The Spaniard's Innocent Maiden

‘How may I compensate you for such a gift?’ the King would ask him and Benicio would humbly request a small allotment of land, a place where he might run cattle and plant orchards and keep his noble wife in the way of life she deserved.

And thus it would be done. A dream that he had all but abandoned, suddenly fulfilled.

How strange and unpredictable life was.

Where had he put his breastplates? Ah, there they were, just a few paces away. Steel armour was highly valued among the people of the West Indies and could be traded for essentials like food and transport. And where was his book? Where was Amadís? He touched his chest. There it was—right where he always kept it, covering his heart.

He heard a sudden rustle of maize leaves upon the ground. Sensing danger, he popped the ring into his mouth and threaded his tongue through its golden hoop. He turned to behold Rogelio, who remained where he had fallen not three paces away. His eyes sparkled with greed.

He had witnessed everything.

Benicio jumped to his feet and secured his armour. He found the place on the horizon where the sun had risen. He would only need to make his way west, to the coast. There he would find one of the friendly coastal villages. Surely there would be some native man willing to trade his canoe and some supplies for the shiny armour Benicio now wore.

It would be a fast journey across the short stretch of ocean that separated Cuba from this strange island, if an island it was. He would arrive upon Cuba and seek passage to Hispañola, where he would board the next ship returning to Spain. There, he would present his precious ring to King Charles and come what may.

Rogelio was struggling to his feet. He eyed Benicio with a simmering rage, then lunged towards him.

But Benicio would not be caught. His future was in reach. It glittered like diamonds, like Luisa’s green eyes in the noonday sun. He stretched out his long legs and broke into a run. All he needed to do now was reach the coast.

‘Luisa,’ he breathed. ‘I’m coming home.’

Chapter Three (#ulink_9cc6412b-9f05-58d9-a1ea-ae75c3553e32)

When Tula reached the coast, the day was still new. The Sun God glowed white in his victory over the night. She was glad to see that the remote beach remained empty, its quiet cove still untroubled by the wind. She had planned her visit for this day because she knew that Goddess of the Sea would be asleep, her blue waters rolled up like a blanket. The moon charts said it would be so.

Tula retrieved a single spear from her basket. She told herself that she was not lying to her father. Not really. She was simply waiting until the time was right to make her secret known. ‘Within each thing exists its opposite,’ her father always told her. She knew that all her people would soon know the mystery she held inside her heart.

But for now, it was only hers.

She pulled off her shawl and skirt and stuffed them away inside her basket. She placed her belongings at the edge of the jungle, tightening her loincloth as she skipped bare-breasted down the beach.

She felt like a child misbehaving. It gave Tula such a thrill to step out on to her empty beach alone, as if she were the only person in this crowded world. She savoured the moment, knowing that it would not endure.

Her father, who sat upon the Totonac Council of Elders, would be obliged to tell the Totonac Chief of Tula’s discovery. When her secret became known, Totonac nobles would be swarming this beach like fire ants. Tula did not pretend to understand the affairs of the men who ruled the Totonac nation, but she knew well enough that she had found something important.

She also knew that if there was treasure to be had, she wanted to find it first.

She stepped into the clear blue water, sending a prayer to God of the Hunt, Mixcoatl, to help her find treasure in the form of gold. The strange yellow metal was so very rare and to Tula’s mind held little practical use. But the Mexica Takers would accept it in place of many cloaks, and if she could obtain even just a small amount she knew she could bring great relief to her family.

She gripped her spear and peered into the underwater world. It was more likely that she would find a fish. Over the past few cycles of the sun, she had become an excellent fisher, though she would never let the fault of pride weight her steps. Her people believed that fish had once been human and she entered their blue-green realm with humility and reverence.

‘Forgive me, fishes,’ she intoned, letting the water of the Endless Sea pool around her knees. She spied the black spots of a mature jaguar fish, a Totonac delicacy.

With a quick downward thrust, she impaled the magnificent swimmer, then finished its life with her blade. ‘I am humble,’ she whispered to Mixcoatl. With a great heave, she tossed her family’s dinner on to the shore.

She journeyed deeper into the water, stepping past a group of boulders and sighting a polished tree trunk protruding from the depths. She sucked in a breath, then slipped beneath the water.

She followed the tree trunk downwards, kicking past where the seafloor made a short drop, until she reached the hulking wooden temple.

This was her secret, her true quarry. She had discovered the submerged structure half a moon ago in search of new fishing grounds. She suspected it belonged to the bearded god Grijalva, who had journeyed through the Totonac waters many cycles past. He had forged a friendship with the Totonac Chief and the Council of Elders, but he had said nothing about sacrificing a floating temple in this quiet cove.

Though clearly it was a sacrifice—a worthy gift for any god. And today, with the water so clear, she could see the details, including the finely carved rungs of the large calendar wheel, which perched on its central platform.

She envisioned the bearded gods consulting the wheel as they journeyed from their homeland. If temples like this could split the seas, Tula thought, then the world was wider and more varied than ever she could have dreamed.

