The Gate of Worlds, page 8
Topiltzin said, "You know the game?"
"We have to knock a ball through one of those rings."
"Right. The ring on that side is ours. Remember that. Once it happened that in the heat of play a man grew confused and scored a goal for the other team. His teammates trampled him to death on the field in their anger."
"How long does the game last?"
"Until one side scores. It is not easy to score."
"And how long does that take, on the average?"
"There was a game that ended a moment after it had begun," said Topiltzin. "There was another that was played for three days, stopping only when darkness fell, until it was decided. But usually the games last several hours."
"And what are the rules?"
"You must never touch the ball with your hand. It is permissible to kick it, to butt it, to push it. You may inflict any injury you can upon members of the other team, for we must keep them from preventing us from scoring. Those are the rules."
A free-for-all, in other words.
I looked up at the audience. I saw mounds of jewelry and cloaks up there, too: the spectators were placing side-bets. The betting activity seemed fierce. It seemed odd to me that such an important event could be entered by a perfect stranger, and that the sides could be unequal; there was a strangely informal way about the organization of this game, as if youngsters on a street had merely chosen up sides. But yet huge sums were being wagered, both by the players and the spectators.
The game was about to begin. Our fifteen opponents were lined up at the far end of the court, more than 500 feet away. We stood along a baseline facing them. I was to Topiltzin's left, Manco Huascar to his right. I knew none of the other players, nor had they been introduced to me.
A figure rose in what looked like a royal box, jutting out over the center of the playing field. Topiltzin whispered, "It is Axayacatl, my cousin, the King's son, who is to be king one day. He would have my skin if he knew I was here."
I stared at the stocky, commanding figure. The Crown Prince seemed to be a man in his late thirties, extremely regal in appearance. In his hand he held a rubber ball about six inches in diameter. He hurled it high into the air.
The players charged from both sides of the field.
Running forward was a strain I had not expected. Tenochtitlan, like all of central Mexico, is elevated far above sea level, and the air is thin. It does not nourish the lungs. Then, too, I was weighed down by that huge belt. The others were, too, but they were accustomed to it. So I was one of the last to reach the melee in the center of the court.
The ball had bounced twenty feet high when it hit the ground, had bounced again, and then had been seized by two members of the opposition. Our side roared toward them. It was illegal to touch the ball with your hands, perhaps, but nothing was said about using your hands on a rival player. I saw Manco Huascar smash his fists into the face of an opponent, two at a time, boom. The man fell down, spitting out teeth. While I was admiring that, someone caught me from behind and gave me a spin that sent me sprawling to the ground, and someone else jumped on my back with his bare feet, leaving me gasping and retching. I managed to get up, and punched him in the chest just above his leather yoke. He staggered back, but did not fall.
The crowd screamed in sudden excitement.
I whirled around and discovered that in the confusion three of the players of the other side had gained control of the ball. Two of them were forming a human fence, batting away our men as they charged, and the third was taking dead aim on his goal! He kicked, scooping the ball from the ground with a deft sidewise stroke, and I watched in horror as the rubber globe soared on a steep angle toward the stone ring high above us. Was this to be one of the games that ended in the first minute? All action on the field was suspended.
The ball hit the ring and bounced harmlessly away.
I saw it heading straight for me. Imitating Manco Huascar, I shoved both of my fists into the face of the nearest opponent and pounced on the ball.
Topiltzin yelled to me to kick it to him. He was halfway across the field, heading for our goal.
Now, we have a game in England called soccer, which is not too different from this Aztec sport. There, too, one must not touch the ball with one's hands. It happens that I have played some soccer, and am fairly skillful at getting the ball around the field. Just as Topiltzin called to me, two players rushed toward me with murder in their eyes, and I left them gaping and baffled by a little fast footwork. With short, controlled kicks I carried the ball around them, then cut loose with a hard smash that sent it fifty feet across the ground to Topiltzin. He had time only to kick it in the general direction of the goal before a monstrous Aztec flattened him with a powerful thrust. Manco Huascar, near the goal, gained the ball, kicked it toward the stone ring, but he was too close and it was an impossible angle.
