I shook my head. “You’re wrong. The Maya practically invented the idea.”
“What do you mean?”
“They discovered the concept of zero, for one.”
“But a zero isn’t meaningless. Add a number to zero, and it’s magnified by ten.”
I propped my face up with my hands. I was exhausted, but I couldn’t help but remember a relevant reference in a completely different source. There was a chapter in de la Cueva’s own papers that would support my point.
“Here, hold on, I’ve got you cornered.” I reached down to my canvas bag, where I’d put my books and maps and copies. I’d Xeroxed not only the Legende but also all of de la Cueva’s Letters before we’d flown to Guatemala. I began to sift through the pages until I came across a particular passage. “De la Cueva wrote something about this.” I held up a page with the telling paragraphs. “In one of her letters to her sister, she describes how she found out that her lover—Balaj K’waill—had been lying to her about the Jade. How he’d been trying to trick her and lead her off into the forest so that she’d get injured, or starve, and die—”
“So?” Erik yawned.
”—and from the sound of it, when he realized that he failed, he had a pretty clear idea that his life didn’t amount to anything.”
“I’ll bet not.”
“The poor guy knew that everything he’d done added up to a big, empty zero. …”
December 15, 1540
… I have written you, Sister, that two weeks ago we had found the First Maze. The Maze of Deceit! This Labyrinth is as unreachable as heaven, as deep as hell, and built curiously from blue jade that has been tortured into circles and traps that we wandered through at our great peril. For this past fortnight I have struggled to pierce that puzzle. I tested its curves, studying its feints and its dead ends. But I could not crack it. As we worked to plumb its secrets, we began to run out of food and water, and my men commenced dying of fever at some twenty a day. Balaj K’waill counseled me to have patience and I held out as long as I was able. But eventually I had to admit that we must return to our city—a proposition to which my lover reacted at first with teasing humor, and then, when he saw that I would not change my mind, with the most bizarre and tragic melancholy.
“Darling,” I said, “you are wasting away from your gloom. Before we leave, let us you and I go to the river and take some rest that you so well need.”
“You should push on, Governor,” he replied, and his face was ash-colored. “I am sure we have almost solved the Maze.”
“No, I have decided,” I told him. “And you know I am not a woman to change my mind. Yet let me hold you and bathe you. We will joke and play, sweetheart. We must restore your strength.”
I took his hand and led him down through the forest, toward a river that runs through the wood, and by that water we took our leisure. I rubbed him with balms and I sang in his ear; and then, in order to lift his heart, I thought I would entertain him by teaching him our country’s dance, the Sarabande.
“One, two, three, four,” I whispered in his ear. “Those are the maneuvers of this game we are playing, my dear. One must go forward, forward. And move smoothly, like a European.”
“La, la, la,” he said, laughing and singing songs I could not understand. He grew berserk, spouting nonsense words, numbers, and rhymes.
“To dance in Goathemala, my sweet,” he said, “one must move roughly, skipping every other trac.”
“Every other what?”
“That’s the French for ‘track,’ my beloved thickwit. And as you have noted that we are quite backwards, you must follow our reversed native steps, which are four, three, two, one, zero.” Balaj K’waill swung me wildly to and fro, jumping, skipping, and pushing me back, all the while shouting, and mixing these freaks with obscenities, then laughing some more.
“What does all this mean?” I demanded of him.
“It means nothing!!” he said.
“What means nothing?”
And here he began weeping. “None of it. Not one word nor deed of mine has had any significance.”
“But we have come so far to find the Jade.”
His tears turned into a sour laughter. “The Jade. The Jade. You once told me that the English word for jade means a woman of perverse morals. And so you are the only Queen Jade in this jungle, Beatriz.”
I felt myself sicken. “Are you saying that you lied to me?”
“Yes!”
“But we found the maze!”
“This?” He pointed at the monstrous labyrinth. “This is nothing but a dream. You will find no riches in there—and if there were a Jade, I would not ever bring you to it. For why else would I lead you to the jungle, except to destroy you? And yet you survived this starvation, this searching without food and water, without rest, which has nearly murdered me these past months. Will you Europeans not ever die? Is there nothing that will kill you?”
“Stop talking. Say not another word.”
“I am sure that soon I will cease talking forever,” he continued, looking at me again with his beautiful eyes.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you will not let me live. A European cannot brook being bested by a savage.”
I did not answer him at once. I gazed at him and thought how he had taken my love for a toy. And then I discovered all of my affection burgeoning into venom, for an awakened woman betrayed is a dangerous thing.
“No, I will not let you live,” I said. “But not because you are a savage. Because you have broken my heart.”
And I did not.
Agata, I could not toll his treachery. He has been taken by the gendarmes, who have treated him as we do all traitors.
My lover is now dead. But sister, I swear to you, I think that I am also one who belongs in the grave.
What is that song the old bards sing around here?
I lost you I lost you my darling …
Dear God, I murdered Balaj K’waill. And I see now that I have as good as kill’t myself.