But she could not allow herself to think of such things now. There was only so much breath inside her and scavenging work to be done. She propelled herself to the main platform and tugged futilely at a thick metal handle she found there. A nearby iron hook proved even less yielding. The last time she had visited the ghostly temple, she had cut a length from one of the thick ropes that floated around the central trunk. Her store of breath quickly decreasing, she decided to simply cut herself another strand.

She propelled herself to the surface to take another breath, then hurried back to cut the rope. As she worked, she gazed down the length of the structure and noticed that something had changed. The last time she had visited, there had been another large tree trunk further down the deck. But that second trunk no longer stood upright: it had fallen on to the sand.

Abandoning her work on the rope, Tula pushed to the surface once again and took another large breath. Her chest full of air, she propelled herself to the site of the collapse.

As she neared, she saw that the falling trunk had ripped the planks that had been fixed beneath it, creating an opening in the central platform. The light of mid-morning was now shining perfectly down into that opening, illuminating the mysterious space below. Her heart beating wildly, Tula followed that shaft of light like a path.

Soon she found herself inside a small chamber. There were large wooden crates piled everywhere, some with blurry symbols painted upon their sides. Several chairs floated against the ceiling, but a small table remained fixed to the floor, its single support thick with barnacles. The room was so littered with debris that it was difficult to discern the purpose of it, but Tula guessed that she was in a place where the bearded gods had prepared their food.

She could not believe her good fortune. She wanted to gather all of its strange objects and rush back to her home, where she would spill them before her father and sisters and watch their faces light up with awe. But already her breath was running low. She reminded herself to stay calm. She had plenty of time to make the many dives needed to gather up this trove of treasure.

She turned to begin her ascent, then spotted the glint of an object beneath a fallen plank—a metal object. She bent to lift the plank but couldn’t move it. To create resistance, she squeezed her foot inside a small hole in the ceiling of the space. The foothold steadied her and she grasped the object in her hand.

Her chest convulsed. She was dangerously out of breath. With the object now in hand, she tugged her wedged foot, but it would not come free. She gulped, sucking in a breath of water and expelling it with a gagging cough that only caused her to take in more water. She filled with a sudden dread. She wiggled her foot again, feeling the planks pinch her skin.

She was drowning.

Suddenly, an image of the flyers came to her mind. The brave Totonac pole flyers swam like Tula, but in the air. Every sun cycle, they would climb to the top of a tall pole, strap their ankles to long ropes, and face possible death as they twirled to the ground like the Sun God’s rays.

Now Tula imagined she was flying through the air like a pole flyer, only she was much higher above the land. She stared down and saw her city like a tiny dot amidst the jungle. To the east was the Endless Sea, that vast, watery realm that led to the first level of the Underworld. To the north was the Great Desolation, where the wandering tribes lived and died. To the west were the Fiery Mountains, and beyond them Tenochtitlan, where the terrible Emperor Montezuma ruled from his throne of gold. Only to the south, where the green jungle stretched into infinity, did people still live free. In the land of the Maya.

Tula twirled her body around to look south. Suddenly, her foot came free.

She darted upwards, breaking the surface in a storm of coughs. Water spewed from her chest in a dozen violent spurts and she could hardly move her limbs for the exhaustion she felt. But she was alive, thank the gods. She pulled herself on to the flattest of the nearby boulders, then closed her eyes and lost her awareness.

* * *

When she finally regained her senses, she could see that much time had passed. The Sun God’s battle with the Women Warrior spirits had already begun and, as they pulled him towards the western horizon, long shadows reached across the beach.

Tula was amazed to discover that she still gripped it in her hand—the object that had almost taken her life. She held it up against the sky, studying it. It was not gold, but silver. Its single shaft was as long as her hand and terminated in a thumb-sized concavity from which extended three equidistant prongs. It appeared to be the specially designed tip of a deadly spear.

Tula compared it against the tip of her own spear and tried to imagine the kind of animal the object might be designed to kill. She pictured a tiny, three-headed beast that scuttled about in some distant jungle. Or perhaps its three prongs were designed to prick a special kind of fish?

She resolved to show the object to her father, whom she was certain would be able to present it to the Mexica Takers in place of many cloaks. ‘I am humble,’ she whispered to the gods, marvelling at how perfectly the small weapon fit into her hand.

Lost in admiration of her prize, Tula did not notice the sound of the men’s voices until they were very close. She slid into the water behind the largest boulder just as the bearded gods exploded on to the sand.

Chapter Four (#ulink_c3245c9b-d399-5575-9604-daed5939b4e2)

There were two of them: a fleshy, naked-chested god with hair the colour of flames and a tall, muscular god clad in a sleeveless hide wrap. The red god shouted at the tall god and chased him some distance down the beach.

Tula peeked out from behind her boulder. Had a new army of bearded gods arrived in Totonac territory? But how? The Totonac kept close watch along their coasts. There had been no sign of any bearded gods for many cycles. Besides, the bearded gods came from the sea on floating temples, not staggering half-naked from the depths of the jungle.