Jaguar Princess

by Clare Bell

  “Please use my calendar name,” said Nine-lizard to the group. “I prefer it, as you might expect. Now, show me the history and how far you have come with it.”

  Mixcatl’s eyebrows rose. For a slave newly introduced into the group. Nine-lizard was behaving as if he had been asked to take charge of it. Perhaps he had, although that would be unusual. She watched him as he examined the completed portions, ordering them all to be placed before him and going over them with an expert eye. Though his manner was polite, his commands were firm and there was a look in his eye that said that slave or not, he was accustomed to being heard and obeyed.

  “Who did this section?” he asked, tapping on a page with a yellowed fingernail. Mixcatl saw that it was one of hers. He motioned her forward with a crisp gesture. Lifting his head, he squinted at her. He tapped the page again. “This will have to be done over.”

  Mixcatl’s mouth fell open. The Master of Scribes had already passed this work as acceptable for the history. What right did this old slave have to tell her it must be done again?

  “Your proportions are wrong,” said Nine-Lizard Iguana Tongue. “There is no point in wasting paint on pretty brushstrokes if you do not draw your figures correctly. The head should be one-third of the figure’s height.”

  “They are almost one-third,” she answered.

  “Almost is not exactly,” said the old man.

  Mixcatl dug her fingernails into her palms. What right had he to criticize her so openly, to disgrace her before the others? Up to now everyone had accepted her as an equal, treated her work with respect and often used it as an example.

  “Look,” he commanded, and to Mixcatl’s horror, he took a brush, dipped it in brown paint and drew the same figure that Mixcatl had already done right next to hers and on top of some others. She clenched her fist, ground her teeth in anger. Now he had deliberately ruined her page, forcing her to do it over. And all the while he was gabbling on, completely oblivious to the outrage, using her work as if it were just practice paper and she a total beginner.

  He might want to be called by his calendar name, but to her he would be Iguana Tongue.

  Yet she could not help but be impressed with the swiftness of his brushstrokes and the simple beauty of his lines. He used fewer strokes than other artists and his figures came out looking much cleaner and more alive. There was a certain grace and uniqueness to his work that made it unmistakably his.

  For the first time in her life, Mixcatl faced a talent greater than hers. She burned with envy. Forgetting herself, she said, “Teach me this! Teach me to paint as you do.”

  It came out as a demand, almost a shout. Heads lifted, turned.

  “Young woman,” said Nine-lizard mildly, “I would concentrate on learning the basics of proportion before you aspire to anything greater.” He tore off a blank section of her page and handed it to her, indicating that she was to use it for exercises in figure-drawing.

  Her face flaming, Mixcatl took the board on her lap and dipped her brush.

  “I will inspect your work later, Seven-Flower. If it is satisfactory, you may resume your former task.”

  She controlled her impulse to dump a paintpot on top of his thinning curls. “Old Iguana Tongue,” she muttered as she began to draw.

  She gained some small consolation from seeing Nine-Lizard Iguana Tongue find flaws in the work of other artists and set them to practicing as he had done with her. One or two he had shaken his head sorrowfully over and asked them to leave the room. Well, at least I am not among them, Mixcatl thought to herself.

  She eyed him as he circled the room, hands behind his back. She took malicious pleasure in noting that his robe was soiled and a dab of paint had come onto his cheek. The wattles in his neck made him resemble the beast he was named after and he shook them often as he paced between the sweating artists.

  At last, he stopped beside Mixcatl. Silently she lifted her board for his inspection.

  “Better,” he said, “but you still tend to make the head too small. Measure and mark before you begin. That will aid you.”

  “But men and beasts do not have heads so large,” she said, her frustration making her dare to argue. “If they did, their necks would break.”

  She expected Nine-Lizard to scold, but instead he chuckled. “That is observant of you, Seven-Flower. But you are not here to paint the world as you see it. You are here to produce documents that people can read.”

  Mixcatl pouted. “If I am such a bad artist, why was I chosen to work on the Speaker-King’s history?”

  “Because even with your flaws, you are among the best of those here,” said Nine-Lizard. “Even though the Master of Scribes means well, the art of scribing here in Tenochtitlan is starting to languish. Work such as this would not be accepted at Tlacopan or Texcoco. Certainly not at Texcoco. Wise Coyote will not accept anything but the best work for his library.”

