The Maya man was painted from head to toe in thick stripes of ochre and white. There were grey hairs sprouting from beneath his headdress and skin hung loosely from his bones. Benicio guessed he was a religious figure—perhaps some kind of priest. His strange, plaintive speech was incomprehensible, but it was clear he was begging for mercy.
‘Where is it?’ Rogelio shouted and dealt the old man a blow to the face. The man fell backwards and Rogelio ripped what appeared to be a golden necklace from his neck. ‘Where is the ring?’ Rogelio raised his blade squarely over the man’s heart.
‘Stop!’ Benicio cried. He dived at Rogelio from behind and thrust him upon the ground. ‘Have mercy, Rogelio. The battle is over.’
Benicio rolled Rogelio on to his back, keeping him pinned. Rogelio smiled at Benicio in a moment of recognition. ‘Yes, Brother, and now it is time for plunder,’ he said. He thrust his knee upwards, sending a gut-splitting blow through Benicio’s loins.
In the meantime, the priest had staggered to his feet and was attempting to run away. Rogelio lunged and caught him, slashing a blade across the priest’s chest and wrestling him to the ground.
Recovering his senses, Benicio pulled Rogelio off the injured priest once again. ‘Cease!’ Benicio commanded and he smashed his head against Rogelio’s, knocking him senseless. He thrust Rogelio’s heavy body to the side.
The priest was writhing on the ground, trying to sit up. The gash that Rogelio had drawn across the holy man’s body had reached the base of his throat, and blood spilled on to his painted chest.
Benicio searched for something to stop the flow of blood, seizing upon a large piece of cloth hanging from Rogelio’s belt. Benicio folded the cloth and moved to place it upon the wound, but the priest flinched and tried to move himself away.
‘Ma tu’ub,’ he coughed, pointing to the cloth and shaking his head in warning. ‘Ma tu’ub.’
He seemed strangely concerned with the cloth Benicio had taken, so Benicio set it aside and ripped off his own shirt sleeve. The priest made no protest as Benicio helped him to a sitting position, then stuffed the ripped sleeve into his wound, trying to stop the bleeding. Benicio ripped his other sleeve and tied it around the priest’s neck, securing the first cloth in place. Still, the bleeding would not stop.
‘Be at peace, Father,’ Benicio said soothingly, for he feared the old man did not have long. The priest peered at the ground where the first bloody cloth lay. Benicio shook the cloth clean, then opened it to reveal a strange geometrical design traced in blood.
‘Ma tu’ub,’ the priest repeated, nodding at the cloth. He pointed at the centre dot with the stub of his finger, then cringed with pain and returned the bloody limb to his fist. He nodded coaxingly at Benicio. ‘Ma tu’ub.’
Benicio nodded worriedly, placing the cloth to the side. He arranged the man’s headdress beneath him and smoothed its feathers, fanning them outward in a halo of green, red, and white. Then he helped the old man backwards, wedging a clod of grass beneath his head like a pillow. ‘Rest now, holy soul,’ Benicio whispered.
A look of soft gratitude came over the priest’s weathered face. He nodded at Benicio again, then opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue. Upon it Benicio beheld the largest, most beautiful ring he had ever seen.
Benicio stared at the sparkling jewel in amazement—a thick, round jadestone surrounded by many large diamonds.
The holy man plucked the ring from his tongue and held it out to Benicio, urging him to take it. ‘Ma tu’ub.’
Benicio folded his hand over the priest’s. Certainly the old man had lost his wits. ‘Ma tu’ub,’ the priest muttered a final time, and the life went out of him. The ring tumbled to the ground.
‘Ma tu’ub, holy one,’ Benicio repeated. ‘Ma tu’ub.’
The morning sun passed behind a cloud and the cacophony of birds ceased. All the world went still and Benicio had the overwhelming sensation that it had just lost an important soul. He placed the priest’s arms across his chest and closed his eyelids. For some unknown reason, Benicio was overcome with grief.
