Текст книги "Aztec Autumn"

Автор книги: Gary Jennings

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I had to contend with not just my court officials and major matters of policy, but also with the most trivial doings of the common folk. Here a quarrel between two neighbors over the boundary between their plots of land; there a family squabbling over the division of their recently dead father's meager estate; here a debtor asking relief from an usurious and harassing moneylender; there a creditor asking permission to oust a widow and her orphans from their home, to satisfy some obligation her late husband had failed to meet...

It was exceedingly difficult for me to find time to attend to matters that were—to me—of much more urgency. But somehow I managed. I instructed all the loyal knights and cuáchictin of my army to put their forces (and every available conscript) to intensified training, and to make place in their ranks for the additional warriors levied and daily arriving from the other communities subordinate to Aztlan.

I even found time to take out of hiding the three arcabuces Pakápeti and I had brought, and to give personal training in the use of them. Needless to remark, every warrior was, at first, timorous of handling these alien weapons. But I selected only those who could overcome their trepidation, and who showed an aptitude for using the thunder-stick efficiently. Those eventually numbered about twenty, and when one of them asked, diffidently, "My lord, when we go to war, are we to take turns employing the thunder-sticks?" I told him, "No, young iyac. I expect you to wrest from the white men theirarcabuces with which to arm yourselves. Furthermore, we will also be confiscating the white men's horses. When we do, you will be trained in the handling of them, as well."

My being continuously busy had at least one gratifying aspect: it kept me from having anything to do with the Yaki woman G'nda Ké. While I was occupied with affairs of state, she occupied herself with overseeing the palace household and its domestics. She may have been a nuisance to those servants, but she had little opportunity to be a nuisance to me. Oh, occasionally we might meet in a palace corridor, and she would utter some taunting or teasing remark:

"I weary of waiting, Tenamáxtli. When do you and I go forth together and commence our war?"

Or "I weary of waiting, Tenamáxtli. When do you and I go to bed together, so that you may kiss every one of the freckles that sprinkle my most intimate parts?"

Even if I had not been kept too busy to bed anybody,and even if she had been the last human female in existence, I would not have been tempted. Indeed, during my tenure as Uey-Tecútli—when by custom I could have had any Aztlan woman I wanted—I was having none at all. Pakápeti seemed staunch in her determination never again to couple with any man. And I would not have dreamed of intruding myself into Améyatl's sickbed, even though she was getting healthier and stronger and more beautiful every day.

I did visit my cousin's bedside whenever I had a free moment, simply to converse with her. I would apprise her of all my activities as Uey-Tecútli, and of all happenings in and about Aztlan—so that she could the more easily resume her regency when the time came. (And, frankly, I was yearning for that time to come, so I could be off to war.) We talked of many other things, too, of course, and one day Améyatl, looking vaguely troubled, said to me:

"Pakápeti has taken loving care of me. And she lookslovely, now that her hair is nearly as long as my own. But the dear girl might as well be repellently ugly, because the anger in her is so very nearly visible."

"She is angry toward men, and she has reason. I told you of her encounter with those two Spanish soldiers."

"White men, then, I could understand. But—excepting only you—I think she would gladly slay everyman alive."

I said, "So would the venomous G'nda Ké. Perhaps her propinquity has influenced Pakápeti to an even deeper hatred of men."

Améyatl asked, "Including the one inside her?"

I blinked. "What are you saying?"

"Then you have not noticed. It is just beginning to show, and she is carrying it high. Tiptoe is pregnant."

"Not by me,"I blurted. "I have not touched her in—"

"Ayyo, cousin, be at ease," said Améyatl, laughing despite her evident concern. "Tiptoe blames that encounter of which you spoke."

"Well, she could reasonably be bitter about carrying the mongrel child of a—"

"Not because it is a child. Or a mongrel. Because it is a male.Because she detests all males."

"Oh, come now, cousin. How could Pakápeti possibly know it will be a boy?"

"She does not even refer to it as a boy.She speaks savagely of 'this tepúligrowing inside me.' Or 'this kurú'—the Poré word for that same male organ. Tenamáxtli, is it possible that Tiptoe's distress is causing her to lose her mind?"

"I am no authority," I said with a sigh, "on madness orwomen. I will consult a tícitl of my acquaintance. Perhaps he can prescribe some palliative for her distress. In the meantime, let us both—you and I—be watchful that Tiptoe does not try to do some hurt to herself."

