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She lay her tongue atop his, squeezing it into the ring, such that their tongues twisted together in the small space.
Slowly, steadily, she coaxed the heavy prize into her own mouth.
She felt a rush of triumph as she hovered over him, threading her own tongue through the golden ring. She was so proud of herself that she hardly noticed when his lips reconnected with hers and his tongue began to move inside her mouth.
He was kissing her back. Tula’s heart began to pound, and a different kind of shiver ripped through her body. His lips pressed firmly against hers. She tried to pull away, but she couldn’t. He wrapped his arm around her back and pulled her against him, keeping her body pinned against his so firmly that she could scarcely breathe. His chest was hard, as if padded with some invisible armour. But his kisses were soft and tender, and his eyes remained closed.
‘Luisa,’ he whispered.
Chapter Five (#ulink_a43c83cd-d314-5793-92f4-0a602acbc61f)
Luisa, his dear Luisa. Here she was, at last in his arms. He could feel the warmth of her breath, the softness of her skin. He could even sense her desire—how she drew in the scent of him, how she thrilled and shivered at his touch. She still wanted him, even after two long years. And he wanted her—Diós, how he wanted her. She was all that mattered, all that would ever matter. She was the only good thing in his despicable life.
He pulled her against him and heard her sigh, and it was all the permission he needed to shower her with his kisses. He started with her cheeks, which tasted salty and fecund, as if she had swum all the way across the ocean to be with him. He ran his fingers through her damp hair, which she had allowed to grow long and straight. Perhaps she had ceased to cut it the day they parted, just as he had done with his beard.
Keeping his eyes closed, he kissed beneath her jaw, then down her long, elegant neck. ‘Mi amor, how I have missed you,’ he said.
Gently, he cradled her breasts, which were swaddled in some soft, vaguely damp textile. How many times had he thought of placing his palms upon the small rises, which were as tender as ripe pears? How perfectly they fitted there now.
Ay, lusty Luisa.
He let his tongue explore her neck’s soft chalice, feeling a tingling warmth rising through his body. There had been others before Luisa—silly, fatuous women who had chosen him for what he appeared to be, not who he was. Only Luisa knew who he was. She had known him since he was a boy and he felt certain she could see into his heart.
Now her chest heaved with her emotion and it was all he needed to know that she felt as he did.
‘It has been...difficult,’ he confessed, keeping his eyes closed. ‘I think of you every day.’ He kissed her shoulders, which smelled vaguely of the briny air. ‘This new world...so much...misery.’
That was all he would say. He would not tell her about the things he had seen, the things he had done. He would not sully her view of him, or shatter her illusions by admitting that there had been many times since they’d parted that he had wished himself dead.
Though perhaps he was dead now. If so, then he thanked Diós, for surely he had made it to Heaven. Here it did not matter that he would inherit nothing but his bootstraps. All that mattered was his love, which was truer than the stars, and burned more brightly than the sun.
He plunged his tongue into her mouth. But instead of soft wetness, he felt only a smooth, hard stone.
Then Luisa released a frightful yelp.
Benicio opened his eyes to behold a strange, big-eyed woman staring back at him. He might have believed her a ghost, were it not for the deep honey hue of her skin, the wind of her breath and the large jade and diamond ring resting upon her tongue.
His jade and diamond ring.
‘Bruja!’ he cried. Witch!
The woman jumped backwards in the sand.
‘Give it to me!’ he shouted. In a blur of motion, he leaned forward and cupped her jaw, forcing open her mouth. Then he plucked the large jewel right off her tongue.
He felt a sudden, piercing ache behind his ribs. He careened backwards in pain, his head swimming. In that instant, it all came back to him—the battle, the priest, the ring, the thrust of Rogelio’s blade as it plunged through his chest.
He sat up and peered down at his jerkin, half-expecting to see a spreading bloodstain. But the leather garment was spotless. The only evidence of the stabbing was a coin-sized hole in the pocket that covered his heart.
