The Seven Serpents Trilogy

by Scott O'Dell

  What adoration, what love, I must have inspired in the hearts of the people to bring them to such grief and desolation! I was overwhelmed. Tears sprang to my eyes.

  Standing at the rail as we made ready to leave the ship, Bishop Pedroza announced in somber tones to no one in particular that the tales he had heard from Governor Velásquez had been misleading. “Shining towers, such as one sees in Seville,” he said, “where are they? And where the streets paved with gold?”

  “In your imagination, sir,” the dwarf announced. “And the governor’s. This is an abandoned city that Kukulcán, Lord of the Evening Star, seeks to rebuild. A nearly impossible task.”

  I said nothing, satisfied that Bishop Pedroza remained un aware of the reason for the deserted streets. In due course he would discover it. Already the curious had gathered around the ship, ignorant of my presence.

  When the animals were lowered to the wharf, I insisted that the bishop ride forth on one of the mares. He had never ridden a horse before and was reluctant to do so now, but I led him haltingly into the saddle and up the ramp.

  As we came to the embankment, Flint Knife announced us with a blast of trumpets. The sound echoed forlornly through the silent streets. But a second blast from the conches brought people running. By the time we reached the Temple of Kukulcán, a crowd of shouting thousands pressed in upon us, carrying noisemakers and flaming torches.

  Bishop Pedroza clung desperately to his saddle horn. In the light of the torches his face looked ghastly, not from fear, though he must have believed that danger was closing in on him from every side, but from some emotion deeper than physical fear, an assault upon his spirit. He must have seen many of the faithful moving down cathedral aisles in orderly processions. But never before had he looked into the countenance of a pagan multitude, nor felt its hot breath upon him, nor heard its wild, animal cries. Nothing in all Christendom had prepared him for this moment. Words formed on his lips but he could not speak them.

  Guards made a path for us across the square to the gates of the temple and into its dark passageways. We rode in silence upward along gray walls dripping water, through nests of stalagmites that sprang from the earthen floor, past the Cavern of the Dead, where our torches shone upon endless rows of bleached skulls.

  In all this journey, Bishop Pedroza said nothing. Only when we came to the place where the skulls of those who had died on thesacrificial altar were carefully arranged, their white cheekbones touching in friendship, did a sound come from him, a gasp of horror, chilling to hear. But when we left our mounts behind and stepped out on the lofty terrace, Pedroza had regained his composure. Like someone just returned from a ride in the park, he glanced around indifferently, at the god house, at the stained stone altar, at the men in masks gathered beside it, and far below at the swarming multitude that filled the plaza.

  Priests and lords were toiling up the steep face of the temple, zigzagging back and forth to lessen the strain on their legs. Among them, though he wore a mask, I made out the stooped figure of high priest Chalco, taking one deliberate step at a time, no doubt rehearsing the excuses he would offer for leaving us to die on the altar of the Azteca war god.

  At my side the dwarf, who was also watching, gave out his silly laugh, “He, he, he,” and said, “It surprises me to see him here.”

  “The man never lacked for courage,” I said.

  “He has much to explain.”

  “We’ll listen to his explanations. They’ll be clever and be lievable. And we will accept them.”

  “In other words,” said the dwarf, “we don’t accept them. Now, before they are spoken, or later, when they are spoken.”

  “Neither now nor later,” I said.

  Votive candles lighted the terrace, shining on pools of half-dried blood left from a recent sacrifice. Bishop Pedroza must have seen the blood, but pretending, perhaps, that he stood on the well-swept stones of some Spanish cathedral, he did not take notice.

  He stared down at the crowd that filled the square, at the Indians carrying torches streaming toward the temple from all directions, at the bobbing lights of canoes hurrying in from the sea. At last, as I moved forward to address the chanting crowd, he turned to me with dazed eyes in which I saw a look of bewilderment. Or was it apprehension I saw, or something stronger?

