Bride of Thunder (45 page)

Besides the Secretary of the Cross, who took down its messages, there was an Interpreter of the Cross. It was probably he who hid in the pit behind the altar.

A stone shrine, open to the west, had been built near a little
cenote
grotto, and special celebrations were still held there. Mercy often went to a rocky vantage point above the valley, where, hidden by flowering vines and trees, she could watch the rocky hollow with its inner waters, which people said always stayed at the same level.

Most of the time, though, Dionisio was with her. Guard duty at the shrine, though an important way of preserving faith and binding together men from different villages, wasn't strenuous. In the time between morning Mass and rosary, except when they were sentries, the men usually idled in the barracks and talked as soldiers always have of past battles and adventures, of their homes, and of women they'd had or hoped to have.

Dionisio, as
batab
of an allied group serving without his company, was allowed to occupy one of the thatched huts located at an intersection of two of the wide streets on a block enclosed by stone walls and fruit trees. The city was laid out
ladino
-style in streets that crossed at right angles, and five small rocky hills within the boundaries had been fortified.

Walls of rubble enclosed the city and sentries were always on watch. Outside were lime kilns where limestone was shattered by heat and made into mortar, as had been done from the days of great Mayan building. Some of the male slaves worked there or hauled stone for new construction around the plaza. Others cut wood or cleared the forest for new cornfields.

Most of the captives were of the poorer class, though Dionisio said that some women of the aristocracy were among the barracks servants. “The pampered, proud ones usually die soon,” he said. “Educated men often have easy work, like giving instruction in reading, writing, Spanish, and music, and that band playing at morning Mass is
ladino
. It was captured seven years ago when Governor Acereto sent a huge expedition against Chan Santa Cruz. Crescendo Poot let the enemy occupy the city while he gathered troops and then attacked in overwhelming force. The army lost fifteen hundred men, all its artillery and ammunition, several thousand rifles, mules, supplies—and the entire band, along with its instruments. They've taught many young Cruzob how to beat drums and blow bugles.”

“But doesn't the government—anyone—care about the slaves?”

Dionisio shrugged. “Mérida has more pressing worries, even when it's not under siege, as it is right now. Sometimes a well-to-do family will hunt for and ransom a member, but most of these people will live here till they die.”

“How terrible!”

His face tightening, Dionisio said coldly, “Is it more terrible than Mayas being slaves?”

“But some of these are Mayas!” Mercy argued.

“Yes. They are
hidalgos,
as Mayas were called who fought for
ladinos
against the rebels, or Pacificos from Chichénha, who had also agreed to make peace with the
ladinos
. And there was slavery, wasn't there, in your Texas? Black men like those in Belize?”

There was no answer to that. After a moment, Dionisio relented. “You can be glad for one thing, Doña Mercy. Very young captives are brought up as Cruzob, and any child is born free. At least there'll be no generations of slavery.”

Then in that, the Cruzob were superior to whites, but Mercy felt sad, almost guilty, when she saw the women carrying water or cooking over the fires, hurrying to obey their masters. She could so easily have been one of them, but in a short time she'd be leaving, while they spent their weeks and months and years serving warriors who might have killed their families and burned their homes.

Dionisio let Mercy fetch water from the
cenote
to support the fiction that she was his prisoner, but the fruits of her efforts at tortilla-making were so lopsided and tough that he begged her to let him bring them fresh from the barracks. He brought in game and fowl and traded an excess for honey and eggs. Their stews and pit-roasted meats were tasty, and Dionisio cooked as much as Mercy did.

In spite of the grim circumstances, it was almost like playing house. The cool white-mortared hut had no furniture except for a couple of log stools and a cooking stone. During the day, the hammocks were slung out of the way. Mercy washed their clothes a little distance from the
cenote
where there was a natural rock basin, a good place to beat and rub soil from their garments.