  “Who is Wise Coyote?” Mixcatl asked.

  “He is the ruler of our neighboring state across the lake. A wise man, an artist and a scholar. Would that our own Speaker-King was more like him,” he added in a softer voice so that only Mixcatl could hear, then he moved away.

  To her disgust, Mixcatl found that she had to spend several days doing exercises before Nine-Lizard would let her work on the new book again.

  “You think I am too hard on you, eh?” he remarked, his knees creaking as he stooped beside her. “No need to speak; I can see it in your face.”

  Mixcatl grimaced. “Everyone else liked my work.”

  “I have much sharper eyes than anyone else,” said Nine-Lizard. “And you have keen eyes too; I can see it in the way you look at things. You must take that sharpness in your eyes and put it into your brush.”

  She shook her head. “I do not understand what you are saying.”

  “You will, in time,” he answered. He examined her work, muttering to himself. “How I wish I had been brought in earlier. There has been too much praise, too little demand. They have let you get away with scribbling not fit for decorating pots!”

  Mixcatl, stung, curled her hands the way she had done in the marketplace years ago and hissed, “Then show me how to do it right, old Iguana Tongue!”

  “Oho! So I am Iguana Tongue after all,” said Nine-Lizard. “Very well, I will show you.” Almost savagely he grabbed her brush, swirled it in the paintpot and sent it sweeping across the smooth plate of the codex. Figures rose from the paper as if blooming there and the bare lines seemed to fill themselves in with color in Mixcatl’s mind. She quailed before the sheer power of his artistry, despairing that she could ever match it.

  His fury exhausted, Nine-Lizard lifted the brush from the page and stared coolly down at Mixcatl. “So then,” he said softly.

  “Teach me,” Mixcatl choked. “I will not argue, not ever again.”

  Nine-lizard snorted. “I doubt that. You are a strong-willed creature, Seven-Flower Mixcatl. I will hear the name Iguana Tongue in my ear many times before I have finished teaching you.”

  He turned away, stooping beside some other artist to comment on his work. Mixcatl, her head swimming, continued her drawings. In the midst of her dying anger and frustration, she found a little ember of promise. He would teach her. She was good enough so that he would spend the time and the effort needed. He was right. She had not been pushed and stretched as her ability deserved.

  Once again she touched her brush to the paper on her board. She looked at the figures he had drawn and realized that he had left the sheet for her instead of taking it with him as he usually did when illustrating points for other artists.

  Old Iguana Tongue, I will be worthy of you, she promised, to both Nine-Lizard and herself.

  7

  IN THE YEAR Eight House a procession of white-robed priests and nobles wound up the path to Chaultapec, the Hill of the Grasshopper. Wise Coyote peered out from behind the hangings of his litter, then clutched the side rails to keep from sliding as a bearer stumbled on the muddy trail. Ahead he could
see the palanquin of Ilhuicamina, larger and grander than his own, but clumsier and bulkier. It lurched as the men who carried it fought to keep their footing.

  Wise Coyote sighed and braced himself against another jolt. He would much rather have walked, but Ilhuicamina had insisted on honoring him. Turning in his seat, he looked back down the slope to Lake Texcoco and the city of Tenochtitlan. How it had expanded, even in his own lifetime! Once a poor village on a snake-infested island, the Aztec capital now covered great tracts of reclaimed land in the lake. Seven great causeways linked it to the mainland, where the metropolis was starting to spread along the lakeshore.

  But the lack of potable water had slowed the city’s growth and threatened to choke it from within. Now, with the opening of the aqueduct from the springs of Chaultapec Hill to the city’s heart, fresh water would be available to all.

  Wise Coyote sighed. Eight years of his life. Eight years of sweating over plans by torchlight, laboring with his crews to dig the trenches and set the stones, of struggling to dike the lake and run the aqueduct across. Eight years, so filled with work and urgency that he had nearly forgotten his son’s death at Ilhuicamina’s hands. Perhaps the Aztec Speaker-King had done him a favor.

