Aztec - Jennings Gary - Страница 227

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Instead, I said, "Clearly, Lord Speaker, the white men all worship in the same manner, which indicates that they all come from the same place of origin. But we already supposed that much. This tells us no new thing about them."

"Then what about this?" And from behind his throne, with that same air of triumph, he brought out what looked like a tarnished silver pot. "One of the visitors took that from off his own head and traded it for gold."

I examined the thing. It was no pot, for its rounded shape would have prevented its standing upright. It was of metal, but of a kind grayer than silver and not so shiny—it was steel, of course—and at its open side were affixed some leather straps, evidently to be secured beneath the wearer's chin.

I said, "It is a helmet, as I am sure the Revered Speaker has already ascertained. And a most practical sort of helmet. No maquahuitl could split the head of a man wearing one of these. It would be a good thing if our own warriors could be equipped with—"

"You miss the important point!" he interrupted impatiently. "That thing is of the exact same shape as what the god Quetzalcoatl habitually wore on his revered head."

I said, skeptically but respectfully, "How can we possibly know that, my lord?"

With another swoop of movement, he produced the last of his triumphant surprises. "There! Look at that, you stubborn old disbeliever. My own nephew Cacama sent it from the archives of Texcoco."

It was a history text on fawnskin, recounting the abdication and departure of the Tolteca ruler Feathered Serpent. Motecuzoma pointed, with a slightly trembling finger, to one of the pictures. It showed Quetzalcoatl waving good-bye as he stood on his raft, floating out to sea.

"He is dressed as we dress," said Motecuzoma, his voice also a little tremulous. "But he wears on his head a thing which must have been the crown of the Tolteca. Compare it with the helmet you hold at this moment!"

"There is no disputing the resemblance between the two objects," I said, and he gave a grunt of satisfaction. But I went on, cautiously, "Still, my lord, we must bear in mind that all the Tolteca were long gone before any of the Acolhua learned to draw. Therefore the artist who did this could never have seen how any Toltecatl dressed, let alone Quetzalcoatl. I grant that the appearance of his pictured headgear is of marvelous likeness to the white man's helmet. But I know well how storytelling scribes can indulge their imagination in their work, and I remind my lord that there is such a thing as coincidence."

"Yya!" Motecuzoma made the exclamation sound rather like a retch of nausea. "Will nothing convince you? Listen, there is even more proof. As I long ago promised, I set all the historians of all The Triple Alliance to the task of learning all they could about the vanished Tolteca. To their own surprise—they confess it—they have unearthed many old legends, hitherto mislaid or forgotten. And hear this: according to those rediscovered legends, the Tolteca were of uncommonly pale complexion and of uncommon hairiness, and their men accounted it a sign of manliness to encourage the growth of hair on their faces." He leaned forward, the better to glare at me. "In simple words, Knight Mixtli, the Tolteca were white and bearded men, exactly like the outlanders making their ever more frequent visits. What do you say to that?"

I could have said that our histories were so full of legends and variant legends and elaborations on legends that any child could find some one of them that would support any wildest belief or new theory. I could have said that the most dedicated historian was not likely to disappoint a Revered Speaker who was infatuated with an irrational idea and demanding substantiation of it. I did not say those things. I said circumspectly:

"Whoever the white men may be, my lord, you rightly remark that their visits are becoming ever more frequent. Also, they are coming in greater numbers each time. Also, each landing has been more westerly—Tiho, then Kimpech, now Xicalanca—ever closer to these lands of ours. What does my lord make of that?"

He shifted on his throne, as if unconsciously suspecting that he sat only precariously there, and after a few moments of cogitation he said:

"When they have not been opposed, they have done no harm or damage. It is obvious from their always traveling in ships that they prefer to be on or near the sea. You yourself told that they come from islands. Whoever they are—the returning Tolteca or the veritable gods of the Tolteca—they show no inclination to press on inland toward this region which once was theirs." He shrugged. "If they wish to return to The One World, but wish only to settle in the coastlands... well..." He shrugged again. "Why should we and they not be able to live as friendly neighbors?" He paused, and I said nothing, and he asked with asperity, "Do you not agree?"

I said, "In my experience, Lord Speaker, one never really knows whether a prospective neighbor will be a treasure or a trial, until that neighbor has moved in to stay, and then it is too late to have regrets. I might liken it to an impetuous marriage. One can only hope."

Less than a year later, the neighbors moved in to stay. It was in the springtime of the year One Reed that another swift-messenger came, and again from the Olmeca country, but that time bringing a most alarming report, and Motecuzoma sent for me at the same time he convened his Speaking Council to hear the news. The Cupilcatl messenger had brought bark papers documenting the sad story in word pictures. But, while we examined them, he also told us what had happened, in his own breathless and anguished words. On the day Six Flower, the ships had again floated on their wide wings to that coast, and not a few but a frightening fleet of them, eleven of them. By your calendar, reverend scribes, that would have been the twenty-fifth day of March, or your New Year's Day of the year one thousand five hundred and nineteen.

The eleven ships had moored off the mouth of The River of the Tabascoob, farther to the west than on the earlier visit, and they had disgorged onto the beaches uncountable hundreds of white men. All armed and sheathed with metal, those men had swarmed ashore—shouting "Santiago!," apparently the name of their war god—coming with the clear intent of doing more than admiring the local landscape and savoring the local foods. So the populace had immediately mustered their warriors—the Cupilco, the Coatzacuali, the Coatlicamac, and others of that region—some five thousand men altogether. Many battles had been fought in the space of ten days, and the people had fought bravely, but to no avail, for the white men's weapons were invincible.

They had spears and swords and shields and body coverings of metal, against which the obsidian maqualiuime shattered at first blow. They had bows that were contemptibly small and held awkwardly cross ways, but which somehow propelled short arrows with incredible accuracy. They had the sticks that spat lightning and thunder and put an almost trifling but death-dealing hole in their victims. They had metal tubes on large wheels, which even more resembled a furious storm god, for they belched still brighter lightning, louder thunder, and a spray of jagged metal bits that could mow down many men at once, like maize stalks beaten down by a hailstorm. Most wondrous and unbelievable and terrifying of all, said the messenger, some of the white warriors were beast-men: they had bodies like giant, hornless deer, with four hoofed legs on which they could gallop as fleetly as deer, while their two human arms wielded sword or spear to lethal effect, and while the very sight of them sent brave men scattering in fear.

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