WHITE Orchid thought the Caravan Master would never arrive.
From the moment runners from the south had announced sighting the caravan’s approach, she had been breathless with anxiety. Everything had changed. She no longer wanted to marry Jakál merely because she was in love with him, or because she coveted power. It was because being his wife would give her an identity, it would anchor her to the earth. He would link her to his own bloodline and she would no longer be alone.
White Orchid and her father had not spoken since the day she confronted him after discovering his lie in the records at Lady Corn. The villa of the house of Tenoch had grown strangely silent as the two residents went about their daily activities without interacting. And then the caravan had finally arrived, and now the Caravan Master was coming up the dusty path to the villa, carrying a mysterious box. Once Jakál was under the magic spell of the serpent’s venom, she could leave Tenoch’s house and never speak to the old man again.
“My Lady!” the Caravan Master effused as a slave admitted him to the house. “The blessings of the gods be upon you and your father.”
Wishing to grab the box and send him on his way, White Orchid forced herself to be civil and go through the motions of endless amenities and rules of etiquette before they were allowed to discuss business.
With great pains she listened to the Caravan Master describe his long and arduous trip from the south, speaking as usual with his mouth full, and wasting precious water as he drank, letting it dribble down his chin. Finally, her patience at an end, she said, “Tell me about the snake.”
He had brought the aphrodisiac serpent as promised, and now, at long last, White Orchid held the key to Jakál’s heart, and her own future, in her hands.
She did not handle the creature directly. The exotic snake lay coiled in a small mahogany box with holes drilled in the lid and magical symbols painted on the sides. “What does it eat?” she asked as she held the box in her lap and imagined slipping a few kernels of corn inside.
“All snakes are carnivores, my Lady. They prefer mice.”
“Mice!” Well, she would be feeding it for only a few days before she presented the box to Jakál as a gift. After that, once it had injected its venom and Jakál was hers, the snake could be killed.
She was about to say something further when a warm breeze wafted in from the fields, bringing the scent of sage and dust, evoking a painful memory. The Caravan Master’s voice faded as White Orchid was taken back to a day like this, not long ago, when she had awakened in the morning and gathered her baby to her breast, and she had noticed that his eyes did not look right. Had they changed from the night before? Or was it only her imagination?
Over the ensuing days it had become apparent that her son’s eyes were starting to protrude. She consulted Chief Physician Nagual, who advised her to sacrifice an unblemished white dove to Lady Corn and provide the priestesses with a banquet.
White Orchid complied, but the baby’s eyes continued to protrude. And then she noticed his brow ridge was beginning to bulge. Seeking Nagual’s counsel again, she was told to make a sacrifice of two unblemished white doves and another banquet for the priestesses.
When White Orchid realized that her baby no longer looked up at her, that his eyes no longer tracked movement as they once had, she sent for the midwife who had delivered the baby. The Toltec woman laid her hands on the infant’s head, which Nagual had not done, and gently felt around. “You summoned me too late,” she said at last. “Had I come in time, I could have used a knife to cure this problem. But the bones in your baby’s skull have fused before their time, and I cannot remedy it. There is no room inside his skull for the brain to grow, and so it presses against bone. The brain is dying, and so is your child.”
The Caravan Master’s voice came back. “But you need not feed it a mouse a day, once a month will—” He stopped and stared.
White Orchid felt something on her cheek and realized in embarrassment that it was a tear. “I understand,” she said, thinking of the baby that had lived another month, his features twisting and distorting out of shape as the prematurely hardened skull plates pulled on the facial bones until his tongue protruded and he could no longer nurse. “I will have my servants round up some mice at once.”
“A final caution, my Lady,” the Caravan Master said, uncomfortable with her sudden tears. It was bad form to display emotions, particularly negative ones, in front of a guest. “The snake undergoes different phases during its yearly cycle. There are months when its venom is powerless. You must be certain to use the serpent only during its active periods and when the moon is at its fullest. You will of course wish to consult with your astrologer for the most auspicious alignment of your stars with those of your intended lover.”
My astrologer, she thought in disgust. Her horoscope was meaningless now. “Which phase is it in at the moment?” She had hoped to take the serpent to Jakál’s private chambers within a day.
“It is dormant. It sleeps during the summer months. You must wait for the Autumn Equinox, and then select the most auspicious days after that.”
The food platters empty, his mug of nequhtli drained dry, the Caravan Master announced his departure. As he rose, wiping his greasy hands on his cloak, he said, “I will not be coming again. The trek has become too dangerous. There are brigands and thieves along the route because the King of Tollan cannot send soldiers to guard the way. He has his hands full with defending the city and suppressing civil unrest.” The Caravan Master belched, and then sighed. “I doubt you will see another caravan from home at all,” he added, noting that his hostess was not listening, her attention riveted on the magic serpent, her thoughts no doubt flying ahead to the day when her intended “love victim” was bitten and then smitten. The Toltec empire was being threatened with collapse, and all this woman thought about was a partner for her sleeping mat.
