Peacocks and Quetzals: Mughal/Aztec crossover fic
Razia took the long route through the orchard to avoid the palace courtyard. It was so noisy that evening, as all of Razia’s sisters and half-sisters were getting ready for the arrival of a young man who was supposed to be choosing his bride from among the princesses. His father was one of the most trusted and loyal guards of the emperor.
Razia wanted to slip away from the festivities and spend some time in the royal library, but she had to get there without being spotted. She leaned against a mango tree to catch her breath when a voice called out to her.
“Razia, don’t you want to meet Aziz? I heard he’s really handsome.”
Razia’s half-sister, Ayesha, appeared. Razia resented that Ayesha’s mother was married to the emperor, while Razia herself was the daughter of a concubine. The sight of Ayesha was breath-taking, for she wore a long silk sari and her hands were covered in intricate henna designs. Gold bangles adorned her forearms and her perfume smelled like rose petals. Razia had secretly always been jealous of how beautiful her least favourite half-sister was, with her shapely waist and her long legs. If Aziz was going to choose anyone, surely it would have to be her.
“I honestly don’t care. I need to go see Vimanam about something.”
“When are you going to stop talking to that old man? You’re going to have to get married soon. You’re not that ugly. Someone will take a liking to you. Definitely not Aziz, but maybe another man in his family who will be accompanying him today. You’ll never know if you don’t come,” Ayesha started lecturing “Besides,” she added with a mischievous flash in her sly green eyes “you wouldn’t want to miss my engagement today.” She was so confident Aziz would choose her!
“Why would anyone want to marry you? You’re so dumb!” Razia spat, and ran off. She knew Ayesha would not be able to run after her or her perfect hair might get ruined, but she could hear her screaming all kinds of insults back at her.
Razia was relieved to finally make it to the library. Talking to the court astrologer who spent his time there when he wasn’t advising her father always helped her to clear her mind. It was really Vimanam who had raised her, teaching her the fascinating stories of the Hindu gods. Her family was Muslim of course, but even though it ruled over India it knew better than to go against the dominant religion of the people. As a result, her father had no objections to appointing Hindus to important positions.
The feeling of being encircled by books lining every wall around her was comforting, and soon she found the elederly astrologer gazing at the stars from the library’s balcony. Razia approached him and bowed respectfully in greeting with her hands folded.
“Namaste, Guru Vimanam.”
Vimanam never minded if his deep thoughts were interrupted by Razia. He was a short man with dark skin and a huge potbelly. His hair and beard were silver. His voice was joyful and the corners of his eyes crinkled when he smiled.
“My child! It’s so good to see you on this auspicious night. But why aren’t you at the feast? I heard the young warrior Aziz is visiting.”
“You know I don’t care about that. It would’ve been so boring to stand there in a line of women, all with their heads covered by gossamer veils until he wanted to have a look at us. Then we’d recite some silly lines of Persian love poetry...”
“You’d have recited the best lines,” Vimanam joked.
“...And then Aziz would have to pick his bride and put a garland of flowers around her neck. It’s all just so stupid.”
“But aren’t you even the least bit curious to know who Aziz will choose?”
“It’s going to be Ayesha.”
The old astrologer couldn’t contain his laughter. He invited Razia to sit on the balcony and took out a pipe to smoke.
“You’re always welcome to talk to me anytime you need.”
Razia sat in silence for awhile as the astrologer puffed clouds of smoke from his pipe. “I see the Evening Star is out,” she observed.
“It is not a star at all but a planet, Venus. It’s almost the same size as earth.” Vimanam told her.
Razia was alarmed to hear this. “But how could it be that huge?”
“Because there are millions of worlds out there. Even the mightiest of kings is so insignificant in the grand scheme of things. We’re all controlled by the powers of the stars and planets that we are born under.”
“So you believe that everything that will happen is up there in the stars?” asked Razia.
“Our fate is written.”
