Greta Gilbert - The Spaniard's Innocent Maiden

She envisioned the bearded gods consulting the wheel as they journeyed from their homeland. If temples like this could split the seas, Tula thought, then the world was wider and more varied than ever she could have dreamed.

But she could not allow herself to think of such things now. There was only so much breath inside her and scavenging work to be done. She propelled herself to the main platform and tugged futilely at a thick metal handle she found there. A nearby iron hook proved even less yielding. The last time she had visited the ghostly temple, she had cut a length from one of the thick ropes that floated around the central trunk. Her store of breath quickly decreasing, she decided to simply cut herself another strand.

She propelled herself to the surface to take another breath, then hurried back to cut the rope. As she worked, she gazed down the length of the structure and noticed that something had changed. The last time she had visited, there had been another large tree trunk further down the deck. But that second trunk no longer stood upright: it had fallen on to the sand.

Abandoning her work on the rope, Tula pushed to the surface once again and took another large breath. Her chest full of air, she propelled herself to the site of the collapse.

As she neared, she saw that the falling trunk had ripped the planks that had been fixed beneath it, creating an opening in the central platform. The light of mid-morning was now shining perfectly down into that opening, illuminating the mysterious space below. Her heart beating wildly, Tula followed that shaft of light like a path.

Soon she found herself inside a small chamber. There were large wooden crates piled everywhere, some with blurry symbols painted upon their sides. Several chairs floated against the ceiling, but a small table remained fixed to the floor, its single support thick with barnacles. The room was so littered with debris that it was difficult to discern the purpose of it, but Tula guessed that she was in a place where the bearded gods had prepared their food.

She could not believe her good fortune. She wanted to gather all of its strange objects and rush back to her home, where she would spill them before her father and sisters and watch their faces light up with awe. But already her breath was running low. She reminded herself to stay calm. She had plenty of time to make the many dives needed to gather up this trove of treasure.

She turned to begin her ascent, then spotted the glint of an object beneath a fallen plank—a metal object. She bent to lift the plank but couldn’t move it. To create resistance, she squeezed her foot inside a small hole in the ceiling of the space. The foothold steadied her and she grasped the object in her hand.

Her chest convulsed. She was dangerously out of breath. With the object now in hand, she tugged her wedged foot, but it would not come free. She gulped, sucking in a breath of water and expelling it with a gagging cough that only caused her to take in more water. She filled with a sudden dread. She wiggled her foot again, feeling the planks pinch her skin.

She was drowning.

Suddenly, an image of the flyers came to her mind. The brave Totonac pole flyers swam like Tula, but in the air. Every sun cycle, they would climb to the top of a tall pole, strap their ankles to long ropes, and face possible death as they twirled to the ground like the Sun God’s rays.

Now Tula imagined she was flying through the air like a pole flyer, only she was much higher above the land. She stared down and saw her city like a tiny dot amidst the jungle. To the east was the Endless Sea, that vast, watery realm that led to the first level of the Underworld. To the north was the Great Desolation, where the wandering tribes lived and died. To the west were the Fiery Mountains, and beyond them Tenochtitlan, where the terrible Emperor Montezuma ruled from his throne of gold. Only to the south, where the green jungle stretched into infinity, did people still live free. In the land of the Maya.

Tula twirled her body around to look south. Suddenly, her foot came free.

She darted upwards, breaking the surface in a storm of coughs. Water spewed from her chest in a dozen violent spurts and she could hardly move her limbs for the exhaustion she felt. But she was alive, thank the gods. She pulled herself on to the flattest of the nearby boulders, then closed her eyes and lost her awareness.

* * *

When she finally regained her senses, she could see that much time had passed. The Sun God’s battle with the Women Warrior spirits had already begun and, as they pulled him towards the western horizon, long shadows reached across the beach.

Tula was amazed to discover that she still gripped it in her hand—the object that had almost taken her life. She held it up against the sky, studying it. It was not gold, but silver. Its single shaft was as long as her hand and terminated in a thumb-sized concavity from which extended three equidistant prongs. It appeared to be the specially designed tip of a deadly spear.

Tula compared it against the tip of her own spear and tried to imagine the kind of animal the object might be designed to kill. She pictured a tiny, three-headed beast that scuttled about in some distant jungle. Or perhaps its three prongs were designed to prick a special kind of fish?

She resolved to show the object to her father, whom she was certain would be able to present it to the Mexica Takers in place of many cloaks. ‘I am humble,’ she whispered to the gods, marvelling at how perfectly the small weapon fit into her hand.

Lost in admiration of her prize, Tula did not notice the sound of the men’s voices until they were very close. She slid into the water behind the largest boulder just as the bearded gods exploded on to the sand.

Chapter Four

There were two of them: a fleshy, naked-chested god with hair the colour of flames and a tall, muscular god clad in a sleeveless hide wrap. The red god shouted at the tall god and chased him some distance down the beach.

Tula peeked out from behind her boulder. Had a new army of bearded gods arrived in Totonac territory? But how? The Totonac kept close watch along their coasts. There had been no sign of any bearded gods for many cycles. Besides, the bearded gods came from the sea on floating temples, not staggering half-naked from the depths of the jungle.

Tula snuck out of the water and dashed across the beach, leaving the jaguar fish as an offering to Mixcoatl. She slipped back into her skirt and blouse, placed her weapons inside her basket and stole closer to the two gods, keeping herself hidden amidst the tangle of trees and vines at the edge of the jungle.

She knew it was foolish to approach them, but her curiosity blazed. She had heard tales of the battles between gods—if gods these were. The God of the Morning Star and the God of Earth had fought together long ago, much like these two were doing, producing the Fifth World—the world in which she now lived. In her studies, Tula had learned that the Fifth World was soon to come to an end. Was this contest a harbinger of the new world to come?

The two rolled over and under one another, fighting for supremacy. The red god punched the tall god in the face, then groped at the tall god’s mouth. But the tall god, whose muscular arms Tula could see even at this distance, thrust a punch upwards into the red god’s stomach.

The red god tumbled on to the sand, coughing. The tall god placed his fingers upon his nose and bent over in agony. It was enough time for the red god to take hold of a silvery dagger and place it against the tall god’s neck.

The tall god stood still while the red god shouted menacing words in a strange, rolling tongue. He seemed to be demanding the answer to some question he had posed. The tall god did not respond. Instead, he held his mouth tightly shut.