But it was a while before I got around to summoning that physician, because I had other distractions. One was a visit from one of the guards at the Coyolxaúqui temple, come to report that the imprisoned warriors were most miserable, having to sleep on their feet, eating nothing but mush, being so long unbathed, and so forth.

"Have any of them yet suffocated or starved?" I demanded.

"No, my lord. They may be near dead, but one hundred thirty and eight were confined in there, and that number still remain. However, even we guards outside the temple can hardly endure their stink and their clamor."

"Then change the guard more frequently. Unless those traitors begin to die, do not trouble me again. Neardead is not punishment enough for them."

And then Nochéztli returned from his mission as a quimíchi in Compostela. He had been gone for about two months—and I had begun to worry that he had again defected to the enemy—but he came back, as promised, and came brimming with things to tell.

"Compostela is a much more thriving and populous town, my lord, than when I last saw it. Most numerous of the male white inhabitants are the Spanish soldiers, whom I estimate to number about a thousand, half of those horse-mounted. But many of the higher-ranking soldiers have brought their families, and other Spanish families have come as colonists, all of those families having built houses for themselves. The governor's palace and the town church are of well-worked stone; the other residences are of dried-mud brick. There is a marketplace, but all the goods and produce for sale there have been brought by trains of traders from the south. The whites of Compostela do no farming or raising of herds—they all prosper on the output of the many silver mines now being worked in the vicinity. And evidently they prosper sufficiently to afford the expense of importing all their comestibles and other necessities."

I asked, "And how many of our own people are resident there?"

"The indio population is about equal to that of the whites. I speak only of those who serve as domestic slaves in the households of the Spanish—and there are numerous black slaves as well, those creatures called Moros. If the slaves are not domiciled with their masters, they have derelict huts and shacks on the town's outskirts. There is another considerable population of our men working the mines under the earth, and in surrounding buildings atop the earth, called mills. I fear I could not estimate the number of those men, because so many of them work underground, turn about, half of them daylong, the other half during the night. Also, they and their families, if they have any, live penned in locked and guarded compounds where I could not enter. The Spanish call these places obrajes."

"Ayya, yes," I said. "I know about the infamous obrajes."

"The word is that those laborers—since our people never before had to slave underground or in such wretched conditions—keep dying off, several every day. And the mine owners cannot replace them as fast as they die, because, of course, all the indios in New Galicia not already enslaved have made haste to move and hide themselves far beyond the reach of the slave-catchers. So Governor Coronado has asked the Virrey Mendoza in the City of Mexíco to send to Compostela quantities of Moro slaves from—from wherever those Moros are brought from."

"Some land called Africa, I have been told."

Nochéztli grimaced and said, "It must be a place akin to our fearsome Hot Lands in the far south. Because I hear that the Moros can easily endure the terrific heat and closeness and clangor of the mines and mills. Also the Moros must be more like the Spaniards' beasts of burden than like human beings, for it is also said that they can labor unceasingly, under crushing loads, without dying or even complaining. It may be that if enough Moros are imported into New Galicia, Coronado will cease trying to capture and enslave our own people."

"This Governor Coronado," I said. "Tell me about him."

"I glimpsed him only twice, when he was reviewing his troops, elegantly costumed and astride a prancing white horse. He is no older than yourself, my lord, but his rank, of course, is inferior to yours of ReveredGovernor, for he is answerable to superiors in the City of Mexíco, and you are answerable to no one. Nevertheless, he is clearly determined to make a more lordly name for himself. He is remorseless in demanding that the slaves extract every pinch of silver ore—not just for the enrichment of himself and his New Galicia subjects, but for all of New Spain and that ruler called Carlos in distant Old Spain. On the whole, though, Coronado seems less of a tyrant than his predecessor. He does not allow his subjects to torment or torture or execute our people at whim, as the Governor Guzmán used to do."

"Tell me of the governor's arms and fortifications for the defense of Compostela."

"That is a curious thing, my lord. I can only assume that the late Yeyac must have persuaded Compostela that it need never fear attack from our people. In addition to the usual thunder-sticks carried by the Spanish soldiers, they have also those much more immense thunder-tubes mounted on wheeled carriages. But the soldiers do not defensively ring the town; they are chiefly employed in keeping the mine slaves submissively at work or in guarding the obrajes where they are confined. And the massive thunder-tubes positioned around the town are not pointed outward, but inward,obviously to turn back any slaves' attempt to revolt or escape."

