“Not this time,” Keeper said. “This is beyond the gods.”
“How can you say that?” Risk demanded. “The gods can do anything.”
“We can’t afford the sacrifice,” Rebel said.
Tula screamed. Rebel quickly pulled her close, but the child was inconsolable.
Now Allele came alert. “She knows something! She always knows! What’s so horrible?”
There was no help for it. “The priests did a reading,” Keeper said heavily. “They concluded that there has to be an awful sacrifice to the Rain God.”
“The Rain God!” Risk said. “So he’ll make a storm and blow away or sink those boats!”
“But that’s good, isn’t it?” Allele asked.
“No,” Rebel said grimly, still hugging Tula.
“But if the boats sink, they can’t get here, can they?”
Tula screamed again.
Then Risk caught on. “Children! They sacrifice children to the Rain God!”
Allele paled. “And we’re children. Fair ones.”
“But not us,” Risk said. “There are other children.”
Keeper got out the rest of it. “A noble is interested in Tula and Allele. He. . . he asked to. . . to have both of you. We refused, of course.”
Allele was not too young to miss the import. “I think I know who. His last mistress is getting too old. Thirteen.”
“But that’s not the same as sacrifice,” Risk protested.
“When we told him no, he didn’t like it,” Keeper said. “Then the priest made his reading.”
“Retaliation!” Risk said.
“Yes. Maybe if we change our minds, the priest will do a different reading.”
“So it’s him—or death,” Allele said.
“Or escape,” Rebel said. “We are making ready. Don’t tell.”
“That’s what Haven and Crenelle are doing,” Risk said. “Packing supplies.”
“Without alerting the priests or nobles,” Keeper agreed. “Hero and Harbinger are getting the boats ready. We have a secret place to go to. We’ll leave tonight.”
Tula screamed again.
Suddenly armed men filled the chamber. “But you’ll do it without the children,” the captain said.
They were helpless. Any attempt to resist would only get them killed. The priests and nobles had anticipated their attempt to escape, and struck when they had confirmation.
They carried the screaming children out. Keeper and Rebel were left alone. There was no need to arrest them; they were going nowhere without the children.
“It’s my fault!” Keeper moaned. “I shouldn’t have spoken.”
“The children had to know,” Rebel said. “They were catching on anyway. We were both careless.”
She had spoken bravely enough, but now she dissolved into tears. Keeper tried to comfort his sister, but the horror was too big for comfort.
Yet how could they have allowed the girls to become the playthings of the corrupt noble?
At it turned out, the authorities were not so careless as to leave them long to their own treacherous devices. The warriors returned, and hauled the two of them roughly to a nether cell. There were the others, already rounded up: Hero, Craft, Haven, Crenelle, Harbinger, and Tuho. It was no glad encounter, and not just because it was crowded.
Next morning the news was that the Spaniards were assembling their boats, making obvious preparations for a massive attack. The warriors were at the ramparts, ready to repulse them. But Keeper knew it wouldn’t be enough. The main boat was a small ship, with metal armor; arrows and spears would bounce off. That was the lesser threat.
“The artillery,” Craft murmured. “That’s what will destroy us.”
“Surely a few hurled rocks won’t hurt us,” Keeper said. “Unless one happens to strike a person on the head.”
Craft didn’t answer. Keeper didn’t have time to debate the point; he had been elected by the family to make a plea to the king. Only the king could overrule the priestly edict. But how was he to approach the king, when the guards wouldn’t let any of them out of the crowded cell?
Then they were brought out, their hands bound behind them, and led to the temple. This was not promising.
But Keeper tried. “I must talk to the king,” he said. “It is my right.”
The guards consulted. They had been friends of the family, until this crisis, and surely did not approve of what was happening. But they would be sacrificed themselves if they did not obey orders. They sent one of their number to inquire.
King Canek was surely hard-pressed, but he granted Keeper a brief audience, because Keeper had done good work with animals and plants. Keeper was brought, bound, to see the king, who was garbed in his formal regalia for the sacrificial occasion. The king wore a large crown of pure gold, with a crest of gold, and his ears were covered with gold disks. The disks had hangings that shook and fell over his shoulders as he moved. On his arms were rings of pure gold. It was highly impressive, in part because Keeper knew that gold was exceedingly rare, and most of what existed in the city was what the king was wearing here. His tunic was pure white, copiously adorned with blue embroidery. He wore a broad black sash, signaling that he was also a priest of the Itza. His sandals were fashioned of blue thread with many gold jingles. It was his royal dress uniform, intended to be impressive, but Keeper couldn’t help it: he was impressed.
“What is your concern?” the king inquired, as if he didn’t know. There was that in his aspect that hinted he regretted the situation. Keeper had always gotten along well with him.
“My daughter, our children—the priests have taken them for the sacrifice,” Keeper said. “I come to plead for their lives. They are innocent, and we love them.”
The king gave him a serious look. “I understand. But we face incipient invasion, and our head priest knows best. I dare not overrule him, lest disaster befall us. I am sorry.”
