by Clare Bell
She hunched behind the agave, shivering. The priest sang and the boys chanted after him. Even though she did not understand all of the Nahuatl, the words stayed in Mixcatl’s ears and she knew she would remember them long after the priest’s voice had faded. The priest sang:
They say that the One-Prince, Plumed Serpent, was much beloved by his people.
They say that love made others jealous
The magicians of the city became jealous
The greatest of the magicians was Tezcatlipoca, Smoking Mirror
He tried to change the people’s love for Plumed Serpent
He tried to make Plumed Serpent do evil things
But Plumed Serpent would not do them.
Mixcatl listened to the hymn, caught up both in the cadence of its chant and by the images in the book. She thought she could see ties between the pictures and the words. Wasn’t that undulating form a serpent covered with plumes? And there was the shape of a mountain. She strained to see better, wishing that she could sit with the boys. The story went on:
Smoking Mirror decided to deceive Plumed Serpent He gave him the fermented juice of the agave so that he became drunk
He gave him a beautiful woman and said, take your pleasure
And the prince took his pleasure and then slept. But when Plumed Serpent woke, he saw that the woman was his sister and that he was disgraced He was disgraced by Smoking Mirror’s trickery He was disgraced by his own lechery and drunkenness.
He bowed his head and said, “I can no longer rule the city.”
In his grief and anger, he seized Smoking Mirror
Lifted him high and cast him into the sea
High over the mountains into the sea.
And as Smoking Mirror fell, he changed
His skin became spotted, his hands and feet grew claws.
Mixcatl leaned forward from her hiding place behind the agave. The priest’s forefinger was resting on a figure that was half spotted cat, half man. Tezcatlipoca, Smoking Mirror. His tail curled up in defiance, his mouth was open, showing teeth. He bore a feathered shield and above his cat ears, an elaborate headdress.
Though the hymn portrayed Tezcatlipoca as evil, Mixcatl was fascinated by his image. She remembered the incident in the marketplace, the jaguar skin, her hands curling into claws and her arm moving with a sharp raking motion. And how the skin had jerked in the hands of its purchaser, wounding him.
About her the hymn continued:
Smoking Mirror’s cry became a roar as he fell into the sea
He became a jaguar
Whose spotted coat symbolizes the stars of the night sky
He did not die in the sea
For he was a jaguar and jaguars can swim
He came ashore and crept into the jungle
And he lives among us even now.
Silence fell as the priest’s voice halted. Mixcatl suddenly came back to herself. Drawn by the image of Tezcatlipoca, she had emerged from behind the agave. Now, with a shock, she realized she was standing in the open and that the eyes of the priest and all his students were fastened on her.
And then she realized that the black-smeared figure was that of Speaking Quail and the eyes looking at her held wonder as well as annoyance.
Booing and jeering broke out among the boys. Some scrambled to their feet, fists lifted to strike the impudent slave girl who would dare spy on their class. Mixcatl shielded her face with her forearms as the blows began to fall.
“No!” cried another voice, stronger and deeper than the high-pitched shouting of the boys around her. She peeked out between her fingers. It wasn’t Speaking Quail, for he stood on his teacher’s mat, trying to quiet the remains of his class. No, this was one of the students, an older boy, with a sidelock of brown hair falling past one ear and a face that might easily assume a grin. Right now his eyebrows were drawn together over his nose as he glared at his schoolmates. Sullenly they withdrew.
Mixcatl began to tremble. Soon the noise would bring Maguey Thorn into the courtyard. Hadn’t the matron told her explicitly not to enter the presence of the priests or their students? Now she would be beaten and dragged back to the slave market to be sold. She flung herself on her knees, bending her head down into the dust to beg for mercy. But the boy caught hold of her wrists so that she could only bow her head down before him and kneel, shaking, in his grip.
“They won’t hurt you,” he said. “I won’t let them and I’m stronger than they are. Why did you sneak in here?”