Benicio reached for the cloth lying at his feet and studied its strange design: a diamond with circles around each of its four points. In the centre of the diamond was a small dot the size of a man’s fingertip. Benicio pictured the priest pressing his bloody finger on that spot, fearing for his life, while Rogelio threatened to take another finger. But why? What important thing did this cluster of shapes represent?
Perhaps it was some kind of map. Some of Cortés’s men whispered of a city of gold hidden deep in the jungle. Benicio had always believed the rumours to be nonsense—the wishful thinking of desperate men. Still, the priest had pointed at the map, then urged Benicio to take the golden ring.
The golden ring! Benicio stuffed the cloth into the side of his boot and spotted the shiny object where the priest had dropped it on to the ground.
He grasped the ring and studied it in his palm. No wonder Rogelio had pursued the priest so relentlessly. The figure of a feathered dragon, wrought in gold, overlaid the jadestone’s polished façade. The detail of the figure was beyond anything Benicio had ever seen and he wondered if some unknown god had not fashioned it.
But it was not the detail that made Benicio’s heart begin to race, it was the dozen large diamonds that lined the ring’s perimeter, framing the golden dragon in a glitter of light. The diamonds were larger than any single diamond Benicio had ever seen. He knew that he held a treasure truly fit for a king.
A sneaking joy bubbled within him. He could not believe his good fortune. He swelled inside as he imagined returning to Spain and presenting the prize to King Charles himself.
‘How may I compensate you for such a gift?’ the King would ask him and Benicio would humbly request a small allotment of land, a place where he might run cattle and plant orchards and keep his noble wife in the way of life she deserved.
And thus it would be done. A dream that he had all but abandoned, suddenly fulfilled.
How strange and unpredictable life was.
Where had he put his breastplates? Ah, there they were, just a few paces away. Steel armour was highly valued among the people of the West Indies and could be traded for essentials like food and transport. And where was his book? Where was Amadís? He touched his chest. There it was—right where he always kept it, covering his heart.
He heard a sudden rustle of maize leaves upon the ground. Sensing danger, he popped the ring into his mouth and threaded his tongue through its golden hoop. He turned to behold Rogelio, who remained where he had fallen not three paces away. His eyes sparkled with greed.
He had witnessed everything.
Benicio jumped to his feet and secured his armour. He found the place on the horizon where the sun had risen. He would only need to make his way west, to the coast. There he would find one of the friendly coastal villages. Surely there would be some native man willing to trade his canoe and some supplies for the shiny armour Benicio now wore.
It would be a fast journey across the short stretch of ocean that separated Cuba from this strange island, if an island it was. He would arrive upon Cuba and seek passage to Hispañola, where he would board the next ship returning to Spain. There, he would present his precious ring to King Charles and come what may.
Rogelio was struggling to his feet. He eyed Benicio with a simmering rage, then lunged towards him.
But Benicio would not be caught. His future was in reach. It glittered like diamonds, like Luisa’s green eyes in the noonday sun. He stretched out his long legs and broke into a run. All he needed to do now was reach the coast.
‘Luisa,’ he breathed. ‘I’m coming home.’
Chapter Three
When Tula reached the coast, the day was still new. The Sun God glowed white in his victory over the night. She was glad to see that the remote beach remaine
d empty, its quiet cove still untroubled by the wind. She had planned her visit for this day because she knew that Goddess of the Sea would be asleep, her blue waters rolled up like a blanket. The moon charts said it would be so.
Tula retrieved a single spear from her basket. She told herself that she was not lying to her father. Not really. She was simply waiting until the time was right to make her secret known. ‘Within each thing exists its opposite,’ her father always told her. She knew that all her people would soon know the mystery she held inside her heart.
But for now, it was only hers.
She pulled off her shawl and skirt and stuffed them away inside her basket. She placed her belongings at the edge of the jungle, tightening her loincloth as she skipped bare-breasted down the beach.
She felt like a child misbehaving. It gave Tula such a thrill to step out on to her empty beach alone, as if she were the only person in this crowded world. She savoured the moment, knowing that it would not endure.
