by Clare Bell
He suddenly wanted to fling the image to the floor and shatter it.
11
IN THE HOUSE of Scribes, Mixcatl sat cross-legged, working on a section of the history commissioned by the Speaker-King, Ilhuicamina. She had recently been given her own chamber in which to work. Sunlight flooded in through large windows, giving her plenty of illumination. This change had been made, the Master of Scribes had told her, so that she might paint without interruption.
The change in quarters had taken place shortly after Latosl had returned her to the House of Scribes on his boat. The memory of that day was curiously hazy and dreamlike. She recalled going to the market, purchasing a string of chilies, then being cornered and tormented by the boys. She remembered the helpless rage that possessed her then, and even the strange pulling sensations in her face and her teeth, but after that, everything was murky. She hadn’t regained full awareness until she had awakened on Latosl’s refuse barge as it pulled into the canalside dock at the House of Scribes. Nine-Lizard had gone down, carried her up to her chamber, put a damp compress on her forehead and salve on the raw areas on her arms and wrists.
The flesh on those areas was still tight and pink, though Nine-Lizard said that the markings would soon fade. He had tried to reassure her, saying that the strange skin-peeling was probably due to her foreign heritage. He knew something about such illnesses. They might be uncomfortable, but never life-threatening. Anything beyond that he would not say, although Mixcatl suspected he knew more.
That incident and the one before, when she had fled from a roomful of apprentices because she was unable to bear the odor of sacrifice, had reemphasized her strange difference from the others.
Although she had privacy within her own rooms, to enter and leave she had to pass by other chambers belonging to officials and high-ranking scribes. Somehow there was always someone present, and she often had a sense of being watched.
Today, however, that feeling had receded. The sun, brilliant and warm, shone on the page, making the colors so intense that they seemed to glow. With her paintpots and brushes about her and the half-finished book unfolded across her lap, Mixcatl lost herself in the contentment of painting.
From the old books she used as references, she had learned much about history as well as glyph-making. The Aztecs, according to the texts, were descendants of an older and even more glorious race called the Toltecs. The time of the Toltecs had been a golden age, where learning, religion, and most of all, art and craftsmanship, reached great heights. The Aztecs were the direct inheritors of this tradition and they strove to surpass the accomplishments of their distinguished ancestors. Reverence for the Toltec heritage was expressed in the Nahuatl language, for an artist of exceptional skill was honored by being called “tolteca.”
After the fall of the Toltecs, the people who were to become the Aztecs went to live on the island of Aztlan, from which they took their name. In a cave on the shore, they found a statue of Hummingbird on the Left. Hummingbird promised the Aztecs that they were destined to rule the world and all its riches and commanded them to wander until they found a homeland.
From memory, Mixcatl drew the figures of the original four tribal Aztec chiefs who left Aztlan. Above their heads, she made the symbols for each tribe. Three of the chiefs carried journey sacks. On the back of the fourth, she drew in a small figure that represented the image of Hummingbird, for the Aztecs had carried the god throughout their wanderings. Underneath the four chiefs, she painted in a line of footprints, indicating their long journey.
She paused between glyphs and looked down along the stiff sheets that composed the book. She and Nine-lizard had done most of it. There had been a time when Nine-lizard’s work was clearly better, but now her glyphs matched his in quality. She knew that a careful eye could distinguish her work, for she had developed a certain style and flourish in her figures that gave them a distinct signature.
She dipped her brush into a bowl of sepia, then drew it across the chalky varnished surface of the page. Shifting from practice sheets to prepared pages had been a struggle, for the chalky texture caught the brush tip, making it go in directions the painter did not intend and ruining the figure. Or a hair of the brush pulled out and stuck in the wet paint. Mistakes such as these were faults for which a scribe could be punished, often severely.
