Aztec Blood

by Gary Jennings

  "This custom from the old ways, what is the purpose of it?"

  "To ensure that our marriage does not offend the gods. The gods enjoy virgins, that is why maidens are sacrificed to them. If my husband bedded with a virgin, our marriage would be offensive to the gods and they might do bad things to us."

  In the minds of people in a small, isolated village where it seemed that the spirits and gods of old were all around them, the idea of deflowering a young woman before she had ahuilnéma with her husband was not illogical.

  "From your face I can see that you do not like our custom," she said.

  I thought it was barbaric but did not want to offend the girl who had to live with the practice. "What do you think of bedding your uncle or brother?"

  "They are both ugly. There are other men in the village I wouldn't mind making ahuilnéma with, but not those two." She splashed water with her feet. "I wouldn't mind making ahuilnéma with you."

  Ayyo. Now this was a custom I understood.

  We found a soft spot on the grass and took off our clothes. Our bodies were both young and supple. I was too eager and my virile juice flowed before I was ready, but she carefully caressed my tepúli and it grew again. And again.

  After we had satisfied our desires for the time being, I asked her more questions about the "old ways" practiced in the village. I knew her male relatives were consorting with the naualli. Fearing I would frighten her, I let her talk about the old ways in general before leading her to the subject of sacrifices.

  "There is a pyramid," she said, "put there by the gods long before there were any people in this valley. When the naualli comes, the men of the village go there and give blood in the old way."

  "How do they give blood?" I asked, keeping my tone casual.

  "They cut their arms and legs and sometimes their tepúli. Once a year they take blood from another. This year it was a dwarf."

  Keeping the excitement out of my voice, I asked, "When did they sacrifice the dwarf?"

  "Last night."

  Dios madre! I had been right about the dwarf. With some gentle persuasion, I convinced her to show me this temple where the dwarf had been sacrificed.

  She led me deep into the tropical forest. The farther we went, the more dense the vegetation became. Most of the ancient monuments of the indios were already swallowed by jungle throughout New Spain. One way the Spanish priests knew that a temple was still being used was if it had been cleared of the jungle growth.

  We had walked a half an hour when she stopped and pointed. "Over there, another few hundred paces. I'm not going any farther."

  She ran back the way we had come. I did not blame her. It was late afternoon, nearly twilight, with the sky dark from heavy black rain clouds. Rain would be falling soon and complete darkness on its heels. I had no more desire than she to be out in the jungle after the fall of night.

  I crept slowly toward the pyramid, keeping my eyes and ears alert. Now that the girl was gone and the sky darkening, some of my courage and enthusiasm was slipping away. I had assumed that if there was a sacrifice here last night, there would be no need for anyone to be here now. But that was not necessarily true, I thought. Perhaps that was no more than wishful thinking.

  When the pyramid temple came into view, I stopped and listened. I heard nothing but the freshening wind stirring the leaves. Knowing it was the wind did little to reduce my fears that every leaf that rustled was pressed upon by a were-jaguar.

  The sides of the temple were overgrown with vines, but the growth had been cleared up the stone steps to the top. It was a little smaller than the temple at the town of the Day of the Dead festival, about twenty steps to the top platform where sacrifices would be held.

  A light rain had begun to fall as I made my way to the temple. By the time I reached the bottom of the steps, it was coming down in a torrent. A thought about the rain nagged at me from a corner of my mind but stayed out of reach as I went up the steps.

  By the time I was three-quarters of the way up the stone steps, a trickle of water was pouring down from the top. I stared in alarm and horror at the liquid. It was bloody.

  I turned and flew down the steps, stumbling near the bottom. I lost my balance, falling to the ground. I ran like the night a were-jaguar had been chasing me. I ran as if all of the hounds of hell were yapping at the soft flesh at the back of my legs.

