The Lost Diary of Montezuma’s Soothsayer. Clive Dickinson

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      Our ancestors built Tenochtitlan on an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco. There are causeways built above the water that join the city to the shore of the lake. But the causeways had gone and the lake had vanished. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

      ‘Quite a sight, isn’t it?’ said the nightmare voice again. ‘That’s the largest city on earth down there. Now put your belt on, please.’

      Suddenly there was a tight pull across my tummy. I couldn’t move. ‘Oh, no,’ I thought. ‘Someone is really going to cut my heart out with a stone knife this time.’

      Then I woke up.

      No pulque for me today.

* alcoholic drink made from cactus juice

* Mexico City

       March 10th, 1519

      I’m still worried about that nightmare. I’ve been having the same one on and off since the beginning of the year.

      I was tossing and turning on the floor last night thinking about it. Some very strange things have been going on and I’m not the only person in the empire to have noticed.

      I have a bad feeling that soon I might need to remember all the things I’ve been seeing. I’m going to make a list of them here.

      1. The Comet

      There was that bright star that appeared in the sky. I know it was ten years ago, but I didn’t like the look of it then. Nor did our Great Speaker, Montezuma II – Monty for short. When the other soothsayers told him not to worry about that star, or comet, or whatever it was, he had them all killed. I’m glad I kept my mouth shut.

      2. The Burning Temple

      When the temple to the goddess Toci burnt down, everyone else thought it was an accident, but not our Great Speaker. He saw it as a warning from the gods. He ordered a whole lot more priests and fortune-tellers to be killed and their families sold as slaves.

      3. The Day of the Waves

      Then there was that terrible day when the lake suddenly turned into massive waves that bashed down houses by the shore. What made it really scary was that the waves rose up without any wind. They just happened. Montezuma didn’t like that one little bit. By now he thought the gods really had it in for us all.

      4. The Nights of Wailing

      After that, things just seemed to get worse, as far as I could see. It’s my job to look into the future to find what’s going to happen. There were nights when I didn’t get a wink of sleep because of the non-stop wailing. You don’t have to be a soothsayer to know that wailing is a sure sign of trouble ahead.

      5. The Bird with the Mirror

      Montezuma got a terrible fright when he was brought that extraordinary bird. It had a mirror in its head – I’ll never forget that as long as I live. (At this rate I’m going to be very busy trying to live as long as possible. Monty is a bit too keen when it comes to offering other people to the gods as human sacrifices.)

      When Monty looked into the mirror in this bird’s head he could see stars shining, even though it was daytime. That wasn’t all. He also saw lines of men marching to war, but they weren’t like men any of us had seen before. They were huge – half men and half deer! It still makes me go cold when I think about it.

      By now I’d learnt to keep my lips tightly shut. Thank goodness I’m not a nobleman, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to do this because my lips would be plugged with heavy gold jewellery.

      ‘Now look here,’ Monty would say. I wish he wouldn’t say that because no-one is supposed to look right at him. It’s a cut-your-heart-out-up-the-pyramid job for anyone who does. ‘Look here,’ he’d say. ‘What’s all this about?’

      I mumbled about having to study the stars to be sure, and then something else would happen and he’d forget he’d ever asked me.

       March 11th, 1519

      I feel sorry for the peasant who came all the way to Tenochtitlan, from the coast, to tell Monty about the peculiar thing he’d seen. This peasant must have had too much sun or too much pulque, because when he got here he told a crazy story about watching a huge mountain moving through the sea. I can understand why Monty had him locked up. You’ve got to be careful what you say round here. You can’t have people walking round the empire talking about floating mountains.

      Whatever next?

       March 12th, 1519

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