A moment later I nearly scored the winning goal.
The ball bounced back from our ring, and an opponent knocked it all the way across to his side of the field. It was intercepted there by two of our men, who kicked it halfway back. There, one of them let fly with a potent smash intended to be a pass. The ball came straight at my head at a fantastic speed and bounced off my helmet. I staggered, dizzy for the moment, dimly aware that the crowd was screaming.
Then I looked up. The ball had ricocheted from my thick skull and was on its way toward the goal!
Another six inches and we'd have won then and there. But the ball skittered away. Topiltzin laughed and slapped me on the back.
"A pity your aim wasn't better," he said.
Three times in the first ten minutes of the game there had been attempts to score, including my unintentional one. But it was fifteen minutes before anyone was in a position to try again. Back and forth we raged across the field, kicking the ball and each other, neither team maintaining possession long enough to achieve anything.
There was no such thing as time out to catch breath. There were no quarters, no halves in this game; the idea was to play until you dropped, it seemed. By the time the game was half an hour old I was moving like a machine, numb in every limb, simply cruising the field on sheer stubbornness. I had been hit hard more times than I could count, but I had done my share of hitting, too.
And I felt a trifle contemptuous of my fellow players on both sides. Considering that the Aztecs had been playing this game since the fourteenth century, they had developed remarkably little in the way of tactics. Except for the most basic formations, they knew no teamwork. It was inconceivable for six or seven men to form a flying wedge, for instance, that would carry the ball across the field. Nor did they know much about moving the ball with their feet. They simply bashed away at it, kicking, occasionally slamming it with their hips, giving it a ride with a knee. Their idea of the game was to kick hard and fight hard and trust to luck to get the ball through the hoop. No wonder the games lasted three days before anyone scored!
I made the error of showing off.
Soccer had always been one of my favorite sports. I gave them a bit of my soccer technique here. After one scrambling melee, the ball came spurting out of a heap of flesh down near the south end of the field, and I went for it. I got it and kicked it back up toward the goal area, playing it from one foot to the other until some opponents made for me. Then I got fancy. I nudged the ball with my toe and let it slide up my leg to my knee, and kicked it a little way into the air, just so I could reach it with my forehead. Then I began to dribble the ball, clubbing it hard with my head and maintaining a tight control over each bounce.
The crowd began to bellow and the players on both sides gaped in stupefaction as I did my little trick. As though moving through rows of sleepwalkers I dribbled around them and headed for the goal. Manco Huascar appeared from somewhere and I passed the ball to him, for the Inca obviously knew more about the difficult business of kicking to the goal than I did. Manco kicked. He missed.
And then the whole opposition team came toward me at once.
On the plains of the Upper Hesperides they have a big woolly brown kind of cattle called bison, which travel in herds of several million. I have seen the bison herds on the run, and they make a sound like thunder in the earth, but a million bison are as nothing compared with fifteen angry Aztecs intent on slaughter. As one man, they had decided that the white-skinned foreigner knew too many funny stunts. They were going to eliminate me then and there.
They rumbled over me like angry bison, and I thought I was going to die. Honestly. I was at the bottom of a heap of fists and knees. My teammates had piled on, too, trying to get me away, and the result was that just about everyone was on me. I later learned that Topiltzin had shrewdly taken advantage of the incident to corral the ball and kick a few shots at the goal unmolested, but he didn't succeed.
In soccer, we have umpires to prevent the worst bloodshed. There were no umpires here. The fight went on until someone noticed what Topiltzin was doing, and then they headed for him. I crawled out, dazed and enfeebled. There was blood all over me, much of it mine, and though none of my bones seemed broken a good many of them appeared severely bent.