But Mixcatl, terrified, couldn’t answer. She heard the slap of a priest’s sandals, caught the scent of black body-paint.
“Let her go, Six-Wind,” Three-House Speaking Quail said softly, then raised his voice. “And the rest of you, put away your fists and grimaces, for your victim is one beloved of Tezcatlipoca. Six-Wind was right to stop you.”
Speaking Quail went to the courtyard entrance, thrust his head between the belled strands. Mixcatl saw him peer back and forth, as if to make sure the way was clear for her. He drew the hanging aside so carefully that the curtain made little noise. She scurried past, then stopped to look back at him with wide eyes. As she hastened along the corridor, she could still hear the voices as the priest admonished his class.
“Are you turkey pullets that you rise gabbling and threatening when a harmless creature comes into your midst? A scholar should let nothing disturb his studies. And a noble should take no pride in raising his hand against a slave.”
Mixcatl gave a huge sigh from her place in the corridor. The way Three-House Speaking Quail shamed the boys would prevent them from bragging about the incident or mentioning it to Maguey Thorn. She hoped so. But this was a Speaking Quail that she had never seen, calm and self-possessed, instead of the nervous little man who went about dodging the burly matron. Perhaps the hymn had given him strength.
And what had he meant when he said that she was one “beloved of Tezcatlipoca”? The thought made her flush and shiver at the same time. The image of the dancing jaguar was so beautiful that she ached to see it again, yet the hymn said he was evil. Did that mean that she also was evil? The thought saddened her as she went about collecting kitchen scraps and emptying refuse pots, but she could not forget what she had seen.
As evening drew on and she heard the students gathering for the last meal of the day, she hid behind a wall and trembled, fearful that someone would tell what happened in the courtyard that morning. Although the boys chattered as they ate, there was no mention of the courtyard incident. She hoped that they would soon forget it.
But one, however, did not.
The following day, she was withdrawing from the empty students’ quarters with pots to empty. As she backed out the door, she felt someone behind her and spun, nearly spilling the pots’ contents on a pair of sandaled feet.
The boy Six-Wind stood before her, his legs apart, his fists pressing his mantle against his hips, his head cocked. “You!” he said. “The little pisspot carrier.”
Mixcatl began to back away from him.
“I won’t hurt you. I didn’t before, remember?” He paused. “Can you answer or are you dumb?”
Mixcatl drew the back of her hand across her mouth. Her tongue was dry. “I can answer,” she croaked in Nahuatl.
“That’s better,” said Six-Wind. Mixcatl saw that he had an open, pleasant face when not scowling. “I thought you might have some wit to your tongue when I saw you peering at the book.”
Mixcatl’s mouth fell open. “Maguey Thorn. Please, don’t tell. She will whip me. Sell me.”
“Old Earthquake Bosom is busy in the kitchens,” said Six-Wind, a mischievous glint in his hazel eyes. Even in her fright, Mixcatl couldn’t help a nervous giggle at Six-Wind’s name for the matron. It described her perfectly.
The boy took Mixcatl by the wrist and led her to a small chamber nearby. For a minute she resisted, but his grip was too strong and she feared any commotion would bring the priests or Maguey Thorn down upon the two of them.
“I
’m not going to hurt you,” Six-Wind said, a touch of impatience in his voice. “I just want to know what happened yesterday morning.”
“Why do you talk about that? Why do you pull me in here?” Mixcatl protested as he pushed her down on a mat, for the room was empty except for hangings and mats. “The other boys forgot it. Why can’t you?”
“Who kept you from getting beaten?” Six-Wind whispered. “If they’d all gone for you, a whipping from Maguey Thorn would have felt like the touch of a feather in comparison. Sit up and stop whimpering.”
Mixcatl shook the hair out of her eyes, sat back on her heels. “What do you want?” She tried to keep her voice from trembling. She knew that sometimes boys, even ones as young as Six-Wind, took girls into closed rooms and did things said to be shameful.
For a minute Six-Wind stared at her, then tipped his head back in laughter. She knew he had read the suspicion in her solemn little face.
