The Visionary Mayan Queen: Yohl Ik'Nal of Palenque

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Martin, Leonide

The Visionary Mayan Queen:
Yohl Ik’nal of Palenque

Mists of Palenque Book I

ISBN: 978-1-61339-576-9

1. FICTION / Action & Adventure

2. FICTION / Romance / Historical/Ancient World

3. FICTION / Historical

For further information contact AudioInk +14255266480 or email
[email protected]

CONTENTS

Map of Central and Southern Maya Regions

Map of Palenque (Lakam Ha)

Excerpts

The Controversial Mayan Queen: Sak K’uk of Palenqu-Mists of Palenque Series Book II

List of Characters and Places

Dynasty of Lakam Ha

Long Count Maya Calendar

About the Author

Author Notes and Orthography (Pronunciation)

Acknowledgements

Other Works by Author

Central and Southern Maya Regions in Middle Classic Period (500-800 CE)

Names of cities, rivers and seas are the ones used in this book. Most are known Classic Period names; some have been created for the story. Many other cities existed but are omitted for simplicity.

Inset map shows location of Maya Regions in southern Mexico, Yucatan Peninsula and Central America.

Lakam Ha (Palenque) Western and Central Areas Older Sections of Settlement circa (500 – 600 CE)

Dark boxes are fictional structures added for the story. Structures important to the story are labeled. This does not signify that these structures were actually used for purposes described in the story. The city extends further east, but these sections were built later.

Based upon maps from The Palenque Mapping Project, Edwin Barnhart, 1999.

A FAMSI-sponsored project. Used with permission of Edwin Barnhart.

Lady Muwaan Mat was born. Eight years after her birth, she binds the deer hoof. Then on 4 Ahau 8 Kumk’u it ends, the era, 13 Baktuns. A year and a half after the hearth was measured at the edge of the sky, the First Hearth Place, Hun Ahau (God I) entered the sky. On 9 Ik 20 Mol he dedicates the 6 Sky Ahau place, the 8
^th
House of the God. It is the name of the house of the north. Over 750 years afterwards, then he arrives at Matawiil. On 9 Ik 15 Keh he is born at Matawiil. It is the penance of Lady Muwaan Mat, she fasted, she let blood, 3 times a mother. Then over 800 years after she was born, she tied the white headband on herself, Lady Muwaan Mat. It is 9 Ik 0 Sak. She was the first ruler.

Tablet of the Temple of the Cross, dedicated by Kan Bahlam II

Period ending 9.13.0.0.0 (March 18, 692 CE)

Based on translation by Gerardo Aldana,
The Apotheosis of Janaab’ Pakal

University of Colorado Press, 2007

Here were the remains of a cultivated, polished, and peculiar people, who had passed through all the stages incident to the rise and fall of nations; reached their golden age, and perished, entirely unknown. . . We lived in the ruined palace of their kings; we went up to their desolate temples and fallen altars; and wherever we moved we saw the evidences of their taste, their skill in arts, their wealth and power. In the midst of desolation and ruin we looked back to the past, cleared away the gloomy forest, and fancied every building perfect, with its terraces and pyramids, its sculptured and painted ornaments, grand, lofty, and imposing. . . we called back into life the strange people . . pictured them, in fanciful costumes and adorned with plumes of feathers, ascending the terraces of the palace and the steps leading to the temples; and often we imagined a scene of unique and gorgeous beauty and magnificence.

John L. Stephens,
Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan, Vol. II

Originally published in 1841 after his visit to the Palenque ruins

YOHL IK’NAL – I

Baktun 9 Katun 6 Tun 2
(562 CE)

1

The girl hurried along forested paths toward the waterfalls, her bare feet squishing in humus. A colorful shawl covered her head and she drew it closer around her shoulders against the morning chill. Mist draped the mountains and clung to the canopy of the tropical forest. Vaporous fingers reached into the trees forming ephemeral lianas. Branches heavy with moisture gathered mist into brief droplets before releasing them to the wet soil below. Wetness was upon the mountains, the forests, the uneven earth. All was wetness, silence, stillness. Only the mist moved stealthily among the trees and crept toward the city of stones.

She peered anxiously toward the east, as the dawn sun ignited the mist into a shimmered golden glow. Birdcalls broke the misty silence: twitters, soft hoots, squawks, shrill cries. A steamy halo heralded the sunrise. Downward she plunged, following a path twisting in tight turns over roots and rocky outcroppings. The steep descent brought her past waterfalls that roared into foaming pools, past stone structures grouped around open plazas, and into denser forests.

Soon she found the place, a short way off the path marked by a small cascade. Again she glanced skyward into the luminous mist. Pushing aside ferns and bushes that splattered her with droplets, she came to the small clearing with a cluster of rocks in the center. The natural outcropping reached to her shoulders, an irregular tumbled group with one remarkable feature. She had discovered it several moons ago, and kept it secret. This was her special place. She folded her shawl on a smooth rock and sat cross-legged, as was her people’s custom. Eyes closed, she focused on the dawn chorus of birds greeting the day.