Benicio struggled to right his thoughts, wondering why he was not dead. Rogelio had chased him relentlessly into the night. By daybreak, Benicio thought he had lost the greedy villain, but Rogelio had burst from the jungle with the first rays of sun.
It was at that moment Benicio had realised the reason for Rogelio’s speed: he had abandoned his heavy armour. Wearing nothing but his woollen hose and leather boots, Rogelio had easily caught up to Benicio. When Benicio finally decided to abandon the weight of his own armour, they had already reached the coast.
‘Where is the ring?’ Rogelio had demanded, pinning Benicio upon the beach.
But Benicio had refused to open his mouth.
‘And where is the map?’ Rogelio had added, searching the pockets of Benicio’s jerkin. Benicio had only blinked mindlessly. ‘Do not play a fool,’ Rogelio had sneered. ‘Where is the map to the Maya treasure?’
And thus Rogelio had given away the secret. It was a treasure map that Benicio carried, just as he suspected.
Benicio looked around now, confused. After such a tireless chase, and after plunging his very knife into Benicio’s chest, Rogelio had all but abandoned Benicio, and without taking the ring that he had chased him all night to obtain. Something was amiss, but Benicio could not determine what.
Benicio studied his would-be bandit. Her wet black hair hung in ropes about her breasts, which were covered by a damp yellow shawl that betrayed the shadow of two small nipples.
Benicio felt his desire tighten against his will. If not a witch, then surely she was a siren of the sea, for her lips were pink like coral and her eyes were dark, watery maelstroms. When he finally wrenched his gaze from the pools of her eyes, he took in her whole face. Her cheeks were high, her nose straight and long and her steep, angled eyebrows tilted like twin arrows. She was at once lovely and fearsome, and he felt strangely helpless in the grip of her ancient beauty.
‘Leave!’ he shouted, but she only stared at him with those unfathomable eyes. Perhaps she was casting a terrible enchantress’s spell upon him—some witch’s curse that would see his golden prize back inside her mouth once again. And where, oh, where had Rogelio got to? Had she cast her enchantress’s spell upon him, as well?
She squared her shoulders to Benicio and he observed that she was quite small, but with all the fascinating dips and curves of a woman. She straightened herself upon her knees, as if to make herself seem larger. But her fearsome posture only served to display her lovely long neck, reminding him that just moments ago, his lips had been upon it. His mouth grew wet with an unsavoury lust. Surely she was an enchantress, for only enchantresses were this beautiful and corrupt.
‘Leave me in peace,’ he entreated, feeling exhaustion overtake him. Even if she did not understand his language, surely she could understand his tone? ‘Now,’ he commanded weakly, but the enchantress would not move. Instead, she seemed to grow in stature as she loomed over his prone body.
He gripped the ring tightly in his fist. The sun beat down from above and a menacing chorus of cicadas rose from the jungle. Surely this was part of her enchantment—to paralyze him beneath her sorceress’s gaze until he all but begged her to take the ring. Or perhaps her beauty was just a trick of his mind—some sweet illusion to help him cope with his own slow death.
He reached beneath his jerkin, expecting to discover a bloody wound. Instead, he found a stiff, leathery object. He gasped, letting his fingers caress the brick of pages. Ah! It had not been fortune, but irony that had kept him from extinction: It was the pages of Amadís de Gaula that had protected him from Rogelio’s blow.
He gave a thunderous laugh. Since the day Luisa had given it to him, he had always kept the slim volume close to his heart. Now he saw that the cover had been completely penetrated by Rogelio’s blade, as had many of the pages. But the tales of chivalry had not been fully impaled and had literally saved his life.
And now it appeared that the book was also saving him from the enchantress, for she had turned her attention away from him and towards its battered cover.
‘You have never seen a book, have you?’ Benicio asked, seizing upon a possible advantage. Perhaps if he shared it with her she would reciprocate somehow? If only he could signal to her that he was in need of a sturdy canoe.