“You think I want you for that? Gods no, although I don’t think you’re as ugly as some say.”
She waited.
“Why did you sneak into the courtyard and hide behind the agave pot?” Six-Wind asked. “You put yourself in danger, you know. Slaves aren’t supposed to see the religious books. You were lucky the teacher was Three-House Speaking Quail or else you might be back at the slave market right now, being sold for sacrifice.”
Another pang of fear went through Mixcatl, but instead of starting another bout of trembling, it made her bristle. This boy wasn’t her owner and had no right to frighten her with threats of being sold. She retorted in her best Nahuatl, then folded her arms defiantly, unafraid of his words or blows.
Six-Wind only laughed again. “What a little fighting cat you are! I almost would have liked a scrap in the courtyard, just to see what would have happened.”
Some of Mixcatl’s anger evaporated and she stopped pursing her lips at him. He was too easygoing to be malicious. “I didn’t mean to do anything bad,” she replied. “I thought that the courtyard would be empty. Then once I was there, I was afraid that the door curtain would ring if I went out, so I hid.”
“Well, you were lucky you didn’t get close enough to really see the texts or hear the chant. That’s why Speaking Quail let you go, you know. It’s not just because he’s kind.”
Mixcatl felt her temper start to bum. She knew that she would be safer if she kept quiet, but the truth pushed itself out. She had seen the text and heard the songs. Her face might be ill formed, but her eyes were sharp and her ears keen. And she remembered all she saw and heard. It was something to be proud of, especially when there was little else. Six-Wind’s assumption stung that pride.
“I did see the book,” she blurted.
Six-Wind put a hand across her mouth. His palm tasted salty and she could feel the calluses against her lips.
“No you didn’t,” he said gently. “You were halfway across the courtyard, in back of the class. You couldn’t have seen anything.”
“I did!” Mixcatl hissed.
“You’re crazy, girl. A hawk could not have seen the figures from that distance. And you only caught a quick glimpse.”
“I saw them. A temple falling over. An arrow coming down.”
“You didn’t,” said Six-Wind.
Mixcatl stuck out her chin. “I did.”
“Prove it,” the boy challenged.
Mixcatl stood up. Again came the memory of a veined hand holding a brush and from the tip came swirls of color and shape. She had no brush or paper, but a stick and the damp earth by the canal bank might serve. Her heart beat fast. This might get her into trouble, but the danger seemed to fade before a burning hot desire to show this mocking boy that she was more than a dull-witted slave.
“I will prove it,” she said.
This time she led the way, walking swiftly through the corridors of the school, carrying her chamber pots in a businesslike manner, but anyone who passed could see that her eyes glittered. She was glad no one came by. Behind her Six-Wind walked, keeping his distance so that it wouldn’t appear that he was accompanying her.
She went to the canalside behind the school, emptied the pots in the big jars, then ran down the canal and ducked behind a clump of creosote bushes. A short time later Six-Wind crept around the wall, looked both ways and scurried over to her hiding place. He knelt, flinging his mantle over his shoulder to keep it out of the dirt.
Mixcatl cleared a space on the ground, brushing away the leaf litter with the palm of her hand. The sandy clay beneath was moist. Wrinkling her nose at Six-Wind, Mixcatl snapped a dry twig off the creosote bush. Holding it between her stubby fingers, she pressed the end into the dirt and drew a slanted line. Then another that met it. And several more, parallel to the first.
“You are making a house, such as little children draw. And you aren’t even making it right, for you have tipped it up on one corner,” said Six-Wind scornfully.
Mixcatl made another face at him and kept drawing. She added more lines, the pillars of a temple. Then she added the curving outlines and jagged tips of flames encircling the overturned temple.
She looked at Six-Wind. He had turned white. “The glyph for the taking of a city,” he muttered.
She bent her brows at him. What was a glyph?
“What you just did. The figure painted in the book,” he said, inadvertently admitting that her drawing had indeed reproduced the figure.
