03 The Serpent Dreamer by Cecelia Holland

Author:Cecelia Holland [Holland, Cecelia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Near the height of the day, with the thunder rumbling in the distance, they stopped, and the other palanquins approached Tok Pakal’s and formed a square, with an open area in the middle, the way they had set their camp up. Corban got gladly out of the chair, happy to stretch and move again.

Tok Pakal himself arose. Somebody brought his animal bench from the back of the palanquin and set it in the center of the open circle, and he sat down on it; somebody else came up with a big screen of feathers on a pole, and shaded him with it. Erkan came running up and stood by his knee, and the other Itzen gathered around him.

Corban recognized many of them now. The older man with the nose ring came up quickly to Tok Pakal and murmured to him, one hand on his chief’s shoulder. Among the others was Qikab Chan, who caught Corban watching him and glared back. Corban kept his eyes on him, refusing to look away, and the big man started a step toward him, but then the others were pushing closer to Tok Pakal, and Qikab turned back among them.

They were talking in their own language, and Corban could not understand them. In their midst, Tok Pakal was the only one sitting, massive on his animal bench.

He was another man, here, than in the palanquin. He spoke in a loud, cold, important voice; he looked over their heads, distant and disdainful, although they bowed and put out their hands to him like beggars. He sent them this way and that way, and they went, bowing. Corban drifted off, before anybody commanded him again.

The palanquins were drawn up on a little rise in the plain, with the great army spread out around it. For a while he watched the Itzen laying out their camp. They began with a ceremony, in which everybody in a rapt silence watched Tok Pakal set three stones on the ground; then with whistles and yells gangs of little people rushed around throwing up the tents. The Itzen themselves all went off to a place just outside the camp, in the swale below the rise, where there was a tree. Corban went the other way.

The tents were going up like blossoms flowering into the air. Behind them, the drummers, in their shoulder capes, were dragging their oversized kettles into a single long line that curved around the outside edge of the Itzen square. This line seemed to mark the boundary between the Itzens and the rest of the army. Many of the drummers had gone somewhere, leaving their mallets behind, and all the Itzen were at their council. Corban stood by the end of the line of drums, looking out across the plain.

People filled it from the foot of the first hills to the bank of the river, people in endless rows, stirring and bustling and sending up a general unceasing clatter of voices all blending together into one featureless drone. Little campfires already studded their lines, sending up crinkles of smoke.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.