Mixcatl had already earned unwanted attention for her individual style. Tradition and, to some extent, practicality dictated that the pictures should be drawn exactly the same each time they were made. Something in Mixcatl rebelled at making each line in a glyph an exact reproduction of another scribe’s work. For a while she had forced herself to do it, but the figures came out looking dead and boring. Finally she had let herself go a little, putting her own signature on everything she drew. Her figures were as legible or more so than most and her rate of production higher, so that the masters of the House of Scribes let her eccentricities pass as long as they did not veer too far from the standard.
Recently the master-scribes had allowed her to select which glyphs she could use in cases when there were none already established. She enjoyed the challenge and had grown quite good at it. The trick was to pick combinations of pictures that, when read aloud, sounded like the words one wished to say. There was no established figure for the city of Quauhitlan, but she could break up the city’s name into two words that did have glyphs: “quauhitl,” which meant tree, and “tlantli,” which meant teeth. A glyph of a tree with a set of teeth in its trunk represented the sound of the city’s name.
Not only was she good at constructing combinations of glyphs to fit new expressions required in the history, she could also decipher constructions created by ancient scribes, whose work was often so convoluted and esoteric that even the masters couldn’t figure out what they meant.
Mixcatl smiled with pleasure as she painted. She never thought she would find her place in the world, but somehow, she had. Here, among priests and scholars, she didn’t have to worry about her appearance and her ability raised her above the level of her slave class. The life she had might not be perfect, for there were still questions about her own nature that troubled her. But compared with the fate that might have fallen on her, this was paradise indeed.
She worked until the level in her paint and inkpots became low. Discovering that she had no water to mix new colors, she took up a pitcher and went to fill it.
As she reached to pull aside the door flap, her hand halted. An odor filled her nose, a smell that made her think of deep shadowed jungle and the flash of sunlight on the back of a great spotted cat. The jaguar scent was musky, seductive. In her mind the image of the prowling jaguar stopped, fixed her with eyes of molten gold and called to her in a voice that she could not disobey.
She plunged ahead, as if the door flap covered a portal into the jaguar’s world. But it only led to the hallway and her clumsy rush carried her right through the hanging and into someone passing by.
Mixcatl drew back in dismay, even though the compelling scent still filled her nose. She had stumbled into a young priest wearing a jaguar skin as part of his regalia. It was a new pelt, freshly skinned and tanned. The cat’s spirit still lingered within it, calling to her.
“Clumsy slave wench! Are you blind?” the skin’s wearer raged. “I have spent the morning in rites of purification only to be fouled by your touch. Now I will be forced to repeat the ceremony.”
Trying to shake off the scent’s influence, Mixcatl stooped to pick up her pitcher, which, thankfully, had not broken.
“Insolent girl! Reply when you are spoken to.”
Slowly she straightened, deciding to tell as much of the truth as possible. “I could not see you as I came through the hanging. I was going to fill my pitcher to mix paints.”
From the comer of her eye, she could see heads craning out of nearby doorways. People were being drawn by the priest’s sharp voice. Mixcatl thought of just scuttling away, but a part of her burned with anger. She was no ordinary slave to be abused s
o. She was a scribe and an artist.
“Let me pass,” she said keeping her voice level.
The young cleric blocked her. “You did not use the proper form of address to a priest.”
Her answer came in a low voice. “You do not deserve it.”
She glared at him, feeling the anger start to churn in her body. Her hands curled, the way they had at the marketplace long ago. The pulling sensation began in her teeth, the way it had a few days ago in the courtyard.
His face contorted by rage, the priest seized Mixcatl’s hair and tried to fling her to his feet. She resisted and she could see that the strength she showed surprised him. Her anger grew. She wrestled to control it as she glared at the young cleric, for she remembered what had happened when the boys from the calmecac had trapped and teased her.
She half wished, half feared that the transformation would overtake her once again. The beast spirit was already awake and circling within her, as if her body was a cage with a door ready to be opened.
The young priest jerked hard at her hair, trying to drag her down. The door to the cage opened. The spirit did not seize her own flesh to work its changes. Instead she felt it extend from her into the spotted pelt on the priest’s shoulders.