If Dionisio hadn't been with her most of the time, she'd have been lonely. The wives of the officers and officials stared at her with curiosity and some jealousy, doubtless thinking her far too indulged for a slave.

One day at the wellspring she saw a child wheeze and strangle with asthma and told the mother that copal fumes would help. She offered to show her if some copal could be found. Since this was the child of
a maestro cantor,
who had a supply of the incense, Mercy was able to quickly demonstrate the treatment. After that, she was sometimes approached about one ailment or another and helped when she could.

Often the
maestros cantores
were taught the skills of
H-men
along with their religious functions, and they knew some cures, but though Mercy talked to several of the priests, she thought Chepa knew more medicine than all of them together.

“I've told them you're Ixchel,” Dionisio teased one day when they were walking. “They're beginning to believe it.” He sobered. “Don't be too good a doctor or they might want to keep you here.”

“Could they do that?” Mercy asked in quick alarm.

“The cross can order anything.”

“But you promised …”

His golden eyes went over her with that strange meditativeness that made her wonder what he really thought and felt. “I'll keep my promise. But if the cross ordered you to stay and I helped you escape, I'd be hacked to death in the plaza if I were caught. Just a warning, Ixchel—don't be too merciful.”

“But I can't
not
help when I can!”

Watching her, he sighed and smiled. “No. That's how you make yourself.”

“What?”

“You make your real face, your real heart, from what you do, from your intent. You are for healing. It's your nature.” His smile deepened and there was great tenderness in it, as if he knew and accepted something difficult. “But freedom is your nature. When it was known the quetzals were released from Señor Kensington's courtyard as your wish, some called you the Quetzal Lady.”

“The workers knew about that?”

“Oh, much came from house servants with families in the village: the Frenchman's stove of many ovens; the peculiar food; when Señor Kensington had women beaten to arouse himself; when he had a young boy. It was believed that after you came he dropped those amusements.”

And amused himself with me
. Mercy shrugged. “That's over. He must be dead. I want to forget it.”

Mostly she could. Only now and then did she dream of his weight, his inexorable hands, and his devouring mouth, just as she sometimes dreamed the terror of the crocodile coming toward her. But now she always roused to hear Dionisio's quiet breathing from the hammock only a few feet away. Once when she must have been moaning, she awoke to find him caressing her, murmuring reassurance as one does to a child in nightmare. He was a
batab,
a fighter, and she had seen him whipped into unconsciousness rather than be Eric's assassin. He was clearly respected and valued by these hard-bitten, battled-proved Cruzob. Yet there was a gentleness in him, a sensitive response to the world around them that he seemed to wish to share with Mercy.

“Forget the estate,” he told her now. “But remember the people who were helped by your medicine. Remember the flight of quetzals.” His voice changed. She knew he was reciting poetry or holy words, as he sometimes did.

“On an emerald pyramid the quetzal bird is singing.

Within he sings, within he cries, alone the quetzal bird.”

“Beautiful,” she said as they turned from the cleared land into forest. “Did the poet have a name?”

“Poets, singers—they had no names, no more than the artists who carved the temples. Poetry comes from the gods; surely the man is only a voice.” Dionisio laughed softly. “We believe that flowers and poetry are the ways gods speak to men.”

“Gods?” Mercy frowned. “But you're Christian, Dionisio!”

“Yes. But when I plant corn, I still make offerings. The corn gods, called
yuntzilob,
take care of my cornfield and village. The great God can't worry about such things. His concern is the soul.” Dionisio chuckled. “Most of the time, I care more about my corn than my soul. Those who plant in your country, don't they beseech the spirits?”

“Protestants have only one God for everything, and He's asked to give good crops. I think that in Europe there were celebrations, especially at harvest time. But now, a ceremony called Thanksgiving, celebrated by a big meal late in the fall, is about all we have left.”

“Maybe your God didn't want to share offerings with the
yuntzilob,
” decided the Maya. “Your people should be careful. When your God is busy with wars and governments, He may forget the fields.”