Mixcatl felt flushed with success. She cleared more ground and began another drawing. She could see the next figure in her head, its forms and colors as clear as if the page were lying before her. She hardly even had to guide her hand, for it seemed to follow her eyes as she traced the image in her mind.
The shape was a pretty one, resembling a pot with odd tassels hanging from the top on two sides and one tacked onto the bottom, as if the pot was suspended in midair. She made the cross in the middle, then two parallel stripes that curved to follow the outline of the pot. Then an odd scroll emerging from the top of the pot like a plume of steam. There was only one problem. She didn’t know what she had drawn. It was too pretty to be a piece of crockery and there was no fire shown beneath to make the pot boil.
Another snap from the creosote bush drew Mixcatl’s attention away from her drawing. Six-Wind was doing something funny. He had plucked a small sharp twig and was trying to stab his finger with it. He managed to draw blood and squeezed the finger so that a bright red drop beaded on his skin. Then he lifted his face, closed his eyes and muttered something beneath his breath.
“The sign for the number beyond counting,” he said and took up a leaf from the ground and pressed his finger so that blood fell on the leaf. Then, boylike, he put the finger in his mouth and gave Mixcatl such a strange stare that it frightened her more than anything else he had done.
“How do you know these glyphs? Where did you leam them?” he demanded.
“I never learned anything. I don’t know what glyphs are. All I know are the pictures I saw this morning.” Mixcatl paused. “Why did you hurt your finger?”
“Glyphs are pictures that remind us how to sing the sacred hymns. When we see the temple overturned and burning, we chant of the fall of a city.”
“And this?” Mixcatl put her stubby finger next to the other figure she had drawn. “Does this mean a pot that boils without fire?”
“No. It is xiquipilli, the sign for the number that can’t be counted.” He stared at her. “I have studied these figures myself and still can only draw their outlines. But you have seen them only once from a distance and yet here they are. And in as much detail as if they had been done by one who studied them for more years than you have lived I” He sucked his finger again, though his eyes never left Mixcatl.
“Why did you hurt yourself?” she asked again.
Six-Wind took his finger from his mouth. “We are taught to shed blood whenever we pray to the gods for protection from evil spirits and witches.”
Mixcatl was baffled. “What is a witch?” she asked and
Six-Wind told her. A witch had strange abilities and used them to hurt others.
“Am I one of those bad people?” she asked.
Six-Wind stared at her again. His mouth formed an uncertain smile, but his eyes were still wide and round. “I do not know what you are. But I do know one thing and that is you must never let anyone know you can draw these pictures.”
He put out his sandal to scuff away the figures. She stopped him, feeling a lump rise in her throat. How could her drawings be evil? Yet they had made Six-Wind afraid. He had prayed and drawn blood from his finger.
“Not even Speaking Quail?” she asked.
“No one.” The boy swept the earth with his sandal, wiping away the intricate drawings. “I must go now—the gong is ringing for another class. And you must go back to your work.”
Mixcatl grabbed Six-Wind’s mantle as he rose to leave. “Why did Speaking Quail say that I was one beloved of Smoking Mirror. Does Smoking Mirror help…witches?”
“No. He protects slaves,” Six-Wind said. He snatched up the leaf with his blood on it and was gone.
Crouching low, he scurried from the creosote bush back into the calmecac, leaving Mixcatl alone with the bare ground. She knew she could do her drawings again, exactly as she had the first time. But she shivered. Perhaps it was best to do what Six-Wind said. She hoped the boy wouldn’t change his mind and tell any of the priests. Again she bowed her head and went about her duties.
4
CLOUDS MOVED SWIFTLY across sapphire-blue sky as Wise Coyote stood in a hollow between two hills at Tezcotzinco. A little grass-covered mound lay at his feet, where he had buried the magnolia garland. The Prodigy had been buried two years ago on the same day, beneath the stones of his palace courtyard. The palace now stood empty, awaiting the next heir of Texcoco.
