Текст книги "Aztec Autumn"

Автор книги: Gary Jennings

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The soldier-interpreter was looking quite giddy from having to turn from person to person while he translated all the foregoing conversations to the various participants. What G'nda Ké now said, and said most oilily, he translated into Spanish:

"Good friar, this Juan Británico may be a traitor to your Holy Mother Church. But, Your Excellency Coronado, he has been much more a traitor to yourdomain. I can aver that he is responsible for the numerous attacks—by persons unknown and so far unapprehended—all over New Galicia. Were this man to be tortured properly and lingeringly, he could enable Your Excellency to end those attacks. That would seem, to me, to take precedence over the friar's intent to send him straight to the Christian hell. And in that interrogation I would be pleased to assist your loyal ally, Yéyactzin, for I have had much practice in the art."

"¡Perdición!"shouted Coronado, irritated beyond measure. "This prisoner has so many claimants on his flesh and his life and even his soul that I almost feel sorry for the wretch!" He turned his glare again on me and demanded, in Spanish, "Wretch, you are the only one in this room who has not yet suggested how I should deal with you. Surely you have some ideas on the subject. Speak!"

"Señor Gobernador," I said—I would not concede him any excellency—"I am a prisoner of war, and a noble of the Aztéca nation that is at war with yours. Exactly as were the Mexíca nobles dethroned and overthrown by your Marqués Cortés so many years ago. The marqués was and is no weak man, but he found it compatible with his conscience to treat those earlier defeated nobles in a civilized manner. I would ask no more than that."

"There!" Coronado said to the three latest arrivals. "That is the first reasonable speech I have heard during all this turbulent confabulation." He came back to me to ask, but not menacingly, "Will you tell me the source and the number of the replica arcabuces? Will you tell me who are the insurgents beleaguering our settlements south of here?"

"No, Señor Gobernador. In all the conflicts among our nations of this One World—and I believe in all that your own Spain has fought with other peoples—no prisoner of war was ever expected by his captors to betray his comrades. Certainly Iwill not, even if I am interrogated by that hen-vulture yonder, so boastful of her scavenger skills."

The scathing glance that Coronado gave G'nda Ké indicated, I was sure, that he shared my opinion of her. Perhaps he really hadbegun to feel some sympathy for me, because when G'nda Ké, the friar and Yeyac all began indignantly speaking at once, he silenced them with a peremptory slash of his hand, then said:

"Guards, take the prisoner back to his cell, unbound. Give him food and water to keep him alive. I will ponder on this matter before I question him again. The rest of you, begone! Now!"

My cell had a stout door, barred on the outside, where my two guards were posted. In the opposite wall was a single window, unbarred, but too small for anything larger than a rabbit to wriggle through. It was not, however, too small for communication with a person outdoors. And, sometime after nightfall, there did come someone to that window.

"¡Oye!" said a voice, barely loud enough for me to hear, and I arose from the straw that was my bedding.

I looked out, and at first could see nothing but darkness. Then the visitor grinned and I saw white teeth, and realized that I was being visited by a man as black as the night outside, the Moro slave Estebanico. I greeted him warmly, but also in a low murmur.

He said, "I told you, Juan Británico, that I would be always in your debt. You must know by now that I am—as you foretold—appointed to guide the Lying Monk to those nonexistent cities of riches. So I owe you whatever help or comfort I can give."

"Thank you, Esteban," I said. "I would be most comfortable if I were at liberty. Could you somehow draw off the guards and unbar my door?"

"That, I fear, is beyond my ability. Spanish soldiers do not pay much heed to a black man. Also—forgive me for sounding selfish—I value my ownliberty. I will try to think of some means of effecting your escape that would not put me in your place. In the meantime, word has just come from a Spanish patrol that may be cheering to you. It assuredly is not cheering to the Spaniards."

"Good. Tell me."

"Well, some of your slain or wounded warriors were found immediately after the ambush that cut them down last night. But the governor waited until this morning to send a full patrol combing that entire area. Of additional dead or incapacitated warriors, they came upon comparatively few. Clearly, most of your men survived and got away. And one of those fugitives—a man on a horse—boldly let himself be seen by the patrol. When they returned here, they described him. The two indios now in league with Coronado—Yeyac and that awful woman G'nda Ké—seemed to recognize the man described. They spoke a name. Nochéztli. Does that mean anything to you?"

