Читать книгу A Serpent In Turquoise - Peggy Nicholson - Страница 8

Tenochtitlan, Valley of Mexico. Spring, 1520 A.D.

“T his Cortés is a man, I say, and not a god! All this foolish talk in the marketplace that he is the Quetzalcoatl—pah!” The high priest spat into the brazier’s flames. “You have only to look at his eyes, how they glow when he sees our gold! He burns for it like a boy in rut. He’s no sort of a god. He’s a soulless, hairy dog of an unbeliever, come to rob the Aztecs of all but their clouts!”

“If you say so, my lord.” Like most traders, the pochteca was a practical man. He believed in a fair weight of cacao beans, and the sheen of parrot feathers. A leather pouch clicking with turquoise or coral. He’d leave the gods and their savage requirements to the bloody priests. One had to make a living in this world before he faced the gods in the next, he knew, though he’d never dare give voice to such an opinion.

“I do say it. But though this Cortés is a man, he brings our ruin. The city will fall.”

The trader grunted in surprise. “I heard Cortés had fled, he and his men. After they murdered King Motecuhzoma. That they’d been driven from the city and were running for the east.” The pochteca had returned only this morning from a profitable venture to the western ocean. He’d barely had time to bathe himself, then hurry his laughing young wife to bed, before the summons had come from the temple. From the high priest of Quetzalcoatl himself!

“Cortés will return, with more warriors than the fire ants. We have asked the one true Feathered Serpent, the real Quetzalcoatl, and so he says. Tenochtitlan will fall. Our men will be trampled like corn stalks beneath the hooves of their terrible beasts. Our women will be driven weeping into slavery. Our children will be meat for their sacrifice.”

The pochteca swallowed a protesting laugh. One didn’t laugh at a priest and live. “The god says this?” he asked weakly. Or his old women priests putting words into the Quetzalcoatl’s mouth? Tenochtitlan was the finest, largest city in all the world, home to two hundred thousand of the bravest. Floating like a lily on its lake, the imperial capital could be approached only by guarded causeways or by canoe. To think that it could fall to a handful of rude, hairy, sweat-soaked foreigners? What nonsense.

“Already our end has begun. The strangers send a poison through the air before them. The people to the east of here breathe it and die—an illness of coughing and fever and spots on the face. The city will fall, says the Serpent. He says that if His children would survive this plague, they must return from whence they came. To Aztlan, the Place of the Herons.”

“Aztlan,” the trader repeated without inflection. Aztlan was no more than a tale to tell children. A fading dream of a homeland somewhere far to the north. Hundreds of rainy seasons ago the Aztecs had abandoned that city, but nobody remembered where it was located or why they’d fled. They’d marched south for year upon year till at last they came to an island in a lake, where they spied an eagle perched on a nopal cactus, devouring a serpent. There they’d stopped and founded Tenochtitlan, which became the navel of their empire.

But the pochteca had ventured north and west as far as a sensible man might walk in four moons of hard walking and he’d never heard a whisper of Aztlan. If such a place existed, he’d have learned of it. It would have markets same as any city, markets hungry for all the goods he traded and sold. A real city couldn’t live on air. If ever the Place of the Herons had existed, it must have crumbled to dust. Its birds had flown.

“We return to Aztlan, those of us who have the vision and foresight to know what’s coming. The courage to do what must be done. And you will lead the way.”

The pochteca found spit enough to speak. “I, my lord? I—I don’t deserve such an honor. I’m only a poor pochteca, a lowly merchant in obsidian and—”

“You will go before us, guiding an expedition that carries the temple treasure and the Feathered One himself. You will take your men and such priests and soldiers as I choose, to serve and guard the Quetzalcoatl as you travel.”

His wife. Her feet were dainty as a deer’s, softer than turkey down. And she was only beginning to swell with their first child. She’d never be strong enough to make a journey to nowhere, trudging north over mountain and desert for the gods knew how long—for years and dusty years?

Besides, the priests would never allow him to bring along a mere woman on a sacred journey. They valued only sacrifice, never human love. “Of course, my lord, if this is your wish. I’d be honored to do it. But first I’ll need to go home, pack my gear, summon my men.” If an entire people could flee, if a temple could pick up its gold and its gods and take to the road, then so could a single family. He’d take her west toward the ocean this very night. He knew a village on the coast; its people were openhanded and friendly, with gods that demanded fish and flowers, not beating hearts.

The priest smiled for the first time, a lipless turtle smile below eyes black as dried-up wells. “Ohhh, no need to go home! I’ll send the slaves for whatever you require. We have much to discuss here tonight.

“This then will be your mission. You will find Aztlan. There you will raise a temple to house the Feathered One and his treasure. You’ll prepare for the coming of His children.

“As soon as your expedition is safely on its way, I will call in the nobles and tell them my plan. Those who are wise enough to heed Quetzalcoatl’s warning will gather their people, their slaves and their goods. We will follow no more than one moon on your heels, two at the most. And, Trader? Never fear. I’ll keep your charming young wife safe, under my own hand.”

“Very good, my lord.” He felt the tears welling, warm as blood behind his lashes.