The jaguar skin billowed and lifted. The hanging head snapped up, fire in its eye sockets. The dangling tail twitched and lashed.
“Hummingbird on the Left, help me!” the priest shrieked, loosing Mixcatl’s hair. “Sorcery!”
Too caught up in rage to back off, Mixcatl brought her curled hand down twice and each time the dangling claws of the jaguar pelt raked skin.
The priest tore the writhing pelt off as if it had been on fire. Plumes and gold ornaments fell with it, but the terrified priest took no notice.
“Sorcery I” he cried, pointing a shaking finger at Mixcatl. “You saw. Slay her! Burn her!”
The girl flung her hair back from her face. She trembled with the effort of suppressing her fear and anger so that the thing she had unleashed would return to her before it could do more damage. The jaguar skin slumped into a dead pile on the floor.
The commotion brought other scholars and scribes out of their chambers. With a twinge of despair, Mixcatl saw the Master of Scribes coming down the hallway, his arms folded across his white robe, his shaved head gleaming.
“You saw!” cried the priest again, turning to people whose heads had been poking out of doorways. Some heads nodded, others shook slowly in disbelief. From the comer of her eye, Mixcatl saw Nine-Lizard making his way through the crowd gathering in the hallway.
Suddenly the young priest yanked a knife from his belt and ran at Mixcatl. “Left-Handed Hummingbird demands that we kill those who give themselves to demons!” he shouted.
As quick as he was, Nine-Lizard was faster. The lifted arm was seized and jerked back. The blade clattered to the floor. The jaguar pelt, which had billowed up again when the jolt of fear went through Mixcatl, collapsed again.
Half crouching from her effort to guard against the knife, Mixcatl looked up at the scene before her. Nine-Lizard still had a grip on the young priest, whose arm was still high in the air.
“Young man,” said the old scribe mildly, “perhaps the intensity of your devotions has left you a bit fevered.”
The priest struggled to free himself, but Mixcatl saw that Nine-Lizard had a strong grip for an elder.
“Get your hands off me, slave filth,” the young priest spat. “Who are you to keep me from killing the demon-possessed?”
“I am a scribe-painter, as is the girl you stumbled into. I am sure she meant no harm. She could not see you through the hangings in the doorway.”
“She is a sorcerer. She sent devils into my jaguar skin cloak!”
The Master of Scribes had come up behind the two figures. He cleared his throat deliberately and loudly. “This is a house of learning,” he said in a gruff voice, “not a school for warriors. Nine-Lizard Iguana Tongue, let the priest go.”
The old man released his grip, but Mixcatl noticed that he put his foot on the priest’s fallen knife.
“Master of Scribes,” she said, “I was coming out of my chambers and I stumbled into the noble sir.”
The priest glared at Mixcatl and repeated his accusation. The Master of Scribes scowled and scratched his bald pate. “And then?” he asked the young cleric.
“I grew angry and seized her by the hair, as I had every right to do. And then she whispered spells and I felt my jaguar cloak moving on my back. See how it clawed me?” He showed the Master of Scribes a set of scratches on his ribs.
Mixcatl felt an indignant anger welling up inside her. The priest was lying on that point. She had whispered no spells—she didn’t know any.
“Is that the skin?” asked the Master of Scribes, and requested Nine-Lizard get it for the priest.
Nine-Lizard stooped down stiffly to pick up the pelt, but before he lifted it, he shot a quick glance at Mixcatl to be sure that she had control of herself. He gave it to the Master of Scribes.
“Here,” the master-scribe said, offering the cast-off pelt to its wearer. The skin hung limp and heavy across his arm.
“No! I will get another that has not been bewitched.”
“As you wish,” said the Master of Scribes. “But they are expensive and I am sure that your head priest will want to know why you discarded it.”
The young priest glowered at Nine-lizard and Mixcatl. The Master of Scribes held the skin out once again, saying, “Touch it and tell me if there is anything in it besides skin and fur.”