"Yes," I said. "One of my best warriors."

"Yeyac seemed oddly disturbed to learn that this Nochéztli is one of yours, but he made little comment, because we were all in the presence of the governor and his interpreter. However, the woman laughed scornfully and called Nochéztli an unmanly cuilóntli. What does that word mean, amigo?"

"Never mind. Go on, Esteban."

"She told Coronado that such an unmanly man, even armed and at large, would be no danger. But later news proved her wrong."

"How so?"

"Your Nochéztli not only escaped the ambush, he apparently was among the few not terrified and panicked and sent fleeing. One of your wounded who was brought here has proudly related what happened next. The man Nochéztli, sitting his horse alone in the darkness and smoke, shouted curses at the others for running away, and insulted them as weakling cowards, and bellowed for them to regroup on his position."

"He does have a compelling voice," I said.

"Evidently he rallied all your remaining warriors, and has removed them somewhere into hiding. Yeyac told the governor they would number high in the hundreds."

"About nine hundred, originally," I said. "There must be nearly that many still with Nochéztli."

"Coronado is reluctant to try chasing them down. His whole force here amounts to not many more than a thousand men, even including those Yeyac contributed. The governor would have to send them all, and leave Compostela undefended. For the moment, he has only taken the precaution of turning all the town's artillería—what you call the thunder-tubes—outward again."

I said, "I do not think Nochéztli would mount another assault without instructions from me. And I doubt that he knows what has become of me."

"He is a resourceful man," said Esteban. "He removed more than your army from the reach of the Spaniards."

"What do you mean?"

"The patrol that went out this morning—one of their tasks was to fetch back all the arcabuces that had been fixed in place and strung to be tripped by your warriors. The patrol returned without them. Before he disappeared, it seems, your Nochéztli had them all collected and carried with him. From what I hear, between thirty and forty of those weapons."

I could not help exclaiming jubilantly, "Yyo ayyo!We are armed! Praise be to the war god Huitzilopóchtli!"

I should not have done that. Next instant, there was a grating sound as my cell door was unbarred. The door swung open and one of the guards peered suspiciously into the gloom—by which time I was again sprawled on my straw and Esteban had gone.

"What was that noise?" demanded the guard. "Fool, are you shouting for help? You will get none."

I said loftily, "I was singing, señor. Chanting to the glory of my gods."

"God help your gods," he growled. "You have a damnably disagreeable singing voice," and he slammed the door on me again.

I sat there in the dark and pondered. I was now aware of another misjudgment I had made, not recently but a long while ago. Influenced by my distaste for the odious Yeyac and his male intimates, I had deemed all cuilóntin to be malevolently rancorous and spiteful until—when challenged by a real man—they turned as servile and cowering as the meekest of women. Nochéztli had cured me of that misapprehension. Obviously, cuilóntin were as various in nature as any other men, for the cuilóntli Nochéztli had acted with manliness and valor and capability worthy of a true hero. If I ever saw him again, I would make plain my respect and my admiration of him.

"I mustsee him again," I muttered to myself.

Nochéztli had, in one swift and daring swoop, armed a good portion of my forces with weapons equal to the white men's. But those arcabuces were useless without ample supplies of pólvora and lead. Unless my army could storm and plunder Compostela's own armory—not a very likely prospect—the lead would have to be found and the pólvora would have to be made. I was the only man of us who knew how to compound the powder, and I now cursed myself for never having imparted that knowledge to Nochéztli or some other of my under-officers.

"I haveto get away from here," I muttered.

I had one friend here in the town, and he had said he would tryto conceive some plan for my escape. But besides the understandably inimical Spaniards, I had also many foes in this town—the vindictive Yeyac, the sanctimonious Lying Monk, the ever-evil G'nda Ké. Surely it would not be long before the governor again had me brought to face him—or to face them all—and I could hardly hope for rescue by Esteban in so short a time.

