Free Feathered Serpent by Colin Falconer Page A

me, she had a quick tongue and a quick temper that had been curbed only a little by the chilli smoke fires over which her father had upended her as punishment.
    “I do not believe they are gods, little mother. Their bodies have a rank smell and they spill their seed like any man.”
    “Your cave has opened for the first time and now you know all there is to know of men. You are disappointed then, that he does not have claws on his maquauhuitl ?”
    “I do not dare to look,” she says and dips her head below the water.
    “Some men are not born gods,” I tell her, when she bobs up again. “Sometimes the spirit of a god is born in them, or is given them, as it was with Motecuhzoma.”
    “And what of your god with the violet eyes?”
    “He has three penises and he keeps me awake all night! While the others are recovering their vigour he always has one that urgently seeks the cave of joy. Then at dawn he turns into a cat and joins the other ocelots in greeting the dawn with their cries.”
    “You have a fancy tongue. I fear one day Motecuhzoma’s priests may cut it out and roast it in their fires.”
    I have to smile at that. It is a warning I heard from Tiger Lip Plug many times.
    My Alonso is a better husband. He uses me gently and takes me in the way of the gods, with our faces and bodies pressed together. I see him only at night, for he does not try to speak to me through Aguilar, either because he does not wish to, or perhaps he finds Aguilar as tiresome as I.
    And I know his only purpose is to teach me the way of the gods so that I can come to Feathered Serpent better prepared.
    “Perhaps one day none of us will have to fear Motecuhzoma.”
    “Is that what you think?”
    “Why else would our thunder gods have come here?”
    Rain Flower ladles water from the palm of her hand over her shoulder, wincing at the small bruises on her flesh. “They are just men. They will take whatever they want and go back to the Cloud Lands.”
    “Perhaps they will take us with them. We will be better off than we were before. I do not wish to spend my whole life sewing cloaks and baking corn.”
    “What else should a woman do?”
    How can I explain to her? I was born to the ordinary woman’s life of pounding tortillas and having babies but I always knew in my heart that I was a warrior, a queen, a statesman, a prince-maker, a poet. I had always known it and my father had known it too.
    “You hope for too much,” Rain Flower said. “Life is just a dream. What happens here should not matter to a Person.”
    Lord Sun was sinking in the sky, to battle for another night against his sisters and brothers. Cicadas pounded a rhythm in the forest. A butterfly danced among the ferns, the spirit of a dead warrior playing forever among the flowers and reeds. “You may be right,” I murmur, but I do not believe it, I do not believe it at all.
    The water seems suddenly black and very cold. We stand up and wade, shivering, towards the bank. I see a shadow running from a hiding place among the forest. It is one of the thunder gods; it is Jaramillo.
      ———————
    My lord Tendile arrives with the usual fanfare; there are snakeskin drums, conches, clay flutes and wooden clappers. But this time his heralds also bear green quetzal standards to show that the delegation carries royal approval.
    “The Lord Tendile, governor and voice of the Mexica, appointed by the Revered Speaker himself, now comes! He brings greetings and friendship to Malintzin, newly arrived from the cloud lands of the east!”
    Malintzin. In Nahuatl it means Malinali’s lord. So this is how they have decided to address him. So typical of Mexica ambiguity, skirting admission that he is either man or god.
    Tendile is dressed magnificently in a mantle of sheer orange cotton, embroidered with geometric designs along its hem. His head-dress is of flamingo plumes inlaid with gold. He is accompanied by a much larger retinue than before, both lords and slaves. Two young