I was not about to jump right back into the game, and let anyone who wishes make derogatory remarks about my manhood. On hands and knees I crept to the sidelines and sat there, gasping for breath, waiting for my head to stop ticking.
That made the lineup twelve men against fifteen, but I couldn't help it. For five minutes or so I sat there, watching the other twenty-seven doing their best to ruin one another. During that time the odds were evened considerably. A long, lean member of the other team was taking aim on the goal when Manco Huascar came up behind him, calmly lifted both arms high over his head, and brought them down, elbows first, on the player's skull. The man folded instantly and lay like a corpse on the field for a few minutes, until one of his teammates dragged him away to keep him from being stepped on. Not much later, a second opponent was dismantled by Manco and a bulky teammate working in series; Manco hit him high, the other hit him low, and he was carted away.
Seeing that inspired me to return to action, making it thirteen to thirteen. I was a little on the woozy side, but I functioned.
My return was well timed. The action was at the far end of the field, and I walked shakily toward it, filling my lungs with air, when abruptly someone delivered a tremendous kick and the ball came flying up the court toward me. I stared blankly at it a moment, watching the other players galloping in my direction and expecting to be ploughed under once again. They were almost upon me.
I had to do something.
So I began to dribble the ball, bouncing it off my forehead as rapidly as I could. As before, the mere act startled the opposing team into inactivity. They had never seen anyone do anything like that before. I glided through their ranks, heading toward the goal.
The squat, big-muscled Aztec who was the captain of the other team finally came after me. I stayed a hop and a skip ahead of him. Our men were cleverly forming a barrier around our goal. Manco Huascar stood to one side of the goal, Topiltzin to the other, and four or five teammates were lined up in front of them to protect them.
I gave the ball a looping kick and it soared over a dozen heads, passing into the circle of protectors and landing almost at Topiltzin's feet. Topiltzin scooped it up with his left armshield and tossed it to Manco Huascar, who poked it with his knee and sent it soaring toward the goal.
He missed by inches. As the ball trickled off on the other side, I felt a terrific blow between my shoulder-blades and toppled forward. The squat Aztec had caught up with me at last. But he was too late, for I had already passed the ball. I rolled over, pulling chunks of dirt from my face, and looked up.
And saw Topiltzin win the game.
The rebound from Manco Huascar's shot had landed right where the Aztec prince was standing. He tapped the ball with his elbow, and it slid lazily upward, seemingly doomed to fall short, caught on the rim of the goal, teetered there for a thousand years, and dropped through. The spectators let out a deafening roar. The losing team dropped to the ground en masse in limp dejection. The winning team capered in wild delight. I dragged myself from the ground and rushed toward the prince, shouting, "Great shot, Topiltzin! Great shot!"
He swung from the heels and laid me full length on the ground with an unexpected punch in the jaw.
I got up with the taste of blood in my mouth and was ready to go for him then and there. But suddenly Manco Huascar was at my side, and the Inca whispered in that feathery voice of his, "You fool, you called him by his rightful name! Do you want him imprisoned?"
My cheeks flushed with shame. But in the uproar of the crowd, no one seemed to have heard. The celebration of victory went on and oil. Topiltzin had walked over to the mound of wagered treasure. The rest of us followed. I hardly dared look the prince in the eye.
But Topiltzin seemed to bear no malice for my moment of stupidity, having discharged his annoyance with that explosive blow. He turned to me and said, "You, Englishman-without your strange style of play, we would not have won. Retrieve your belongings from the collection here, and then take your choice of the rest."
Feeling honored and very conspicuous, I rummaged through the pile until I had found my ring and my knife. I touched the blade briefly to my lips to tell it how glad I was not to have lost it. Then I studied the heap and selected a splendid cape of feathers, red and blue and green, shimmering iridescently. It did not belong to any of my teammates, and so it was mine. I donned it proudly. Such a peacock cape I had dreamed of owning since a boy, and now it was mine!