  My speech to the multitude began with a few phrases of humble greeting. This was followed by an apology for my absence, reminding the people that I had returned to them after a journey much shorter than my first journey, when I had been gone a hundred years and more. I promised them that in times to come I would have more to say about my meeting with Moctezuma and with others.

  Then I flung words at them like stones, like flaming javelins. “Your island and your city are in mortal danger,” I said. “A barbarian, by name Hernán Cortés, came from a country far to the east. He landed upon the shores of Yucatán. With an army he marched to the city of the Azteca, sacked the temples, and caused the death of Moctezuma. Finally he was driven from the city. But now he sulks. Now he gnashes his teeth. Now he cannot sleep, hatching plans to salve his wounded pride.”

  The chanting rose in waves and beat against the god house. Of the thousands in the square below, not one could hear me. But I was not talking to them. My words were meant for the lords gathered on the terrace, those who in my absence had listened to High Priest Chalco, for the lesser priests who were in league with him, for Chalco himself. And above all, for the man in the black gown and violet vest, Bishop Rodrigo Pedroza.

  “This Cortés,” I went on, “this one who sulks and stews and licks his wounds, when he cannot sleep in the middle of the night, he nurses an idea. It is this. He plans to fall upon the Island of the Seven Serpents, upon us, and wreck our city as he did Tenochtitlán.”

  I waited until there was a lull in the chanting, then took a step forward to the very edge of the terrace and raised my hands. “I call you to arms,” I shouted. In the silence that fell, I shouted it again. To those on the terrace, lowering my voice, I said, “All traitors, beware!” I said these words twice, so they could not be mistaken.

  With this warning, I finished my speech. High Priest Chalco then stepped forward to address the crowd. When he began an apology intended for me as well as for those in the square below, I gathered Bishop Pedroza, got him on his mare, and left the temple by the back passageway to avoid the crowd. We rode through the garden—where I was pleased to see flowers in bloom and fountains playing—to the palace.

  I had planned to settle Pedroza in rooms next to those of Ah den Yaxche, who I thought would keep a watchful eye on the bishop, but to my great distress, the old man had died while I was gone. I had come to trust him and value his counsel. In the critical times ahead I would sorely miss him.

  The quarters he had occupied were the most commodious in the palace, caught the morning sun like a golden net, and enjoyed an excellent view of the sacred lake where virgins were sacrificed to the sun god. Here I settled the bishop and ordered him a bountiful dinner, though he protested that he was not hungry.

  “How long do you propose to keep me here?” he said as I was about to leave. “From your speech to the horde I gather that it will be some time.”

  “Some time indeed,” I said. “The day Cortés is taken care of. Drowned in the sea or slain on the parapets.”

  Pedroza stood facing a wall that portrayed in blues and bright reds a scene from the terrace he had just left. It was inspired by the sacrifice of hundreds of slaves, whose bodies could be seen heaped in the background, their hearts piled high in a votive urn that was encircled by a serpent with amethyst eyes.

  “In your speech,” he said, “you warned that Cortés has already made plans to capture the city. If that is true, why do you prevent me from giving him the governor’s message? It contains no secrets. Nothing that would help him in an attack upon you…”

  The bishop paused, overcome, his eyes drawn to the mural in front of him. “Upon this barbaric island, whose inhabitants are the
devil’s savage spawn. Is it because you wish to hold me hostage?”

  “Hostage?” I said. “The thought, I must confess, has never occurred to me. But it’s a good one. If worse came to worst and Cortés was about to burn the city, Your Eminence might stay his hand rather than be burned yourself.”

  I waited for the bishop to answer, but his face had grown even paler and some emotion too strong for words kept him silent, his eyes fixed upon the wall.

  CHAPTER 4

  TWO DAYS BEFORE HE DIED IN HIS SLEEP, AH DEN YAXCHE HAD composed a message, which was delivered to me that night as I ate dinner. The hieroglyphics were painted on a scroll of the finest fawnskin paper, saved, no doubt, from the days when he was a high priest. There were only two glyphs in all, but the temple drum sounded the hour of midnight before I managed to make head or tail of them.