The girl waited for the sun’s signal. With luck, the mist would thin enough for the sunrays to strike her face. She loved the sudden heat and light that launched hundreds of red sparks behind her eyelids. Body still, breath bated, mind alert she waited. Only the birds with their raucous celebration, the steady fall of droplets, and the distant roar of waterfalls broke the hovering silence.

The sun burst suddenly through the mist, stunning her face and igniting red sparks in her closed eyes. It was the moment. Heart pounding, she took one deep breath and focused her entire attention behind the eyelids. Her eyes flew open. The clear quartz prominence situated on top of the highest rock blazed with light, bursting into radiant sun-flames. Partially blinded by the brilliance, she shot her consciousness into the quartz and was projected along scintillating pathways into another world.

It was a world she had visited before, though not always at the same place. Even after practicing for at least four moons, she had not learned how to control her journeys. She did not seek help from her parents or teachers, being afraid they would force her to stop the journeys that were a source of such delight. Though she hinted to a few friends, none of the other children recognized it. Maybe no one knew. So she kept her secret, and visited the special place as often as she could.

Now she was in the cold windy place, located on a flattened hilltop with vast meadows of grass and gentle green hills. The hilltop grass was strange, long and thin reaching past her knees. Sparse rocks dotted the hillside, bordered by shrubby bushes dense with aromatic purple flowers. Winds always swept across this place, making the grass wave endlessly. Hardly a bird or animal ever appeared, although once a flock of black hawks crossed over silently. She wandered around the hilltop, looking closely at everything, feeling and smelling and touching. So strange, such a different and austere place, so unlike the ebullient jungles of her home.

The sky was vast. She had never seen such an expanse of cool sky, muted blue streaked by thin gray clouds. The sun was not strong. She wondered if someone had defeated the great Sun God and taken away most of his powerful light. How did people ever get warm here, she wondered. Were there people in this desolate place?

As if her thought manifested its own answer, she heard footsteps crunching a distant rocky path. A chill of fear arose and she rehearsed the procedure for returning home. She had learned by trials to focus intensely on her special place with the quartz, and envision the small clearing in the jungle. When this image was perfectly clear and filled her mind, she suddenly found herself back home. But she had never been afraid before.

The footsteps became louder. The girl crouched behind some bushes and waited. A thin wavering voice rose over the rim, making sounds that saddened the girl’s heart. Was it a form of singing, a song of grief? None of the sounds were recognizable, no tones or rhythms familiar. She waited, prepared to leap or run or fight.

She was astonished by what stepped lightly onto the hilltop, singing the eerie song. It was a girl, close to her own age, but so totally different as to take her breath away. This girl’s hair was the color of corn silk, pale golden and braided in two long ropes. Blue eyes, much bluer than the limpid sky, in a face so pale as to appear colorless. Clothing that covered her completely, a skirt almost reaching the ground, a heavy shawl around the shoulders, garments covering arms to the wrists. The colors were muted green, purple and tan in a squared design, and dark shoes enclosed the feet. As odd as the creature appeared, at least she did not seem dangerous and certainly was not very large.

The dark-skinned girl stood up and raised an arm in greeting. The other spun suddenly and gasped, eyes wide and mouth agape. Slowly she raised an arm to mirror the greeting. Moments passed as the two stared and appraised each other. Something passed between their minds, their consciousness met and mingled.

The girl from the jungle tried speaking.

“Greetings of Father Sun. I am Yohl Ik’nal, daughter of Lord Kan Bahlam of Lakam Ha. I come to visit your world from time to time.”

The pale girl tilted her head quizzically but did not seem to understand. She spoke in an unintelligible language that had rhythms unlike any that Yohl Ik’nal had heard. Seeing that words would not suffice, the pale girl walked slowly forward and offered the dark-skinned girl a morsel from her pocket that appeared to be hard cake. Yohl Ik’nal accepted it and nibbled cautiously. It was sweet and grainy, not at all unpleasant. She nodded and smiled but had nothing to offer back.

The pale girl pointed to her chest and said:

“My name Elie. Eh-l-ee.”

“Eh-l-ee” repeated Yohl Ik’nal slowly, as the other nodded.

“Yohl Ik’nal. Yo-hl Eek-naal,” she said, pointing to her chest.

They repeated each other’s names several times, touched clothing and hair, eventually touched fingertips to faces. Brown eyes gazed into blue eyes, searching deep into the soul, finding kinship. Yohl Ik’nal wondered if communicating with mind images might work. She led Elie to a grassy place where they could sit, and pointed to her forehead while squeezing her eyes closed. Elie followed suit, and for some time the girls sat facing each other, eyes closed, concentrating intensely on each other.

