Warren Murphy: King's Curse

But this was a pretty little girl and so the Actatl priest ripped out her heart.

It was a good heart, still pumping in his gentle hands after it was cut and ripped out of the young chest, and she had given a good scream that would increase Uctut's appetite. The priest held the moving heart high so that all would see what a fine gift the family gave for the benefit of all.

The supposed mother wailed and collapsed to her knees in supposed grief. A laudation chant filled the open cathedral of the rock, and before the heart was stilled the priest lowered it to the well, and the four other priests sent the body after, careful that the valuable robe did not go in with it.

Thus was the king's message to Moctezuma assured of the good wind of Uctut.

The king watched all this with apparent approval, but his mind was not with the stupid, cruel little ceremony. Even as a little boy he had realized that it was not Uctut who wanted hearts, but the priests and the people. And since the only ones who suffered were slaves and captives, the ceremonies would continue.

He had other things on his mind this day as he looked out upon his people and their homes and fields, which he knew stretched twenty days run in all directions, beyond mountains and rivers and plains. All this was doomed. The people were doomed. Even the very words they spoke would disappear. And while he knew this must have happened to others and would happen to still others and that it was the way of things, some coming and some going, yet inside him something he could not fathom insisted that he not allow this.

He knew the visitors from the water you could not drink would take everything, for they wanted more than the yellow metal and more than slaves. They wanted, according to the king's spies, what they said was in every man and lived forever. Sort of a mind, but not a mind, the spies had said. And they wanted this thing for their god.

And their god was one god, yet three gods, and one had died but had not died. The king had instructed his spy to ask if the pale men's new god would accept a fourth-Uctut-and when the spies returned with the words they had translated from the new language, the king understood that everything the Actatl and the Aztec and the Maya and all the rest had known was over and done. The words were: "You shall have no other gods before me."

This god would not take blood or food or ornaments. He wanted the living minds of his people. Not like Uctut, who could be fooled by a yellow feathered robe and an artificial wail from someone pretending to be a victim's mother.

The king had not mentioned anything to the priests, lest in their fear or anger they attempt something that would surely fail. This new thing was unlike anything the Actatl had ever known, and against it nothing they had ever known would be effective.

That evening of the sacrifice, the king announced he would stay in his high place for many days, but he dressed as a slave, and accompanied by his most fearsome warrior, and he left the high place with a bundle of yellow metal. Now the warrior had much difficulty treating the king as a slave at first, since from birth he had been trained to serve his king and lay down his life to save that of his king. But the king told him that now they must use the deception of rank as their cover, like they used the cover of the forest once. The warrior was puzzled by this as they ran along the roads at night. Everyone knew that the king was a king because he was king. He was not a slave, otherwise he would be a slave. And the pale newcomers would know this, for those who are kings are kings.

Now the king could not tell him what he had long suspected-that the differences in men were made up by men like children's stories were made up, except that differences among men were believed in. So the king told the warrior he had made a magic spell which would make pale men believe he was a slave and not the Actatl king. And this satisfied the warrior.

They ran through the night and in the morning they slept. For twenty-two days they did this, passing the home city of Moctezuma. And one morning they saw a fearful thing.

A pale man, twice as tall as other men, with much hair on his face and shiny metal on his head and chest, and two legs fore and two behind, walked past them, and instinctively the warrior shielded his king. But the king warned him again that he was to be treated as a slave, not a king, and there would be no more warnings. He could not give him another warning.

And they walked out of their hiding place and the tall pale man pointed at them a spear without a point but with a hole in it. And the king noticed that there was another head the same color as the body, and then he realized why the pale man had four legs and was so incredibly tall. He sat on an animal.

Had not the Inca to the south trained animals to carry bundles? This strange new animal had been trained to carry a man. And the king realized the metal was just something that was put on the pale man's head. This was confirmed when they entered a large camp, and the king saw some men with metal on their heads and some men without. He also saw the pale men and the strange animals separated, and not joined together.

He saw a queen of the coastal people sitting on a high chair next to a pale man, and he and the warrior were brought to them. The woman spoke the language of the Aztec, and she spoke to the warrior. As he had been instructed, the warrior gave his name and his function as an Actatl, then waited.

The woman questioned in Aztec and then spoke to the pale man in another language. And the king memorized each sound as it came from her lips for there was much he had to learn to save his people. And then the warrior said he had captured this slave fleeing from the city of Moctezuma.

The warrior paused, and the woman talked the strange language, and while she pronounced Moctezuma correctly, the pale man could not. When he repeated it, he said "Montezuma" with different emphasis.

The warrior said the slave was worthless and had nothing because Moctezuma and the Aztecs were poor. And the woman spoke in the other language, and the pale man spoke, and there was tension in their voices. And the woman said to the warrior that the Aztec was not poor, that Moctezuma himself had rooms of gold. And the warrior said, no gold. Just worthless slaves. And when the woman spoke again, the king of the Actatl, dressed as a slave, let loose the many heavy weights of gold he had run with for many days, and he paid scant attention to them, brushing off his poor rags as though the gold was but the dust of the earth.

And, as he had planned, this caused great commotion, and the pale ones even tried to eat the gold by pressing their teeth into it. And the king pretending to be a slave laughed and cried out: "Oh, great queen, why do these pale ones love the yellow dirt so much?"

"Did this come from Moctezuma's city?" she asked, and the king nodded low like a slave and said, "Yes. It comes from the rooms of gold."

And when she repeated this to the pale one, he jumped up and danced, and from then on the pale man wanted words from the slave and ordered the warrior put to death for telling untruths. And thus was the slave-king trusted and taken into the camp of the pales, and thus did this pale man, whom the king later found out was named Cortez, proceed to his long and difficult siege of Moctezuma's city, finally taking it.

During the months of siege, the king thought to be a slave gave bits of information about the Aztec, like a lake letting only a little stream flow out each day. And he watched and learned. Like his own people, few here could read, although the secrets were not guarded. He learned the new language from a priest of the new god. He learned that it was not the sound from the sticks that killed, but a projectile that came at great speed from a hole in the stick. He learned that there were bigger sticks that fired bigger projectiles.