Feathered Serpent by Colin Falconer Read Free Book Online Page A

Speaker’s pleasure. You are to speak of no one of this, under pain of death.”
    Relieved, the men shuffled backwards towards the door, never once turning their backs on the throne.
    After they were gone Motecuhzoma again turned to Woman Snake. “Give them to the priests for sacrifice,” he said. “Word of this must not spread.”
    “It will be done.”
    Motecuhzoma returned his attention to the divine sustenance now clutched in his fist. “What do you think of this story?”
    “How can we believe the tales of such simple people? Perhaps these strangers are not gods at all. They may be ambassadors from some far off place.”
    “How can that be? Tenochtitlán is the centre of the one world. There is nothing beyond the sea except heaven.” Motecuhzoma shook his head. “It is Quetzalcóatl, Feathered Serpent. These men spoke of a red-painted cross, his banner. He has come from the east, where he last fled into the dawn and he carries the wind, his wind, tied to his canoe. And he spoke of human sacrifice! How can it be other than him?”
    Woman Snake did not answer.
    I have been doomed ever since I took the throne, Motecuhzoma thought. He stared again at the hardtack in his fist, then handed it to his prime minister. “Have this placed in a golden gourd. We shall remove it to the temple of Feathered Serpent in Tollan. Should he return for it he must see that we have treated his property with all reverence.”
    “Yes, great Lord.”
    After Woman Snake had left Motecuhzoma sat alone in the great audience chamber. The knife of fear twisted in his heart and he threw back his head and gave a small cry, like a wounded animal.
     
    Potonchan
     
    She threw back her head and gave a small cry, like a wounded animal.
    By Satan’s hairy ass, Benítez thought. A virgin.
    The act of bedding a savage appalled him. He had heard sailors speak of coupling with animals after long months at sea and once this would have seemed just as vile.
    And yet, she was clean, and the smell of her, though strange, was not unpleasant. She was young, he guessed no more than sixteen, and the days when he could entertain notions of bedding a sixteen year old virgin were long gone. Some men might think him fortunate. But memories of what he had seen in that terrible shrine would not leave him.
    Outside the hut, the shrieks of the howler monkeys rent the night, an unlovely chorus from hell.
    Despite his misgivings he took her gently, trying not to hurt her more than was necessary for a woman’s first time. In the dancing candlelight he could see that she had a lovely body. At first he was startled by the fact that she had no hair between her legs, but even that did not displease him as much as he supposed it might.
    The moment came quickly and he gasped aloud with pleasure.
    When he looked down at her he saw her cheeks were wet with tears. Because he did not have her language he could not discover if she was crying from pain or some other reason beyond his fathoming. Perhaps she wept for a mother or sister or chaste love left behind for ever at Tabasco, and he allowed, with some surprise, that this creature in his arms might not be as barbarous as he had assumed. He stroked her hair, murmured words of consolation, suddenly awkward in his act of violation; beast and savage lay entwined, but far, far apart.

       ———————

    Tollan
     
    The omens had begun to appear soon after Motecuhzoma ascended the throne. Now they were too numerous to gainsay; first a bloodstone appeared in the sky every night for a year, then vanished in the west, scattering sparks like a burning log, its long and fiery tail pointing to the east; lightning had struck the temple of the Hummingbird setting it on fire; a phantom woman had been heard weeping in the streets at night; a few days ago a baby had been born with two heads.
    Then Smoking Man erupted, belching smoke into the sky every day, and at night it burned in the mountains to the east like another sun.
    It