Fearfully the young priest tapped the jaguar skin, but when it stayed limp, he reluctantly accepted it with a last fearful glance at Mixcatl.
“Say what you will,” he growled, “but she is a sorcerer and must die on Hummingbird’s altar.”
The master-scribe’s face darkened. “If you kill her, you will have to answer to representatives of the Speaker-King. He will want to know why the scribe working on his specially commissioned history was not able to complete it.”
At the mention of Ilhuicamina, the young priest paled, then flushed. “It is he who demands greater fervor from us in driving out those who are accursed. And she is one.” He looked around at the assembled people. “You all saw what happened.”
“A strong wind often blows down these hallways,” said Nine-Lizard smoothly. “Many a gust has been mistaken for the work of spirits.”
Mixcatl followed the priest’s gaze around the circle of faces, hoping that they would believe Nine-Lizard. She cursed herself for letting her temper get away from her and the youth for his arrogance. She saw the questioning glances exchanged and knew that even though most people would accept Nine-Lizard’s explanation, there would be those who knew what they had seen. And in the gazes that were turned on her, she saw the hard glitter of suspicion.
“Go fill your water jug and finish mixing your paints, Seven-Flower,” the Master of Scribes told Mixcatl. “Ilhuicamina wants no interruptions in your work.”
Gripping the handle of her pitcher, Mixcatl walked past the people, down the hallway. Behind her, she heard Nine-Lizard and others soothing the priest. But she knew the affair was far from being over. Too many questions would be asked. And what if it happened again? Many other people who came to the House of Scribes also wore jaguar skins as emblems of their office and rank. Mixcatl didn’t like the practice, but she accepted and understood it.
She filled her jug and went back hoping she could lose herself in her work. Soon she was caught up in the making of glyphs, but the contentment she had felt that morning was gone.
In the library at Tezcotzinco, Wise Coyote stared at the two statuettes, now standing side by side on their own shelf. He remembered Nine-Lizard’s words when the old scribe had brought him the second one.
I have placed my foot on the threshold, he thought. Do I wish to go beyond?
The pieces of ancient art in his collection seemed to regard him silently. He turned to a great stone disk bearing t
he Plumed Serpent. How he had searched for a sign that said that Quetzalcoatl’s powers were real. But all he could find was evidence that Plumed Serpent was an ancient and revered king.
Will I be thought of as a god when I am dust, thought Wise Coyote. Will men turn their faces to the image of a coyote and embellish the story of my life until it becomes legend?
He wandered around the library, admitting at last to the sorrow that tore his heart. He let his gaze travel along the collection, many pieces from many palaces and times, all with their message of the divine.
Why can I not believe? Wise Coyote cried and nearly shouted aloud.
And then, as he turned back, his gaze fell upon the two statues, the Olmec holding the jaguar-baby and the were-jaguar caught in the instant of change. No. It was not true that he had no faith. Had he been given the choice, he would never have wished that these Olmec figurines, out of all the other images he had gathered in his life, would be the ones to prove true. Now he believed, and was afraid.
He could end it here. He could forget what he had seen and drop his plan to have Nine-Lizard Iguana Tongue “stolen” and brought to Tezcotzinco.
And then he would have to stand alone against the city across the lake.
The mysterious people of the Jaguar might prove uncertain allies, but submission to Hummingbird on the Left was worse.
Abruptly he walked from the library, summoned his most trusted warriors and gave them instructions. Then he went into his gardens to wait.
The old man was waiting for him in an audience hall the following morning. Wise Coyote wasted no time with greetings or chatter.
“I see that you took my advice,” said the old scribe, rubbing a bruise on his leathery arm. “I really thought I was being abducted by slave stealers until I saw the hills of Texcoco. Next time, please send someone with a little less enthusiasm or I will not last for more than one or two more encounters.”
Wise Coyote felt a twinge of regret that he had to use such methods, but it was the scribe himself who suggested it.
