Jaguar Princess by Clare Bell Read Free Book Online

For a day and a night, he roamed the palace halls and garden paths, refusing to eat or sleep, listening for the tread of sandals that would bring him the news of his son’s fate. He knew that if the Prodigy died so would Ant Flower’s love for her husband.
    At last guardsmen came to him to announce that the king of Tenochtitlan had arrived. The king of Tlacopan had gone home, for there was no need for him to come. Wise Coyote met Ilhuicamina on the shaded portico of his palace, offered him greeting and refreshment.
    “In trying this case, I recalled the times when my own sons spoke of war and rebellion,” Ilhuicamina began. “The young wolves must challenge the old, for it is their nature. Even so, young men often make more war with their tongues than with their obsidian swords.”
    Wise Coyote listened, growing hopeful. Perhaps Ilhuicamina knew the meaning of mercy.
    “But, of course, I had something else to do with my snapping cubs. If they wanted a taste of war, why not let them have it? At the edge of my empire where their bloodthirstiness could buy me new lands and peoples.”
    “So you want to send my son to extend the territories of the Triple Alliance? But have you not taken all the lands and peoples you can control? If the empire could still expand, why then does the Prodigy have to win his manhood by challenging me?”
    Ilhuicamina laughed. “Well are you named, tlatoani of Texcoco. It is true that the empire is spread as far as supply lines can reach. The young no longer have the opportunity to prove themselves in true war. That is why I bring you this.”
    With one hand Ilhuicamina reached beneath his mantle and drew out a garland of magnolia. The blooms were crushed, broken, and the string stained with red.
    “I went to the feast prepared for me at your son’s palace and an excellent repast it was,” he said, rubbing his belly with the other hand. “I went up to the prince to offer my thanks and to place a wreath about his neck. The garland was too large and thus I drew it tighter and tighter…”
    Wise Coyote cradled the flowered garrote that Ilhuicamina had used to kill the Prodigy. Tears stung his eyes.
    “Did you not know what I wanted from you?” he cried aloud.
    “Tenderness? Mercy?” Ilhuicamina’s voice was mocking. “Does mercy keep the Fifth Sun in the heavens? Does mercy strengthen Hummingbird on the Left in his war with the demons of the moon? What use is tenderness when the earth burns and hunger clenches the belly?”
    “Once, you knew,” Wise Coyote whispered, dripping tears on the broken flowers.
    “Once,” Ilhuicamina answered. “But those were the days when you let yourself be driven from the throne of Texcoco and were known as the Hungry-Coyote-of-the-Hills.”
    “So a man must be hard,” said Wise Coyote bitterly. “But remember this, Ilhuicamina. The hardest wood comes not from the live tree, but the dead one that has dried beneath the sun.”
    The tlatoani of Tenochtitlan shrugged his shoulders beneath his shimmering quetzal-feather robe. His eyes turned to flint as he answered, “You could have kept the judgment for yourself.”
    Wise Coyote made no answer to those words. There could be none. He became acutely aware of Ilhuicamina’s gaze on him.
    “Have you completed the plans for the water channel from Chaultapec to Tenochtitlan?” Ilhuicamina asked.
    For a moment Wise Coyote’s anger flared. How could this man come to him after killing his son and then demand an accounting of him as a taskmaster would demand of a craftsman? He was not bound to the building project; he had offered to perform it as a favor to Ilhuicamina and to demonstrate that his engineering skills had a use beyond creating pleasure pools and gardens.
    Then reason cooled his anger, although he wasn’t sure that the timidity of the Deer had not crept in. He would build the aqueduct for the people of Tenochtitlan, not for Ilhuicamina. It would be shortsighted of him to punish the thirsty