Lost Empire

CHAPTER 28

“OH, SURE,” SAM MUTTERED. “IT COULDN’T HAVE BEEN SOMETHING easy. Like a map with a big X on it.”

Wary of damaging the remainder of the parchment, or anything else that might lie hidden inside Blaylock’s walking staff, Pete and Wendy had taken it into the archive vault for extraction and triage preservation.

Ten minutes later a digital image of what Sam had grabbed with his tweezers appeared on the workroom’s LCD screen:

Pete came out of the vault. He said, “We had to reduce it. The map’s actual dimensions are roughly six inches wide by ten long.”“What about those notations along the coast?” Sam asked.

“Once we get the map digitized, Wendy’s going to work her Photoshop magic and try to clean them up. Based on their placement and the capital R suffix, they’re probably river names-in French, by the looks of it. The partial word in the upper left-hand corner-‘runes’-might be something we can work with, too.“There’s another notation,” Pete continued. “See the arrow I superimposed?”

“Yes,” Remi replied.

“There’s some microwriting overtop that little island. We’re working on that as well.”

The archive vault door opened, and Wendy emerged carrying a rectangle of parchment sandwiched between two panes of Lexan clear polycarbonate.

“What’s this?” Remi asked.

“The surprise behind door number two,” replied Wendy. “This was rolled up at the bottom of the staff.”

She laid the pane on the worktable.

Sam, Remi, and Selma gathered around it and stared in silence for ten seconds. Finally Remi whispered, “It’s a codex. An Aztec codex.”

FACED WITH two seemingly disparate artifacts, they divided forces. Pete and Wendy settled down at a workstation to identify the map, while Sam, Remi, and Selma tackled this new parchment.

Remi began. “Codex is Latin for a ‘block of wood,’ but over time it became synonymous with any type of bound book or parchment. It’s the model for modern book manufacturing, but before binding became common practice anything could be considered a codex-even a single piece of parchment or several folded together.“You see, when the Spanish invaded Mexico in 1519-”

Sam interrupted. “Maybe now would be a good time for an Aztec 101 course?”

“Okay. Bear in mind, among historians there’s a lot of debate about the Aztecs, from the trivial to the significant. I’ll give you the condensed, middle-of-the road version.

“Aztec is the popular name for a group of Nahua-speaking peoples that some historians refer to as the Mexica-sounds like Meh-SHEE-kah-who migrated into central Mexico from somewhere to the north in the sixth century.”

“‘Somewhere to the north’ is rather vague,” Selma observed.

Remi nodded. “Yet another source of controversy. I’ll cover that in a minute. So the Aztecs continued their migration into the Valley of Mexico, displacing and absorbing other tribes-including some of their mythology and cultural practices. This went on until around the twelfth century. At the time, most of the power in the region was concentrated in the hands of the Tepanecs in Azcapotzalco. Fast-forward: power trades hands, alliances are made and broken, and the Aztecs are fairly low on the power ladder.

“Until 1323, when legend has it that the Aztecs were shown a vision of an eagle with a snake in its mouth perched atop a cactus. After a few more years of wandering, the Aztecs come across a swampy, barely inhabitable island in the middle of Lake Texcoco-which is mostly gone today; it sits beneath Mexico City. It’s on this island they supposedly see the eagle/snake/cactus vision. They stop wandering and start building. They called their new city Tenochtitlan.

“Despite their new capital being as much marsh as it was land, the Aztecs pulled off an engineering marvel. Tenochtitlan occupied about five square miles on the west side of Lake Texcoco. They built causeways to the mainland, complete with rising bridges to accommodate water traffic; they built aqueducts to supply the city with fresh water; there were plazas and palaces, residential areas, and business centers all connected by canals. When the population got too big to feed with crops grown on the mainland, Aztec engineers created floating gardens called chinampas that could produce up to seven crops a year.

“This went on another fifty years or so until the late 1420s, when the Triple Alliance among Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan was formed. All the tribes outside the alliance were subjugated as the alliance grew in strength. Then, slowly, over the next century, the Aztecs and Tenochtitlan rose to the top.”“And then Cortes arrived,” Sam said.

“Right. In the spring of 1519. Within two years, the Aztec Empire was all but destroyed.”

“What’s the rest of the controversy?” Selma said. “About the Aztecs?”

“Where they came from-north or south, or from how far away. Many of the classical and pre-classical Mesoamerican cultures-the Toltecs, the Maya, the Olmecs-share similarities with the Aztecs. It’s a chicken-or-egg situation. Was it simply a matter of cultural cross-pollination or was one of these peoples the precursor to all the rest? There are a lot of historians who think the Aztecs were Mesoamerica’s true progenitors.”Sam and Selma took all this in. Then Sam said, “Okay, you were talking about codices . . .”