"Interesting," I murmured. I rolled and lighted and smoked a poquíetl while I meditated on what I had learned. "Have you anything else of moment to report?"

"Much else, my lord. Though Guzmán claimed to have conquered Michihuácan and sent its few surviving warriors into slavery abroad, it seems he did not subdue allof them. The new Governor Coronado hears regularly of uprisings in the south of his domain, mostly in the area around Lake Pátzcuaro. Bands of warriors, armed only with blades made of the famous Purémpe metal, and with torches, have been assaulting Spanish army outposts and the estancias of Spanish settlers. They attack always by night, slay the armed guards and steal their thunder-sticks, and set afire the estancia buildings, thereby killing many white families—men, women, children, all. Those whites who have survived swear that the attackers were women—though how they could tell, considering the darkness and the fact that all the Purémpecha are bald, I know not. When the remaining Spanish soldiers comb the countryside by daylight, they find the Purémpe women doing nothing but what they have always done—peaceably weaving baskets, making pottery and the like."

"Ayyo," I said to myself, with satisfaction. "Pakápeti's troops are indeed proving their worth."

"The result has been that additional troops have been sent out from New Spain to try—so far, in vain—to quell those disturbances. And the Spaniards in the City of Mexíco are vociferously lamenting that this diversion of troops leaves themvulnerable to indio invasions or insurrections. If the attacks in Michihuácan have done damage that is really only trifling, they have undoubtedly made all the Spaniards—everywhere—uneasy and uncertain of their security."

I muttered, "I must find some way to send my personal commendation to that frightful cóyotl-woman Butterfly."

"As I say," Nochéztli went on, "the Governor Coronado receives these reports, but he refuses to send southward any of his own troops from Compostela. I heard that he insists on keeping his men ready for some grandiose plan he has conceived to further his own ambitions. I heard also that he was eagerly awaiting the arrival of a certain emissary of the Virrey Mendoza, from the City of Mexíco. Well, that person arrived, just before I left Compostela, my lord, and a very peculiar emissary he turned out to be. A common Christian friar—and I recognized him, for he had been a resident in Compostela before, and I had seen him there. I know not his name, but at that earlier time he was disparagingly called the Lying Monk by all his fellows. And I know not why he has returned, or why the viceroy sent him, or how he could possibly assist in the ambitions of Governor Coronado. The only other thing I can tell you in this respect is that the friar arrived accompanied by a single attendant, a mere Moro slave. Both of them, friar and slave, went immediately into private conference with the governor. I was tempted to stay and try to learn more about this mystery. However, by this time, I was beginning to get suspicious looks from the townspeople. I feared also that you, my lord, might have had suspicions about my being so long away."

"I confess that I did have, Nochéztli, and I apologize. You have done well—very well indeed. From what you have discovered, I can divine much more." I chuckled heartily. "The Moro is leading the Lying Monk in search of the fabulous Cities of Antilia, and Coronado expects to share the credit when they are discovered."

"My lord...?" said Nochéztli, puzzled.

"No matter. What it means is that Coronado willbe detaching some of his troops to aid in that search, leaving the complacent town of Compostela even more defenseless. The time approaches for the late Yeyac's pet warriors to expiate their crimes. Go you, Nochéztli, and tell the guards at that temple prison to start feeding those men on good meat and fish and fats and oils. They are to be made strong again. And have the guards let them out of the temple occasionally, to bathe and exercise and drill and get themselves fit for vigorous action. See to this, Nochéztli, and when you deem the men ready, come and tell me so."

I went to Améyatl's chambers—where she was no longer bedridden, but seated on an icpáli chair—and told her everything I had heard, and what I had deduced from that information, and what I intended to do about it. My cousin seemed still dubious about my plans, but did not withhold her approval of them. Then she said, "Meanwhile, cousin, you have done nothing yet about Pakápeti's precarious condition. I worry more about her each day."

"Ayya, you are right. I have been remiss." To one of her other servants, presently in attendance, I ordered, "Go and fetch the Tícitl Ualíztli. He is surgeon to the army. You will find him at the knights' barracks. Tell him I require him immediately."

