It was the golden mask that had finally changed her mind. He had insisted that she take it, despite the fact that it represented the only means he had to return to his home. She could not continue to lie to a man like that—a man who would put her needs above his own. Whatever treasure there was to be had in the place depicted on the map would be both of theirs. They could divide it equally. He had saved her life and the life of her sister, after all. The least she could do was help him reach his dream.
They rode for many days—down out of the mountains, through the lowland forests and finally to the coast, journeying ever southward as they weaved in and out of murky jungles on to beaches of white sands.
They kept several blankets between them in the saddle, and spoke to each other only when necessary. Benicio had distanced himself from Tula since the moment she had told him that he could return to Luisa as a wealthy man. It was as if in that instant he had ceased to see Tula standing before him and could only envision Luisa.
And what did Tula expect? He had never told her that he loved her, or gave any sign that his plans had changed. Just because he had fulfilled his part of their pact did not mean that he cared for her. She had been a fool to care for him, and she would not indulge herself in the waves of sadness that threatened to wash over her now. She should have known better. The gods always took loved ones away. It was the law of the world.
Day followed endless day, and it seemed that the nearer they got to the treasure, the farther they got from each other. Soon they turned inland towards the heart of Maya territory.
Tula kept her dagger at the ready. The Maya were fierce, secretive people, whose great civilisation had crumbled long ago. Still, they had never been conquered by the Mexica, or anyone else for that matter, and they did not hesitate to take prisoners. They lived in small cities and settlements almost impossible to reach, their once-great cities all but swallowed up by the jungle.
Tula felt as though she were being swallowed up herself. The days were getting shorter and it should have been much cooler, but the jungle did not seem to know it. Tula wiped her brow as the heat wrapped around her, her thoughts bubbling.
By now, Xanca, Anan and Rogelio were surely back in Cempoala, resting in the comfort of her father’s cool stone house. Tula had been reluctant to part ways with them at the salt lake, but Xanca had assured her that it was the right thing to do.
‘Treasure is treasure,’ she had reasoned. ‘It can be used in place of much tribute.’
Tula and Benicio had promised to return to Cempoala within twenty days, their empty maize sacks filled with the untold riches Tula was sure they would find.
‘Yes, go!’ Rogelio had urged, his eyes bright with greed, and Benicio had snapped Big Deer’s reins, steering the mare southward.
And now here they were, in the land of the Maya, so close to their goal, yet so completely lost. Tula wandered beneath the trees and vines, praying that some Maya hunter might find them and point them to the ancient city where Tula knew they would find what they sought.
‘Are you sure?’ Benicio asked suddenly. They had stopped to let Big Deer dip its head into a small stream. ‘About the circles, I mean. The ones on the map?’
‘I am sure,’ Tula said.
She stared down at the water trickling in its small channel. Streams such as this one were common in Maya territory, but large rivers were not. For the bulk of their water, the Maya relied on cenotes, natural round wells that pockmarked the jungle. ‘It is the only answer. The circles on the map are cenotes.’
‘And the dot in the middle of the map?’
‘It is the temple of Kukulcan.’
The priest who had drawn the map had been wearing the sacred ring of the Wind God, Quetzalcoatl. To the Maya, Quetzalcoatl was known as Kukulcan. Long ago, Tula’s father had taught her that Kukulcan’s holiest temple was located in the abandoned Maya city of Chichen Itza. It had been constructed between four sacred cenotes.
‘Are you certain?’
Clearly Benicio no longer trusted a word Tula said. She had lied to him, after all. For many long months she had deceived him, telling him that the treasure lay in Tenochtitlan. All the while she knew the truth: It did not lie in the greatest city of the Mexica, high in the mountains. It lay in the greatest city of the Maya, deep in the jungle.
‘But why locate a temple in the middle of four cenotes?’ asked Benicio.
Benicio had barely spoken to her since their departure and only to ask doubting questions such as these. By lying to him for so long, it seemed that she had destroyed all his confidence in her.
‘I do not know the minds of the ancients,’ Tula said, stroking the mare’s long neck.
Benicio had not ridden with her atop Big Deer at all that day. Instead, he had chosen to walk—something he did as often as he could. He did not sleep near her in the night, even when it was cold. He had even grown back his beard, as if he wished to return to the man he was before he met Tula. And that was for the best. Despite their strange attraction, he had remained true to Luisa and she admired him for it. It was the least she could do to keep her distance from him and do her part to reinforce the wall that had grown between them since that moment atop the temple.
‘Why not build four temples around a single cenote instead?’ he puzzled now. ‘Are temples not the most sacred sites in your world?’
Tula shook her head. How could she explain it in a way he could understand? To the Maya, cenotes were like temples beneath the earth. They were sources of power, portals to the world beyond. A Maya priest on his death bed would not draw a circle in his own blood unless he was depicting a cenote. He had probably been drawing some kind of map for his soul—a way for his holy essence to find its way home.
‘The Maya culture is old, very old,’ Tula explained once again. ‘The Maya know that men can build great temples, but the earth will always...eat them. The Maya remember this. Other people forget.’
