Uprise of the Rebellious Princess

The Map Holds It All

The day was gray. The clouds were hefty with heavenly water, and the atmosphere hazy. Puffy chunks of fog mixed here and there with rising smoke columns. The occasional thundering roars coming from clouds interrupted the quietness. It was a marvelous spectacle to gaze at the towering mountain wall scratching the thick dark clouds. Curtains of misty rain fell from their scrapes. The mere sight imprinted more coldness to the skin. A chilly day that grew heavier over the people as the clouds brought gusts of wind. Daily errands seemed tougher. Suddenly drizzle fell over them, halting activities. Thus was the end of summer at the Great Valley. The rainy days seem to cling till the new season seats.

An otherwise unbearable afternoon brought melancholy to an amorous man who left her beloved at the southern lake lands of Colhuacan. The gloomy day was a delightful reminder of the cold rainy night under which he felt love. Although both have met two times, it was the day he met her the one he esteems the most. The warmth of love he held as a cherished memento inside his heart kept him from feeling the cool rain drops. Love was kindled by her curvaceous body, but it grew as they bonded their emotions. A blazing longing disturbed his mind. Days have passed, but not a single moment has his love eroded but augmented till madness could not hold any longer its appearance. Oh, wretched time that separates lovers! Surely only someone who has loved would understand the pain in which Yacanex was immersed. When in love, one does not care for the coldness of the rain or the ache of a wound, only the passing of time hurts. Yacanex’s heart yearned to see those precious wide almond-shaped eyes. He did not mind whether they could not talk or caress each other again, for his wish was to least pose his eyes once again on her own. Her wide eyes were framed by her eyebrows as dark as the night. On her tender skin that donned a spectacle with an exquisite terracotta color that defied celibate thoughts in the minds of earthly men. The magnificence of her presence! The majesty of her physique brought his thoughts to their bare knees.

He heard the sound of the light rain upon the mud puddles. The thickness of the willow trees whispered to the mild wind that descended from the hills. Yacanex snapped out of his thoughts. He quickly took his pouch made of mountain rabbit hide. He stretched for a moment and realized it was time to return to the village nearby. It was getting dark to continue surveying the land.

As he walked out of the forest, the rain ceased. Yacanex wrapped his leather cloak tightly around him and trekked down the grassy slopes during the remainder of that afternoon. He arrived at the village as the day perished. It was not the sort of place that was there for long, like many that populate the Grand Valley. It was a newly constructed site. Yacanex could still remember how many of them lived in nearby cave settlements or as movable groups traveling according to their needs. He recalled even though he was a young child when he used to live in the old ways, the true Chichimec way. For him, those were his first memories. As he grew, life changed for him and to their people. This was only one village, one of many that now carpeted the vicinity of Tepetlaoztoc. As the government began allocating his people to settlements, no one returned to the cave life, to nature. They had no choice but to surrender their lifestyles and join the plan decreed from Tenayuca. They were reforms for the Chichimec newcomers, but an old way of life for the original peoples of these valleys. The Xolotl’s Domain picked up what was left shattered after the collapse of the Toltecs. Yacanex always believed the Huey Tlatoani had the need to mimic the customs that once reigned just to ratify his lordly supremacy.

“What need is there to seek approval if one is to be a just and lawful ruler?” Yacanex thought.

He kept walking as he entered the village. Some began to emerge from their homes to check on their household fire. Their houses were straw huts, especially the recently erected. The rest were square-shaped houses of stone, whitened on the outside with stucco. They reflected the archetype of every house in the Great Valley, except they omitted the painting and decorating. As he walked past the homes in the improvised street, charred wood crackled here and there, as everyone prepared for the death of the day and the cold it will bring. He turned at an intersection. Running children appeared playing in the street, amid the scolding cries of their mothers. Men began returning from the country, some tired, others were somewhat whimsical in their manners.