Her father, who sat upon the Totonac Council of Elders, would be obliged to tell the Totonac Chief of Tula’s discovery. When her secret became known, Totonac nobles would be swarming this beach like fire ants. Tula did not pretend to understand the affairs of the men who ruled the Totonac nation, but she knew well enough that she had found something important.
She also knew that if there was treasure to be had, she wanted to find it first.
She stepped into the clear blue water, sending a prayer to God of the Hunt, Mixcoatl, to help her find treasure in the form of gold. The strange yellow metal was so very rare and to Tula’s mind held little practical use. But the Mexica Takers would accept it in place of many cloaks, and if she could obtain even just a small amount she knew she could bring great relief to her family.
She gripped her spear and peered into the underwater world. It was more likely that she would find a fish. Over the past few cycles of the sun, she had become an excellent fisher, though she would never let the fault of pride weight her steps. Her people believed that fish had once been human and she entered their blue-green realm with humility and reverence.
‘Forgive me, fishes,’ she intoned, letting the water of the Endless Sea pool around her knees. She spied the black spots of a mature jaguar fish, a Totonac delicacy.
With a quick downward thrust, she impaled the magnificent swimmer, then finished its life with her blade. ‘I am humble,’ she whispered to Mixcoatl. With a great heave, she tossed her family’s dinner on to the shore.
She journeyed deeper into the water, stepping past a group of boulders and sighting a polished tree trunk protruding from the depths. She sucked in a breath, then slipped beneath the water.
She followed the tree trunk downwards, kicking past where the seafloor made a short drop, until she reached the hulking wooden temple.
This was her secret, her true quarry. She had discovered the submerged structure half a moon ago in search of new fishing grounds. She suspected it belonged to the bearded god Grijalva, who had journeyed through the Totonac waters many cycles past. He had forged a friendship with the Totonac Chief and the Council of Elders, but he had said nothing about sacrificing a floating temple in this quiet cove.
Though clearly it was a sacrifice—a worthy gift for any god. And today, with the water so clear, she could see the details, including the finely carved rungs of the large calendar wheel, which perched on its central platform.
She envisioned the bearded gods consulting the wheel as they journeyed from their homeland. If temples like this could split the seas, Tula thought, then the world was wider and more varied than ever she could have dreamed.
But she could not allow herself to think of such things now. There was only so much breath inside her and scavenging work to be done. She propelled herself to the main platform and tugged futilely at a thick metal handle she found there. A nearby iron hook proved even less yielding. The last time she had visited the ghostly temple, she had cut a length from one of the thick ropes that floated around the central trunk. Her store of breath quickly decreasing, she decided to simply cut herself another strand.
She propelled herself to the surface to take another breath, then hurried back to cut the rope. As she worked, she gazed down the length of the structure and noticed that something had changed. The last time she had visited, there had been another large tree trunk further down the deck. But that second trunk no longer stood upright: it had fallen on to the sand.
Abandoning her work on the rope, Tula pushed to the surface once again and took another large breath. Her chest full of air, she propelled herself to the site of the collapse.
As she neared, she saw that the falling trunk had ripped the planks that had been fixed beneath it, creating an opening in the central platform. The light of mid-morning was now shining perfectly down into that opening, illuminating the mysterious space below. Her heart beating wildly, Tula followed that shaft of light like a path.
Soon she found herself inside a small chamber. There were large wooden crates piled everywhere, some with blurry symbols painted upon their sides. Several chairs floated against the ceiling, but a small table remained fixed to the floor, its single support thick with barnacles. The room was so littered with debris that it was difficult to discern the purpose of it, but Tula guessed that she was in a place where the bearded gods had prepared their food.
She could not believe her good fortune. She wanted to gather all of its strange objects and rush back to her home, where she would spill them before her father and sisters and watch their faces light up with awe. But already her breath was running low. She reminded herself to stay calm. She had plenty of time to make the many dives needed to gather up this trove of treasure.
