The Death Relic

69

Maria was confused by the statement. ‘What treasure?’

Boyd ignored the question. ‘Tell me, Maria, what do you know about shared perspectives?’

She groaned in frustration. Back when she was his student, Boyd had an annoying habit of evading her questions by asking questions of his own. Nothing was easy with him. He made her work for everything. One question from her would lead to five questions from him, each more difficult than the last. In the long run, it taught her to think for herself. But at the time it was frustrating as hell. Even simple questions — like, what time is it? — would lead to ten-minute discussions. Eventually she learned that the best way to shut him up was to front-load her answers. That way, the more she appeared to know, the less he would question her.

‘I know quite a bit,’ she said cockily, trying to rub his nose in all she had learned without him. ‘We were discussing the concept earlier today. Petr used a hypothetical bombing of the city of Jerusalem to illustrate the importance of different perspectives to understand the true history of an event. Up until now, everything we know about the conquest of Mexico has been told from the Spanish point of view. They wrote the history books, so they controlled what we know about that particular chapter. Without a detailed account of the Maya side of the conquest, we only know half the story.’

He corrected her. ‘Actually, we only know a third of the story because the Spanish conquered two major civilizations in this part of the world: the Maya and the Aztecs.’

Jones came to her defence. ‘Not to argue semantics, but shouldn’t the Spanish Conquest be viewed as two separate stories? The Spanish versus the Maya is one story. The Spanish versus the Aztecs is the other. As far as I know, there wasn’t much interaction between the Maya and Aztecs. I don’t see how they could offer details on each other’s defeat.’

Boyd smiled knowingly. ‘Unless, of course, they were defeated by the same object. In that case, their perspectives would be quite beneficial.’

‘The same object? What does that mean?’ she asked.

He glanced at Ulster, who was sitting in the front row. ‘Tell me, Petr, in your long career as a historian, have you ever heard of an artefact known as “the Death Relic”?’

Ulster scratched his beard in thought. ‘The Death Relic? No, I’m afraid not. If I had, I’m quite confident I would have remembered it. The name is rather ominous.’

Boyd nodded. ‘I thought so, too, when I came across the term a few years ago. I found it in the journal of a South American merchant who arrived in Mexico several decades after Hernándo Cortés had seized Tenochtitlan. During the course of the merchant’s travels, the indigenous population of Mexico — the Tlaxcalans, the Totonacs and so on — regaled him with stories of the demise of the Aztec Empire. Over and over, the natives spoke of a magical object that the Spanish had carried into battle, one that gave them power and strength. Eventually, this item became so feared by the mighty Aztecs that they associated it with death. Hence the name.’

Ulster grinned at the possibilities. ‘A relic of death! How utterly fascinating! Obviously I am familiar with charms and amulets being described in pagan folklore, but rarely do you find one associated with Christian forces. Please, tell me more.’

‘Initially, there was nothing more to tell. Even though the object was mentioned several times in the merchant’s journal, I was unable to find any secondary sources that backed his claim. As you know, the Spanish were very thorough in their destruction of native documents. That forced me to turn to the writings of the priests and conquistadores who dealt with the Aztecs in the early years of the Conquest — men like Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Diego Durán and Bartolomé de las Casas. Unfortunately, there was no mention of the object. Not that I expected one. After all, their writings have been analysed by scholars for centuries. If one of them had described a magical relic, I’m confident I would have heard of it.’

Ulster urged him on. ‘What happened next?’

‘I was ready to write off the story as a myth, nothing more than the fanciful creation of a lonely merchant, when I decided to approach things from a different angle. Since Cortés and his men had landed on the Gulf Coast before their long march to the west, I wondered if the indigenous tribes of the east might have heard rumours about the magical object. My knowledge of the Maya was somewhat lacking, so I reached out to Terrence via email. Much to my surprise, he informed me that he had recently come across an account of a similar object being used by the Spanish against the Maya. It had the same name and the same magical qualities. The Maya were so scared of the relic, they literally abandoned their cities when they saw it coming.’

Maria grimaced. ‘They ran in fear?’

‘Fear is an understatement. Like the Aztecs, they associated this object with death. They did everything in their power to avoid it and the men who carried it.’

Hamilton entered the conversation. ‘Over the years, I have assembled a substantial database of Mayan glyphs — words and phrases that were carved in stone, painted on ceramics, or written in one of the remaining codices — which I use to translate documents and authenticate discoveries. Prior to Cortés, who arrived in Mexico in 1519, I could not find a single reference to an object known as the Death Relic. However, in the decades that followed the arrival of the Spanish, a new pictograph surfaced in the world of the Maya, a symbol that looks remarkably similar to their Death God. The differences are subtle, but once I knew what to look for, I found the symbol over and over again in artwork throughout Mexico.’

To illustrate his point, Hamilton walked to the chalkboard and removed the tarp. On the surface underneath, there was a series of ancient words, glyphs, pictographs and translations, which had been scrawled in different coloured chalks. To Payne, Jones and Maria, it looked like gibberish. To Boyd and Ulster, it had significance. Hamilton tried his best to bridge the gap between the two groups.

He pointed at a drawing on the left side of the board. The creature had a skeleton face, grinning teeth and an exposed spine. Bells and rattles decorated its wrists and legs. An ornament of some kind rested on its head. ‘This is a pictograph of the Mayan Death God. It goes by many names. It appears in art, architecture and writing. It’s one of the most common images in the history of the Mayan civilization, dating back more than a thousand years. We have found it at sites from northern Mexico to southern Guatemala.’

Jones stared at the creature. ‘He’s an ugly bastard.’

Maria nodded in agreement. ‘He certainly is.’

Hamilton moved a few feet to their right and pointed at a second image. Though it looked similar to the first, it had an important modification: two bones, in the shape of an X, hung from a cord around its neck. Hamilton picked up a piece of chalk and circled the necklace. ‘I realize the difference is small. Nevertheless, it is quite significant. In terms of the modern alphabet, think of it like this: the difference between an ‘O’ and a ‘Q’ is merely the tail at the bottom of a circle. In the language of the Maya, the difference between the ‘Death God’ and the ‘Death Relic’ is this necklace of bones. It completely changes its meaning.’

‘When did it first appear?’ Ulster asked.

Hamilton answered. ‘It’s impossible to tell, due to the inexact nature of carbon dating. The best that we can guess is that it first appeared here, in Mérida, in the mid-1500s, before the image spread throughout the Yucatán like a plague. Based on that assumption, we concentrated our efforts in Mérida, starting with a few contacts I have at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese in the city. Since the local monks were known for their detailed records of the Maya, we thought they might be able to point us in the right direction. We were hoping for something small, perhaps the scent of a distant breadcrumb that we could follow to another source. Instead, they unwittingly handed us a whole loaf of bread: they gave us the diary of Marcos de Mercado.’