As he entered the improvised downtown of the village, holy men were gathered around a big rounded bonfire in the middle of a large spacious site. All wore pelted clothing in a design similar to one-piece sleeveless long dresses. Some kept the fire burning, others were giving orders, and a few more attending people in their sickness. He walked nearby while crossing the site. He noticed their humble adornments in their ears and noses. They used only small thin bones, unlike the highly elaborate jewelry used in the big cities. No precious stones, no exotic feathers, and the only elaborate element they wore was clay painted on their faces and exposed arms.

From the small group of Holy Men, four crossed in front of Yacanex’s path. Yacanex suddenly felt the need to ask them about something he was wondering for days. So he greeted them amiably as they passed and said, “I wonder why is it you haven’t built a temple.”

“You see, we all live in our temple,” replied one of the four Holy Men, as he slowly waved to his surroundings. “All of this, all of our world, serves as the temple for all living beings.”

“What purpose is there to imitate the mountains with temples,” continued another one of them, “when we have the mountains tall and beautiful?”

“Or an enclosed building,” said the third of the four men, “when we have the skies and the heavens above us.”

“Not even a sumptuous statue for a lifeforce will suffice for it dwells within our heart, through our veins, and out goes with our actions,” said the fourth man.

For many years, he heard of such sacred topics, but never with that eloquence. Yacanex felt as if they had summarized the world view of his kin into simple ideas. Simple ideas from modest folk had explained the grandeur of life and will continue to do so for eons.

“It is amazing,” said Yacanex, “you ought to be spreading the word to the cities and realms of this Earth.”

“Is it that living life should be taught?” responded one of the four. “Perhaps it may be so. But what is the use of talking about life to those who daily battle life itself by erecting cities and sprawling territories through the forests, by the lakes, and the aching hearts of the mountains.”

“But what about the laws?” asked Yacanex, “What do you do with the constant hassle High Ruler Xolotl puts upon peoples of such ideas.”

“Nothing!” said another, “We try and curb his norms but nothing else. After all, we are men of medicine, men dedicated to the sacred, we keep the bonfire alive. There may be others who might be fit for political struggles, but not us. Some are meant to fight, and others to protect what was fought. It is not for us to decide what we will be, for tribulations will show us our paths. If you are to safe keep, treasure it with zeal. If you are to fight, battle for the highest stakes there may be.”

A brief silence followed as Yacanex tried to absorb every word that he has heard. A sudden sense of urgency developed in his mind and body. He could not understand what it was, but he felt indeed compelled to do something from what he heard. Such uneasiness was a strange sensation that spread through his body as his breathing grew heavier, the chest warmer and his limbs full of stamina.

He continued his path by crossing the street, he recognized the only red structure facing the open improvised square. As he gazed at the large one-story building, he saw a flag waving up in the corner closest to the street. It was a pantli of the Chichimec Domain’s government, a vertical banner with the symbol of a hill with a horizontal wall in the middle of it.

“My friend, Yacanex! You’ve made it.”

“My friend, Ocotoch!” replied Yacanex joyously, “how could I disdain such an urgent message from you.”

“Come, come in,” said his friend, “we have grave matters to talk about.”

Yacanex followed his friend indoors. Two young aides of Ocotoch were inside analyzing big maps. As Yacanex approached to greet them, he could discern the entire area of Tepetlaoztoc and its vicinity exquisitely painted on a rather large deer hide. Both young men greeted back and proceeded to swiftly clean up for the guest rolling the map.

“Please, leave the map!” said Ocotoch with haste. “You may leave for the day, mind taking only your personal belongings.”

Yacanex knew something was wrong, something of significance. The message requiring for his presence was not a friendly get-together at all. As the young aides swiftly gathered their effects, Ocotoch just stood there unmovable and in silence. It was truly strange. He also worked like Yacanex as a community organizer, but the supervision of fenced ranches with small animals was not a sensitive position full of secrets of state. He was indeed perplexed, but nevertheless intrigued about what his friend had to say.

