Age of Aztec

TWELVE

3 Skull 1 Lizard 1 House

(Friday 7th December 2012)

They halted at midnight, mid-river. Zotz roped the canoe to a branch of a teak tree that had toppled into the water. The trunk reached almost all the way across to the opposite bank, like an unfinished bridge. They slept under blankets on the bare boards of the hull while the boat swung gently side to side in the current.

At first light they carried on, using the outboard now. The sound of the two-stroke motor putt-putting, as the boat cut through the tendrils of mist that drifted up from the river, was like someone lazily slapping congas. They passed hamlets where two or three families lived in cramped stilt-dwellings and eked an existence from fishing. Children waved as they went by — skinny, half-naked urchins, splashing barefoot in the shallows. “Hey, white man!” they yelled at Stuart. “Don’t melt in the sun!” It was a hilarious joke, worth repeating over and over until the butt of it was out of earshot. “Don’t melt like ice cream!”

Isolated communities of this kind could be found all over Anahuac, tribal folk living at subsistence level. It was one of the great ironies of the Empire that, while it had the wealth of the world at its disposal, its homeland was littered with pockets of extreme poverty. The Empire looked outward, and consequently paid little attention to what was on its doorstep. Outside the major metropolises — thriving industrial conurbations like Oaxaca, Palenque and Yaxchilan — the people of Anahuac benefited little from Imperial bounty. It was as though the Great Speaker took his own country for granted. Aztec hegemony had existed here for so long, it scarcely merited his interest any more. The newer conquests were more exciting, riper, worthier of cultivation.

No wonder, then, that anti-Empire sentiment was as rife in Anahuac as anywhere, fermenting in the wilds, in the darker, more distant reaches of the land. No wonder Xibalba could find a warm reception in so many places. The Empire wasn’t tending to its roots. That kind of neglect could lead to terminal rot.

Stuart and Zotz arrived back at the point they had set out from, a village that was little more than a landing stage with a handful of huts attached. Even as they approached, rounding a bend in the river, Stuart sensed there was something wrong. Yesterday there’d been noise and bustle, dogs scampering about, the inevitable pack of semi-feral children. Today, silence.

Nobody came out to greet them as they tied up the canoe at the jetty. Stuart’s ears detected furtive activity within the huts — muffled footfalls, hushed voices.

“What’s up?” he murmured to Zotz.

“No idea,” came the reply. “But I don’t like it.”

“Me either. We should move on upriver.”

“We hired the canoe here, we return it here. Besides, not much further on, the river becomes impassable. Rapids, rocks, waterfalls.”

As Zotz stepped out of the boat, he swore softly.

Jaguar Warriors had emerged from the largest of the buildings, which belonged to the canoe’s owner. There were four of them in all. Two had lightning guns, and Stuart could hear a faint whine. The weapons were charging.

“How should we handle this?” he said to Zotz out of the corner of his mouth as he, too, stepped onto the jetty.

“Play it by ear. It could be nothing, a routine visit.”

“If it isn’t? Those l-guns say they’re ready for trouble.”

“Anahuac Jaguars are always ready for trouble. Let me do the talking.” Zotz raised a hand in greeting. “Gentlemen! Good day to you. How are you this fine morning?”

The Jaguar group’s leader made a hand-slash gesture: cut the chitchat. “Who are you? Names.”

“Hunab Ku Zotz. And this is Rene Jolicoeur, a botanist from France. I’m his guide. I’ve been taking him into the forest to study plants.”

“Botanist, huh?” The Jaguar eyed Stuart sceptically. “What particular plants in our country interest you?”

“Well, all of them, I suppose,” said Stuart. “The diversity of flora in the region is remarkable.”

We’re not going to pull this off, he thought. I know bugger-all about any of this stuff if he tries to cross-examine me. He calculated which of the Jaguars to attack first. One of the pair with guns stood close by. A few quick steps, a well-aimed jab to the throat, he could have the weapon out of the man’s hands, shoot the other gun holder before the element of surprise was lost.

“But especially,” said Zotz, “medicinal herbs. Monsieur Jolicoeur works for a pharmaceutical company based in… Rennes, is it?”

He looked to Stuart, who nodded.

“They’re constantly on the lookout for new drugs to develop from traditional natural remedies. Like jatoba bark.” Zotz took out a handful of his own supply from his pocket, to show the policemen. “It’s a huge market, and Anahuac is at the centre of it. As ever, the Land Between The Seas leads the way, and the rest of the world follows. What we have, everyone else desires.”

The Jaguars nodded to one another as though Zotz had uttered pearls of great wisdom.

“And Anahuac has provided the cure to all ills,” said Zotz, still pursuing his not-so-subtle subtext.

“True,” said the Jaguars’ leader. Abruptly he turned back to Stuart. “I’d like to see some ID, if I may.” He held out a hand. Stuart fished out his bogus passport.

He’ll see that it’s been doctored. He’ll ask me to show him plant samples I’ve collected. The whole charade was about to crumble to pieces. Stuart tensed, preparing himself for a quick, dirty fight.

“Seems to be in order.” The Jaguar handed the passport back. “I wish you luck, Mr Jolicoeur.” He turned and motioned to the other three with a circular sweep of his arm. “Let’s move out, men. We’ve wasted enough time here. We’ve another half-dozen of these hick-towns to cover today.”

They tramped out of the village along the path that led to a nearby dirt track. Shortly, there was the sound of two-stroke engines spluttering into life. Motorbikes. The waspish drone faded into the forest.

“Whew,” said Stuart to Zotz. “Nicely done. I thought they were here looking for me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Englishman. Like I said, routine. Jaguar patrols come through every so often. They shake down the villages. Kick in a few doors, prise up a few floorboards. Not sure what they hope to find. Some sort of contraband. There isn’t any. What do these people have? Nothing. Mainly it’s a show of power, to remind everybody, even in the boondocks, who’s carrying the biggest stick. A bit of swaggering. The locals know to keep their heads down and wait until they pass.”

Sure enough, with the Jaguar Warriors gone, the villagers emerged from indoors. In just a few minutes the air was filled with shouting and hurly-burly again. Normal village life had been resumed.

“Still,” said Zotz, as he and Stuart began the arduous four-hour hike uphill to the village where Xibalba were billeted, “we’d better tell Chel. There’s a chance one of them might not be as lazy and complacent as the Jaguars round these parts usually are. He might check with his counterparts in France to see if there really is a botanist called Rene Jolicoeur.”

“And is there?”

“Yes, there is. That’s his stolen passport you’re carrying. Trouble is, he doesn’t look a bit like you.”

Ah Balam Chel agreed that they had a problem. The encounter with the patrol was unfortunate. He’d known having Stuart among them would be a risk. A tall white man in the company of a group of short, brown-skinned Anahuac nationals was always going to attract attention.

“You are, at least as far as physical appearance goes, a liability, Reston. And it means, I’m afraid, that we must abandon this cosy little perch sooner than planned.”

“And go where?”

“Where we have to go,” Chel replied cryptically. “To the place the military would call our forward operating base. The bad news is, we won’t be travelling by truck. We can’t. We’ll be too visible on the roads — you will be. We’ll have to go cross-country instead, on foot. But we have enough time, that’s the main thing. Still enough time. We’re ahead of schedule.”

“Schedule? What schedule? This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

“The countdown, Reston. The cosmic clock is ticking.”

“You what?”

“Come now, don’t look like that.”

“No, you’re really going to have that explain that remark.”

“I will, I swear. But tomorrow, after we head out. Go get some sleep. You look done in. In the morning, we march.”