  Ah den Yaxche, his blunt manner made more blunt by the shadow of death, and to the last refusing to address me as “god Kukulcán,” had painted one of the parables in yellow and blue, showing a ruined cornfield, an empty hut, and a fat crow picking at an ear of corn. I interpreted it to mean that a farmer who leaves his land at harvest time will find upon returning that he has been robbed—a clear reference to my recent journey.

  The second parable, limned starkly in yellows, reds, and blacks, showed a broad causeway branching into two paths, and a perplexed traveler standing at the fork, trying to decide which one to take. The path on his left was peopled by sleep ing figures, happy beneath a bountiful tree, and beyond them low in the sky stood a warm, welcoming moon. The path on the traveler’s right swarmed with fanged bats and eyeless snakes. But high in the heavens shone a gemlike star, bright as a ruby, whose rays touched the earth.

  I puzzled over this parable into the night, slept upon it, awakened to it, then in the light of day put it out of mind.

  The celebration that had started the previous night grew during the day. People came from distant parts of the island, from the mainland villages of Tikan, Zaya, Uxmal, and from the country of Mayapán. Wild cries and thundering drums beat against the palace walls like a summer huracán.

  During this time Bishop Pedroza never left his room. Fearful after two days had passed that he had fallen ill, I went to his quarters and found him on his knees in prayer, his meals uneaten, the bed not slept in.

  Seeing him there on his knees, hands clasped and pale face raised toward the sky, I was seized by a Christian impulse. Spanish blood joined us together. We were brothers in the faith. We both prayed to Mary, Mother of Christ. In Christ’s name I should set him free.

  The impulse lasted only an instant. It fled at the thought of Cortés and his army of brigands, who had sacked the city of Tenochtitlán, spreading fire and death among the innocent, who would do the same, if given the chance, in the City of the Seven Serpents. Quietly closing the door, I left the bishop on his knees.

  The celebration lasted for more than a week and ended with the sacrifice of twenty-five slaves. I did nothing to stop the ritual, which pleased Chalco so much he made a special visit to the palace to thank me for my new attitude about the rite and to apologize for having deserted me in Tenochtitlán. I accepted both his thanks and his apologies with a nod.

  “I hope you don’t blame me for what happened there in the mountains,” he said, speaking in a mousy voice through the open beak of his macaw mask, going on at length about his misfortunes.

  “Why should I blame you?” I said. “You see me here, sit ting in my favorite chair and in good health and spirits.”

  “You learned things from your journey to Moctezuma? You found him a bright and gentle man?”

  “Gentle, but not bright. He lived by the stars, but the stars offered him bad counsel and in the end deserted him. You know that he’s dead?”

  “With sorrow I have heard,” Chalco said, pausing to think. “The army that rides on the back of deer and carries thundersticks that spit fire, have you encountered it?”

  I nodded.

  “Do you believe that someday it will come here?”

  “Someday.” I knew, though I couldn’t see the face behind the brilliant feathers of the macaw mask, that Chalco had given thought to this and was already laying plans, plans that would profit by Moctezuma’s mistakes. “Someday soon,” I added.

  I had learned that after leaving Tenochtitlán and returning to the island, Chalco had spent his time courting the favor of the priesthood, which numbered close to nine hundred. By various deceits and promises of advancement, he had attracted a following of a dozen or more ambitious young priests. They felt that if I won the populace away from the Mayan gods, they would find themselves with nothing to do, no ladders to climb.

  The island and the city were threatened. All my strength, I felt, must go into meeting the onslaught of a barbarous army led by a brutal captain, whether they fell upon us in a month or a year. This was no time for a test of power between me and High Priest Chalco and his ambitious cohorts. No time to waste on Christian thoughts. Christ was patient. He had waited for centuries. He would not mind waiting now, or so I concluded.