Ocotoch kept silent until the two aides were already a few paces away from the premises. Then his friend quickly reached towards the still half-rolled map and unfolded it with excited brisk. The two rounded and irregular corners of the deer skin swooshed through the air until they tapped down at the stone table. There again Yacanex saw the land of Tepetlaoztoc painted upon the large animal hide. As he approached the map, he noticed the small towns in the surrounding areas. Some marked with black ink, others with a red color, but all around Tepetlaoztoc.To the far top right he recognized most as symbols of places. At the bottom right side of the map was a symbol. The symbol, a name perhaps, who knew, but it was alone. Only a black line appeared to emanate from it, fading as it reached a bit upwards. It was that incomplete line that caught Yacanex’s attention dearly. An error? Quite an oddity to see a tlacuilo’s painting with a blatant mistake. As he struggles to understand that intriguing line, Yacanex bent over the rough map.

“This is the map of our area, as you may see,” Ocotoch finally spoke, “It was delivered to me thirteen days ago by the Domain’s administrators. These men, with little time to waste, carried instructions of utter importance. All of it vested upon this very map you now see. ”His friend smoothly touched the map with his left hand wide open as continued, “My new job seemed simple, but not quite clear. We began constructing a new fence, you know, like those you’ve loathed for some years. But this was different.”

“A different type of fence?”

“The fence was the same as we have installed since the Huey Tlatoani ordered their construction. At first these appeared to be no different.”

“Another kind of animals, perhaps?” interrupted Yacanex.

“No, the usual, mountain rabbits and deer,” replied his friend. Ocotoch halted for a moment as he turned back to the map.

Yacanex could see his eyes altered and an uneasy semblance. He wanted to say something, but Ocotoch swiftly turned towards him, as his eyes reflected a sadness aged through despair.

His friend sighed and continued, “For quite a long time you have pressed upon the matter of the fences, and how this will affect entire communities one day. I reckon you never specified in what fashion, but surely you smelled the rotten years-to-come before they puffed the wretched filth. And not it has. Oh Yacanex, either a gift from life or your very doom, but you are able to foresee the issues of the people. This makes me think I shouldn’t even be here working for the community in the first place for I’m no good to anticipate such predicaments.”

“Don’t sink in self-affliction, ” Yacanex calmed his friend.

“This map,” continued Ocotoch with a broken voice, “it never occurred to me it contained more information than I imagined. Nine days ago, when the fence was nearly completed, messengers came again, from Tenayuca itself. They stated new orders to be executed, the kind I have never heard of. They said that Xolotl had changed the laws, and the newly fenced lands were now to be off limits to the common folk.”

“Wait!” interjected Yacanex. “Is this true? What laws?”

“Apparently new decrees by the Huey Tlatoani itself, and his son Nopaltzin having much to do with it. They said it was done in an effort to control food supply like Toltecs used to do in yesteryears.”

“This is outrageous!” said Yacanex. “They are keeping the food away from the people, endangering our way of life. It affects the very people they forcibly dragged out of the caves and away from the forests in the first place in their so-called effort to civilize. They force these families to make a home in a village, to buy food when they were living freely out from the animals that dwell deep in the forests where once their home was.”

Ocotoch sighed and took his hand over his lips in such worrisome. “That is not all from this ill-planned endeavor,” he said with such great consternation.

“Oh friend, please tell me,” said Yacanex, “let it be from your own words than from a treacherous politician walled within a palace.”

“Oh, Yacanex, you’re going to love this,” said Ocotoch, nervously chuckling. “You see, the map specifies the whole plan. But without the verbal instructions, there was no way of reading it. You know it has been a problem with maps as well as with certain books. Look this red line; it indicates the chronology of how things are to happen.”

“I thought they were many red lines,” said Yacanex.

“Look closer; it is a single red line, that goes back and forth, round and around. This line starts showing what is to be first and ends where or how it culminates. All of this here and here, I’ve already done it, it was the beginning. Then here is the news of the prohibition into the fenced lands, but here comes the next stage.”

Yacanex turned away from the map, and with much preoccupation asked, “What is the next stage?”.