  Dark night, as black as the naualli's eyes, had fallen by the time I got back, wet and muddy, to our campsite to find no one there. Mateo and Jose had no doubt decided to spend the rainy night playing cards at a cantina. The birds probably told the Healer he should stay at the hut of his dream-divining friend.

  Without even a fire to warm me, I holed up under a tree, wrapped in wet blankets, shivering, my knife in my hand ready to strike anyone—or anything—that attacked me. The thought that had teased my mind back at the temple about the rain became clear. The drought was over. Tlaloc, the rain god, must be very pleased at the sacrifice given him.

  Rain was still falling the next morning when I led Mateo and Jose back to the temple. I rode on the back of Mateo's horse. Refusing to go up the temple, I stood at the bottom and held the reins of the horse and Jose's mule while the two went up to the top.

  "Is it terrible to see?" I shouted up to them. "Did they rip out his heart?"

  Mateo nodded. "Yes, they ripped out his heart and left the body." He bent down and then stood up. "Here! See for yourself."

  He tossed something down to me. It landed near my feet. It was the body of a monkey.

  He came down the temple steps and I backed away from his anger. He shook his finger at me. "If you come to me with anymore dwarf sightings, I'm going to cut off your nose."

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  Ayya ouiya! Unwise was I of the ways of the world despite my education on the streets of Veracruz. These simple country people were much more deceptive than any lépero. It occurred to me that it was time for me to be moving along. I would hate to leave the Healer—as with Fray Antonio, I loved him like a father. But I did not know what was going to happen to me when Don Julio was advised of our failure.

  I was pondering my ill-begotten ways when the girl who was betrothed and who I had made ahuilnéma with came out of her hut. She gave me a knowing look and disappeared into the bushes. I followed her. My interest was not only in making ahuilnéma with her, but afterward I would take her to Mateo and force her to tell him about the sacrifices her uncle and brother have been involved in with the naualli.

  I had gone no more than a hundred paces when I heard movement all around me. The girl's uncle leaped out from behind a tree and confronted me. He had an obsidian dagger in his hand. I turned to run and there were indios behind me. They grabbed me and wrestled me to the ground. While three of them held me down, another stood over me with a club. He raised the club over my head and swung down.

  SIXTY-NINE

  They carried me through the jungle, my hands and feet tied to a long pole that extended over their shoulders. I was as trussed as the naualli's pig had been. Even my mouth was gagged so I could not yell for help. At first I was only dimly aware that I was being carried but awareness came back quickly. The blow had been intended to daze me, not smash my head. They did not want me unconscious. What they had in mind would not give them pleasure if I was not awake to experience it.

  They lowered me to the ground at the foot of the temple. The naualli stood over me. He wore a mask of human skin, the face of some prior victim who had been flayed, skinned so the priest can wear it. The face was of a stranger, but the cruel, diabolic eyes and the jeering lips were the naualli's.

  The men around him were dressed as Jaguar Knights, the snarling jaws of the beasts atop their heads, their faces concealed by masks of jaguar skin.

  I shouted at them that they were cowards, that they hid behind masks to do their foul deeds, but my words came out as a mumble through the gag.

  The naualli knelt beside me. He opened a small pouch and took a pinch of something from
it. One of the knights knelt behind me and trapped my head between his knees as the naualli put the substance from the pouch at one of my nostrils. I sneezed, and as I drew in my breath, he sprinkled more of it in front of my nostrils.

  Fire went through me, brain fire, not unlike the sensation I felt when the flower weaver at Teotihuacan had sent me soaring to the gods. The fire subsided and a warm, comfortable feeling of well-being and love for all things filled me.

  I was ungagged and the ropes were cut from my body. Helped to my feet, I got up, laughing. Everything around me, the indio costumes, the ancient temple, even the greenery glistened with sharp, brilliant colors. I put my arm around the naualli and gave him a hug. I felt good about everything.

  The knights closed in on me, anonymous figures with their capes, headdresses, and masks. I struggled against their taking my arms. As I did, the sword of one of them was exposed, a steel blade like the Spanish carry. I gaily reached for it, but the knight knocked away my hand. They took my arms and directed me toward the stone steps. I went willingly, eagerly, happy to be with my friends.