And that was that. The king had spoken. Keeper bowed and retreated. There was nothing else he could do. Nothing else the king could do. They were caught in the crisis, complicated as it was by the web of deceit concerning the children.
The sacrifice ceremony proceeded all too swiftly. There was music, dancing, and the burning of pom incense that Keeper himself had made from the resin of the copal tree. It was time for the bloodletting.
The priests brought out the three children, who had of course been drugged; they walked without animation, possessing no free will. They were placed before the sacrificial altar and tied there, their chests bared. There was chanting, the official offering of this blood to the Rain God. Then the head priest brought out the wicked obsidian sacrificial knife.
The priest was going to cut out their living hearts. And the family had to watch.
Crenelle sank to the floor. She had fainted, unable to bear the thought of seeing her daughter so cruelly murdered.
The guards hauled her roughly back to her feet. She was required to watch. But that gave Keeper an idea. If they could somehow stall the process, maybe there would come a chance to break it up. Their feet were free; he could lurch into the priest, maybe causing the man to drop the knife. It wasn’t much of a hope, but any hope was better than none.
Suddenly there was a boom of thunder. The Rain God was answering, though there had been no sign of a storm before. The priest paused, perplexed. Any signal from the Rain God was important. What did this mean?
Something crashed into the wall of the building, smashing a hole in it.
They all looked, startled. The priest stood frozen, his blade uplifted. This was a remarkable response by the Rain God, considering that the offerings had not yet been made.
There was another boom, and another part of the wall was smashed open. This time part of the ceiling collapsed.
“The bombardment,” Craft murmured.
Craft had been correct in his prediction: these were not pebbles, but solid metal balls that blasted apart what they struck. It was a devastating barrage.
A thir
d boom and crash. Now the roof of the temple was cracking, and stones were falling to the floor.
Even the priest realized that this was no ordinary thunderstorm. He lowered the blade, dismayed. This did not seem like an expression of godly favor.
“The Rain God is angry!” Keeper shouted, surprising himself. “He wanted to save these children for his own purposes. Now we face his wrath!”
Panic erupted. They thought the Rain God was hurling thunderbolts. The musicians scrambled to get out of the temple, and the guards were as eager to escape as they were. Only the king paused, demonstrating his courage. He walked to Keeper, put his hands on his shoulders, turned him about, and pressed something into one of his bound hands. Then he moved on outside.
Keeper felt the object. It was cold and hard, a small stone. No—it was an obsidian knife!
“Hero!” Keeper said, turning his back to his warrior brother.
Hero caught on immediately. He came close, turned his own back, and his hands took the knife. In a moment he cut Keeper’s bonds. Then Keeper took the knife and did the same for Hero.
Soon, as the bombardment continued, they were all free, including the three children. But the temple was collapsing around them.
“This way,” Craft said.
The women guided the children, who were dazed but not unconscious. They followed Craft out of the temple. No one paid attention, because the bombardment was destroying walls and buildings alike. They still thought it was the wrath of the god.
They made their way through the confusion to the three canoes Haven and Crenelle had stocked. The men paddled, while the women and children sat in the centers.
Now they saw that others had the same idea. Many boats were fleeing the island. The people knew that the end had come. The last independent kingdom of the Maya was doomed.
But at least the children were safe.
A number were war canoes, not fleeing but paddling out to encounter the enemy. Their archers were braced, ready to loose their arrows.
But as they drew out from the harbor, they saw the Spanish fleet looming, led by a monstrous wooden ship with a metal-armored deck well above the water line. Its rail bristled with Spanish soldiers.
As soon as the Spaniards spied the canoes, they leveled their guns. There was a new, closer booming, and smoke puffed out.
The men aboard the leading war canoe cried out. Several had been wounded, and the canoe had been holed and was sinking. Their arrows had had no apparent effect. The guns of the Spanish were too much.
“Get out of here!” Hero called from his canoe.
They paddled rapidly away from the Spanish fleet. These were not even war canoes, and would have no chance against the Spanish. Their hope was that they would pass unnoticed, and not attract any fire.
They were not that lucky. One war canoe veered to follow them. The Spaniards were accompanied by Maya allies who fought beside them. Hero cursed them for traitors, but that hardly abated the threat they represented.
Keeper paddled desperately, as did his brothers and Rebel, but they could not outrace the war canoe. Steadily it overhauled them. Then it paused, merely keeping the pace.
“Surrender!” the war canoe commander called. “Agree to serve the new masters, and you will be spared.”
“What of our women and girls?” Rebel called back.
“They are our property. They will be well treated if they behave.”
That meant if they submitted to multiple rapes without resistance or attempts to kill themselves. If they made themselves useful as continuing mistresses, regardless of their ages.
“You are Maya,” Keeper called. “How can you betray your own kind?”
“We are Christian Maya,” the commander replied. “We have seen the light. You, too, must convert and worship the one true god.”
Obviously that god did not object to the rape of children. “We can’t do that,” Keeper said.
“Then you die.” The war canoe resumed its approach. It bristled with warriors. Soon it would grapple their canoes, one by one, and dispatch the fugitives.