Ocotoch sighed and continued, “Well so far we know fenced lands are no longer to be of the people who inhabit the surrounding areas, they've become part of the pipiltin. The pipiltin of the Chichimec Domain, that is. Those with direct links to the prime family of Tenayuca will own the fenced lands that are or were erected in the entire Domain.”

“All of Xolotl’s Domain?”

“All that there is upon this Lake Land, also the vast northern valleys from Querendaro to the Huastec frontier, all that lies towards the sea till the last high snowy mountain of Citlaltepetl , and even all of those realms from Mbaró to Tollocan to the west. It has been done. The orders from the Huey Tlatoani have been proclaimed in somewhat secrecy at Tenayuca, but soon everyone will undoubtedly know.”

And so a bitter silence reigned in that room. They stared gloomily at the map in front of them. Yacanex felt defeated without any battle being called upon. An irritating frustration overwhelmed his emotions. He wanted to think with clarity, but there was no room for it amidst the cascading torrents of anger and impotence gushing through his mind. So many thoughts randomly pullulating his being, yet so little to offer. It was an anguishing suffering, tied by greater powers beyond one’s reach. What resolution might it come from this?

“They told you all of this, the messengers?” asked Yacanex, “That’s exactly what they said?”

“Not only have they been telling me thoroughly,” Ocotoch replied, “but everything they said, even the details of the plan, can be found in this very map.”

“They know you kept the map?”

“They do,” said Ocotoch. “That is why I was handed the map in the first place so that whenever new details were given to me I could discern it visually here in this piece of deer hide. You know most maps work that way. Similar to the manner we have seen the Toltec people educate their children. They sing the feats of old while following the written symbols at the same time. Children grow up knowing what their books say thanks to whatever tune they use.”

“Surely you were sung a horrid melody!” said Yacanex. “So all that was confirmed?”

“Not only that,” replied Ocotoch, “but it seems they haven’t given me the complete message.”

“There’s more?” asked Yacanex very distressed, “How can you be certain?”

“If you see here and here… that’s the part I have already told you, the orders given to me,” Ocotoch showed.

Yacanex nodded while he bent over the map, frantically analyzing with great difficulty the written words.

“So what are these?” asked Ocotoch disconcerted, “And these here? Can you tell?”

Yacanex, with both his hands over the map, got a closer look at the puzzling symbols and lines. It was an irritating feeling for him to have the information there, but unable to fully understand. He sighed, and he widened his eyes while scrutinizing the myriad of lines and symbols.

“These, Yacanex, are orders yet to be given from the Huey Altepetl Tenayuca” Ocotoch explained, “already approved by Xolotl, but still not in effect. But rest assured they will enforce them. The map holds it all. What foul maneuvers are we yet to see?”

Yacanex concentrated on the map. His hands would follow the intricate lines. He stood up in haste and crossed his arms, and said, “What do you discern here?”

“Uh, perhaps a bird. I really don’t know,” Ocotoch answered confused.

“I have seen this bird high up at the hills nearby the mountain walls, where you know I have to visit and check on the new settlements. They are more common a bit north of where we are, almost to the Valley of Teotihuacan.”

“Oh Yacanex, please explain yourself. What is it that you talk about? What does it have to do with your bird watching?”

“Everything!” said Yacanex. “You see, these wretched people in their palaces and their schools they love to draw and paint based on real things. If they want a house, they’ll paint a house. They try to own everything, and if they can’t have it surely they’ll even paint it. What I’ve learned from them is they paint ideas too. Everything can be put written over a leathered map or paper, as long as we can have a reference from which to base upon. All we need is to solve this so we can obtain this map’s secrets.”

“So? It’s a bird”, answered Ocotoch quite bluntly.

“Not just any bird, it’s a hawk,” explained Yacanex, “And I know this kind of hawk. If you notice the hard-to-see blue grayish colors and marks, they are the same as those of the hawk known as tlotli.”

“Tlotli?” Asked Ocotoch.

“Like Tlotzin himself! The grandson of Xolotl!” said a deep voice that filled the room and alarmed the hearts.