  Soon the litters halted. The spring’s seepage made the way slick and difficult. As Wise Coyote climbed down from his seat, he glanced to one side and saw a group of yoked prisoners flanked by guards. Those were Ilhuicamina’s contribution to the celebration, captive warriors intended for sacrifice.

  He looked away, though he kept his face expressionless so that no one looking would see his distaste. There were enough whispers already about, saying that the tlatoani of Texcoco had no stomach for death.

  He had begun to wonder if they were right. He had been raised to believe in the bloodhunger of the gods and the power of human sacrifice. When hunger stalked the land or drought blighted the fields, sacrifice was proper and the victims themselves died rejoicing. When Tlaloc demanded a child’s life in payment for the first rainfall, a young girl was cast into a cistern, a practice that Wise Coyote viewed as necessary. But with the rise of Ilhuicamina’s Hummingbird on the Left, sacrifices were made in such numbers that their power was squandered.

  Wise Coyote wondered how and when the captives would die. Ilhuicamina hadn’t told him.

  Ilhuicamina’s litter tried to proceed, but the steep muddy path at last forced the Aztec Speaker-King to descend. Wise Coyote muttered a little prayer to the rain god Tlaloc, grateful that Chaultapec had forced the great Ilhuicamina to touch the earth with his sandals.

  With his retinue about him. Wise Coyote climbed the hill to the spring. His throat caught when he came to a turning along the path and saw the aqueduct. The twin channels gleamed with dew in the morning light, making it seem like a work of gods rather than men.

  The stone troughs waited, new, and still empty. Chaultapec’s waters still flowed down their natural course, but only a small dike of rocks and sod now diverted the spring from the aqueduct.

  Wise Coyote joined the crowd of celebrants gathering at the head of the twin channels. He passed plumed nobles wearing gold nose and ear-plugs, and elaborately knotted loincloths with embroidered tailpieces. Their capes billowed out in swirls of fiery color. Among them, looking like the shadows of demons in their greasy black body-paint and tangled hair, were the priests of Hummingbird.

  Ilhuicamina turned, his feather-fan headdress shimmering in emerald and aqua as it caught the morning light. The harshness of his features was eased for a moment by a smile.

  Wise Coyote glanced at Aztec warriors who were unyoking the captives and assembling them near the first section of the aqueduct. He knew the victims were from Tlaxcala, a city-state Ilhuicamina had recently subdued. The warriors held their swords. The sun flashed on the glass-sharp edges of obsidian chips set into the wooden shafts. Some trick of the light, or Wise Coyote’s mind, painted the sword-edges crimson.

  He knew it was an illusion, yet his stomach clenched. For an instant, the tlatoani of Texcoco thought of asking Ilhuicamina to send the captives away. The celebration was for him, wasn’t it? He should be able to have what he wanted. Or what he did not want.

  He imagined the shocked stares of the priests if he should make his request. How the whispers and mutters would run through the crowd, building into cries of outrage I And Ilhuicamina, swayed, could easily forget his gratitude for the building of Chaultapec.

  Sacrifice the captives, then. Wise Coyote thought angrily. Kill them and be done with it.

  But Ilhuicamina made no move to order the sacrifice. No signal made the warriors lift their swords. Instead he offered his fellow king a wooden staff, richly carved and polished.

  “You shall send the lifeblood to my city,” he said.

  As Wise Coyote opened his hand for the staff, he saw the warriors lean close to the captives, their arm muscles swelling as they hefted their weapons. The gaze of the doomed Tlaxcalans went from Ilhuicamina…to him.

  And in Ilhuicamina’s eyes, there was mockery behind the praise. Too late. Wise Coyote knew that he had been tricked, maneuvered into a task he hated. Some action or word from him would trigger the sacrifice. And even if he knew exactly which, he could not avoid performing it.

  His fingers closed on the staff. The captives did not die. He turned, carrying the staff to the dike. One thrust and shove would break the temporary earth dam, sending the water leaping into the aqueduct. He lifted the staff, listened to the shouts of praise from the crowd, felt a heart-tearing mixture of pride and dread. The captives did not die.

  Ihuicamina raised his arms in rapture to the sun. “Hummingbird on the Left, drink deeply so that my city might quench its thirst.”