“Right,” Remi said. “When Cortes invaded and the Aztec Empire collapsed, there were a lot of codices written, most of them by Jesuit and Franciscan monks, some by soldiers or diplomats, and even a few by Aztecs as dictated to others. Those are fairly rare and usually discounted-or at least they were until the last couple hundred years. Aztec codices tended to stray from the Spanish ‘party line,’ which was that Aztecs were savages and that their conquest was wonderful and dictated by God. You get the idea.”“Again, victors write the history,” Sam said.

“You got it.”

Selma said, “You’re talking about the Codex Borbonicus, the Mendoza, the Florentine . . .”

“Right. There are dozens. Usually they depict Aztec life either before, during, or after the Spanish conquest. Some are just tableaus of routine activities while others are meant as historical accounts of Cortes’s arrival, of battles fought or ceremonies, and so on.”Remi grabbed a magnifying glass from a drawer and bent to examine the codex. She spent ten minutes poring over every square inch, then stood up and sighed.

“In theme, this one’s a lot like the Boturini Codex. Allegedly, the Boturini was written by an anonymous Aztec author between 1530 and 1541, about ten years after the Aztecs fell. It’s supposed to tell the story of the Aztecs’ journey from Aztlan to present-day Mexico.”“Aztlan?” asked Sam.

“One of the two mythical ancestral homes of the Nahua peoples, which include the Aztecs. Many historians disagree about whether Aztlan is a legend or an actual physical location.”“You said two homes.”

“The other one’s called Chicomoztoc, or Place of the Seven Caves. It’s important in Aztec lore and religion. Take a look at our codex. You see the hollowed-out flower shape in the lower right-hand corner?”

Sam and Selma nodded.“That’s how Chicomoztoc is usually represented. But this one’s a little different, I think. I’ll have to do some comparisons.”

“If I’m reading this right,” Sam said, “it’s meant to represent a sea voyage. I assume the canoe is a metaphor?”

“Hard to say. But do you notice the comblike object on the side of it?”

“I saw it.”

“That’s the glyph for the Aztec number one hundred.”

“People or vessels?”

“Given its placement, I assume the latter.”

“A hundred ships,” Sam repeated. “Sailing from Chicomoztoc to . . . where?”

“Wherever that bird and the object below it live?” Selma offered. “What is that? I can’t quite make it out.”

“Looks like a sword,” Sam offered. “Or a torch, maybe?”

Selma said, “I don’t know about that, but that bird looks familiar.”

“It should,” Remi replied. “It’s from Blaylock’s journal. There’s something else you should all recognize, too.”

Sam tapped the rough-brushed shape occupying the upper half of the codex. “Also from Blaylock’s journal.”

“A gold star for Mr. Fargo. And one more,” Remi said, handing him the magnifying glass. “The inscription.”

Sam lifted the glass to his eye and bent closer to the codex. He recited, “My Spanish isn’t the best, but here goes . . . ‘Dado este 12vo dia de Julio, ano de nuestro Senor 1521, por su alteza Cuauhtemotzin. Javier Orizaga, S.J.

’” Sam looked up. “Remi?”“Roughly translated it says, ‘Given this twelfth day of July, the year of our Lord 1521, by His Highness Cuauhtemotzin. Javier Orizaga, S.J.’”

“Orizaga . . .That’s another tidbit from Blaylock’s journal: ‘Was Orizaga here?’”

“Here, where?” Selma asked. “Chicomoztoc?”

“Anyone’s guess,” Remi replied. “You’re missing the real bombshell, though.”

Without another word, she walked over to a workstation, brought up the Web browser, and spent five minutes navigating through pages on famsi.org-the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies. Finally, she turned in her seat.

“Obviously, the S.J. in Orizaga’s name means ‘Society of Jesus.’ He was a Jesuit monk. The date, July 12, 1521, is twelve days after what the Spaniards called La Noche Triste, the ‘Sad Night.’ It marks their emergency withdrawal from the Aztec capitol of Tenochtitlan after Cortes and his Conquistadors massacred hundreds of Aztecs-along with their king, Moctezuma II-at the Main Temple, the Templo Mayor. It was a watershed moment for the Aztec Empire. In August of the following year Tenochtitlan was razed to the ground, and the Aztecs’ last king, Cuauhtemotzin, was captured and tortured.”“Cuauhtemotzin,” Sam repeated, then turned back to the codex for a moment. “That’s who Orizaga claims dictated this codex.”

Selma murmured, “Cuauhtemotzin saw the handwriting on the walls. He knew his people were doomed and he wanted someone to know . . .” Selma’s voice trailed off.

Remi nodded. “If this codex is genuine, we may be looking at the last will and testament of the Aztec people.”