Jessie walked the edge of the platform, gazing on the city below. From here, looking down on the island, she could now appreciate how far it spread. On their previous visit, she had seen two causeways connected to the mainland, Tonauac had just pointed out a third, but there were two more. Five main arteries connecting the island city to the shore of the lake. She had travelled the canals and seen the streets, but from high up, it looked almost modern, straight roads, straight canals, with neat intersections to smaller ones, all linked together in a meticulously planned network across the island. Half the land was fields of corn and suburbs of small, thatched huts. The five causeways extended into the city, straight, broad, stone avenues, like the spokes of a wheel or a concrete freeway, and along the path of these avenues were the large stone houses Jessie assumed belonged to the wealthy and influential members of society. The city centre structures became grander still, until, at the heart, the royal palaces, walled, vast and secluded, surrounded the religious centre, its huge enclosure and the colossal pyramid, Huēyi Teōcalli.
Jessie turned from the island to the lakeshore. At the end of each causeway, was a large town. She imagined each, like Texcoco, a small replica of the imperial city. All those kings and princes she had seen, no doubt each ruled over their domain, just as Cacamatzin ruled Texcoco.
“There is Tacuba,” Tonauac pointed along the western causeway towards a large town on the shore. “And there,” he moved his arm south, “is Chapultepec. All the water for Tenochtitlan comes from there, through pipes, from the streams in the hills, along the causeway and into every part of the city.”
He turned to the south and named all the towns lining the shore, “Tacubaya, Mixcoac, Coyoacán, Churubusco, Mexicaltzingo, Iztapalapa.” He ended pointing to the southern causeway, along which the conquistadors had entered the city.
Jessie followed his commentary, and after Iztapalapa, her eyes swept out over the busy lake. There was not a sail in sight, every canoe, every vessel was paddled or punted across the water.
A jingle of bells from the shrine made them all turn. A priest emerged and headed for the staircase, but stopped abruptly when he saw he wasn’t alone. Then his body relaxed and changed direction.
“Tonauac, it does me good to see you,” he inclined his head in greeting and offered a weak, crooked-toothed smile.
“And me, Ixtli. How have you been?”
The priest, Ixtli, had the emaciated frame of the other priest Jessie had met. She shuddered her revulsion at his charcoal blackened body, the lank, matted, bloody hair, and the long, clawed fingernails. The stench of sacrifice hung about him, just as it would, Jessie knew, inside the terrible building he had just left.
“I fear for us, Tonauac, and the future,” he said heavily. “Malinche has angered the emperor. He asked to place this wooden cross of theirs inside the temple…in the house of Huitzilopochtli.” His voice rose at the temerity of such a request. “The emperor told them to leave. He should not have allowed them to enter this house in the first place.”
Tonauac placed an arm on the priest’s shoulder. “If our emperor’s mind is still uncertain, Cacamatzin and the lords will act to crush these foreigners.”
The priest turned his attention to Jessie.
“Is this her, Tonauac?” His whisper quivered. His face had a hungered look as he leered at Jessie. “Is she the Quetzalcoatl?”
Tonauac nodded.
The priest bowed his head, then lunged forward and took Jessie’s hands in his own.
“You will help us?” he pleaded. “These devils bewitch our emperor and defile our gods.”
Jessie wanted desperately to pull away. Her skin prickled at his touch, the dirty, long nails scratched at her wrists, and his smell of decay polluted her nostrils.
“Come inside and make an offering to Huitzilopochtli,” he dropped one of Jessie hands and turned towards the temple as if to lead her inside.
“No!” Kes interjected forcefully, stepped forward and broke the priest’s hold of Jessie’s hand.
Ixtli stepped back, bowed with hunched shoulders, as if to fend off a blow which didn’t come. He straightened up and took an inquisitive step towards Kes.
“You are the survivor,” he spoke with a quiet reverence.
He took another step and ran a fingernail down the middle of the unscarred chest. Jessie could see the revulsion on Kes’ face, but he stood his ground.
Jessie wanted away. “We should go.”
Tonauac took the priest aside, they conversed for a minute, and when he returned, they started off down the ceremonial staircase.
“Put your hood back on,” Tonauac demanded as they began their descent.
The drop from step to step was alarmingly deep and there was no handrail for support. Jessie went down sideways, hesitantly. One slip, one misplaced step, and there was nothing to stop her before she hit the flagstones below.
“I want to walk back,” Kes told them when they were safely at the bottom.
“I already said it would be too difficult,” the secretary snapped.
“No. You said following the Castilians back through the streets would be difficult, and I agreed. But they are gone now,” Kes stated calmly.
Jessie couldn’t understand why he was arguing the point. But knowing Kes, she suspected he had a reason.
“Why?” Tonauac asked, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“I have spent too long sitting in rooms and lying on beds. I need to walk,” came the calm, measured response.
“Yes,” Jessie chipped in, “I’d like to walk as well.”
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Ian Hunter
Books have been an important part of my life as long as I can remember, and at 54 years old, that’s a lot of books. My earliest memories of reading are CS Lewis’, “The Horse and His Boy” – by far the best of the Narnia books, the Adventures series by Willard Price, and “Goalkeepers are Different” by sports journalist Brian Glanville. An eclectic mix. My first English teacher was surprised to hear that I was reading, Le Carré, Ken Follett, Nevil Shute and “All the Presidents’ Men” by Woodward and Bernstein at the age of 12. I was simply picking up the books my father had finished.
School syllabus threw up the usual suspects – Shakespeare, Chaucer, Dickens, Hardy, “To Kill a Mockingbird” – which I have reread often, and others I don’t immediately recall. By “A” level study, my then English teachers were pulling their hair out at my “perverse waste of talent” – I still have the report card! But I did manage a pass.
During a 35 year career, briefly in Banking and then in IT, I managed to find time, with unfailing family support, to study another lifelong passion, graduating with an Open University Bachelors’ degree in History in 2002. This fascination with all things historical inspired me to begin the Time Stones series. There is so much to our human past, and so many differing views on what is the greatest, and often the saddest, most tragic story. I decided I wanted to write about it; to shine a small light on those, sometimes pivotal stories, which are less frequently mentioned.
In 1995, my wife, Michelle, and I moved from England to southern Germany, where we still live, with our two children, one cat, and, when she pays us a visit, one chocolate labrador. I have been fortunate that I could satisfy another wish, to travel as widely as possible and see as much of our world as I can. Destinations usually include places of historic and archaeological interest, mixed with a large helping of sun, sea and sand for my wife’s peace of mind.
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