White Orchid rose and bade the Caravan Master farewell. Before he stepped through the door and into the warm summer day, he turned and said, “Remember, my Lady. The snake must strike only once for romance to occur. If it should strike twice, the man will die a most agonizing death.”
Finally, for dramatic effect, he pointed a greasy finger at the box and said sternly, “Above all, keep your own hand out of there.”
As White Orchid watched him go, her mind a whirlpool of thoughts, a slave came up and quietly informed her that a messenger had just come from the marketplace. The seller of seashells had a new shipment of pink conches and pearl abalones.
White Orchid immediately called for her carrying chair and traveling mantle. She would not be going to the marketplace, however, because the message had not come from the purveyor of shells. As she could no longer risk her spy—Jakál’s personal guard—coming to the house, she had devised a secret signal for him to alert her when he had new information.
Or, in this instance, when he had found a man to take care of a certain delicate job.
They met in secret at the Shrine of the Nameless God.
The tumbledown brick structure, consisting of one room and a dusty courtyard, was conveniently deserted. No one ever visited the stone effigy that had been placed there in the first days of Toltec habitation at Center Place, to appease any god the Toltecs might have overlooked. There were no offerings, no incense, no inscriptions on the walls, and there was no priesthood. With hundreds of gods in the Toltec pantheon demanding attention, the Nameless One was neglected.
Leaving her slaves with the carrying chair, White Orchid hurried through the small musty room and out the door at the back, where the young guard waited beneath a broken-down bower that offered little shade.
The handsome young man was not carrying his usual decorated spear, nor was he wearing the leather breastplate painted with a giant butterfly, nor his wooden helmet adorned with colorful feathers that indicated his status as a personal guard to Lord Jakál. In a plain white loincloth and white mantle, his head bare in the dappled sunlight, he looked ordinary and insignificant. But White Orchid knew otherwise. The young guard had provided her with vital information since the day she had recruited him to be her eyes and ears within the government, and specifically in Jakál’s private life.
This afternoon, however, she was using him for another purpose.
On the day White Orchid had visited Lady Corn and had seen the record of her birth, and afterward had confronted her father about the truth, the solution to the problem of the rain-girl had come to her. White Orchid had watched her legless father being lifted by his servants onto a chamber pot—the utter humiliation and indignity of it—and had realized that to make Hoshi’tiwa undesirable was simple. No man wanted to lie with a woman who was useless from the waist down.
“What do you have for me?” she asked now, looking around to make sure they were neither seen nor heard. But the Shrine of the Nameless God was tucked at the base of the southern cliff, far from rising-splendors, far from pathways and foot traffic.
“I have found a man,” the young guard said as he glanced over each shoulder, relishing the danger of the moment.
Although his position as Jakál’s bodyguard was prestigious and carried honor, and although it made his parents proud and caused women to look at him with interest, the young guard had found it to be a boring job. After all, what man would dare to harm the tlatoani of Center Place? Being Jakál’s bodyguard was like being protector of the sun. Everyone was respectful of the sun and no one could come close to touching it. The young man had started seeing himself as a symbolic guard only, an ornament at court, when this intriguing lady had approached him with a proposition. He had accepted, and his life had not known a dull moment since.
But there was more to it: He was drawn to White Orchid’s power. Strong women excited him, and the daughter of Tenoch was the strongest woman he had ever met. Although there could never be physical pleasure between them, nor did he even entertain such a fantasy, merely receiving a summons from the great Lady, doing her bidding and earning her gratitude, excited him in a way no other woman could.
“I have found a man, my Lady. He has agreed to take care of your problem for a small payment.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What man?”
“His name is Bone Snapper, because that is his specialty. Captain Xikli uses him to persuade men to talk under interrogation, and also to mete out certain punishments.”
“He knows what is expected of him?”
“He will approach Hoshi’tiwa from behind, seize her by the neck, and apply enough pressure to render her unconscious. Then he will snap her spine—”
White Orchid held up a hand. She did not want the details. “Her legs?”
“She will be as crippled as—” He caught himself. He had almost said, “Tenoch.”
But White Orchid understood. It was her father who had inspired the idea in the first place. “When will it be done?”
“Bone Snapper will determine the time. But soon.”
“Tell him to make sure it looks like an accident.”
“He understands. After the deed is done, he will place her at the foot of stairs to make it look like she fell. The whole of it will be executed so swiftly that not even the girl herself will remember what happened. She will not know she had been attacked but will most likely believe that she did indeed fall.”
The young guard smiled and his chest puffed out when he saw the look of approval on White Orchid’s painted face. “Do not worry, my Lady,” he added. “One morning the sun will rise and Hoshi’tiwa will walk no more.”