He laughed again, for the thought struck him as absurd. Here he was at the far ends of the earth, looking to hire a canoe! Still, he could not give up hope of finding passage back to Spain. And for that, he needed all the friends he could find.
He handed the book to the woman. She paged through the text with familiarity, as if she had handled many books before this one. She placed her finger in the hole that had been created by Rogelio’s blade, then shook her head in bemused disbelief. She returned the book to him and, though they had exchanged not a single word, he was left with the uncanny feeling that that they had just had a conversation.
Now the woman fixed her gaze upon his beard. ‘This?’ he asked, touching the whiskers he had been growing since the day his ship had sailed from Seville. ‘You want to touch it?’
She nodded shyly.
If he indulged her this wish, perhaps she could help him with his own? Surely her tribe lived somewhere close. He did not trust her, but that did not mean he could not profit from her knowledge. He nodded and she reached out her hand and stroked his long whiskers.
She laughed softly as she tugged at the hairs, as if trying to ensure they were real. She tugged again and again. She tugged again, a bit too hard, and he caught her by the wrist.
She narrowed her big brown eyes and her smile was full of mischief.
A flood of lust ripped through his body. He wanted to kiss her again, he realised. And that was not all. Hijo de la... He released her wrist as if it were a burning coal.
No, he would not do that. He might have been a lonely, world-weary wretch, but there were some lines he did not cross. Seducing island women was one of them—whatever island this was. Even if Luisa were not waiting for him back in Spain, he still would not prey upon the innocence of this local woman or any other. It sickened him that many of his compatriots seemed to make careers out of doing just that.
Though as he stared at her lips—still red with the evidence of the kiss they had shared—he found it very difficult to think about anything but how much he wanted to feel them again, this time in full possession of his senses. He watched her gaze slide down to his own parted lips and for a moment it seemed she was seducing him.
He sat deadly still, fighting his desire for her. He reminded himself of Luisa, his one true love, waiting for him back in Spain. He would not betray her. He was responding to the lovely, sensual woman before him as any man would. But it was a response of the body, not of the heart, and it would pass.
As if in apology, she smoothed his beard with her fingers. She scooted closer, her eyes fixing again upon his lips. Would she ask to touch those, too? Part of him prayed for it.
Another part of him demanded that he come to his senses. The first Spaniard to come to these shores—a man by the name of Córdoba—had lost half his crew to a local tribe. And the explorer Grijalva who had come after Córdoba had spoken of highly advanced, warlike peoples living in every corner of this strange land.
And now Cortés had learned that there were not only Maya living in this land, but dozens of other peoples, all with their own languages and customs, all living beneath the heel of some powerful tribe called the Mexica. This sensual enchantress probably had an entire army of strange men behind her, watching from the jungle, waiting to strike.
Gently, she pressed her lips to his. He did not respond. He refused to respond, though Diós Santo, her lips were so soft. He stayed perfectly still, concentrating on the rhythmic sound of the waves, trying to remember all of the reasons why he was an honourable man.
His reticence seemed only to spur her. She kissed him with a maddening gentleness, placing small, soft pecks along the length of his bottom lip. She tasted of herbs and strange fruits, and as she placed her whole mouth on his, he found himself wishing to consume her.
He was angry at her for trusting him, for kissing him so brazenly, for flitting about his lips as if she were some bustling bird. Was this some kind of game to her? Some trifling amusement that sirens and witches played? She knew not what she was teasing awake in him.
She probed her tongue deeper into his mouth and he imagined pushing her upon the sand, ripping off her shawl and yanking up her skirt. His need throbbed powerfully beneath his breeches. He should just take her, hard and fast—give her what she so thoughtlessly asked for and show her the error of it.
No. He could not allow himself to think of such things. He was a good man. An honourable man. He would not do what his basest longings demanded. He was so caught up in resisting his desire that he did not even notice her small, stealthy fingers stealing into his pocket.