Améyatl and I chatted of various matters—for one thing, she said she felt quite her former self again, and if I would allow it, she would begin to help me with some of the routine details of my office—until Ualíztli arrived, bearing the pouch of instruments and medicaments that all tíciltin carry everywhere. Being a rather elderly, stout man, and having hurried at my summons, he was slightly out of breath, so I had the servant bring a cup of chocólatl to refresh him, and told her to bring Tiptoe at the same time.

"Esteemed Ualíztli," I said, "this young woman is my good friend Pakápeti of the Purémpe people. Tiptoe, this gentleman is the highest-regarded physician of Aztlan. Améyatzin and I would like you to let him examine your physical condition."

She looked a little wary, but made no demur.

I told the tícitl, "From all indications, Pakápeti is with child, but apparently having something of a difficult pregnancy. All of us here would value your opinion and advice."

Immediately Tiptoe exclaimed, "I am notwith child!"but she obediently lay supine on Améyatl's pallet when the physician bade her do so.

"Ayyo, but you are,my dear," he said, after only briefly kneading her through her clothes. "Please to raise your blouse and lower your skirt band, so I may make a thorough examination."

Tiptoe seemed not embarrassed to expose her breasts and now-bloated belly in the presence of Améyatl and myself—and she seemed equally indifferent to the tícitl's frowns and sighs and mutters as he pressed and poked her here and there. When at last he sat back away from her, she spoke before he could:

"I am not pregnant! And I do not wish to be this way, either!"

"Be easy, child. There are certain potions I could have administered, early on, to induce a premature birth, but you are too far—"

"I will not give birth, early or late or ever!" Tiptoe insisted vehemently. "I want this thing inside me killed!"

"Well, to be sure, the fetus would not have survived a premature birth. But now—"

"It is not a fetus. It is a—a male thing."

The tícitl smiled tolerantly. "Did some meddlesome midwife tell you it would be a boy because you are carrying it high? That is only an old superstition."

"No midwife told me anything!" Tiptoe declared, getting more and more agitated. "I did not say a boy—I said a male thing.The thing that only a male person..." She paused, shamefaced, then said, "A kurú. A tepúli."

Ualíztl gave her a searching look. "Let me have a word with your eminent friend here." He drew me out of the women's hearing and whispered, "My lord, does this perhaps involve an unsuspecting husband? Has the young woman been unfaith—?"

"No, no," I hastened to defend her. "There is no husband at all. Several months ago, Pakápeti was raped by a Spanish soldier. I fear that her dread of bearing an enemy's child has somewhat addled her faculties."

"Unless Purémpe women are built differently than ours—which I doubt—something has addled her insides, as well. If she is carrying a child, it is growing more in the area of her stomach than her womb, and that is a thing impossible."

"Can you do anythingto give her relief?"

He made a face of uncertainty, then went back to lean over Tiptoe again. "You could be right, my dear, that it is not a viable fetus. Sometimes a woman can develop a fibrous growth that only mimics pregnancy."

"I toldyou it is growing! I toldyou it is not a fetus! I toldyou it is a tepúli!"

"Please, my dear, that is an unbecoming word for a well-bred young lady to utter. Why do you persist in speaking so immodestly?"

"Because I know what it is! Because I swallowedit! Take it out!"

"Poor girl, you are distraught." He began searching for something in his pouch.

But I was staring agape at Pakápeti. I was remembering... and I was wondering...

"Here, drink this," said Ualíztli, holding out a small cup to her.

"Will that rid me of the thing?" she asked hopefully, almost pleadingly.

"It will calm you."

"I do not want to be calm!" She dashed the cup from his hand. "I want to be free of this hideous—"

"Tiptoe," I said sternly, "do as the tícitl tells you. Remember, we should shortly be on the road again. You cannot come with me unless you get well. For now, just drink the potion. Then the good physician will consult with his fellow tíciltin as to what measures will next be taken. Is that not right, Ualíztli?"

"Exactly so, my lord," he said, concurring in my lie.