“That’s unsettling. I’d like to be in charge of my own destiny. I want to see the world,” Razia said. “I want to travel to distant lands like Persia,Turkey and Greece someday. The idea of staying inside a palace for my whole life, caring for a nobleman’s children, feels like being imprisoned.”
“Some people are born to challenge fate. They can shape their own destinies. Today is a really special night, you know. The planets have aligned in such a way.”
Razia was lost in thought about her fantasy of exploring the world.
“Those white men from England who are always on the border of our empire who my father sometimes fights against and sometimes trades with, I want to know what their country is like,” she declared.
“Oh my goodness. That’s really, really far away.”
“I know. And then haven’t you wondered if there’s anything further away than that, beyond the Western Sea?”
“You’re crazy, Razia. There’s nothing beyond Europe. Ships have sailed that way and never returned.”
“You were just talking about other worlds in the sky. How has what I said sound any crazier than that?”
The old astrologer seemed to withdraw into a trance as he smoked. “Something wonderful that pushes the boundaries of space and time can occur today,” he mumbled.
Suddenly, Razia realized what he had been smoking this entire time and felt betrayed. She had respected him as a man with a vivid imagination and infinite wisdom, yet here was proof that he wasn’t as respectable as he seemed. She realized the source of his inspiration.
“That’s opium, isn’t it?” she asked.
“I swear I’m not addicted. It’s just for therapeutic reasons. You wouldn’t tell your father, right?”
Without warning, Razia snatched the pipe away from him.
“Wait! It’s a very strong dose. It’s not suitable for a girl!”
It was too late to stop Razia. She had already fallen into a deep, drug-induced slumber.
“Farewell, traveller,” he muttered. “Have a wonderful journey.”
She woke up in a field. It was full of tall, green plants that she had never seen before. They grew on stalks, and when she plucked one she noticed that they had silky husks on top and were filled with golden kernels. Where on earth was she? Everything about this land seemed so different from her home.
Razia noticed a girl approaching her with a concerned expression on her face, reaching out to give Razia a hand. The girl had high cheekbones, almond-shaped eyes and very straight, long hair. She looked very foreign. Razia graciously accepted her hand and was helped to her feet, but she could not understand anything the girl was saying. Razia had studied many languages at home, including Persian, Arabic, and Sanskrit, but this was a strange language that she had never heard before.
“What type of plants are these?” she tried to ask the girl, but the girl didn’t understand her either.
Razia had never been more confused in her life about what was going on, but she realized she was probably dreaming. If it was a lucid dream, she could understand anyone in her dream as long as she focused. She closed her eyes and struggled to understand the girl speak. Eventually, it made sense.
“My name is Quetzalli. Who are you? Are you okay? You look as though you’ve come a long way from a foreign land.”
“Yes, I’m fine. My name is Razia. I’ve come from beyond the sea.”
“You dress too well to be a Spaniard. Those are very fine clothes,” said Quetzalli, observing Razia’s blue sari.
“I’m not a Spaniard.”
“And you don’t look like the Moors the Spaniards bring with them.” Quetzalli added. Why did she talk about the Spaniards with such a hostile tone?
“Definitely not. I’ve got nothing to do with Spaniards.”
“Good. Then you’re welcome inside my home, until you can recover and go back to where you came from,” said Quetzalli. Razia noticed that the girl had a knife sheathed at her waist against her plain white dress. It was a glistening black colour, possibly made of obsidian. She’d never seen a knife forged from that material before. It looked very sharp and menacing. Had Quetzalli used it on Spaniards before?
Razia was lead to a small hut made of adobe bricks. She found it to be a charming little house as she was tired of the palace she had grown up in. Unfortunately, the floor of the house was covered in reed mats on which bodies rested.
“Careful not to step on the plague victims. I’m helping nurse the sick.”
It only took one look at the tortured faces of the people lying on the ground for Razia to figure out what illness they were suffering from. “Smallpox!” She cried.
“Oh, so you know about the disease? Tell me, is there a cure? None of the healers can figure out what to do.” Quetzalli explained.