Still, I reminded myself, a summons from Coronado would at least get me out of this cell. Could I perhaps, on my way to him, elude my guards and make a dash for freedom? My own palace at Aztlan had so many rooms and alcoves and niches that the dodging of pursuers and slipping into concealment would not be impossible for a fugitive as desperate as myself. But Coronado's palace was not nearly so big nor so grand as mine. I mentally reviewed the route along which the guards had twice now led me between this cell and the throne room—if that was what it was called—where the governor had questioned me. My cell was one of four at this far end of the building; I knew not whether the others were occupied. And beyond, there was a long corridor... then a flight of stairs... another corridor...

I could recall no place where I might break away, no accessible window through which I might lunge. And once in the governor's presence, I would be quite surrounded. Afterward, if I was not summarily executed right in front of him, there was every probability that I would not be led back to this cell, but to some kind of torture chamber or even the burning stake. Well, I thought dolefully, I would have to be burned outdoors.Conceivably, on the way there...

But that thought provided wan hope, indeed. I was trying to fend off black despair, and reconcile myself to the worst, when suddenly I heard: "Oye."

It was Esteban's murmur again at my tiny window. I bounded to my feet and peered again at darkness that was again split by a white-toothed grin, as he said, softly but jauntily, "I have an idea, Juan Británico."

When he told it to me, I realized that he had been thinking much as I had been, only—I must say—with a great deal more optimism. What he proposed was so reckless as to verge on madness, but he hadhad an idea, and I had not.

The guards bound my arms before they escorted me to my next confrontation with the governor, the following morning, but at his dismissive gesture, they untied me and stood aside. Besides several other soldiers, G'nda Ké and Fray Marcos and his guide Esteban were also in the room, and they ambled about it as freely as if they were Coronado's equals.

To me, the governor said, "I have excused Yeyac from attendance at this conference because, frankly, I detest the duplicitous hijoputa.However, from our previous interview, Juan Británico, I take you to be an honorable and forthright man. Therefore, I here and now offer you the same pact that my predecessor, Governor Guzmán, made with that Yeyac. You will be set free, as will also the other horseman captured alive with you."

He gestured again, and a soldier brought in from some other room Ualíztli the tícitl, looking grumpy and disheveled, but not impaired in any way. This put a small complication into the projected plan of escape, but not, I thought, an insuperable one, and I was pleased that I might be able to take Ualíztli with me. I motioned for him to come and stand beside me, and I waited to hear the rest of the governor's so-called offer.

He said, "You will be allowed to return to that place called Aztlan, and resume your rule there. I guarantee that not Yeyac nor any of his cohort will contest your supremacy—if I have to kill the damned maricónto make sure of it. You and your people will retain your traditional domains and live there in peace, untroubled by invasion or conquest by mine. In time, you Aztecs and we Spaniards may find it profitable to engage in trade and other intercourse, but nothing of that sort will be forced upon you."

He paused and waited, but I stood silent, so he went on:

"In reciprocation, youwill guarantee not to lead or incite any further rebellion against New Galicia, New Spain or any other of His Majesty's lands and subjects here in the New World. You will send word to those insurgent bands in the south to cease their depredations. And you will swear to ward off, as Yeyac did, any incursions of those pestiferous indios to the north, in the Tierra de Guerra. So, what say you, Juan Británico? Agreed?"

I said, "I thank you, Señor Gobernador, for your flattering estimate of my character and for your trust that I would keep my given word. I take you, too, to be an honorable man. For that reason, I would not disrespect you and disgrace myself by giving my word and then breaking it. You must be fully aware that what you offer me and my people is nothing but what we have always had, and will fight to keep. We Aztecshave declared war against you and every other white man. Strike me dead this moment, señor, and some other Aztec will arise to lead our warriors in that war. I respectfully decline the pact you offer."

Coronado's face had been darkening during my speech, and I am sure he was about to reply in wrath and malediction. But just then, Esteban, who had all this while been sauntering idly about the room, came within my reach.

I flung an arm around his neck, hauled him tight against me and, with my free hand, plucked from his waist belt the steel knife sheathed there. Esteban made an apparently strenuous effort to struggle loose, but desisted when I laid the knife blade across his bare throat. Ualíztli, at my side, regarded me with astonishment.

"Soldiers!"screeched G'nda Ké from across the room. "Take aim! Slay that man!" She was ranting in Náhuatl, but no one could have mistaken what she meant. "Slay them both!"

"No!"cried Fray Marcos and "Hold!"bellowed Coronado, exactly as Esteban had predicted they would. The soldiers, already having raised their arcabuces or drawn their swords, stood perplexed, making no other move.