“All right—all right,” Erik said after a minute or two of silence, while he ruffled through the photocopies and yawned again. “Meaninglessness—it’s all here. What with crying, the strange dancing.”
The dancing was strange, I thought.”Those numbers—what do you think he was trying to say with all that?”
“That he’s depressed. He doesn’t see the sense in things anymore. So you’re right.”
“I’m just showing you it’s not a very modern concept,” I said. I had a very clear image of the gaunt way that Yolanda had looked at me in that bar tonight. “Everyone loses faith once in a while.”
Erik peered at me. “I’m going to order up more room service if you keep making that face.”
I rubbed my nose. “All right. I won’t get soggy. Just no more food.”
“More wine?”
“Okay”
He leaned back and closed his eyes. He looked happy, despite having been smashed up a few hours before.
“Erik?”
“Yes.”
A few more seconds passed. I realized that my mouth was gaping open, and I shut it. The wine was doing a good job of relieving our pain. “Okay. We know about Balaj K’waill’s lie to de la Cueva, but there’s still the primary source to study. We should look at the Legende before we get any further. It’s what my mother was using as a guide.”
“Yes. That’s a good idea. You do that.”
“You’re sleeping.”
“I think you’re the one who’s sleeping.”
“No, I’m not”
Pause.
“What?” I asked.
“What do you mean, what?”
“Nothing …”
“Can you move over a little to the left?”
“You move over.” I forced my eyes open. “And wake up.”
“I’m comfortable.”
“No, seriously.” I smacked him on the thigh. “We still have things to do. We’re going to stud
y the Legende. I’ll read it to you.”
“I read it when I was a kid. Know the story by heart. Scary rock. Obsessive kings. Curses.”
“Not good enough. But don’t worry, you’ll love it. Though I think we should probably have some coffee first.”
“Just a little nap.”
But next came a call to room service, a tray, a carafe.
“This had better be good,” he said ten minutes later, grumbling into a cup of black joe.
“Oh, it’s good,” I said, unrolling my Xerox of the Legende, then spreading the papers out onto my lap. And in fact, few other books could have kept me conscious at that hour. “Erik, trust me. De la Cueva’s the best.”
THE LEGENDE OF THE QUEEN JADE
(As rendered from Beatriz de la Cueva’s journal, dated October 3, 1540)
In our world’s earliest age, when the new-born earth was still pure and unsullied by the foolishness of man, one great old King ruled the entire land. He governed the Valleys and the Seas and the Sky and all the Plains. He mastered squalid cities and bounteous shires. He owned the meager coasts. And he presided over the princely Jungle, with its sacred Dragon Tree, which is possessed by a spirit such that it bleeds like a man when cut by an axe. Yet of all his possessions, he enjoyed his reign of the lofty blue Mounts most.
The mountains glowed like the sky itself, for within their crags hid precious jade, as clear as water, and as hard as a woman’s heart. One fleck might be worth the lives of one thousand miners, and so the king’s fortune was most assured. Nonetheless, it was not these rivers of jade that secured his power. Instead, his sovereignty was preserved by one particular Gem that the king warded upon the advice of his necromancer, a crouchback Dwarf, who had been told of the Stone by the gods in a Dream.
For no mere piece of Jade do we describe. This was a charmed and magick jewel, the Queen of all Jades—so named as the blue rock glowed as fair as a goddess, stood as tall as an Amazon, and ruled over men’s greed with its terrible glory. Any who owned it (the Gods had said in the Dwarf’s dream) would rule over all Enemies. The old King had never known danger or defeat on account of this monstrous weapon, and had raised two strong sons in the hopes they would govern the country together.
So the King was happy until the day he felt approaching one Villain. And he knew that not even the Stone could help him then.
The Villain was death itself.
“It is time for me to pass my scepter to your two right hands, my sons,” the King said to the princes. “You shall govern together, and in peace.”
“But I wish to govern alone, Father,” said the Eldest.
“And I will not share my power with this knave,” agreed the Younger.
The King and his sons argued, with much weeping and roaring, until the Sovereign understood that no words would thin their fat wits, and so he Split the Kingdom and forced them to choose:
“One man shall rule the rich jungle, where the blessed Dragon Tree stands, as well as the Princely cities and the lofty blue mounts, but shall not have the one Jade,” he said. “And the other shall govern the base coasts and the basins, the deserts and the swamps, yet shall call the Talisman his own.”
“I shall have the lofty blue mounts, then, and do without the Stone,” said the Eldest.
“And I shall have the base deserts and the basins and the swamps, and call the Talisman my own,” said the Younger.
And perhaps it might appear from these choices that the Younger boasted of a stouter heart than his brother.
But as you shall see, it was not so.
And so the King died.
The Younger, before inheriting his Throne, knew that no good king could serve his country without a fine wife, and he selected as his bride one round-faced Sorceress who had been his sweetheart since his tender years.
For her part, the Sorceress loved the Younger Brother for his warm eyes and his soft slow hands. And she burned for him with a passion that was not diminished by her understanding of her husband’s weak nature. His flaw was an excess of Curiosity, as he fixed his mind too much on that which was strange, beauteous, and queer, even dangerous.