“There is no cure. Only the strongest will survive,” Razia solemnly said.
“That’s exactly what I feared.” Sighed Quetzalli. She knelt by an old woman suffering from the disease and applied some cold rags to her patient’s forehead to try to bring down the fever.
Razia glanced at Quetzalli with a look of sympathy. She looked about two years younger than Razia, with a short, thin stature. Her dark eyes had a look of such profound misery in them. She soon learned why. As Quetzalli and Razia both drank something that Quetzalli called “chocolate”, which was very calming, Quetzalli explained the situation with the Spaniards.
“About five hundred of them arrived in Tenochtitlan a few months ago. There was a huge battle to get them to leave. My brother died in it.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss. I’m sure he fought bravely,” said Razia.
“Yes. I was really proud of him. He had the rank of Jaguar Warrior.” explained Quetzalli.
“Jaguar?”
“Oh, maybe they don’t exist in your country. They’re like really big cats.”
“So like tigers,” thought Razia.
Quetzalli took Razia for a walk out in the ruined streets of the once beautiful city of Tenochtitlan. Now there were so many corpses from smallpox victims in the canals of the city that it was hard to get by in a canoe.
“We thought we won when we drove them out of Mexico, but the disease was their weapon of mass destruction,” explained Quetzalli sadly. She sounded like she had nothing to live for anymore but to await her own death. Razia felt like she would feel the same way if the civilization of her people were so totally destroyed by outsiders.
Quetzalli had to buy medicinal herbs from the marketplace and then stop at the temple to pray, so Razia accompanied her. Quetzalli’s pet, a strange hairless dog with gray skin followed them. Razia was curious about the animals of this New World. She knew Quetzalli lived near a farm where they grew a plant called corn, but where did they keep the animals? Where were the cattle that helped them plough their fields? Where were the horses that helped them travel? Did they have elephants and camels too like her father’s stables contained?
Quetzalli told Razia that they did not raise any animals to be slaughtered or to help humans, apart from dogs and some strange chicken-like birds called turkeys.
“So the temple you are taking me to, it was made without the help of beasts of burden?”
“Well, we used slaves,” Quetzalli laughed.
“Oh,” Razia now understood. She found the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan to be an impressive monument. It had a pristine white colour and was topped by two shrines.
“One is to Huitzilopochtli, the god of war. The other one is to Tlaloc, god of rain.” Quetzalli explained.
“Your people have so many gods, just like the Hindus. Mine only have one.” Razia said.
“So it is like the religion of the Spaniards.”
A priest at the temple blew a conch shell to signal the start of the evening prayers. The priest’s headdress contained some beautiful green feathers.
“They’re from quetzal feathers. Very valuable,” said Quetzalli.
“They’re even nicer than peacock feathers,” said Razia.
“Do you know what the quetzal bird is like? It dies in captivity. It would rather die than live as a slave. People who catch quetzals must do so very carefully, and let the bird go as soon as its tail feathers are plucked.”
Razia was impressed by this explanation of the quetzal’s character. It was a bird with an inspiring personality. She was certain Quetzalli’s people were like this sacred green bird with long tail feathers. They would fight until the end and not live as slaves.
“That priest looks like a wise man with mystical powers,” said Razia.
“Our priests get visions by eating a type of mushroom,” explained Quetzalli.
As soon as Quetzalli said “mushrooms”, Razia knew exactly what she must do in order to wake up from this bizarre dream she was having.
A cannon ball struck the temple. The Spaniards were back, and this time with reinforcements.
“This city is doomed, Razia. You need to get out. Warn your people of the Europeans while you still can.”
From the dead body of the priest, Razia took a pouch full of magic mushrooms and ate them.
She found herself back at Vimanam’s library.
“The white men are very dangerous. Tell them to stay away.” She mumbled. The astrologer was nearby panicking.
“Razia! Oh thank goodness you’re finally awake. The British have laid siege to the palace.”