There was seldom a drought in east Texas, but freezes and blights struck often. Mercy could imagine that to a farmer farther west, it would be comforting to believe that his wheat or corn was guarded by beneficent spirits hovering just above him

“Do the
yuntzilob
bring rain, too?”

“No, it is the rain gods, the
chaacs,
that bring rain. There are several kinds of them. The four most important stand at the four directions of the earth, the eastern one being the strongest. Some
chaacs
bring the soft, steady rains, others cause lightning, there are ‘flooding-sky'
chaacs,
and even sweeper
chaacs,
which clean up the heavens after the rains.”

They were passing a field cleared from the forest where a man was planting, digging holes with a pointed stick, and dropping in several grains, which he covered with all the brooding care of a mother putting her child to bed.

“When he picked that land, he set up that cross and brought gourds of gruel, which he offered to the
yuntzilob,
which were then supposed to send away the snakes and dispose of the trees being cut down. When it was time to burn, he offered more gruel and prayed to Jesucristo for the spiraling wind that helps the flame burn as it should. This wind is the soul of shiners who must pay for their wrongdoings by blowing fire through cornfields.” He stared at her in wonder. “And men in your land do none of this?”

“No. They pray if there's drought or disease, but they don't make offerings ahead of time—unless you count what some give to their churches.”

Dionisio frowned so at this that Mercy tried to explain that in the United States corn was only one of many crops, that there were grains such as wheat, rye, and oats, plus potatoes, many vegetables, and fruits; cattle, pigs, poultry, eggs, and dairy products were also depended on. Dionisio shook his head at such outlandish habits.

“Corn is our main food. It makes our bodies now as surely as the gods made our ancestors from maize after other substances failed.”

He told her then how the Tzotzil Mayas cut a child's umbilical cord over an ear of corn. This bloody grain was then planted in a special little field where it was carefully tended, since its growth foretold the child's. All the family ate this blood crop in a special meal.

“The Tzotzils have another belief you would like,” he said with that warm, protective smile that made her feel touched by sun-gentled wind. “They think unweaned babies who die are wrapped in a soft mantle and placed in a great tree with many breasts, which the children rest upon and suckle. A good heaven for babies, yes?”

“Oh, yes!”

A screech came from the edge of the field. “He's the guardian of the cornfield.” Dionisio pointed out a small hawk in a tree. “He scares blackbirds away from the corn. He belongs to the
yuntzilob
and should never be hurt, nor should the white-winged or white-breasted doves, or red-billed pigeons, or the x-kol bird, which sings for the corn and keeps it contented, and another that stretches the corn plants, or the bird that whistles to call up the rain.”

It was beginning to seem to Mercy that growing corn was the true Mayan religion, one that went back to the beginnings. If people anywhere got most of their food from one source, that source would almost be a god. “We call corn the jade of divine grace, and sometimes the Grace of God,” said Dionisio, reading her thoughts. “And we believe it's a sin to waste it and that drought can be caused if people trade it for liquor.”

“Who's planting your corn while you're away? And who acts as
batab?
”

“When I bound myself for rifles, my lieutenant assumed my duties, and, of course, he has helpers and the council of elders. My wife and child died two years ago, so there is only my mouth to feed, and my brother will plant enough for that.”

He paused when he mentioned his wife.

“I'm sorry you lost your family,” Mercy said.

“My wife was like a flower. Like a flower, she withered, quickly, with fever, a few days after the child was born.”

There was nothing to say to that, but Mercy knew now why he treasured the baby heaven of soft mantles and the warm-breasted tree. It was a time of flowering, and as they skirted a village and started back, he picked for her some of the large rose-red cups of the frangipani, then urged her to smell their almost dizzying fragrance. “It's good for wounds,” he said, “and it's always been known as the flower of passion, of desire.”

She felt his gaze burning her and could not look at him. She loved Zane! Why could Dionisio make her feel like a bloom longing to open, like a field parched for rain?