Hero stood carefully in his canoe, orienting his bow. Immediately the opposing warriors dropped their paddles and scrambled for their bows. Hero did not wait. He loosed one arrow. It sailed high and long, and came down right in the chest of the commander. There was a cry as he fell, transfixed, and the boat ceased its pursuit.
Only Hero could have done it from that range, from such a precarious stance. He had always been the best shot. This time that ability had saved them.
They came to the shore and scrambled out of their canoes. They ran into the forest, the women dragging the recovering children by their hands. In moments they were shielded by the trees. The Spanish would not be able to catch them. They were not yet safe, but they had a good chance.
Yet Keeper was grief stricken by the fate of their people. The world they had known had been destroyed.
It was a remarkable effort by the Spaniards. They built a road through the jungle so that their mule train could transport supplies, artillery, and even a small dismantled warship they reassembled on Lake Peten. On the morning of March 13, 1697, they attacked, with Maya allies, and were victorious. They immediately set to work destroying the idolatrous idols and, indeed, any remaining civilization of the “barbarians.” They burned the library of books containing what they called “lies of the devil.” It was to take centuries to fathom the lost Mayan written language. Who, then, were really the barbarians?
The remnants of the Itza Maya fled into the surrounding jungle. They never regained their former prominence, and only a few hundred survived to the twentieth century. Conditions generally have been hostile to the several Maya tribes, with partly covert attempts to eradicate them.
Noh Petén, or Tayasal, was erased, and the modern city of Flores built over its ruins. The stones of the temple were taken for a Christian church. Today it is difficult to find traces of the original town; indeed, there is some question whether that really was its location.
It was, indeed, the end of a great culture. True, we of the modern world don’t approve of human sacrifice. Yet we tolerate execution of those with whom we disagree, and make determined war on others whose religion differs from ours. Is this so much different?
The evidence suggests that the prior upheavals of the Maya were climatic in nature, with severe droughts stressing the population, bringing savage warfare. This time the worst enemy was probably disease, such as smallpox, decimating the population so that relatively small Spanish forces could overwhelm the natives, as mentioned in the forenote. Only the isolation of Noh Petén enabled it to survive as long as it did.
There were periodic rebellions by the Maya as time and oppression continued, but they remained a beaten people. Only relatively recently have the marvels of their calendar and cities been studied and appreciated. One can’t help wishing that at least one of their cities had survived independently to the present day.
16
BOTANY BAY
Thanks to a spot of trouble in North America, which had ideas of independent nationhood, England was deprived of her convenient penal colonies there. But she still had convicts and London slum refuse to dispose of. Australia was wide open, unpopulated except for a few Aborigines that were of no account, according to the authorities. So arrangements were made to ship the refuse there. The idea was that they would found a colony and soon become self-sufficient, thus relieving the mother country of the burden of supporting them.
The First Fleet, consisting of eleven ships—two warships, six convict transports, and three supply ships—set sail May 13, 1787. There was no complete count, but the total number of personnel embarking was about 1,530, of which about 1,483 arrived at Botany Bay, because of deaths during the eight-month voyage. About one quarter of the almost 800 convicts shipped were female, including fourteen children. About 750 arrived, the children having increased to twenty-two because of births along the way. This was the nucleus of the new colony.
> Of course, the Aboriginal natives had a different take on this enterprise. The place is the vicinity of what is now Sydney, Australia, but was then Botany Bay because of its variety of plants. The time is January 1788.
Rebel made her way to the hollow beside the water of the bay where the special herbs grew. She was the only one who knew their location, and she harvested them carefully, to be sure the cluster could regenerate. Herbs had to be treated with respect, or their magic lost effect.
As she moved, she pondered the question that was tormenting her increasingly. She was married to Harbinger, a fine man, and she knew she made him happy. But she was barren. Their people kept their numbers low, so as not to overburden the scant resources of the area. Young girls were first married to old men, so they would not conceive, and young boys were forbidden contact with girls or women until they navigated a complicated series of initiations. But that did not mean that there should not ever be children.
Harbinger was thirty-two, two years older than Rebel. It was time for him to start his family. But he couldn’t start it with Rebel. They both knew that.
Her sister Haven was Harbinger’s age, and near the end of her potential. She could give him a child—but it needed to be soon. Yet it couldn’t happen as long as Rebel was in the way.
She had discussed this with Haven, but Haven would not agree to displace Rebel in this manner. So they were at an impasse.
But if Rebel took herself out of the picture, then Haven would do it. She would have no choice. Haven liked Harbinger well enough. She would have married him, had he gotten over a certain initial difficulty the two of them had had, and asked her. Rebel had gotten him almost by default.
There were certain herbs that would send a person to the spirit realm, swiftly and silently. Rebel knew where they grew. All she had to do was eat one. But if there was any suspicion that she had done it deliberately, neither Harbinger nor Haven would take advantage of their opportunity. It had to be by accident, and that was hard to arrange.
For one thing, Rebel didn’t want to die. She wanted to live and love, to be happy and make a man happy. A man who didn’t need children. But that would mean leaving the tribe, because there were no such men in her own tribe. She didn’t want to do that; her ties with her siblings were too strong.