  My feet seemed to have a mind of their own, one that I did not control, and I stumbled and fell trying to mount the steps. My friends grabbed my arms and supported me up each step.

  My will had been captured by the flower weaver's powder; but in my mind, despite my gaiety, I knew that something terrible awaited at the top of the temple. An unusual tale came to mind, one of the those preconquest stories I have heard waiting for Mateo outside cantinas. An india girl to be sacrificed was more clever than others who often not only went willingly but considered it a privilege. She told the priests preparing her that if she was sacrificed she would tell the rain god not to let it rain. The superstitious priests let her go. I giggled aloud at the idea of telling the naualli that if I was sacrificed, I would tell the rain god not to let it rain.

  At the top I shook myself loose from their grip so I could look around at the grand scenery of the jungle. I laughed in delight at the striking colors. The different shades of green and brown glowed. A colorful songbird flew by, a flying rainbow of yellow, red, and green feathers.

  My friends gathered around me again and tried to take my arms. I brushed aside their attempts and danced around, laughing at their efforts to restrain me. Four of them grabbed me, two taking my arms and tripping me backward. As I fell, they lifted me and carried me across to the sacrifice block.

  They spread me over the arched block of stone, so my head and feet were lower than my chest.

  A dark thought deep inside my mind stirred and told me that something was wrong, that what these men were doing was going to hurt me. I struggled against their holds, but it was to no avail; arched backward over the stone block, the position locked me in their grip with little effort.

  The naualli hovered over me, chanting an ode to the gods, cutting the air with an obsidian knife. He brought the dagger down to my chest and cut my shirt, tearing it back until my naked chest was exposed. I struggled in earnest, but my arms and legs were trapped. The image of a man being sacrificed came to me, his chest ripped open by a razor-sharp blade, an Aztec priest reaching in and ripping out his heart and holding the blood-dripping vessel in the air while it was still beating.

  The naualli's chant grew higher pitched until it sounded like the scream of a jungle cat. I sensed the heated anticipation, the bloodthirsty passions of those around me. Holding the sacrificial knife with both hands, he raised it high over his head.

  One of the knights holding my arm suddenly let go. I saw the flash of a sword. The naualli staggered backwards as the knight with the sword swung at him. The blade missed the magician but struck a man holding one of my legs. The other hands released me as chaos erupted atop the pyramid. Wooden swords with razor-sharp obsidian edges were whipped out. The steel sword lashed out, slicing through the other blades.

  Musket shots and shouts sounded from the bottom of the temple.

  I rolled off of the sacrifice block and fell to the stone floor. As I got dizzily to my feet, the several Jaguar Knights still standing broke and ran from the one wielding the steel sword.

  When the last knight had fled, the swordsman turned and faced me, saluting me with his sword. "Bastardo, you certainly know how to get yourself in trouble."

  Removing the mask, Mateo grinned at me. I grinned back.

  Don Julio came up the steps. "How is the boy?"

  "The naualli got his mind drunk with something; but other than having a stupid grin, he appears all right."

  "The naualli got away," Don Julio said. "My men are after him, but he moves faster than a jungle cat."

  "He is a jungle cat," I said.

  A lamb to slaughter. That is how they had treated me, I soon discovered.

  Back at our campsite Mateo, Don Julio, Jose, and the don's other men drank wine and celebrated my rescue.

  "We knew you had become an irritation to the naualli," Don Julio said. "You exposed your suspicions when you unleashed that pig, thinking it was the missing dwarf. The naualli no doubt did sacrifice the dwarf. Of that we will be certain after we question the followers we captured."

  "Eh, chico, you are lucky I am a great actor. I knocked one of the guards over the head and took his costumes. We all looked the same with the costumes on, so I stepped in to help rip out your heart."

  "No word of their evil master?" I asked.

