat. This morning he was weak, drained of the vigor that his 45 year-old body should rightfully have. He was steadily becoming weaker. Each attack depleted his reserve and lowered his life force. Shuddering, he sensed the relentless approach of the Death Lords of Xibalba. Not immanent, not yet at his threshold, but not so far away.

He sighed, thinking of his strong and still youthful wife who was denied children by his infirmity. Greater than this personal emptiness, however, was the lack of dynastic succession through a son. Now he accepted the inevitable, that the lineage would continue through his brother Kan Bahlam.

The ruler’s ruminations were interrupted by attendants bringing him a bowl of nourishing liquid made of ground maize, peppers and venison broth. The Shaman-Priest had carefully instructed them about the ruler’s needs after fever attacks, and also sworn them to silence about these episodes. They bathed their K’uhul Ahau once the fever broke with tepid waters infused with medicinal herbs, and wrapped him in dry cloaks of soft cotton. They encouraged him to drink plentiful clear water conveyed into his quarters by Lakam Ha’s extensive aqueduct system that also supplied chambers for bathing, eliminating and steam baths.

To satisfy his attendants, who would report the meal to the Shaman-Priest, the ruler tried to eat but his appetite was small. He gestured for them to leave the bowl with him, signaling that he be dressed in casual garb for his brother’s visit this morning. To his surprise, two visitors appeared shortly at the door of his day chamber: Kan Bahlam and his daughter, Yohl Ik’nal.

“
Ma’alo k’in
, greetings of the day,” said Ahkal Mo’ Nab, concealing his surprise.

“
Ma’alo k’in
,” father and daughter said in unison, bowing while grasping the left shoulder with the right hand, gesture of respect and honor.

The day chamber was larger than most. Its outer door opened onto an interior plaza while the inner door gave access to the sleeping chamber. Two tall rectangular windows faced the plaza where small trees and shrubs in ceramic pots added color. The ruler sat on a raised platform covered by woven mats and his guests settled cross-legged onto mats on the floor. The mats were richly woven in bright colors and intricate designs, made of dense cotton that provided cushioning. A similar woven drape covered the inner door, hanging from a wooden pole wedged into small holes on either side to give the sleeping chamber privacy.

“Here beside me is my daughter,” began Kan Bahlam. “That of which we speak today also pertains to her. It is time that she enters into these things, these considerations. May the Holy B’aakal Lord be in agreement with this understanding.”

Ahkal Mo’ Nab nodded gravely, his right hand signing acceptance.

“It is fitting that she is here. This understanding we share.”

Yohl Ik’nal kept her eyes discretely downcast, hands folded in lap. When her father told her about this meeting with the ruler, she knew why. But there was much more she needed to learn, and her mind was alert and focused.

“The meaning of the messenger is clear,” Kan Bahlam continued. “This discontent of Usihwitz and Yokib is not solely of their doing. It is fed by the ambitions of Uitah Chan, ruler of Kan. He plots and schemes for expansion, and his gluttonous eyes are turning toward the land of B’aakal. To support his objectives, he sows covetness into the minds of young nobles with little to do. He puts ideas into their minds, that they could be victorious warriors and gain greater things than are possible in flower wars. That they might even become rulers, displacing the traditional lineages of their cities. When such foment occurs the social order becomes unstable. Then shifts in power can occur, rulers made vassals, lineages unseated and overlords set in place to control the city’s resources. Uitah Chan is putting this strategy into motion.”

Silence followed as Ahkal Mo’ Nab closed his eyes. Without these bright beacons of intelligence, his face appeared wan and drawn, skin tinged faintly yellow. Yohl Ik’nal absorbed the implications of the ruler’s appearance, for she knew some things about illness and healing. Her heart felt heavy.

“It was done, this undermining of rightful order, in the time of Tuun K’ab Hix of Kan and our father Kan Joy Chitam,” the ruler said in measured tones, as if forming words was an effort. “The Kan ahauob seated 12 year-old Aj Wosal of Maxam after his father’s untimely death and left a Kan overlord for many tuns, gaining much tribute. Often have I wondered about that death, although it was claimed to be natural.”

“And shortly before that, Kan interfered in the affairs of Pa’chan,” Kan Bahlam added, “though to the credit of Pa’chan the encounter left a Kan captive in their city. That which happened more recently between Kan and Mutul is of greater concern.”

“With that I fully agree. The snakes of Kan have reached far southward, insinuating into the domain of the great and ancient Mutul, our friend and trade partner. Is it only six tuns since this shameful event? When Uitah Chan installed a puppet ruler at B’uuk, I became suspicious of his intentions. Next was a wily move, to stir the fires of discontent in Uxwitza that smoldered for years in resentment of Mutul’s dominance – a position fairly won through flower wars and the decision of the May Council.”

“Much have those events troubled me,” mused Kan Bahlam. “Still we are lacking definite information. It is puzzling that we had no contact with Mutul since its ‘chopping down’ ten tuns ago. We do know that Kan became the patron of Uxwitza and encouraged their dishonorable behavior in this event.”