“Enough for my crew. That is all.”
“And how long is your journey?”
Erik thoughtfully considered this. “Many months,” he said at last. “At least eight.”
Talu sighed deeply and said, “Come with me, friend.”
He led him to a square stone building before which two soldiers stood. The soldiers touched their foreheads as Talu approached, admitting him to the building, along with Erik and Neil.
The room was dark, and a soldier inside hastily lighted a torch. Neil waited for his eyes to accustom themselves to the darkness, the single torch providing very little light.
Lining the walls of the room were baskets of food. Fruit, vegetables, jars of honey and crushed chili. Hanging from pegs set into the wall were cured meats and fowl. Neil thought he recognized a few monkeys.
“This is our storeroom,” Talu explained.
“Then you will supply me?” Erik asked.
Talu sighed again. “My friend, you have saved my life, and I am eternally grateful to you. Anything you ask for, I will grant. Gold, fabric, water, weapons.”
He paused, wrung his thin hands together, and added, “Anything but food.”
Erik stared at him curiously.
“This is our entire stock until the harvest. We have not yet begun to plant, and the harvest is a long way off. Already my people are eating less, trying to prolong our food supply.”
Neil looked around the room again, and noticed that there wasn’t really as much food as he had first imagined. Not enough, at any rate, to keep an entire city alive for many months.
“How many men are there in your crew?” Talu asked.
“Twenty-seven, counting myself,” Erik answered.
“Feeding twenty-seven men for eight months would require a great deal of food.”
“But you feed us while we are here,” Erik said. “What difference if we eat it here or if we take it with us?”
“We hunt daily,” Talu answered. “And we add other foods to the storeroom in small numbers whenever we can. I would have to give you much meat from our storeroom, if you were to leave. If you stay, I can feed you from the small amount we bring in daily.”
Erik nodded. “How soon will you plant?” he asked.
“A month, two months. When the fields are ready.”
“And after the harvest?”
“If the gods are good,” Talu said, “and if there is a good harvest, I will give you all the food you will need for your journey.”
Erik stroked his beard. “I will have to wait, I suppose,” he said.
“I know you are anxious to rejoin your own people,” Talu said softly. “I hope it will be soon, my friend.”
They left the storeroom, Erik silent as he walked beside Neil.
“I will tell my men,” he said to Talu at last.
“And you are not angry?”
“Your people come first. I understand,” Erik answered simply.
Together, he and Neil went to join the waiting Norsemen. They sat at the edge of the forest, their faces anxious.
Erik stood in the center of the Norsemen and rested his foot on a boulder.
Without preamble, he said, “The Mayas have very little food. We must wait until after their harvest before we can sail.”
The sailors began talking among themselves, their low grumbling reaching Neil’s ears.
Olaf stepped forward as spokesman for the crew. His face was completely healed now, his eyes no longer puffed and discolored.
“When will the harvest be?” he asked.
“Several months from now,” Erik answered.
“And we must wait until then?”
“Yes.”
Olaf’s mouth curled into a sneer. “Why?” he demanded, and the word was picked up by other sailors in the crew. “Why?” they wanted to know.
“I’ve already told you,” Erik said patiently. “The Mayas have little enough food for themselves. They can hardly be expected to give us…”
“They are lying,” Olaf snarled. “I have seen their food with my own eyes. An entire room full. There is everything…”
“I have seen the room too,” Erik said, an edge to his voice now. “And I have heard the words of their priest. There is barely enough in that room to last them until the harvest.”
“There is more than enough,” Olaf protested.
A faint smile flicked at Erik’s mouth. His hand dropped to the head of his ax and rested there. “Do you call me a liar?” he asked Olaf.
“No. I merely say there is enough…”
“And I say there is not. Do you doubt my word?”
For a moment Olaf seemed ready to rebel. Suddenly he changed his course of action. “What if there isn’t enough for the Mayas? There is enough for us.”
“Yes,” the sailor with the patch over his eye spoke up. “What do we owe the Mayas?”
“They are savages,” Olaf said, his eyes sparkling proudly.
“They are our friends,” Erik replied softly.
“If they are our friends, why are we kept prisoners?”
“We are not prisoners. They’ve given us our weapons,” Erik reminded the squat Norseman.
“And we should put these weapons to good use,” Olaf said, twisting the logic behind Erik’s words. “There are only two soldiers guarding the storeroom. We could easily overpower them and take what food we…”
“You would suggest, then,” Erik said, the grin on his face once more, “that I turn captain of a band of thieves.”
“I would suggest,” Olaf countered, “that you lead your men home.”
Erik drew himself up to his full height and his big hand tightened on the head of his ax. “And I would suggest,” he added, “and this is to be the final suggestion today, that you hold your vicious tongue.
“We are not sailing until we can sail with a full ship. That will be after the Maya harvest.”
Olaf opened his mouth to speak again, but Erik cut him short. “I would hate to have to bury my second officer on alien soil.”
The sailors laughed at this, their voices ringing throughout the little glade.
Olaf, somehow, didn’t seem to think it was funny. He stalked off into the woods, his dark eyes smoldering.
That afternoon, Neil saw his first Maya basketball game. Or at least, he was always to remember it as a basketball game.
Rixal and Tela were bursting with enthusiasm when they came to usher him to the event.
“But what is it?” Neil asked, being rushed along by Rixal and Tela.
Tela, her pretty face shining with happiness, said, “The game. The nobles will play Tlaxtli! Hurry, hurry, they will have started.”
She took one of Neil’s hands, and with Rixal grasping the other, they rushed across the city.
Rixal said, “They will begin playing soon.”
Hastily, they led him to a large court with small temples at either end of it. Lining the sides of the long court were two massive stone walls. Rixal and Tela brought Neil to the top of one of the walls, and there they sat and looked down at the court.
The top of the wall was at least three feet thick, and they sat there comfortably, Neil wondering what would happen next.
“I will explain briefly,” Rixal said.
“Let me explain,” Tela interrupted, her face split in a grin.
“Men do the explaining,” Rixal said solemnly. Tela clasped her hands impatiently in her lap and waited for Rixal to begin.
“The court is 180 yards long,” Rixal started.
“One hundred and ninety” Tela corrected.
“One hundred and ninety yards long,” Rixal went on, “and forty yards wide.”
“And these walls, this one and the one opposite, are very high,” Tela said excitedly.
“Twenty-seven feet high,” Rixal added.
Tela pointed to the wall opposite, “That is the eastern wall,” she said.
“And that is a temple surmounting it,” Rixal added.