Though still looking obstinate and defiant, Tiptoe obeyed me, and drank down the cup he had refilled. Ualíztli gave her permission to rearrange her clothing and take her leave. When she was gone, he said to me and Améyatl:

"She is worse than distraught. She is demented. I gave her a tincture of the nanácatl mushroom. That will at least alleviate her mental turmoil. I know nothing else that can be done, except to cut into her with an obsidian lancet, and few patients survive such a drastic exploration. I will leave you a supply of the tincture, to be administered whenever she gets delusional again. I am sorry, my lord, my lady, but the signs prognostic are not at all promising."

In the ensuing days, Améyatzin occupied a throne slightly smaller than my own, and slightly below and on the left side of my own, and she joined in my conferences with the Speaking Council when there was occasion for those elders to convene, and helped me with many of the decisions that my other officials came to ask for, and relieved me of much of the wearisome burden of dealing with petitions from the common folk. Améyatl kept always at herleft side our dear Pakápeti, mainly as a precaution against the girl's doing something harmful to herself, but partly also in the hope that Tiptoe's mind might be diverted from its dark obsession by the activities in the throne room.

We three were there on the day that an army messenger came to tell me, "The Tequíua Nochéztli sends word, my lord, that the warriors of Yeyac are as fit as they ever were."

"Then bid Nochéztli to come hither and to bring that Arrow Knight with him."

When they came, the knight, whose name was Tapachíni, humbly stooped to make the tlalqualíztli touching of the throne-room floor. I let him remain in that subservient posture while I said:

"I offered you and your comrades in treachery three ways of dying. All of you chose the same, and this day you will lead those men marching to that death. As I promised, it will be a death in battle, good in the eyes of the gods. And this I tell you for the first time: You will have had the honor of waging the opening battle of what will be a total and unconditional war to oust the white men from The One World."

Tapachíni said, his head still bowed, "An honor we could hardly have hoped to merit, my lord. We are grateful. Only command us."

"Your arms and armor will be returned to all of you. Then you will march southward and attack the Spaniards' town of Compostela. You will do your best to obliterateit and its white inhabitants. You will not succeed, of course. You will be outnumbered ten to one, and your weapons will be no match for the white men's. However, you will find the town fatuously believing itself safeguarded because of the pact it made with the late Yeyac. Compostela will be unprepared for your assault. So the gods—and I—will be desolated if you each do not dispatch at least five of the enemy before you fall yourselves."

"Rely on it, my lord."

"I expect to hearof it. The news of such an unprecedented slaughter will not be long in reaching my ear. Meanwhile, dismiss any delusion that you and your men will elude my eyeas soon as you leave Aztlan."

I turned to Nochéztli. "Pick sturdy and loyal warriors to serve as escort. Have them accompany Knight Tapachíni and his contingent along the southbound trails—it should be a march of no more than five days—until they get within striking range of Compostela. When the Knight Tapachíni leads the charge against the town—and not until then—the escorts are to return here and report. Along the way south, they are continuously to keep count of their wards. The knight and his men number one hundred thirty and eight as of this moment. That same number is to attack Compostela. Is that understood, Tequíua Nochéztli?"

"Yes, my lord."

"And you, Knight Tapachíni," I said with heavy sarcasm. "Are those conditions satisfactory to you?"

"I can scarcely blame you, my lord, for having found us less than deserving of your trust."

"Then be gone. Much may be forgiven you when you have spilled a whole river of the white men's blood. And your own."

Nochéztli himself went along with Tapachíni's men and their escorts during their first day's march, then turned back at nightfall, and early the next morning reported to me:

"No one of the condemned men tried to escape, my lord, and there were no untoward incidents, and there were still one hundred thirty and eight of them when I left them."

I not only commended Nochéztli for his assiduous and continued attention to every aspect of this mission, I promoted him on the spot.

"From this day, you are a cuáchic, an 'old eagle.' Further, I give you permission to select for yourself the warriors who will serve under your command. If any of the haughty knights or the other cuáchictin have any complaints about that, tell them to complain to me."

Nochéztli so hastily and happily stooped to make the gesture of kissing the earth that he very nearly fell asprawl at my feet. When he scrambled erect, he left my presence even more respectfully, walking backwardall the way out of the throne room.

But he had barely gone when he was succeeded by another warrior requesting audience, and this one had brought with him a rather frightened-looking woman of the common folk. They both touched the floor in the tlalqualíztli gesture, and the man said:

"Forgive my urgency, my lord, but this woman came to our barracks to report having found, when she first opened her door this morning, a dead body in the alley outside."