Slowly images began forming in Yohl Ik’nal’s mind, and she could sense that Elie was receiving her communications. After some time, neither knew how long because time was suspended in this strange world, a flow of mental communication ensued. Elie was from a large city, much larger than Yohl Ik’nal could imagine, full of crowded streets and tightly packed houses, where people used long-legged animals to pull rolling boxes for traveling. Elie lived inside her house much of the time because it was often cold and cloudy and rainy. All her people covered their bodies with lots of clothing and wore hats. They burned black chunks in odd fire pits built into the walls of houses. It kept them warm in the chill northern climate. They cooked and ate food inside. Elie had a garden with colorful flowers, different but beautiful, and went there whenever the weather permitted. All this was wondrous to Yohl Ik’nal, and not much to her liking as she mostly lived out of doors with little clothing. The animals amazed her and she longed to see the huge ones with horns as well as the graceful long-legged ones upon which Elie’s people depended so much.

Elie inquired how Yohl Ik’nal came to this place, and the dark-skinned girl communicated her process. It was not dissimilar to Elie’s way of arriving, for she sat in a quiet space focusing on a small flame until it carried her off. Elie called this going to the “fairie realm” and told of many other places she visited, full of tiny creatures with gossamer wings and mysterious forests with magical animals. This particular place, the windy hilltop, belonged to beings she called the Celts who practiced magic. Sometimes these beings met her here and told her secrets about the other worlds.

Yohl Ik’nal invited Elie to come to her home, the place of many waters, Lakam Ha in the jungles with bright sun and colorful creatures. Elie promised to visit some day, but like Yohl Ik’nal she could not control where her journeys took her. The girls looked with yearning at each other, now feeling a bond of shared adventure and wanting more. Suddenly Elie jerked her head, eyes darting back and forth.

“Mum is coming,” she said in her strange language. “I must return, good-by and I hope we meet again soon.” Closing her eyes and scrunching her forehead, Elie suddenly disappeared.

The wind whipped Yohl Ik’nal’s black hair, and she was acutely aware of how cold she felt. Shivering in her light tunic, she stood and turned slowly, gazing at the alien landscape as if to imprint it indelibly in her memory. Only the rustling of wind-blown grass reached her ears. Stillness surrounded her. Closing her eyes, she envisioned her secret place with intense yearning for its warmth and light, and returned.

2

“Lady Xoc Akal, concerned I am about your daughter.”

The High Priestess of Lakam Ha, Ix Lahun Uc, spoke gravely. As mentor of the noble girl from the ruling lineage, the priestess took her sacred charge seriously. She had free access to the ruling family’s private quarters and arrived un-announced.

Xoc Akal released herself from the backstrap loom where she was weaving, a favorite art of noble women.

“Then you must speak of this to me,” she replied, settling onto a floor mat and gesturing for the priestess to sit beside her.

Lahun Uc carefully folded her thin form into the cross-leg posture Mayas used for sitting, annoyed by creaks from protesting joints.

“Let us have cacao.” Xoc Akal signaled attendants to bring the warm beverage laced with chile, certain that the priestess would appreciate its spicy, bitter jolt on the wet winter day.

Pale light slanted through narrow windows in white plaster walls. The rectangular chamber had one door covered by a heavy fabric drape. Chevron patterns in black and yellow against a white background rippled in the moist wind that blew from the patio. The drape hung from a pole suspended in round hollows on each side of the doorframe. A wooden lintel spanned the upper doorway, mortared into the plaster walls. Furnishings were sparce in typical Maya style; several colorful floor mats, a painted ceramic jug for water with gourd dipper, tidy piles of cotton thread waiting for the loom to form them. Plant, insect and mineral pigments produced the vibrant colors: red, green, blue and yellow. One luxury item graced the room, a small alabaster vase of creamy golden hue. It smooth sides, translucent even in dim light, curved gracefully to a small lip.

Xoc Akal’s shawl lay nearby where she dropped it before entwining herself into the backstrap loom. The simple shift she wore had yellow borders at neck and hem, leaving arms bare. Her skin was moist, partially from effort but mostly from the humid air. She nodded as the attendant returned with steaming cacao in ceramic cups brightly adorned with dancing figures.

Lahun Uc inhaled deeply, savoring the biting and earthy aromas as chocolate mingled with chile. She sipped the astringent beverage, thankful for warmth in her gut.

“Now it comes upon six tuns (360-day “years”) that I have taught Yohl Ik’nal,” the priestess began. “She learns the occult arts rapidly – too rapidly. I fear her journeys will take her beyond her ability to control them. She goes so easily to other realms, other times and places. There is danger she will be trapped by denizens of these other dimensions, or she may become lost and unable to retrace the thread of connection to her form in the Middleworld.”

“Has she found difficulty returning?”

“An occasion or two, she appeared unable to return when it was time. Not such that I was required to journey to her dimension for retrieval, although I almost began that process once. So far, she has been able to return when I called her with mental intensity.”

The High Priestess looked sternly at Xoc Akal.

“Are you aware of journeys she takes without supervision?”

“No, Holy Priestess, I am not aware of such things.”

Xoc Akal fretted that she was not adequately observant of her daughter. Yohl Ik’nal had been independent from early childhood, with a habit of leaving home for long periods. Her attendants complained that she slipped away when they were distracted. They made the rounds of friends’ homes and nearby plazas, even searching along river banks and nearby forest trails, but the girl eluded them.