  The dangerous journey to Tenochtitlán had been in vain. All I had learned about the nation that extended for a hundred leagues in every direction, about Moctezuma, its unstable king, to whom a thousand villages paid tribute, who with a single blast from a conch-shell horn could summon half a million warriors to his side—all this meant nothing. Everything I had seen—the fountains and running water, the lagoons blooming with hyacinth, the gardens along the streets and causeways and even on rooftops, the sky alive with feathered kites and flags—everything I remembered and hoped to bring to the City of the Seven Serpents now must be laid aside.

  I ground my teeth in frustration and paced the palace floor. In anger, I then began the hateful task of turning a peaceful city into an armed camp.

  I called the nacom to the palace and instructed him to be gin fortifying the city at once. “In all directions,” I said. “Strengthen the sea walls that have fallen. And devise a plan to protect us from attack by land.”

  “How much time to do all this?” the nacom said.

  “Six months, no longer.”

  “But you told the man Pedroza that Cortés’s army had been destroyed. In six months’ time he cannot find a new army and march to the coast from the high mountains and get into ships and come here, not in six months.”

  “Cortés is an inventor of miracles,” I said. “We may feel his hot breath sooner. In six months or less.”

  Under Flint Knife’s watchful eye, repairs were started on the ruined walls between the city and the sea. In places they were little more than mounds of rubble overgrown by creep ing vegetation. It was close to planting season, so I could not ask the farmers for help as I had before. Instead, the prisoners and slaves were set to work clearing the jungle and putting the stones back in place. With bitter disappointment I watched them leave the site at El Caracol and abandoned my plans of uncovering the series of mounds that lay beyond.

  Heightening the harbor wall by two feet and lengthening it on both flanks called for more stones than were lying around. We sent masons to the ancient quarry, used hundreds of years before when the city was built, and cut slabs twice as large as those already in the walls. In the old days, stones had been hauled from the quarry to the building site on sleds. I has tened the operation by introducing the wheel, which for all of their brilliance the Maya had never thought of, or out of super stition never used. Or perhaps it was because some ruler had deemed it wise to give his restless subjects added work. In any event, carts on solid wooden wheels proved to be a vast im provement over sleds dragged by ropes.

  The wall devoured stones, and while masons worked in the quarry we sent out carts and workmen to scrounge in the meadows around the palace, where huge buildings that once connected with it now lay in heaps. During this operation, which went on all day and by torches at night, Pedroza con fronted me one evening as I sat down to dinner. I had not met the bishop since the day I left
him on his knees, though I had seen him walking slowly through the meadow between the palace and the sacred lake, hands clasped behind his back.

  I invited him to join me. He looked thinner than I remembered, and if possible, his face had a paler cast than usual.

  “I have eaten,” he said. “And now I would like to sleep. I have not done much of that lately, since the carts began rumbling all night.”

  “I’ll have your quarters changed to the north wing of the palace,” I said. “It will be quieter there, though you’ll have no view of the lake.”

  “I’ll stay it out,” the bishop said, then paused, and a little color came into his face. He wore the large amethyst ring, which he began to twist. “However, since you are gathering stones for some reason, perhaps you could gather up the ob ject that stands outside my window. Except for this unsightly pillar I would have an excellent view of the lake.”

  The object he referred to was really not a pillar at all, but a length of light green malachite, four times as tall as a tall man, carved in the shape of a male organ. Dozens of these fertility statues were scattered about the city.

  The bishop backed toward the door. “I fail to see how you can countenance such an obscenity. And on the palace grounds.”

  “I’ll have it taken down, carted away, and put in our wall,” I said as he disappeared. “It will be gone by morning.”

  The wall progressed steadily until the day the bad news came. The road weasels I had sent to Tenochtitlán returned with word that Cortés was busy collecting the remnants of his army and, far from admitting defeat, planned another attack upon the Azteca.