He was in a plaza of titanic size. It was bordered on each side by vast stone buildings, some rectangular, some pyramidal, all of them alien in style but undeniably grand. There was something strange about them, and after a moment he realized what it was: there were no arches anywhere. These people did not seem to make use of the arch in their construction. And yet their buildings were very large, very solid-looking. Their façades were elaborately carved with geometric designs and painted in brilliant colors. Long rows of stone columns stood before them, engraved with savage, barbaric figures that looked like warriors in full regalia, no two alike. The columns too were painted: red, blue, green, yellow, brown. In the very center of the plaza was a stone altar with the statue of a double-headed tiger on it; to each side of it were curious figures of a reclining man with his knees drawn up and his head turned to one side. Some god, no doubt, for each figure’s upturned belly bore a flat stone disk that was covered with offerings of fruit and grain.
Throngs of people were everywhere about, just as Marcus had said, commoners in their skimpy tunics, nobles in their flamboyant headdresses and robes, all of them on foot, as though neither the cart nor the litter was known here. Nor was there a single horse in sight. Whatever had to be carried was being carried by men, even the heaviest of burdens. The creatures must not be found in this New World, Drusus thought.
Nobody seemed to take notice of Drusus as he passed among them.
His guardians marched him to the flat-topped pyramid on the far side of the plaza and up an interminable stone staircase to the colonnaded shrine at the top.
Olaus the Norseman was waiting for him there, enthroned in regal majesty with the scepter of green stone in his hand. Two richly costumed natives, high priests, perhaps, stood beside him. He rose as Drusus appeared and extended the scepter toward him in a gesture of the greatest solemnity.
He was so startling a sight that Drusus felt a sudden momentary weakness of his knees. Not even the Emperor of Roma, the Augustus Saturninus Caesar Imperator himself, had ever stirred any such awe in him. Saturninus, with whom Drusus had had personal audience on more than one occasion, was a tall, commanding-looking figure, majestic, unmistakably royal. For all that, though, you knew he was only a man in a purple robe. But this Olaus, this Norse king of Yucatan, seemed like—what?—a god?—a demon? Something prodigious and frightening, a fantastic, almost unreal being.
His costume itself was terrifying: the tiger pelt around his waist, the necklace and pendant of bear’s teeth and massive green stones lying over his bare chest, the long golden armlets, the heavy earrings, the intricate crown of gaudy feathers and blazing gems. But this outlandish garb, nightmarish though it was, formed only a part of the demonic effect. The man himself provided the rest. Olaus was as tall as anyone Drusus ever had seen, better than half a head taller than Drusus himself, and Drusus was a tall man. His body was a massive column, broad through the shoulders, deep through the chest. And his face—
Oh, that face! Square-jawed, with a great outthrust chin, and dark blazing eyes set wide apart in deep, brooding sockets, and a ferocious snarling maw of a mouth. Though most of his countrymen were blond and ruddy, Olaus’s hair was black, a wild mane above and a dense, bristling beard covering his cheeks and much of his throat. It was the face of a beast, a beast in human form, cruel, implacable, remorseless, enduring. But the intelligence of a man shone out of those eyes.
Marcus’s description had not even begun to prepare him for this man. Drusus wondered if he was expected to salute him by some sort of abasement, kneeling, genuflecting, something like that. No matter: he would not do it. But it seemed almost to be the appropriate thing to do before a man of this sort.
Olaus came forward until he was disturbingly close and said, in bad but comprehensible Latin, “You are the general? What is your name? Your rank?”
“Titus Livius Drusus is my name, son of the Senator Lucius Livius Drusus. I hold the appointment of legionary legate by the hand of Saturninus Augustus.”
The Norseman made a low rumbling sound, a kind of bland growl, as though to indicate that he had heard, but was not impressed. “I am Olaus the Dane, who has become king of this land.” Indicating the man on his left, a scowling, hawk-nosed individual dressed nearly as richly as he was himself, the Norseman said, “He is Na Poot Uuc, the priest of the god Chac-Mool. This other is Hunac Ceel Cauich, who is the master of the holy fire.”
Drusus acknowledged them with nods. Na Poot Uuc, he thought. Hunac Ceel Cauich. The god Chac-Mool. These are not names. These are mere noises.
At another signal from the Norseman, the priest of Chac-Mool produced a bowl of that polished green stone that they seemed to admire so much here, and the master of the holy fire filled it with the same sweet liquor that Marcus had told him of receiving. Drusus sipped it cautiously. It was both sweet and spicy at the same time, and he suspected that it would turn his head if he had very much of it. A few politic sips and he looked up, as though sated. The priest of Chac-Mool indicated that he should drink more. Drusus pretended to do so, and handed the bowl back.
Now the Norseman returned to his throne. He beckoned for some of the honey-wine himself, drank a bowlful of it at a single draught, and, transfixing Drusus with those fiery, fearsome eyes of his, launched abruptly into a rambling tale of his adventures in the New World. The story was difficult to follow, for Olaus’s command of Latin had probably never been strong to begin with, and plainly he had not spoken it at all for many years. His grammar was largely guesswork and his sentences were liberally interspersed with phrases from his own thick-sounding northern tongue and, for all Drusus knew, the local lingo as well. But it was possible for Drusus to piece together at least the gist of the story.
Which was that Olaus, after Haraldus and his friends had left him here in Yucatan and sailed off toward Europa to bring the news of the New World to the Emperor, had very quickly established himself as a man of consequence and power among the people of this place, whom he referred to as the Maia. Whether that was their own name for themselves or some invention of Olaus’s, Drusus could not tell. He doubted that the word had any relationship to the Roman month of the same name. Nor did he get any clear notion of what had become of the other Norsemen who had stayed behind in the New World with Olaus, and he was shrewd enough not to ask: he knew well enough what a brawling, murderous bunch this race was. Put seven of them in a room and there will be four left alive by morning, and one of those will set fire to the building and leave the other three to burn as he slips away. Surely Olaus’s companions all were dead by now.
Olaus, though, through his size and strength and unshakable self-assurance, had managed to make himself first the war leader of these people, and then their king, and, by now, virtually their god. It had all happened because a neighboring city, not long after Olaus’s arrival, had chosen to make war against this one. There was no sovereign authority in this land, Drusus gathered: each city was independent, though sometimes they allied themselves in loose confederacies against their enemies. These Maia all were fierce fighters; but when war broke out, Olaus trained the warriors of this city where he was living in military methods of a kind they had never imagined, a combination of Roman discipline and Norse brutality. Under his leadership they became invincible. City after city fell to Olaus’s armies. For the first time in Maian history a kind of empire was formed here in Yucatan.