Mario Reading - The Mayan Codex

Mario Reading is a multi-talented writer of both fiction and non-fiction. His varied life has included selling rare books, teaching riding in Africa, studying dressage in Vienna, running a polo stable in Gloucestershire and maintaining a coffee plantation in Mexico. An acknowledged expert on the prophecies of Nostradamus, Reading is the author of seven non-fiction titles, as well as the bestselling novel The Nostradamus Prophecies.

This paperback edition first published in the UK in 2010 by Corvus, an imprint of Grove Atlantic Ltd.

Copyright Mario Reading, 2010. All rights reserved.

The moral right of Mario Reading to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously.

ISBN: 978-0-857-89058-0

First eBook Edition: January 2010

Corvus

An imprint of Grove Atlantic Ltd

Ormond House

26-27 Boswell Street

London WC1N 3JZ

www.corvus-books.co.uk

Contents

For my beloved wife Claudia de Los Angeles,
la guardiana de mi corazn

Mario Reading 2010

Just as with the Gypsy lore in the first book in my Nostradamus Trilogy, The Nostradamus Prophecies, the Maya lore, language, names, habits, and myths depicted in this book are all accurate. I have merely concatenated the customs of a number of different Maya tribes into one, for reasons of fictional convenience. The barbarities perpetrated by Friar Diego de Landa, as recounted by Akbal Coatl aka the night serpent have not been tampered with in any way. These horrors happened, and in just the way I have described. The bulk of Maya written history was destroyed in one all-encompassing pogrom.

Ive been very lucky indeed in the people who have aided and abetted the production of this book, and this is my opportunity to thank them. Firstly, my agent, Oliver Munson, of Blake Friedmann, who has championed my work both fiction and nonfiction for a number of years now, and to whom I am deeply indebted for his dedication, judgement, and endless good humour. Thanks, also, to my publisher, Ravi Mirchandani, for encouraging me both onwards and upwards (to filch one of his favourite catchphrases). Also to my former editor at Atlantic, Caroline Knight, for her wise suggestions on the text, and to Laura Palmer, my present editor at Atlantics new imprint, Corvus, for making me feel so instantly at home. Thanks, too, to Henry Steadman for his outstanding jacket design for both my recent novels, and to my perennial copy editor, Shelagh Boyd, for her tact, insight, and wisdom in suggesting improvements to the text without alienating its author a neat trick when one can pull it off! Also to the nameless Maya man who guided me on his triciclo around the site at Kabh, and explained to me so patiently how and when one might hunt iguanas. Finally, deepest thanks must go to my two secret sharers: to my wife, Claudia, to whom this book is dedicated, and to my good friend Michle OConnell, for casting her invaluable eye over my work-in-progress and always telling it like it is.

Eat, eat, while you still have bread

Drink, drink, while you still have water

A day will come when dust will possess the earth

And the face of the world will be blighted

On that day a cloud will rise

On that day a mountain will be lifted up

On that day a strong man will seize the land

On that day things will fall to ruin

On that day the tender leaf will be destroyed

On that day dying eyes will close

On that day there will be three signs seen on a tree

On that day three generations of men will hang there

On that day the battle flag will be raised

And the people will be scattered in the forests.

From The Nine Books Of Chilam Balam

Translated by the author

The young King knelt and prayed a little before the hunt God, after all, was on his side. Then he and his fifty-strong entourage clattered out of the Chteau de Monfaucon towards the domanial forest.

It was a blustery autumn day, with fine leaves churning in the wind, and a sufficient edge of rain to dampen the cheeks. The twelve mounted Cistercian monks who always accompanied the King were finding it increasingly difficult to adjust their chanting of the hours to the winds hullabaloo. The King glared back at them from time to time, irritated at their swooping and swelling.

You can all go home. Ive had enough of your caterwauling. I cant make out a word of it.

The monks, used to their masters whims, peeled off from the hunt procession, secretly relishing the prospect of an early return to cloisters, and to the roaring fire and plentiful breakfast that awaited them there.

Louis turned to his squire, Amauri de Bale. What you said about the wild boar. Yesterday. When we were talking. That it, too, is a symbol of Christ. Was this true?

De Bale felt a sudden rush of exultation. The seed he had so carefully sown had germinated after all. Yes, Sire. In Teutonic Germany the boar, sus scrofa, is known as der Eber. I understand that the word Eber may be traced directly back to Ibri, the ancestor of the Hebrews. Via a peculiarly convenient false etymology, de Bale added silently.

Louis hammered the pommel of his hunting saddle. Who were known as the Ibrim. Of course!

De Bale grinned. He offered up a private prayer of thanks to the phalanx of tutors who had ensured that Louis was even better educated than his effete sodomite of a grandfather, Philip II Augustus.

As you know, Sire, in ancient Greece the boar was the familiar of the goddesses Demeter and Atalanta. In Rome, of the war god Mars. Here in France, the boar might be said to stand in for you, Sire, in the sense of encapsulating both valiant courage and the refusal to take flight.

Louiss eyes burned with enthusiasm. His voice rose high above the winds buffet. Today I am going to kill a wild boar with my axe. Just like Heracles on Mount Erymanthus. God spoke to me this morning and told me that if I should do so, the attributes of the boar would transfer themselves to me, and my reign would see the permanent annexation of Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem by the Holy Mother Church.

De Bale raised his eyebrows. By the Holy Roman Emperor, you mean?

I mean by me.

De Bale found himself temporarily at a loss for words. This was getting better by the minute. The King had even made the suggestion himself. He checked out the horsemen surrounding them yes, theyd heard the King all right. He could almost hear the surreptitious tightening of sphincters as the Kings entourage realized they were to hunt for wild boar and not deer that day.