There was a sudden rustling in the jungle behind them and Tula turned to discover a large, colourful quetzal bird perched on the branch of a broad-leafed mahogany tree. She placed her finger upon her lips and pointed to the elegant bird, its long blue-and-green feathers nearly touching the ground.
‘It is a quetzal,’ whispered Tula. ‘A sacred bird.’ She remembered the day she had visited Benicio in the cenote near her home. A bird very much like this one had appeared and led her away, just as the priests were arriving. It had saved her life.
The bird hopped to a more distant branch. ‘We must follow this bird,’ said Tula. She tugged the Big Deer’s reins.
‘What are you doing?’ Benicio bristled.
‘Trust me,’ she said. The bird hopped from limb to limb, seemingly unafraid, and they followed it through the jungle. Suddenly, they broke through the undergrowth to behold the sun-bleached stones of an ancient city.
‘We are here,’ Tula said, overcome with relief. ‘We have arrived in Chichen Itza.’ She turned to look for the bird, but it had disappeared into the jungle. Tula called softly after it in Totonac. ‘I am humble.’
‘What did you say?’ asked Benicio.
Tula dismounted Big Deer. ‘I cannot say it in your language. The word does not exist.’
Benicio frowned, taking Big Deer’s reins.
‘It is like to say gracias, but it is bigger,’ explained Tula, ‘and also smaller.’
Tula stared out at Chichen Itza’s stone ruins—a rabble of chalky, collapsing buildings covered in bushes and strangled by vines and tree roots. The Temple of Kukulcan rose up among them like a ghost, half-covered in a carpet of green plumage, the headdress of the jungle.
‘There is the sacred temple.’
It appeared totally abandoned. Not a single holy soul traversed its high platform, not a speck of blood sullied its stones. Tula pointed at its steps. ‘My father tell me there is one for each day of the year,’ she explained to Benicio. ‘Two times in the cycle of the sun, a serpent goes down.’
‘The Feathered Serpent.’
‘Yes. He goes from the Temple to the Sacred Cenote.’ Tula pointed from the pyramid northward down a long, raised cement road. ‘The Sacred Cenote is down that road,’ Tula said. ‘The Maya Rain God, Chaac, lives there.’
‘Is that where the treasure lies?’
Tula scratched her head. She retrieved the map from beneath her belt and opened it. ‘The Maya priest, he speak to you?’ she asked Benicio, puzzling over the map.
‘What?’
Tula looked up and studied Benicio closely. ‘The Maya priest say something to you before he die?’
Benicio paused. ‘He said the word for gold.’
‘Taak’in.’
‘Yes.’
‘Any other word?’
Benicio seemed to be thinking. ‘Ma tu’ub. He also said ma tu’ub.’
‘Ma tu’ub!’ exclaimed Tula. ‘Why you not tell me?’
‘I...forgot,’ said Benicio. ‘What does it mean?’
‘It means do not forget,’ said Tula, her lips twisting into a mocking smile.
For the first time in many days, Benicio smiled back. ‘Well, that does not help very much, does it?’
Tula shook her head. ‘It changes everything!’ She stuffed the map beneath her belt and began walking south, away from the Sacred Cenote. ‘The treasure is not inside the Sacred Cenote.’
‘But how do you know that?’ Benicio asked, dragging Big Deer behind him.
‘Because nobody can forget the Sacred Cenote. Just look at the road.’
Unlike the Temple of Kukulcan and the other buildings nearby, the road heading to the Sacred Cenote was clear, not a single bush or vine encroaching its stone cobbles. It was obviously kept that way, probably by Maya pilgrims and local priests.
Tula’s southbound path took them through the rest of the ancient holy precinct of Chichen Itza. Tula did not try to conceal her wonder as they passed through the dense collection of temples and gathering halls, many of which her father had taught her about when she was a child.
Soon they came upon a strange, half-finished temple with a large, round tower protruding from its wide base. Tula knew this building, for her father had described it once: it was the place where the ancient Maya studied the heavens.
‘What is this place?’ asked Benicio.
‘It is where the old Maya come to watch the gods at night.’
‘You mean the stars?’
‘Yes, the stars,’ said Tula absently. ‘The beautiful ones. Mixcoatl’s sons and daughters.’
Benicio stared at the building in wonder. ‘An observatory.’ He tied Big Deer off on a nearby tree.
Meanwhile, Tula had spread the map upon the ground. ‘What is this?’ she asked. She pointed to a trickle of blood that made a kind of path down from the map’s central dot.
‘I do not know,’ said Benicio, his attention consumed by the spectacular domed building.
‘This is the last place he touch?’ she asked.
‘I think so, yes,’ Benicio said absently, his gaze still fixed on the snail-shaped dome. ‘Why does it matter?’
‘Within everything lies its opposite,’ said Tula and she continued southward, this time at a slow run.
‘Where are you going?’ Benicio called after her.
‘South,’ she cried, ‘to find the treasure!’