Chapter Six (#ulink_97f3a08f-d07d-5f7b-bf5c-ad7e34a5d670)
She darted among the trees, changing directions to confuse his path. She had not wanted to deceive him, but she had had no choice. Treasure was treasure and a ring that big and beautiful could be presented to the Mexica in place of an entire cycle’s worth of her family’s tribute.
It was not just a pretty jewel: it was rest for her older sister’s hands, twisted from so many hours of weaving. It was relief for her younger sister’s shoulders, which had swelled like a man’s with so much grinding of maize.
For her father, it represented nothing less than time—time to commit to training the secret army of Totonac warriors, so that when the moment came to throw off their Mexica overlords the Totonacs would be ready.
She gripped the ring more tightly, then realised that she should simply place it on her finger. The heavy gem glided easily on to her thumb and she closed her fingers around it.
Treasure was treasure. She did not like that she’d had to deceive him, just as she did not like to spend her afternoons killing large numbers of birds and fish. It was a necessary evil and something impossible to explain to him. Not now, anyway. Now she could only run as fast as possible out of his reach.
Though that was proving unexpectedly difficult to do. He was surprisingly fast and agile for so large a man. While she leaped over logs and disappeared behind bushes, he followed her steadily, like a jaguar chasing a deer. She wondered if his speed was motivated by something beyond greed. Vengeance, perhaps.
Or perhaps lust. When she had placed her mouth upon his that second time, she’d had to fight to retain her wits. His lips were so large and soft beneath the wiry hairs of his moustache, like doorways to some dangerous, hidden depths. Go ahead, he seemed to dare her, kiss me. See what will happen. Yet he had refused to kiss her back. It was that icy self-possession that had scared her the most, for she knew that beneath his self-control was a man who cared nothing for her.
Still, her risky diversion had worked. She had repossessed the ring and that was all that mattered.
Yet there he was, still following her. His unruly hair flew behind him in long, unkempt locks. His prominent nose remained slightly bent, as if it had been broken. And while he was the largest, strongest male she had ever beheld, his clothes were ragged and seemed unsuited to his muscular body. He was not divinely beautiful, as a god, but world-worn and imperfect, as a man.
If she had had any doubts about his mortality, they had disappeared when he had revealed the object that had saved his life. A codex! She had read many codices in her studies. They usually contained beautiful, colourful pictures of the gods and elaborate illustrations of the history of the world.
The bearded man’s codex contained not a single beautiful picture. Instead, it was full of symbols that looked like the corpses of tiny ants. But while the pages themselves clearly did not contain any useful information, they did perform a life-saving function: They had blocked the sting of the blade that would have punctured his heart.
No, he was not immortal, just fortunate—though the ease with which he followed her was making her reconsider his immortality once again. Even in his battle-weary state, his legs were as strong as a stag’s. She splashed across a small stream, then heard not a splatter as he leapt over it entirely, gaining ground. He was going to overtake her soon. After deceiving him as she had, only the gods knew what he planned to do to her when he caught her.
Then she had an idea. She was nearing the limits of Cempoala. She knew that maize and cotton fields had been planted in this area to help meet her city’s tribute requirements to the Mexica. If she remembered correctly, there was a large maize field somewhere after the stream she had just crossed. She ran due east, praying she would find the maize plantation where she supposed it would be.
Then, like a granted wish, there it was—a vast plantation of head-high maize. She slipped into the rows at the corner of the field and held herself still. In seconds, he arrived at the field’s edge and let out a great, bellowing laugh. In the heartfelt burst she heard resignation and what she thought was a twinge of respect. She had bested him.
He broke into an angry run. She could hear his heavy footfalls and the loud cracking and bowing of the stalks beneath his feet. What a fool he was! With each angry exertion, he signalled his location.
