forged in a jungle village, where women ground corn daily between heavy stones and carried water to the fields.
“Rosalina,” she said in a voice like wind through reeds. “Finally you are here.”
“I couldn’t miss your birthday.” Gracefully Lina kneeled to be closer to eye level with the old woman. “How many is it now?”
“I am as old as the Long Count,” Abuelita said, her laugh a whisper. “I will see the final Turning of the Wheel and the changing of the gods. It is enough.”
Lina bent and gave Abuelita a gentle hug, putting smooth skin against the weathered teak of the other woman. Abuelita’s hair was white, like her clothes, which had a simple country style that was belied by the intricate white embroidery that glowed against the pale cotton. It was the sheer absence of the vivid colors that most native Maya wore that made Abuelita almost regal, her clothes and hair a white flame burning against rich skin and eyes blacker than any night.
Looking at those eyes, Hunter understood that Abuelita was indeed different. She lived in the jaguar’s world, where human concerns were like the buzzing of flies. Once she would have been called a wise woman, a
“Abuelita, permit me to introduce Senor Hunter Johnston,” Lina said, speaking in Spanish. “Hunter, this is Senora Kuh Chel Balam.”
“I’m honored, Lady Chel,” Hunter said, tilting his head in acknowledgment of her age and regal presence.
Abuelita’s eyes sharpened at the formal title “lady,” which was a more exact translation from the Mayan than “senora.” She gestured for Hunter to come closer. When he did, she stared at him with an intensity that would be called rude in other circumstances. But this was Kuh—Owl of Omen—watching him.
Lina’s subtly pleading glance at Hunter asked him to make allowances for Abuelita’s age. His fingers brushed Lina’s briefly, silently reassuring her that he wasn’t offended.
“You were born in the wrong time, warrior,” Owl of Omen said in a liquid Yucatec dialect. “The Turning Wheel will crush you.”
Hunter looked to Lina for a translation. The slight motion of her head was negative. Whatever the old woman had said, he would have to wait until he and Lina were alone for a translation.
Then Owl of Omen blinked and Abuelita was back. She took a final sip of her fiery chocolate. The fingers that set the demitasse in its delicate saucer had the visible tremor of age.
“Rosalina, it is time for us to go to the library,” Abuelita said in Spanish, holding out her left hand.
A gold band set with small rubies gleamed on her ring finger. The ring, like the china, had been passed down through the generations. The thick white embroidery on her clothes was as Maya as her heritage, but the glyphs were impossible for Hunter to make out for lack of contrast.
As Lina came to her feet, she looked at Hunter with sad eyes and said, “Follow us.”
It was a plea, not a demand.
“Of course,” he said quietly.
He watched while Lina helped Abuelita to her feet—not that she really needed it. For all her appearance of frailty, she was as tough and almost as supple as the flat leather sandals she wore. Lina’s help was a gesture of respect, not a necessity.
When Abuelita was standing, the top of her head barely came up to the bottom of Hunter’s rib cage. Yet she had a presence that had nothing to do with height. It was in her eyes, her bearing. She might have been born in a jungle hut, but she was born of a royal line.
Silently Hunter followed great-grandmother and great-granddaughter out of the kitchen and into the main part of the house. The furniture was antique, weighty, with richly woven brocade upholstery. Heavy, gilt-framed paintings of European ancestors were scattered throughout. The Balam side of the family was barely represented —a vase on a side table, the figurine of a Maya noble in a corner display, an ancient ceramic flute in a mahogany niche. If a rug interrupted the handmade tiles of the floor, it was ancient, Persian. Three suits of armor in varying styles—all of them dented in battle—stood at attention in the wide hallway, gleaming beneath crystal chandeliers.
The Spanish had married into royal Maya lines, but almost all of the furnishings had come on ships. The household was like Mexico itself, an uneven and sometimes uneasy blend of Old World and New.
Two heavily carved mahogany doors led to the wing where the library was located, the part of the house where Carlos lived. Although the glyphs on the wood were ancient, the doors looked newer than the rest of the house. Hunter wondered if Abuelita had commissioned the doors from native carvers.
Lina knocked lightly before she pushed open the library doors. Immediately she was swept up in Celia’s conversation, giving Hunter an opportunity to study the room and its occupants.
The room claimed him. The overwhelming impression was blue on blue, the world viewed in every shade and tint and tone of blue—turquoise, royal, midnight, teal, cobalt, peacock, sapphire, lapis—the whole creating a sense of
Celia was dressed richly, with exquisite attention to detail—crimson silk dress, makeup flawless, nails and lipstick to match, hair expensively casual around her face, stiletto heels over four inches high—but she wore it all naturally, without thought, like her skin. Her jewelry was more aristocratic than nouveau riche. Around her throat was a heavy antique necklace of gold and emeralds in a baroque design, with bracelet, brooch, and earrings to match. They glowed against the rich color of her skin.
Masks, figurines, Chacmool figures in jade, blocks cut from limestone stelae thick with glyphs, knives, scepters, vases, faces, jewelry, and other Maya artifacts lined glass shelves and filled glass cases that covered two walls of the room. The lighting was subdued, almost reverent, as though not wanting to awaken the very gods that were being illuminated.
Silently Hunter whistled. As a whole, the room was a staggering display of wealth and position, the abode of a modern king or CEO.
He looked at Lina.
She was looking at the people, not the decor. Obviously she took everything for granted with the ease of a woman who had grown up in halls filled with armor, a mother who wore antique jewelry from the Spanish court, and a library that held brilliant fragments of a culture whose books had been burned.
A man—Carlos, from his richly colored skin and dark eyes—rose from a leather chair behind a mahogany desk that was square and solid enough to hold up the weight of the world. The wood was a red so pure and deep that it glowed. He wore very dark blue slacks and a loose, short-sleeved shirt of the same color. The embroidery on the shirt was silver blue. The Maya glyphs flowing down the center of the shirt and around the hem made a stark contrast with his clothes.
Hunter doubted he could translate the glyphs even if he stood within touching distance. He made a mental note to ask Lina about them later.
The man greeted Abuelita with a gentle brush of lips over her cheek and a white smile. Then he turned to Lina. He was the same height as she was, which made him tall for the average Maya male. Carlos’s hair and skin were darker than Lina’s and Cecilia’s, his features more blunt. He weighed probably twice as much as Lina did. Some of his heft came from food and beer. Most of it was simply genes; he was broad-boned and sturdy. His hair was black, straight, almost as long as Lina’s, but held in place by a silver ring studded with blue stones. It was a style few men outside the entertainment business could pull off. On Carlos, it looked as natural as his full lips and broad cheeks.
It reminded Hunter of a parking garage where bullets sang of death.
But then, a lot of men he had seen since landing in the Yucatan reminded him of things he’d rather forget. It also made the street name “El Maya” next to useless for tracking down identity.
