Jaguar Princess by Clare Bell Read Free Book Online Page B

with curls and scrolls. She squeezed her eyes shut. The brush made other figures, fantastic creatures, footprints, jaguar tracks. Jaguar tracks. The number six, shown by a jaguar’s pawprint with the pad and the five toes. She remembered counting on her own palm and fingers. It seemed so distant, like a dream or someone else’s life.
    She opened her eyes. The priest’s voice was rising again as his forefinger followed the pictures on the page.
    His skin became spotted, his hands
    “We sing the pictures of the book,” he chanted. “We sing the sacred hymns. The story of the One-Prince, Plumed Serpent. The story of his disgrace at the hands of Smoking Minor, Tezcatlipoca.”
    After the priest had sung or chanted a phrase, he made the boys sing after him, either in unison or one at a time, until they had memorized the words. Thus the recitation went very slowly, but Mixcatl never grew bored. Though she knew nothing of Plumed Serpent or Smoking Mirror, the sound of their names sent chills down her back. They seemed to resonate with something buried deep inside her, something she had not known was there.
    She hunched behind the agave, shivering. The priest sang and the boys chanted after him. Even though she did not understand all of the Nahuatl, the words stayed in Mixcatl’s ears and she knew she would remember them long after the priest’s voice had faded. The priest sang:
    They say that the One-Prince, Plumed Serpent, was much beloved by his people.
    They say that love made others jealous
    The magicians of the city became jealous
    The greatest of the magicians was Tezcatlipoca, Smoking Mirror
    He tried to change the people’s love for Plumed Serpent
    He tried to make Plumed Serpent do evil things
    But Plumed Serpent would not do them.
    Mixcatl listened to the hymn, caught up both in the cadence of its chant and by the images in the book. She thought she could see ties between the pictures and the words. Wasn’t that undulating form a serpent covered with plumes? And there was the shape of a mountain. She strained to see better, wishing that she could sit with the boys. The story went on:
    Smoking Mirror decided to deceive Plumed Serpent He gave him the fermented juice of the agave so that he became drunk
    He gave him a beautiful woman and said, take your pleasure
    And the prince took his pleasure and then slept. But when Plumed Serpent woke, he saw that the woman was his sister and that he was disgraced He was disgraced by Smoking Mirror’s trickery He was disgraced by his own lechery and drunkenness.
    He bowed his head and said, “I can no longer rule the city.”
    In his grief and anger, he seized Smoking Mirror
    Lifted him high and cast him into the sea
    High over the mountains into the sea.
    And as Smoking Mirror fell, he changed
    His skin became spotted, his hands and feet grew claws.
    Mixcatl leaned forward from her hiding place behind the agave. The priest’s forefinger was resting on a figure that was half spotted cat, half man. Tezcatlipoca, Smoking Mirror. His tail curled up in defiance, his mouth was open, showing teeth. He bore a feathered shield and above his cat ears, an elaborate headdress.
    Though the hymn portrayed Tezcatlipoca as evil, Mixcatl was fascinated by his image. She remembered the incident in the marketplace, the jaguar skin, her hands curling into claws and her arm moving with a sharp raking motion. And how the skin had jerked in the hands of its purchaser, wounding him.
    About her the hymn continued:
    Smoking Mirror’s cry became a roar as he fell into the sea
    He became a jaguar
    Whose spotted coat symbolizes the stars of the night sky
    He did not die in the sea
    For he was a jaguar and jaguars can swim
    He came ashore and crept into the jungle
    And he lives among us even now.
    Silence fell as the priest’s voice halted. Mixcatl suddenly came back to herself. Drawn by the image of Tezcatlipoca, she had emerged from behind the agave. Now, with a shock, she realized she was standing