Free Aztec Gold by Caridad Piñeiro Page A

Six
    Rafe watched as Cynthia leaned over the scrap of parchment that the village’s calpulli had given to him months earlier. He had placed it on a narrow table-height ledge built into the wall of the steam bath and moved the lantern over to provide her light. The glow from the lantern bathed the ancient parchment, which was written in an archaic form of Nahuatl. When combined with the poor quality of the inks and the decay thanks to the document’s age and exposure to the heat and humidity in the jungle, the inscriptions on the parchment were nearly illegible. He had been able to make out a few words here and there, but not enough to make sense of it.
    In order to help Rafe, the calpulli had relayed the stories of Eztli Etalpalli and how she had come to inhabit this particular temple, but that, too, had not helped him devise a way to defeat the demon.
    He hoped that now that Cynthia was here with him, she could add pertinent details to what he already knew.
    As she stood in front of the table, considering the document, Rafe stepped close to her and laid a hand on the rough cotton tunic she had removed from him just a short time earlier. It hung on her shorter frame down to the tops of her thighs and she’d had to roll the sleeves back several times so that they wouldn’t droop over her hands.
    Her choice of garment had been necessitated by the fact that he had torn her shirt beyond wearing in his haste to free her of it. Not that he minded her selection. Cyn had beautifully shaped legs that were long for her petite body. He liked the sight of their toned strength beneath the hem of the tunic.
    Tempering the rise of his renewed need, he said, “Medicine Eagle, the calpulli , tells me that Eztli Etalpalli had been sent here by her mother to guard the many treasures Izpapalotl had been given by her worshippers.”
    Cyn leaned forward and after peering carefully at the document, nodded and circled a garbled section of characters on the parchment with her finger. “There’s something here that would seem to confirm that. Izpapalotl had charged her daughter with care of the treasures, but it also says that Eztli Etalpalli grew tired of getting her mother’s castoffs. She felt she was as powerful as her mother and began demanding tribute of her own. Blood tribute.”
    Rafe pressed against Cyn’s back and swept his arm around to note another section on the manuscript. “If I’m translating this correctly, Izpapalotl grew angry with her daughter’s greed—”
    “And disowned her. It may be why we’ve not heard of Eztli Etalpalli before in any of the codices detailing the Aztec gods and goddesses. She may have been banished before the codices were written,” Cynthia offered.
    “Without widespread knowledge of her and with the temple in such a remote location—”
    “Her mother’s gift of the temple of gold turned to banishment far from civilization and any worshippers,” Cyn responded and laid her hand over his as it rested on the document.
    Her skin was soft against his and as he bent his head to kiss the side of her face, he smelled her scent, a hint of orange blossoms beneath the muskier aroma from her travails through the jungle and their lovemaking.
    “I’ve missed your smell,” he said, realizing for the first time how something as simple as her fragrance had always brought peace to his adventurous life. In the many months they had been separated, he had come to appreciate what he could not before—that Cyn imparted balance and contentment to his otherwise chaotic existence. Without her, his life had felt like a puzzle missing key pieces.
    “Hmm,” she murmured and arched her head back to give him greater access to her neck. “I think you’ve missed more than that,” she teased, reaching behind with one hand and playfully skipping the pads of her fingers up and down his awakened erection.
    He eased his hand over hers and urged it back around to the parchment, needing one more answer before they