But as all men are the stuff of debility, the Sorceress thanked the Gods that her lover proved only a Dreamer, a flaw much more benign than Lust or Greed or Gluttony or Stupidity.
And so she was of good cheer when they married. The Younger Brother gathered to him his Wife, his Servants, and his Prize, being the Queen of all Jades. Together with these he trod off to the base deserts, where they would live in happiness and peace.
But not for long.
Rather than govern his realm with the craft of his Father, the Younger Brother succumbed to his weak quality. He grew bewitched by the beauty and Charms of the Jade, which he bade his Servants bring to his Private Chamber so he could look upon it in secret. What mysteries did it hold? He wondered. What powers did it wield over him? Day after day he gazed upon its blue glory, and soon he could think of nothing else but its sheen, its pure clear color, its shape, its startling perfection. So entranced did he become, and so jealous of its company, that he forgot all other things. Like a Lover, he remained in his Private Chamber and worshiped the Gem. So he mused, and he brooded, and thought, and desired with a terrible greed, and malingered from this new condition.
And soon enough he became as thin as a ghost, and toppled over in his Bed, while still stroking his Treasure, and Died.
Which left the Sorceress alone to Rule the droughty deserts and protect the Jade by herself. She grieved much for her husband.
“We are all tempted by the things we love, and we all must pass from the world,” she said, as she fixed the crown to her head, and watched as the ragged masses bowed to Her Grace. “So now, my husband, you have left me alone except for the protection of the Treasure. But for what reason should I be protected now, and continue to live? All my days I desired no one else but you. And yet, for the weal of these people, I will try not to fail.”
Meanwhile, in the empire of the princely jungles and the lofty blue Mounts, the Elder Brother beheld his wealthy dominion, and all his silken wives, his jade-adorned slaves, his palaces and libraries, his legions of poets and Soldiers, and his rich jungle, with its spirit-possessed Tree, and knew himself to be the most Magnificent Prince under the sky.
But he could not be happy.
Like his Younger Brother he desired the Jade. Like that King of the basins and the deserts and the poor coasts, he cherished the image of the brilliant jewel. And his desire increased day by day, until he thought himself the poorest man in the world.
Still, he would not have moved in Treason against his Brother’s kingdom had it not been for the counsel of his Dwarf, who had also served his Father. This Dwarf fathomed better than anyone else in the land the dangers that came with two Rulers.
“The old King knew not so well what he broke when he sundered this country,” the Dwarf told the Elder Brother one day, as the two men walked in the Royal pleasure gardens, which were sweet with myrtle and marigold, and alive with butterflies and the whispering mahogany. “I have had a Dream of great trouble. In the night came to me a vision of a Tempest and a War between your Realm and that of the Younger Brother’s, and these things will destroy our cities down to the last child.”
“My Brother,” the Eldest brooded, “we have heard the news that he has died.”
“He expired from idiocy, my lord.”
“Yet his retainers continue to possess what we do not.”
“It is so. They possess the Stone. And we must take it from them, King.”
“But it is their inheritance.”
“And it is your death. Should we take the Jade, none of those beggars might harm us. Imagine their fear at what we might do.”
“They would shake and cry, and never raise arms.”
“They would remain mild as kittens and meek as women.”
After one evening spent in bloodletting and prayer, the Eldest agreed with his Dwarf’s counsel.
“Attend to the Army so that they might fetch the Stone from my brother’s kindred,” he ordered the Dwarf. “And if they do not gift it to us from suasion of coin and kindness, do not be shy to gain it by less pretty methods.”
“Such as?”
“Take care to keep the Jade intact. But as for what folk might resist you, rip the Jade from their cold hands if you like.”
And so the Great War began.
Down from the lofty blue Mounts, through the lush and dark Jungles, marched a Legion of Soldiers armed in jade breast-plates, holding gold spears, and guarded by Silver Helmets worked into the snarling face of the Jaguar. As they made their way across the country, they were horrible, bristling, and a Terror to See.
Descending to the deserts and then to the poor coast, the warriors gathered upon the white cliffs. Glaring down upon the kingdom of the Younger Brother, they began to roar like Beasts and shake their spears and their shields.
The Witch, sitting upon her wood Throne, startled up at the bluff. Upon seeing her enemy, she raced through her City, calling for her strongest men and her most stalwart women, and her sword.
The Foes battled for days. And the strongest, to their surprise, found themselves in a rout. Women soldiers of the Coast, in their rags and their streaming hair, fought off the gold spears and jade blades of the Eldest King’s warriors with mere sticks and fury. The men, equally valiant, wrested the silver jaguars off the heads of the Eldest’s halberdiers, and tore their throats with their bare hands, or lopped their skulls with their farming scythes.
The Eldest’s Army lashed at the poor people of the Coast, their axes dripping, their jade breasts crimson, blood on their armor, blood in their eyes.
But the blood was their Own.
The Queen Jade Page 9