She turned to begin her ascent, then spotted the glint of an object beneath a fallen plank—a metal object. She bent to lift the plank but couldn’t move it. To create resistance, she squeezed her foot inside a small hole in the ceiling of the space. The foothold steadied her and she grasped the object in her hand.
Her chest convulsed. She was dangerously out of breath. With the object now in hand, she tugged her wedged foot, but it would not come free. She gulped, sucking in a breath of water and expelling it with a gagging cough that only caused her to take in more water. She filled with a sudden dread. She wiggled her foot again, feeling the planks pinch her skin.
She was drowning.
Suddenly, an image of the flyers came to her mind. The brave Totonac pole flyers swam like Tula, but in the air. Every sun cycle, they would climb to the top of a tall pole, strap their ankles to long ropes, and face possible death as they twirled to the ground like the Sun God’s rays.
Now Tula imagined she was flying through the air like a pole flyer, only she was much higher above the land. She stared down and saw her city like a tiny dot amidst the jungle. To the east was the Endless Sea, that vast, watery realm that led to the first level of the Underworld. To the north was the Great Desolation, where the wandering tribes lived and died. To the west were the Fiery Mountains, and beyond them Tenochtitlan, where the terrible Emperor Montezuma ruled from his throne of gold. Only to the south, where the green jungle stretched into infinity, did people still live free. In the land of the Maya.
Tula twirled her body around to look south. Suddenly, her foot came free.
She darted upwards, breaking the surface in a storm of coughs. Water spewed from her chest in a dozen violent spurts and she could hardly move her limbs for the exhaustion she felt. But she was alive, thank the gods. She pulled herself on to the flattest of the nearby boulders, then closed her eyes and lost her awareness.
* * *
When she finally regained her senses, she could see that much time had passed. The Sun God’s battle with the Women Warrior spirits had already begun and, as they pulled him towards the western horizon, long shadows reached across the beach.
Tula was amazed to dis
cover that she still gripped it in her hand—the object that had almost taken her life. She held it up against the sky, studying it. It was not gold, but silver. Its single shaft was as long as her hand and terminated in a thumb-sized concavity from which extended three equidistant prongs. It appeared to be the specially designed tip of a deadly spear.
Tula compared it against the tip of her own spear and tried to imagine the kind of animal the object might be designed to kill. She pictured a tiny, three-headed beast that scuttled about in some distant jungle. Or perhaps its three prongs were designed to prick a special kind of fish?
She resolved to show the object to her father, whom she was certain would be able to present it to the Mexica Takers in place of many cloaks. ‘I am humble,’ she whispered to the gods, marvelling at how perfectly the small weapon fit into her hand.
Lost in admiration of her prize, Tula did not notice the sound of the men’s voices until they were very close. She slid into the water behind the largest boulder just as the bearded gods exploded on to the sand.
Chapter Four
There were two of them: a fleshy, naked-chested god with hair the colour of flames and a tall, muscular god clad in a sleeveless hide wrap. The red god shouted at the tall god and chased him some distance down the beach.
Tula peeked out from behind her boulder. Had a new army of bearded gods arrived in Totonac territory? But how? The Totonac kept close watch along their coasts. There had been no sign of any bearded gods for many cycles. Besides, the bearded gods came from the sea on floating temples, not staggering half-naked from the depths of the jungle.
Tula snuck out of the water and dashed across the beach, leaving the jaguar fish as an offering to Mixcoatl. She slipped back into her skirt and blouse, placed her weapons inside her basket and stole closer to the two gods, keeping herself hidden amidst the tangle of trees and vines at the edge of the jungle.
She knew it was foolish to approach them, but her curiosity blazed. She had heard tales of the battles between gods—if gods these were. The God of the Morning Star and the God of Earth had fought together long ago, much like these two were doing, producing the Fifth World—the world in which she now lived. In her studies, Tula had learned that the Fifth World was soon to come to an end. Was this contest a harbinger of the new world to come?
The Spaniard's Innocent Maiden Page 3