"Why are you telling me this, iyac? Likely some drunkard who drank beyond his capacity."

"Forgive my correcting you, my lord. This was a warrior, and he had been stabbed in the back. Furthermore, he had been stripped of his battle armor, left wearing only his loincloth, and he bore no weapons."

"Then how do you know he wasa warrior?" I snapped, rather peeved at having my day start this way.

Before he answered me, the iyac stooped again to touch the floor, and I turned to see that Améyatl had entered the room.

"Because, my lord," he continued, "I have served as guard of the prisoners in the Coyolxaúqui temple, so I recognized this dead warrior. He was one of the late Yeyac's detestable accomplices."

"But... but..." I stammered, confounded. "They all were to have left the city last night. They didleave. All one hundred thirty and eight of them..."

Améyatl interrupted, her voice unsteady, "Tenamáxtzin, have you seen anything of Tiptoe?"

"What?" I said, even more confounded.

"She was not at my bedside this morning, as she always has been. I do not recall having seen her since we three were in this room yesterday."

Améyatl and I must both have realized, on the instant. But we and every remaining servant and even G'nda Ké went searching the palace, every corner of it, and all the palace grounds. No one found Pakápeti, and the only significant discovery was made by me—to wit, that one of the three hidden thunder-sticks also was missing. Tiptoe had deliberately gone forth to kill—and to have whatever was inside her killed—and to be killed herself.

XX

I had calculated that the Knight Tapachíni's troop and its escorts should take about five days to get to Compostela, and that the escorts should take rather less time to return and report—or, if there was a good runner among them, he might race ahead and arrive even sooner. Anyway, I had some days to wait to hear the outcome of that mission, and rather than stew in impatience and anxiety, I put the days to profitable use. I left allthe boring and exasperating routine of government to Améyatl and the Speaking Council—I was consulted only on major matters—and betook myself to outdoor pursuits.

My four horses had been well fed and groomed, as I had instructed the handler slaves, and were now handsomely sleek and obviously eager to stretch their legs. So I sought volunteers to learn the riding of them. The first I asked was G'nda Ké, for I expected that she and I would soon be traveling far and fast, in advance of my army, gathering recruits for that army. But she disdainfully spurned the idea of riding. In her inimitable way, she said:

"G'nda Ké already knows everything worth the knowing. What point in learning something new? Besides, G'nda Ké has crossed and recrossed the whole of The One World, and many times, and always on foot, as best becomes a stalwart Yaki. You ride, if you prefer, Tenamáxtli, like a weakling white man. G'nda Ké warrants that she will keep up with you."

I said drily, "You will wear out a lot of those precious sandals of yours," but did not press her further.

I next offered the opportunity to the army knights, in deference to their rank, and was not too surprised when they also declined—though of course not so insultingly as G'nda Ké had done. They said only, "My lord, eagles and jaguars would be ashamed to depend on lesser beasts for their mobility."

So I turned to the ranks of cuáchictin, and two of those did volunteer. As I might have expected, the new Cuáchic Nochéztli hardly waited to be asked. The other was a middle-aged Mexícatl named Comitl, who had, in his youth, been among those warriors brought from Tenochtítlan to train ours. He had more recently been one of the men who learned from me how to wield an arcabuz. My third volunteer was, to my astonishment, the army's surgeon, that Tícitl Ualíztli of whom I have spoken.

"If you seek only men who can fighton horseback, my lord, naturally I will understand your refusing me. But, as you can easily see, I am considerably overaged and oversized for marching with the army, and carrying my heavy sack while I do so."

"I do not refuse you, Ualíztli. I think a tícitl shouldbe enabled to move quickly about a battlefield, the more easily to administer his services. And I have seen many mounted Spaniards much older and heavier than yourself; if they could ride, surely you can learn."

So, during those days of waiting, I taught the three men as much as I myself knew about handling a horse—devoutly wishing that the far more adroit Tiptoe were there to oversee their training. We did our practices alternately on the paved central square and on grassier grounds elsewhere, and wherever we did, crowds of city folk came to stare—from a discreet distance—in awe and admiration. I let Tícitl Ualíztli use the other saddle on his horse, and Comitl and Nochéztli manfully refrained from complaining at having to jounce about on the ridgepole-steep bare backs of the other two mounts.