In the Courts of the Sun

In the Courts of the Sun
BRIAN D'AMATO

Penguin Group USA

Table of Contents

Copyright Page
Dedication
ZERO
[Ø]
ONE
[1]
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TWO
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THREE
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[46]
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[54]
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FOUR
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[0]
GLOSSARY
Acknowledgements
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ALSO BY BRIAN D’AMATO

Beauty

DUTTON
Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Published by Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

First printing, March 2009

Copyright © 2009 by Brian D’Amato

All illustrations, maps, glyph renderings, and other graphics are by Brian D’Amato.
All rights reserved

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
D’Amato, Brian.
In the courts of the sun / Brian D’Amato.
p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-101-02663-2

I. Title.
PS3554.A467515 2009
813’.54—dc22 2008020986

PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product
of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the
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http://us.penguingroup.com

Dedicated to Anthony D’Amato,
author of
Jurisprudence: A Descriptive and Normative Analysis of Law
and many other writings in law and philosophy
and composer of
RSVP Broadway
and many other musical works

A percentage of the author’s after-tax profits
from this series is donated to various Maya-related
educational, social, and environmental projects.
For more information please see
www.briandamato.com

A NOTE ON PRONUNCIATION

M
ost Mayan words in this book are spelled according to the current orthography adopted by the Academía de Lenguas Mayas in Guatemala. However, I’ve retained older spellings for a few words—for instance, the text uses
uay
instead of the now-preferred
way
in order to distinguish the word from the English
way
. Specialists may also notice that some words are spelled to be pronounced in Ch’olan, which usually means a
ch
takes the place of a
k
. I’ve italicized Mayan and most Spanish words on the first use and dropped the italics after that.
Vowels in Mayan languages are pronounced roughly like those in Spanish.
Ay
in Maya,
uay
etc., is pronounced like the
I
in “I am.”
J
is pronounced like the Spanish
j,
that is, a guttural
h
with the tongue farther back than in English.
X
is like the English
sh
.
Tz
is like the English
ts
in “pots.” Otherwise, consonants are pronounced as in English. An apostrophe indicates a glottal stop, which is like the
tt
in the Scottish or Brooklynese pronunciation of “bottle.” All Mayan words are stressed on the last syllable, but Mayan languages are less stressed than English. Mayan is somewhat tonal, and its prosody tends to emphasize short couplets. There’s a certain lilt to it which in some places I’ve tried to convey with dactyls, although readers may differ on whether this is successful.
Words in the language of Teotihuacan are stressed, like the name of the city, on the penultimate syllable.

MESOAMERICA