The Prince and the Coyote: Chapters 6–14

“In just three days you will be leaving this palace for the calmecac. You will not be pampered or respected there. You go to learn, not just how to be a warrior and statesman, but how to endure. How to be sad. How to live with humility and austerity. You must be moderate even with food. Never gorge yourself. Learn to love the feeling of an empty stomach.”

Battle is unpredictable, as is life. Huitzilihuitl is fond of saying that we live and fight on slippery terrain, as if walking along the highest ridge of a mountain. To either side are sheer drops into bottomless chasms.

Then, after some unknown length of time, my father rasps, “You must learn to empty your mind, rupture thought and self, and let teotl—vital divine energy—flood you through and through. A king must protect and command his people, speaking with the voice of the gods. To be such a speaker, you must cease to be Acolmiztli. You must become a conduit for holiness.”

Itzcuani comes at me like a giant of legend. Implacable. Fierce. Fast.
I manage to block many of his blows and kicks. But they keep raining upon me, unpredictable and never-ending. And he isn’t holding back.

Until you feel the profound truth of this paradox—and feel it in your very soul—you will remain blind to the fact that battle is a dance. To learn its harrowing yet beautiful steps, you must find the chaos at the center of your being, occluded now by your obsession with creative endeavors, and channel it as you one day will the voice of gods.

At these words, I begin to kneel, ready to place my hands on his feet in filial respect. But my father stops me and pulls me into a gruff embrace.

Don’t be stinting with your affection when it’s just family. The kind touch or kiss of your beloved, surrounded by your children, is one of the most beautiful experiences the gods have granted humanity.

At dawn the following day, I rise with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation.

“It has been too long, Your Royal Highness.”
“Indeed, cherished acolyte and teacher. I was disappointed that you weren’t in charge of at least some of my examinations.”

My father is the romantic idealist. My mother, though she adores that side of him, remains as pragmatic as any Mexica noblewoman.

I watch him play for a while, heart full of chagrin.
“Bye, Little Sib,” I say at last, standing to leave.
He doesn’t notice.

Father’s warning yesterday, though welcome, was a bit superfluous. I know I have to be on my guard against him.

My entire life has been lived at your side. More than the tribulations that await me at the calmecac, I fear your absence from my days will hurt the most.

“Each morning, after prayer and ritual washing at the river, you will obscure your visage in the central plaza, symbolizing your benighted mind, which we will illuminate.”

He shakes his gangly limbs in hilarious anticipation of food.

After a year or so of study, postulants become novices, officially accepted into a priestly order, who can assist with basic religious ceremonies. Next they are promoted to cadets, allowing them to serve as squires to established knights. After proving themselves, cadets become initiates—fledgling priests and warriors.

I try to do as my father told me—to channel those dark feelings through the prism of fencing skills the commander of the royal guard has drilled into me since my coronation. I put it all to use: parry and riposte, lunge and attack, feint and remise.

The cycles of thirteen days pass one after another, our quotidian routine repeated with small variations.

When I interrupt their kiss, she almost screams. Then her eyes widen in recognition, and she almost screams again.
“Hush. I won’t tell anyone about your little tryst. But go inside and awaken Eyolin. I need to speak with her.”

My furtive encounters with Eyolin become a regular part of my school life, as dangerous as sparring with my brother.

It’s as if a drummer has taken a 4/4 rhythm and stretched it into 7/8, shifting the downbeats, inserting more pauses. My half-brother probably believes that he has made his moves random, unpredictable, but once I feel the cadence, I immediately adapt to it.

Cheers go up all around. I join in, exuberant.

“Acatlohtzin arrived at the retreat only to find gathered there the new leaders of those cities, as well as contingents from the Mexica and the Colhuahqueh. Most distressing was the presence of noblemen from Tetzcoco itself,...including the entire leadership of the Chimalpaneca borough.”

I wonder how much my conniving sister is involved with this rebellion; if she has drawn him into her machinations.

An old war song reminds us: “Ignore the braggart and his boasts—no man knows his mettle until a blade is flung his way in battle.”

Yet our warriors acquit themselves well, pushing the Mexica back into the reeds and mud, slicing and beating them into a retreat.

The third gives a ululating cry as he comes running right at me, sword raised.

For two non-stop days, they dig trenches and erect earthworks, palisades, and timber fences between the stone towers that dot the perimeter.

As if to prove him right, Maxtla dams the river next, but not before we have filled every available cistern and receptacle with water.

Standing over me is Yancuilli, his thin lips twisted into a rictus of sick glee.

“Look at you! Younger than me. Weaker. Child of that mongrel princess our father dared to make queen while he relegated my mother to the margins. Why should you be heir to the throne?”

We have no choice but to send an envoy to Otompan. And Zoacuecuenotzin, it must be you. That fierce folk will heed no one with less power or fame. Go tell the Otomi rulers of our plight.

As they fall, my enemies’ features often shift for a second.
Imposed upon their dying faces flicker the visage of first Acaxel, then Eyolin.

Then the governor ordered that Zoacuecuenotzin’s fingernails be removed from his severed hands. ‘String them together like a necklace of precious stones,’ he mocked, ‘as they come from such a noble, august family!’

You will find no succor on the sea-ringed world. Your end is inevitable.

I cry your pardon, Majesty, for bringing such inauspicious news.

Yet there’s little time to grapple with my feelings, as word comes from sentries that the enemy—with leisurely but implacable pace—is encroaching like a flood that wends its way through the forest before uprooting the trees.

No fanfare. No gathering of the troops to bid us farewell. The enemy cannot suspect we are slipping away.

The tree is ancient, its trunk the thickness of several men, roots snaking through the rocky soil into the river that flows through the gorge. It rises some thirteen rods above the ravine, gnarled and impassive like a giant trapped in amber, or a wizened nature sprite.

They felled my father,
a more powerful man
than you or I.
Only on my own,
as an orphan bereft
of city and sire,
shall I perhaps
survive.