Ethan’s assistant, Gabriel, talked about his position at the Field Museum in Chicago. Unlike the others, he’d opted not to get a formal degree in archaeology, studying history instead, but that didn’t stop him from volunteering to go on digs whenever he built up enough vacation time. Luckily, this dig was a paid gig, courtesy of Ford convincing their investor that he needed Ethan, and Ethan convincing Ford that he needed his assistant. Ethan and Gabriel were both skilled in archaeological techniques, which made up for the fact that Sunny and the other interns were not.
The interns all had their various reasons for wanting to go on the dig. Experience. Credits. One, Mateo, was originally from Mexico and wanted to participate in a dig in his native land. Though she’d been born and raised in the US, Corrie understood the desire to study one’s culture. For the most part, they all said they were enjoying their time on the dig, though at three months in with little to no contact with the outside world and no real end in sight, their excitement seemed to be waning. Digs were hard no matter how you sliced it, especially remote ones like this. Being away from home. Being sweaty and dirty all day. Sleeping in tents with no access to running water. But the secrecy surrounding this particular excursion added an extra layer of frustration. They couldn’t tell their friends and family where they were or for how long. They couldn’t discuss what they had or hadn’t found. No, the only people they could really talk to were those crowded inside this tent.
And seeing as one of those people was the person Corrie despised most in the world, she wasn’t sure she was ready to limit her interactions to her present company.
“How did you become so knowledgeable about Chimalli?” Mateo asked.
“Yeah. What got you interested in Chimalli in the first place?” Gabriel followed up.
Corrie opened her mouth to speak, but Ford beat her to it. “Well, Dr. Mejía over here thinks she’s Chimalli’s descendant.” His voice carried an air of skepticism—and a healthy dose of arrogance. He didn’t believe her. Few people did, in fact, so she typically kept that information to herself.
Now she was regretting ever mentioning it to Ford, especially seeing as he’d used that information to get her here in the first place.
“Seriously?” Sunny asked, her eyes wide and full of wonderment.
“Well, uh, yes. My grandfather traced my family history, and it appears that, yes, I could be one of Chimalli’s descendants.”
“Except for the fact, however, that it was widely assumed that Chimalli was infertile, having been castrated with the very knife he took when he fled Tenochtitlán,” Ford felt the need to clarify.
Corrie glared at him. “Yes, that’s one version. But Diego Mendoza’s account presents a different version of the events.”
“Oh, right! You mentioned that in your dissertation, didn’t you?” one of the interns asked.
Her dissertation? She perked up in her seat.
“You . . . you’ve read my dissertation?”
“We all have. Required reading assigned by Dr. Matthews,” Sunny clarified.
She shot a glance over to Ford, sitting with his elbows on the table and taking a swig of water. “What? It’s a good paper. I mean, it’s practically the textbook on Chimalli,” he explained.
Was that . . . was that a compliment? Well, fuck. She pressed her knees together. His now calm, casual demeanor oozed with sex appeal, but a compliment? If that wasn’t the biggest turn-on Corrie had ever experienced . . .
Sure, there wasn’t much concrete documentation on Chimalli, and she had gathered almost everything there was to know about him within that one document, but surely Ford didn’t admit—to his own students, no less—that she knew more about Chimalli than he did. Did he?
Nearly speechless at the revelation, Corrie finally turned back to the students. “Well, I . . . uh, yes. I mentioned it. But, as evidenced by your professor, it’s not a widely believed account.”
“Can you tell us a little more?” Mateo asked.
Corrie glanced at Ford again, as if checking to make sure he was okay with her telling the tale. It was his dig, after all. Not that Corrie really felt she needed his permission, but it was a professional courtesy that even Ford was worthy of receiving. It was still surprising, though, when he motioned with his hands as if to say, By all means.
“Okay. Well . . . there are two main theories about what happened to Chimalli. The first and most widely believed is that Chimalli was a high-ranking official in Moctezuma the second’s army and that to pledge his allegiance, he allowed himself to be castrated, signifying that his commitment would be to no one other than the gods. Not a woman. Not a family. Only the gods. But once the Spaniards arrived, Chimalli got scared and fled the city alone, stealing the knife, thinking he could trade it once he was far enough away from the empire.
“The problem with that theory, in my opinion, is that it doesn’t make sense that he would be so dedicated to the gods as to be castrated, but then flee at the first sign of the Spaniards, especially when their initial arrival didn’t appear hostile. It doesn’t add up.”
“Yeah, except that people do strange things when their lives are on the line,” Ford chimed in.
True. But Corrie knew many men, and any who would be brave enough to get their balls cut off—i.e., none of them—wouldn’t then be afraid of a foreign invasion. Especially not if they thought they had the backing of literal gods on their side.
“Then what was Mendoza’s version?” Mateo asked.
Her favorite part.
“In Mendoza’s account, Chimalli had actually fallen in love with a macehualtin, a commoner named Yaretzi from a village near Tenochtitlán, but their relationship was frowned upon because Chimalli was a member of the pipiltin, the noble class of warriors. Some of the high priests found out and set to have her used as a sacrificial offering during the festival of Panquetzaliztli. But on the eve of her scheduled death, Chimalli rescued her and stole the tecpatl—the sacrificial knife. After they fled the city, they then had a child and lived a relatively peaceful life away from the demise of the Aztecs.”
“How did they have a child if he’d been castrated, though?” Sunny asked.
“He wasn’t castrated. According to Mendoza, that was a lie Moctezuma the second’s most loyal disciples had started as a way to discredit Chimalli, or lessen his worth as a man,” Corrie explained.
“Do you know what the tecpa . . . tepa—”
“Tecpatl,” she clarified.
“Right, the tecpatl,” one of the interns said. “Do you know what it looks like?”
She shook her head. “No, though a few tecpatl have been discovered, so we have some general idea. The double-edged blade is likely made of flint, possibly white flint. And the handle is likely elaborate, possibly a carved figure such as an animal made out of wood. Maybe adorned with a mosaic of shell pieces or gemstones like turquoise, malachite, or mother-of-pearl. They’re quite beautiful, considering what they were used for. But it was all part of their culture.”
“If there are these two versions, then why don’t most people know about Mendoza’s? Or, better yet, why don’t they believe it?”