Some further trophies fell to me in the later division of the spoils: two quills full of gold dust, a lustrous jade armlet, and a set of mother-of-pearl earplugs. Since my ears were not pierced, I traded them to another player for an intricately worked bone ring.
In my cape and ornaments, I was beginning to look very much the Aztec dandy; but the golden hair and fair skin spoiled the image.
We divested ourselves of our playing costume and left the stadium, returning by canoe to the dilapidated building where Topiltzin lived. Not until we were inside did he remove his mask.
"You played well, Dan Beauchamp," he told me. "You wear a man's bruises now."
"Too many of them," I said. "You Aztecs have strenuous pleasures."
"The game was a short one," said Manco Huascar. "We barely had warmed up."
Sagaman Musa chuckled. "I had the best time of all. I cheered loudly. Without my encouragement you would not have won, perhaps."
I glared at him. "Why are you exempt from playing?"
"It is against my religion to take part in such sport," said the deep-voiced African gravely.
"Yes," said Manco Huascar. "He's orthodox. An orthodox coward."
Instead of showing anger, the black man merely laughed. Another man, called a coward to his face, might have gone for his dagger. But I thought I understood the African's way of thinking, and later I saw I was right. Only a man who doubts his own bravery bristles when called a coward. Sagaman Musa knew his own strength and his own courage, and had no need to prove anything to anyone. He did not like to play the rough game; therefore, he did not play.
Topiltzin said to me, "Will you join us on our expedition, Dan?"
"You know I will!"
"Good. We can use your agility and your toughness. We are bound on a bold adventure, which if successful will make me a king and yourselves rich men."
Briefly he outlined the plan. To the north, on the other side of the great desert that occupies much of northern Mexico and the southwestern corner of the Upper Hesperides, lay a land of placid farming folk. They had twenty or thirty towns, with names like Zuni, Acoma, Taos, and Cochiti. Despite the dryness of their country, their fields were fertile and they produced a surplus of food, as well as handsome pottery and elegant jewelry.
In theory, this group of towns was subject to Aztec rule. The Aztecs had established protectorates in most parts of the northern continent. The local inhabitants, usually rather simple people, paid tribute to the Aztecs out of their surplus produce, and in return, for what it was worth, the Aztecs protected them against possible invasion by some other country. Rumors frequently circulated that the Incas, having seized all of the Lower Hesperides long ago, were thinking of invading the north, or that the Russians, with their trading outposts on the western coast, toyed with the idea of acquiring some inland territory. Topiltzin told me that many of these rumors were started by the Aztecs themselves, simply to cement their grip on the people of the Upper Hesperides.
The Aztec grip on the farmers of the southwest was rather weak at the moment, said Topiltzin. It was three hundred years since there had last been a revolt against the Aztecs in that region, and as a result Mexican rule was taken for granted there. A skeleton force stationed at the village of Taos was the only Aztec garrison in the entire district-fifty men, according to Topiltzin.
His plan was to attack that garrison. Taking it by surprise, he would execute all men who refused to swear allegiance to him. Then he would proclaim himself king of that part of the world. All tribute thereafter would be paid to him-and divided among his loyal followers. The tireless farmers would work for our benefit, and I would be an earl in the land of the mud houses.
"But that's treason!" I exclaimed. "You can't just steal a province of the empire! Your uncle Moctezuma would send an army to punish you instantly!"
"I doubt it," Topiltzin drawled lazily. "I happen to know that the King is planning military action in another zone entirely." He threw a sidelong glance at Manco Huascar. "The war with the Incas, long talked of, may soon be a reality. He will not want to divert troops to the north. Besides, I suspect that he would be willing to let me have my little kingdom. Its loss would be no blow to Mexico, and he'd be rid of my presence at court. We can't fail. Of course, if you don't want to go along-"
"I'll go," I said hastily. There was no future for me in Mexico, and this kind of empire-building expedition was more or less what I had hoped to become involved in.