  Wise Coyote hoped Ilhuicamina’s words would end the Tlaxcalan’s lives, but the warriors still waited, their eyes on him.

  With a grunt that was more a muffled cry of despair. Wise Coyote plunged his staff into the dike. He wrenched it back and forth, making a mortal wound that tore open as water burst forth. It splashed his robe and leaped into the first of the twin channels.

  As the spring water started on its downhill race to Tenochtitlan, a fierce yell broke out from Ilhuicamina’s warriors. With raised swords, they drove their captives downhill alongside of the stone troughs, ahead of the flow. The obsidian blades fell upon the necks of the victims. Men died as they ran, their bodies falling into the channels, their blood mixing with the rushing water.

  The cascade swept the corpses along or shoved them up and over the lip of the channel, where they tumbled headless upon the ground.

  Ilhuicamina clenched his raised fists, his face distorted in a rictus of mixed joy and fear. “Drink the life of the sons of Tlaxcala, that they may never again defy us.”

  When the last crimson-streaked Tlaxcalan prisoner had toppled into the channels, Ilhuicamina looked around eagerly as if he wanted more blood for his god. For one sickening instant, Wise Coyote thought that Ilhuicamina would choose more sacrifices from his own men or even from Wise Coyote’s own retinue.

  The instant passed. Wise Coyote shook himself and wondered if the moment had taken place only in his imagination. No one, even the Aztec ruler, could make such a capricious demand. And the tlatoani of Tenochtitlan was not a complete madman.

  Not yet, thought Wise Coyote.

  Ilhuicamina lowered his fists. “The god is well pleased. Now nothing can stop Tenochtitlan’s march to greatness.” He turned to Wise Coyote, offered his open hand. “This is the man whose wisdom and skill have given us this aqueduct. Let me hear praise for the Engineer of Texcoco. He has subdued the mighty lake itself to bring water to the empire’s heart.”

  A roaring cheer went up as Wise Coyote came forward, lifting the clay-stained wooden crowbar. The cheers ringing in his ears lifted him up and warmed his spirit, but there was a place, deep in his gut, that stayed cold.

  He made a short speech, accepting the praise and gifts offered him as creator and director of the construction project. He brought forth
other men, architects, masons, foremen and laborers, and spoke of their part in the building so that they might receive their due. When he was finished, Ilhuicamina spoke once again.

  “As much as we need the effort of brilliant men, so too do we need the favor of the gods. Today we have fed them with the blood of our enemies, but the campaign against Tlaxcala is over. The rebel state is subdued, but the gods still hunger.” Brows lowered, Ilhuicamina swept his gaze across the crowd. “How shall we feed them? If we deny them blood and hearts, then the foundations of the world will tremble and the empire will fall.”

  Ilhuicamina paused, letting the full impact of his words fall upon the crowd. Wise Coyote ground his teeth, knowing and resenting Ilhuicamina’s gift for oratory. Well he deserved the title Speaker-King. Wise Coyote envied him, for although he himself used words well, he could not generate the emotional fervor that hypnotized crowds the way Ilhuicamina did.

  “We have plenty of young warriors who are eager for battle,” Ilhuicamina continued. “I will give them what they seek. Every three moons, I will declare a War of Flowers against an allied state. The young can wet their blades in combat while providing captives whose hearts will feed the gods.”

  He announced that the first Flower-War would take place against Tlacopan. Wise Coyote, fearing that Ilhuicamina might choose Texcoco for the “honor,” felt relieved. Flower-Wars were nothing new. They were formally arranged battles between otherwise friendly states. By fighting in a War of Flowers, young men might vent their energies in battle without challenging the borders or rulers of the states within the Aztec Empire. Those who won received glory, while those who lost were sacrificed.

  Yet dismay mingled with relief and turned the place in Wise Coyote’s gut colder than ever. A new series of Flower-Wars would provide an endless stream of victims for Hummingbird on the left. There were instances in which a battle begun as a Flower-War turned into a real war, especially against states within the Alliance who still flaunted their independence from Tenochtitlan. Their rulers died “accidentally” on the battlefield and the Aztecs mourned the tragedy and then cheerfully annexed their lands.