"No?"bawled G'nda Ké in disbelief. "Not kill them? What kind of timid women areyou white fools?" She would have gone on with her incomprehensible tirade, but the friar desperately outshouted her:

"Please,Your Excellency! The guards must not take the risk of—"

"I know it, you imbecile! Shut your mouth! And strangle that howling bitch!"

I was slowly backing toward the door, seemingly dragging the helpless black man, and Ualíztli was right with us. Esteban was turning his head from side to side, as if looking for help, his eyes fearfully bulging so that they showed white all around. The movement of his head was deliberate, to cause my blade to cut his throat skin slightly, so that everyone could see a trickle of blood run down his neck.

"Ground your arms, men!" Coronado commanded the soldiers, who were alternately gaping at him and at our slow, wary progress. "Stand as you are. No firing, no swordplay. I had rather lose both the prisoners than that single miserable Moro."

I called to him, "Tell one of them, señor, to run outside before us, and loudly to inform every soldier in the vicinity. We are not to be molested or impeded. When we are safely gone beyond the town, I will release your precious Moro unharmed. You dohave my word on that."

"Yes," said Coronado, through gritted teeth. He motioned to a soldier near the door. "Go, Sargento.Do as he says."

Circling well clear of us, the soldier scuttled out the door. Ualíztli and I and the limp, goggle-eyed Esteban were not far behind. No one pursued us as we followed that soldier along a short hall I had not been in before, and down a flight of stairs, and out through the palace's street door. The soldier was already shouting as we three emerged. And there, at a hitching rack, as Esteban had arranged, a saddled horse was waiting for us.

I said, "Tícitl Ualíztli, you will have to run alongside. I am sorry, but I had not counted on your company. I will hold the horse to a walk."

"No, by Huitztli, go at a gallop!" the physician exclaimed. "Old and stout though I am, I am eager enough to be out of here that I will move like the wind!"

"In the name of God," growled Esteban, under his breath. "Cease your gibbering and move!Fling me across the saddle and leap up behind and go!"

As I heaved him atop the horse—actually, he bounded and I only seemed to impel him—our herald-soldier was crying commands to everyone within hearing, "Make way! Safe passage!" All the other people in the street, soldiers and citizens alike, were gawking numbly at this remarkable spectacle. Not until I was seated behind the saddle's cantle, now holding Esteban's knife ostentatiously pointed at his kidneys, did I realize that I had neglected to unhitch the horse from the rail. So Ualíztli had to do that, and handed the reins up to me. Then, true to his word, the tícitl waddled off at a speed commendable in one of his age and girth, enabling me to put the horse to a trot beside him.

When we were out of sight of the palace, and out of hearing of that soldier's shouts, Esteban—though being jounced while hanging uncomfortably head down—began giving me directions. Turn right at the next street, left at the next and so on, until we were beyond the city's center and out in one of the mean quarters where the slaves lived. Not many of those were about—most were doing slave work somewhere at this hour—and the few we saw took care to avert their eyes. They probably supposed us—two indios and a Moro—to be slaves also, employing a truly unique mode of escape, and wanted to be able to say, should they be questioned, that they had seen nothing of us.

When we reached Compostela's outskirts, where even the slave shacks were few and far apart and no one at all was in sight, Esteban said, "Stop here." He and I clambered down from the horse and the tícitl collapsed full length on the ground, panting and sweating. While Esteban and I rubbed the sore places on our bodies—he his stomach and I my rump—he said:

"This is as far as I can play hostage to your safety, Juan Británico. There will be Spanish outposts beyond, and they will not have got the word to let us pass. So you and your companion will somehow have to make your own way, on foot, and stealthily. I can only wish you good fortune."

"Which we have had thus far, thanks to you, amigo. I trust that fortune will not desert us now, when we are so near to freedom."

"Coronado will not order a pursuit until he has me back in one piece. As I told you, and as events have proved, the ambitious governor and the avaricious friar darenot endanger my black hide. So—" He climbed stiffly back onto the saddle, right side up this time. "Hand me the knife." I did, and he used it to rip his clothes in several places, and even to nick his skin here and there, just enough to draw blood, then gave the knife back to me.

