"Harry Harrison - Captive Universe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

his beating heart.




2
Beside her, in a small pottery bowl set carefully in the shade of the house so they would not wilt, was a
spray of quiauhxochitl, the rain flower after which she had been named. As she knelt over the stone
metatl grinding corn, Quiauh murmured a prayer to the goddess of the flower asking her to keep the dark
gods at bay. Today they drew so close to her she could scarcely breathe and only long habit enabled her
to keep drawing the grinder back and forth over the slanted surface. Today was the sixteenth anniversary
of the day, the day when they had found Chimal's body on this side of the riverbank, torn apart by
Coatlicue's vengeance. Just two days after the Ripening Corn festival. Why had she been spared?
Coatlicue must know that she had broken the taboo, just as Chimal had, yet she lived. Every year since
then, on the anniversary of the day, she walked in fear. And each time death had passed her by. So far.

This year was the worst of all, because today they had taken her son to the temple for judgment. Disaster
must strike now. The gods had been watching all these years, waiting for this day, knowing all the time
that her son Chimal was the son of Chimal-popoca, the man from Zaachila who had broken the clan
taboo. She moaned deep in her throat when she breathed, yet she kept steadily grinding the fresh grains
of corn.

The shadow of the valley wall was darkening her house and she had already patted out the tortillas
between her palms and put them to bake on the cumal over the fire when she heard the slow footsteps.
People had carefully avoided her house all day. She did not turn. It was someone coming to tell her that
her son was a sacrifice, was dead. It was the priests coming to take her to the temple for her sin of
sixteen years ago.

"My mother," the boy said. She saw him leaning weakly against the white wall of the house and when he
moved his hand a red mark was left behind.

"Lie down here," she said, hurrying inside the house for a petlatl, then spreading this grass sleeping mat
outside the door where there was still light. He was alive, they were both alive, the priests had simply
beaten him! She stood, clasping her hands, wanting to sing, until he dropped face down on the mat and
she saw that they had beaten his back too, as well as his arms. He lay there quietly, eyes open and
staring across the valley, while she mixed water with the healing herbs and patted them onto the bloody
weals: he shivered slightly at the touch, but said nothing.

"Can you tell your mother why this happened?" she asked, looking at his immobile profile and trying to
read some meaning into his face. She could not tell what he was thinking. It had always been this way
since he had been a little boy. His thoughts seemed to go beyond her, to leave her out. This must be part
of a curse: if one broke a taboo one must suffer.

"It was a mistake."

"The priests do not make mistakes or beat a boy for a mistake."
"They did this time. I was climbing the cliff…"

"Then it was no mistake that they beat you—it is forbidden to climb the cliff."