  "None." Don Julio smiled and shook his head. "That devil would have had to turn into a jaguar to avoid my men. He disappeared on foot with men on horses after him."

  "So," I mused aloud, "you knew the naualli was going to take me."

  "It was just a matter of time," Mateo said. "A mestizo boy poking his nose in his secret doings. The indios hate mestizos almost as bad as us Spanish. It would have served his purpose doubly well to get rid of you on the sacrificial block."

  I smiled at Don Julio and Mateo. I was burning with anger at them for nearly getting me killed, but could not show my temper because it would gain me nothing. But I could not keep from at least expressing a bit of displeasure. "Perhaps you moved too quickly to save my life. Had you waited until the naualli ripped out my heart, you might have been able to capture him."

  "You're probably right," Don Julio said. "Keep that in mind, Mateo, next time you and the boy close in on the naualli. Waiting until the devil is actually extracting the boy's heart will give you time to chop off the naualli's head."

  Don Julio spoke without his face exposing whether he was joking or not. But one thing was certain; we would not be finished with the naualli until he was captured or killed.

  Mateo had caught the fact, too. "Don Julio, don't tell me that I must continue to remain in this backward area until that foul puta of a magician is found. I need to go to a city where there are people of my own kind, music, women—"

  "Trouble," Don Julio said. "Isn't that what you usually find in cities? You are on this assignment because you have spent too much of your life in dark dens of iniquity, where cheating cards and loose women rise the heat in your blood. This assignment is good for you. Fresh air. Good country cooking..."

  Mateo was no more pleased at being exiled to the netherlands than I was when I found out I had been literally staked out as a lamb for the naualli to devour.

  SEVENTY

  Don Julio posted men at the main roads leading from the area and sent others into the brush looking for the naualli. Mateo occasionally joined the search on horseback but generally considered it a waste of his time.

  "The devil knows the area and has followers everywhere. We will never find him."

  Don Julio's estimation was that the naualli would not leave the area without his defeat avenged. "He would never be respected again." Avenging the setback, the don said, would be to kill a Spaniard, mestizo, or an indio who cooperated with the Spanish.

  We were doomed to stay forever in this worthless land of backward indios. That was how Mateo described the situation. He found little comfort in wine and trips to the cantina in
a nearby village, where he played cards with traveling merchants.

  The Healer spent much of his time sitting in our campsite, smoking his pipe, staring up at the sky. Other times he would walk about where birds were nearby and twittered.

  I had some concern for him. He took little interest in the solicitations for his services that came from the nearby villages. When I asked him what he was doing, he said he was "gathering his medicine."

  Ayyo. That disturbed me. I suspected that he believed the naualli meant harm toward me and that he would use his magic to fight him. I did not want the Healer harmed trying to protect me.

  I remained at the camp for a couple of days until I got a treasure in my hands.

  A treasure, you ask? Perhaps a cup of emeralds or a golden mask? No, amigos, this was not a treasure of the purse but one of the mind. Mateo had won a copy of Lazarillo de Tormes. This book was the older brother to Guzman de Alfarache, the tale about the picaro lad in whom I found much to admire and hoped to emulate. The fact that this book, like Guzman, was on the Inquisition's prohibition list for New Spain made it all the more desirable to read.

  Mateo told me that the author of Lazarillo was said to be Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, a man who had once studied for the priesthood but ended up as an administrator for the king and ambassador to the English. But that many people did not believe Mendoza was the true author.

  "Mendoza became governor of the Italian state of Siena for King Carlos V. Mendoza was a brutal, arrogant ruler who was a tyrant to the people, so much so that they tried to kill him. I suspect that someone, perhaps one of his aides, had written the book, and Mendoza took it and had his own name put on it for vanity."

  I took the book to a hillside that over looked the river. The sun was warm on the rocks and I seated myself among the boulders to read. As the adventures of Lazarillo unfolded, I found the tale often so dark a tyrant could have written the tale.