"Now," he said, "use the reins to tie my hands tight to the saddle pommel here. To give you as much of a running start as I can, I will plod only slowly back to the palace. I can plead weakness from having been cruelly cut and beaten by you savages. Be glad that I am black; no one will notice that I am notbruised all over. More than that I cannot do for you, Juan Británico. As soon as I get to the palace, Coronado will fan out his whole army to look for you, turning over every least pebble. You mustbe far, far from here by then."

"We will be," I said. "Either safely deep in our native forests or securely deep in that dark place you Christians call hell. We thank you for your kind help, for your bold imagination and for your putting yourself at hazard on our behalf. Go you, amigo Esteban, and I wish you joy in your own freedom soon to be realized."

XXII

"What do we do now, Tenamáxtzin?" asked Ualíztli, who had recovered his breath and was sitting up.

"As the Moro said, there has not been time for the governor to have sent word to his guard posts, to let us—if we still held our hostage—pass unhindered. Therefore, neither will they have been alerted to expect us at all. They will, as usual, be looking outward, for enemies trying to enter the town, not leave it. Just follow me, and do as I do."

We walked upright until we were past the last shanties of the slave quarter, then we stooped over and went very, very cautiously farther out from the town until I espied, at a distance, a shack with soldiers around it, none of them looking our way. We went no nearer to that, but turned left and kept on until we saw another such shack and soldiers, these standing around one of those thunder-tubes, the kind called a culebrina. So we turned back and retraced our path until we were about midway between those guard posts. Happily for us, at that spot a dense underbrush stretched away toward a tree line on the horizon. Still stooping, duck-walking, I led the way into those bushes, staying below the tops of them, trying not to shake any of them, and the tícitl—though again panting heavily—did likewise. It seemed to me that we had to endure that awkward, cramped, excruciating, slow progress for countless one-long-runs—and I know it was far more fatiguing and painful for Ualíztli—but we did, at long last, reach the line of trees. Once within them, I gratefully stretched erect—all my joints creaking—and the tícitl again sprawled full length on the ground, groaning.

I lay down nearby and we both rested for a luxurious while. When Ualíztli had regained breath enough to speak, but not yet strength enough to stand, he said:

"Would you tell me, Tenamáxtzin, whydid the white men let us leave? Surely not just because we took with us one of their black slaves. A slave of any color is as expendable as spittle."

"They believe that particular slave holds the secret to a fabulous treasure. They are foolish to think so—but I will explain all that another time. Right now, I am trying to think of some way to find the Cúachic Nochéztli and the rest of our army."

Ualíztli sat up and gave me a worried look. "You must be still unsettled of mind, from that blow to your head. If all our men were not slain by the thunder-sticks, they are bound to have scattered and fled far from this place by now."

"They were not and they did not. And I am not deranged. Please stop talking physician's talk, and let me think." I glanced upward; Tonatíu was already slipping down the sky. "We are again north of Compostela, so we cannot be too far from where we were ambushed. Would Nochéztli have kept the warriors assembled hereabouts? Or led them south of the town, as originally intended? Or even started them back to Aztlan? What wouldhe have done, not knowing what had become of me?"

The tícitl considerately refrained from comment.

"We cannot simply go wandering about in search of them," I went on. "Nochéztli must find us.I can think of nothing but to make a signal of some sort, and hope it attracts him hither."

The tícitl could not keep silent for long. "Best hope it does notattract the Spanish patrols that are certain to be looking for us very soon."

"It would be the last thing they would expect," I said. "That we would deliberately call attention to our hiding place. But if our own men areanywhere about, they must be near frenzied for some news of their leader. Anything out of the ordinary ought to draw at least a scout. A big fire should do it. Thanks be to the earth goddess Coatlícue, there are many pines among these trees, and the ground is thick with dry needles."

"Now call on the god Tlaloc to strike the needles alight with a fork of his lightning," Ualíztli said wryly. "I see no usable embers glowing anywhere here. I had combustible liquids in my physician's sack that could be easily ignited, but that sack was taken from me. It will take us all night to find and fashion and use a drill and block."

"No need for that, nor for Tlaloc," I said. "Tonatíu will help us before he sets." I felt around inside the quilted armor I still wore. "My weapons were taken, too, but the Spaniards evidently did not think this worth confiscating." I brought out the lente, the crystal given me so long ago by Alonso de Molina.

