Jaguar Princess by Clare Bell Page A

drawing whose power she didn’t understand? Or by making it badly?
    As she came out of a side hallway, she heard someone running. It was Six-Wind. His hair was disheveled and his loincloth dingy and stained. With a moan, she ducked back, but it was too late. He had seen her. In a few steps he was on her, grasping her arm in a hard grip, taking the pots from her and dropping them carelessly in a corner.
    “Speaking Quail wants you. Hurryl”
    He hustled her along the corridor, ducking out of sight when the slap of sandals or the murmur of voices warned that someone else was near. But there were few such incidents and they reached a larger chamber which held only one sleeping mat and a low lapdesk with pots of color beside it. There was also a rattan shelf that held more of the folded texts.
    “Bring her in here,” said Speaking Quail. “Away from the curtain, for those passing can see through.”
    With trepidation, Mixcatl looked up at him. His face was gentle, but haggard and weary from his night of vigilance. Multiple gashes across the backs of his forearms were crusted with scabs and a few still oozed.
    He knelt before Mixcatl and stared deeply into her eyes. “Child, Cactus Eagle died last night. This morning an image of the Black Tezcatlipoca was found on the hearthstones. Many believe it is an evil thing and the sight of it has caused even more grief than Cactus Eagle’s passing. Six-Wind has given me an explanation I can hardly believe, but he has always been truthful.”
    Mixcatl looked at Six-Wind out of the corner of one eye.
    “Remember, I warned you,” the boy hissed back at her.
    “Is it true, as he says? Do you have the skill to make such images? And to remember them exactly even though seasons have passed?”
    Again she glanced at Six-Wind. If she played dumb, the boy’s story would crumble. He was the only one who had seen her make the other figures under the creosote bush long ago. And he had wiped them out with his sandal.
    At her silence. Speaking Quail turned to Six-Wind. “Boy,” he said mildly, but there was a graveness that brought out a new severity in his features, “if this is an untruth, then you have disgraced yourself. A priest may not twist words wrongfully, nor may he take advantage of a time of sorrow to draw attention to himself. If your accusation against this slave is false, you will be expelled from the school and your father notified.”
    Beneath his bronze, the boy flushed and then went pale. Mixcatl could only guess what it had cost him to dare tell his story to any of the priests, even one as gentle as the scholarly Speaking Quail.
    Again she hesitated. She could keep herself safe, at the price of Six-Wind’s future. But it was he who had kept the other boys from attacking her in the courtyard and it was he who understood, even though he was frightened. Perhaps Speaking Quail might also understand.
    She lifted her head to Speaking Quail and, with a mixture of pride and dread, answered, “Six-Wind is truthful. I made the picture on the tile.”
    She felt Speaking Quail’s hands start to tremble as they slid from her shoulders. He picked up her wrist, stared at her stubby fingers with their grimy nails. Carefully he held her thumb, scraped a little of the black from beneath her nail with his own and sniffed the residue.
    “Soot,” he said. “But that does not complete the proof.”
    Six-Wind bent down and picked up one of Speaking Quail’s brushes, offered it to Mixcatl. “This will,” he said, pointing at the fig-bark paper spread across the low desk.
    Mixcatl crouched before it, dipped the brush and held it over the paper. Again the sacred text was spread before her and its figures came to life in her mind. She dare not do Smoking Mirror; he was too dangerous. Instead she painted the undulating serpent decked with plumes.
    Before she had even finished. Speaking Quail took down a book from the shelf, opened it on the mat and spread before her the same page she had