All she had to do now was listen for his movements and adjust her own location accordingly. Night would fall soon and her friend the darkness would keep her concealed as she slunk out of the field and made her way home.
The same thought must have occurred to the man’s mind, however, for in that very instant, he halted his search. She listened closely and thought she heard him march back across the same path he had forged.
Immediately she realised her error. She ran towards the edge of the field, but it was too late. She looked up, and there he was, looking down at her from the rosewood tree that towered over the field. He dropped with puma-like stealth from its high branches and was soon charging towards her.
There was nothing to do but run. His footfalls grew louder behind her and she felt tears come to her eyes as she imagined what he might do to her after he repossessed his ring. When he had grabbed her wrist, she had sensed his capacity for violence and she feared that she had now pushed him over the edge.
But, suddenly, it was she who was falling over the edge. It was as if the very earth had opened up to consume her and her heart leapt into her throat as she accelerated towards a certain, crushing death. Down, down she fell, kicking the air in terror as she careened into a dark chasm.
Then—splash. Not rock, but water broke her fall. Sweet, cool water—a pool without bottom. She held her breath as she plunged through the inky depths, letting her momentum slow. Instinctively, she began kicking.
She kicked and kicked, propelling herself upwards towards the murky light until she burst to the surface. She was exhausted, confused, terrified and never happier to be alive.
She had fallen into a cenote. The sunken, freshwater ponds were rare in Totonac territory and the Totonac priests kept their locations secret. Still, Tula had come across several on her journeys to the ocean and had always stopped to give thanks to the old gods that lurked in their mysterious depths.
‘I am humble,’ she sputtered now, to any god who would listen. It was her third encounter with death in only a few hours and she could not believe her good fortune. She looked inside her fist. She had even retained her golden prize.
But not for long.
Suddenly, the bearded man surged to the surface next to her, sending a wave of water splashing against the high walls. He had fallen into the cenote beside her and, when he saw her treading the water near him, he swam towards her with cold, terrifying purpose.
She glanced up at the high walls that surrounded them. They were made of smooth rock and were uniformly bare, save for a small cluster of roots that dangled over the edge, totally out of reach.
There was no escape.
He made no loud demands, no violent movements. He simply opened her fist and pulled the ring gently off her thumb. He slipped the golden prize on to his little finger, then narrowed his eyes at her.
She trod water to a dry, rocky area at the edge of the pool, trying not to reveal her fear. Then she lifted herself on to a boulder and pulled her legs up against her chest.
He was like a crocodile in the black water, his large muscular limbs making slow, menacing strokes towards where she sat. He hoisted himself up on to the rock beside her and she readied herself to make another deep dive.
He made no movements towards her, however. Instead, he placed his feet in the water and looked out over the pool. She saw him steal a glance at her legs, aware that the yellow fabric of her skirt clung to them.
She felt a strange thrill travel through her, followed by a withering dread. The light of day was fading fast. In a short time, they would not be able to see anything at all. The distance between the pool and the jungle floor was greater than the height of a house. No man—or woman—could bridge it alone.
But Tula had to try. She could not remain here alone with him. Even if she shouted loudly for help, nobody would be travelling in this part of the jungle at this time of day. If she did not escape now, she would have to pass the night with him.
She stood upon one of the rocks and jumped, uselessly attempting to grasp the cluster of zapote roots hanging down from above. She scraped the walls, struggling to find a toehold to sustain her weight. She collapsed back on to the rock in frustration.
They sat together in silence for what seemed an eternity. She knew that at any moment he could simply hold her under the water, or smash her head in anger upon the rocks.
Or worse. Much, much worse.
Surely he considered it. She had humiliated him, after all. She had used her womanliness to distract him so that she could once again steal his ring. It was a shameful thing, what she had done. A dishonourable thing. A Totonac man would be justified in seeking punishment for such an act. Any man would be within his rights to pierce her with cactus spines, or force her to breathe in the smoke of burning chilli, or worse.