"Neither would I think it worth anything," said Ualíztli. "What earthly use is a little blob of quartz?"

I said only, "Watch," and got up and moved to where a stray sunbeam came down through the trees to the ground's litter of brown needles. Ualíztli's eyes widened when, after only a moment, a wisp of smoke rose from there, then a flicker of flame. A moment more, and I had to jump back away from what was becoming a very respectable blaze indeed.

"How did you do that?" the tícitl asked, marveling. "Where did you get such a sorcerous thing?"

"A gift from father to son," I said, smiling in reminiscence. "Blessed with the help of Tonatíu and of a father in Tonatíucan, I believe I can do just about anything. Except sing, I suppose."

"What?"

"The guard of my cell at the palace disparaged my singing voice."

Ualíztli again gave me the probing look of a physician. "Are you sure,my lord, that you are not still affected by that blow to your head?"

I laughed at him, and turned to admire my fire. As it spread among the ground needles, it was not very visible, but now it was igniting the resin-full green needles of the pines above, and so was sending up a plume of smoke that rapidly got higher, denser and darker.

"That should fetch somebody,"I said with satisfaction.

"I suggest that we move back among the bushes we came through," said the tícitl. "We can perhaps get an early warning glimpse of whocomes. And whoever it is will not find us just a pair of roasted cadavers."

We did that, and crouched out there, and watched the fire eat through the grove, sending up a smoke to rival that which always hangs above the great volcano Popocatépetl outside Tenochtítlan. Time passed, and the lowering sun turned the high smoke cloud a ruddy gold in color, an even more conspicuous signal against the sky's deepening blue. More time passed, before finally we heard a rustling in the bushes around us. We had not been talking, but when Ualíztli gave me a questioning look, I held a cautionary finger to my lips, then raised slowly up to see over the bushes' tops.

Well, they were not Spaniards, but I could almost have wished they were. The men surrounding our hiding place were armor-clad Aztéca, prominent among them the Arrow Knight Tapachíni—these were Yeyac's warriors. One of them, cursedly keen-eyed, saw me before I could crouch down again, and gave the owl-hoot cry. The circle of them closed in upon us, and Ualíztli and I resignedly stood erect. The warriors stopped at a distance from us, but ringed us completely about, so that we were the center and aim of all their leveled spears and javelins.

Yeyac himself now elbowed through the circle and came closer to us. He was not alone; G'nda Ké came with him; both were smirking triumphantly.

"So, cousin, we are face-to-face again," he said. "But this will be the last time. Coronado may have been reluctant to raise the alarm at your escape, but the good G'nda Ké was not. She ran immediately to tell me. Then I and my men had only to wait and watch. Now, cousin, let us escort you well away from here, before the Spaniards do come. I want privacy and ample leisure in which to do the slow slaying of you."

He motioned for the warriors to close in upon us. But before they could converge, a single one of them stepped forward from the circle, the only warrior bearing an arcabuz.

"I killed you once before, Yeyac," said Tiptoe, "when you menaced my Tenamáxtli. As you say, this will be the last time."

The other warriors on either side of her recoiled as the thunder-stick thundered. The lead ball took Yeyac in his left temple and for an instant, his head blurred in a spray of red blood and pink-gray brain substance. Then he toppled, and no back-alley tícitl would be able to revive him ever again.

Every other one of us stood frozen, stunned, for the space of several heartbeats. Obviously, in her bulky quilted armor, Pakápeti—even with something of a belly now—had been able, all this while, to pass as a man of the company, and to keep her arcabuz concealed somewhere until it was really needed.

Now she had just time enough to send me a brief, affectionate, sad smile. Then there was a bellow of outrage from all of Yeyac's men, and those nearest Tiptoe surged to get at her, and the first one who did gave a mighty overhand slash of his obsidian sword. It opened Tiptoe's armor, her skin, her body, from breastbone to groin. Before she fell, there spilled out of her a great gush of blood, all her organs and guts... and something else. The men about her reeled back away from her, staring aghast and uttering exclamations loud enough to be heard above the noise of all the other angry shouts—"tequáni!" and "tzipitl!" and "palanquí!"—meaning "monstrosity" and "deformity" and "putridity."