Текст книги "Aztec Blood"

Автор книги: Gary Jennings

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The incident occurred when a woman Don Julio had treated died in a town a day's ride from the hacienda. I accompanied Don Julio to the woman's home, where she was being prepared for burial. The woman was not of a great age, about forty years old, which is about what I calculated Don Julio's own age to be. And she had appeared to be in good health immediately prior to her expiration.

To further complicate matters, she was a wealthy widow who had recently married a younger man, who had a reputation as a profligate and womanizer.

Upon arrival at the house, Don Julio sent all but the alcalde and her priest out of the death room and examined the body. He suspected arsenic poisoning because of the smell of bitter almonds from her mouth.

The priest announced that the woman had expired from sinfulness because she had married so soon after the death of her husband and to a man whom the Church frowned upon.

I laughed at the priest's prognosis. "People don't die from sin."

The next thing I knew I was nearly knocked across the room by a blow from Don Julio. "Young fool! What do you know about the mysterious workings of God?"

I realized my folly. This was the second time in my life that I had gotten into trouble for exposing medical knowledge.

"You are correct, padre, the woman died of her sins," Don Julio said, "in the sense that she brought into her own house the scoundrel who poisoned her. Like almost all poisons, it will be extremely hard to prove that he administered it. However, with the permission of the alcalde, and the blessing of the Church, I would like to lay a trap for the killer."

"What trap do you wish to lay, Don Julio?" the alcalde asked.

"The bloodguilt?"

Both men murmured with approval. I remained quiet, in ignorance and humility.

"If I could get the padre and your excellency to prepare the husband by sowing the seeds of his fear..."

When the two left the room to converse with the husband, Don Julio said, "We have to hurry."

He began to examine the body. "The palm of her hand has a cut, probably when she broke this cup in her pain." The cut was a jagged one, but there was little blood in it.

Pieces of the cup were on the table next to the bed and on the floor beside the bed. He examined the cup part, sniffing them.

"I suspect that the poison came in this cup."

"How will you prove it? What is bloodguilt?"

"Bloodguilt is an old wives' tale, but one that many people believe." He took a copper tube and a small, round copper ball out of his medical case. I had seen him put liquid in the ball and attach the tube in it for insertion in the back side of a person's body when he was applying medicine to that place. "When a person dies, for some strange and unknown reason, blood sinks to the lowest part of the body. As she is lying on her back, the blood will gather all along her back, behind her legs, and so forth."

"Why?"

He shrugged. "No one knows. Many doctors believe that it is part of a process in which the body is drawn toward the earth for its burial. As you know from the books in the library that you read with my permission—and those you read by stealth—there are more mysteries than answers in life."

"The sinking of the blood—that is bloodguilt?"

"No. Help me turn her a little." He took his dagger from his belt. "I'm going to draw blood."

He filled the ball with blood and inserted the tube, keeping the device upward so the liquid would not run out. Pulling back the woman's sleeve, he sat the device on her bare arm, keeping his finger over the end so the blood would not run out.

"Here, put your finger where mine is."

I traded places with him, keeping the end of the tube sealed while he pulled the sleeve down until the ball and tube were covered.

"When you remove your finger, blood from the hidden container will slowly flow into her palm. To someone just entering the room, it will appear that the wound to her hand is bleeding."

"Why would the wound bleed?"

"Many people believe wounds to a body will bleed if the person's killer comes close. When that happens, the killer is unveiled. That is the bloodguilt, the blood of the victim pointing to the killer."

"Is this true? Does the blood really flow?"

"It does when you arrange for it to flow, as we just did. I sent the fray and the alcalde out to arouse the husband's fears about the bloodguilt. It is time to call them back with the husband in tow. When the husband steps into the room, remove your finger and step back, and I will point out that the palm is bleeding."

A moment later the husband ran from the room in terror. The last I saw of him, he was babbling incoherently as the alcalde's men tied his hands behind him. I did not attend his hanging; I had seen enough death in my life.

On the way back to the hacienda, Don Julio instructed me on the proper way to deal with medicine with a priest.

"The medical lore of a priest is found in the Scriptures."

"Scriptures have medical information?"

"No. That is exactly my point. To most priests, a doctor does not heal—God does. And God is stingy about how many He saves. If a doctor saves too many, the suspicion may arise that he is in league with the devil. When you challenged the priest, you were right in your knowledge, but wrong in your wisdom. It is dangerous for any doctor to demonstrate too much medical knowledge or effect too many cures. When the doctor is a converso, as I am, and as others believe you are, familiars from the Inquisition may pull you from your bed in the middle of the night if you expose too much medical skill."

I apologized profusely to the don.

"The same approach must be taken in regard to your knowledge of indio healing herbs. The herbs are often more effective than any European medicine, but care must be taken not to arouse the ire of priests or jealous doctors."

Don Julio told me something that I found shocking: He sometimes proscribed remedies that he knew were nonsense—but appeased patients and priests.

"There is a concoction called mithradatiumthat has several dozen ingredients and is believed to be a cure-all for everything, including poison. One of the main ingredients is the flesh of a viper on the theory that a snake is immune to its own poison. I find the medicine not only a fraud, but often harmful. When I administer it, I do so in such a weak dose that it can do no harm.

"Our doctors have more knowledge of poisons that kill people than of drugs to cure illness. The fools will often ignore an indio remedy that has been known to cure and apply something that has no medicinal value. The viceroy himself and half the grand men in Spain have bezoar stones to put into their drinks because they believe that the stones are an antidote that absorbs poisons."

"Bezoar stones? I have not heard of this antidote," I said.

"They're stones found in the organs of dead animals. Men who plot the course of nations, kings who rule empires, often will not drink anything unless their bezoar stone has been placed in their cups."

"They keep one from being poisoned?"

"Bah! They're useless. Some even have horns they believe are from unicorns. They drink from the horns or stir their drinks with the horns in the belief that the horns can neutralize poisons."

I shook my head in wonderment. It was for this very type of men that the Healer's snake trick was suited.

The don went on, not hiding his disgust.

"When the archbishop was dying a few years ago, men who were called the best doctors in New Spain were at his bedside. One of the medicines given to him to help him sleep and reduce his pain was mouse dung, the droppings of mice." He shook his head as if the fact still did not fit well into his brain. "I am certain this foul substance helped speed the poor man to his reward in heaven."

After listening to the don, I realized that he and the Healer were not as far apart in their medical practices as one might suppose.

Or in their cunning. Bloodguilt was no doubt the Spanish equivalent to an indio snake trap.

One era in my life closed and another opened when I was twenty-one years old. I had dreamt a thousand times of seeing the New Spain city that was called a wonder of the world, a city of canals and palaces, of beautiful women and grand caballeros, of champion horses and golden carriages. The day finally came when I was to see the Venice of the New World.

SEVENTY-NINE

"We're all going to the city," Don Julio informed us one day.

Mateo and I exchanged looks of surprise.

"Pack all of your personal possessions. I will instruct the servants what to take of the household. Cristo, you are to supervise packing of the library and some other items I will point out. Mateo and I will leave tomorrow for the city. You will follow with my sister and niece after you get everything packed and loaded. You will have to hire extra mules to carry the loads. Inez and Juana will go as far as possible by carriage and then by litter when the coach can go no farther."

"How long will we be in the city?" Mateo asked.

"I don't know. Perhaps forever. Perhaps we will be buried there."

I had never seen the don so grave and introspective. Beneath his sober demur, I sensed anxiety and urgency.

"What is the urgency, Don Julio?" I asked. "Is Doña Isabella ill?"

"My wife is still healthy enough to spend two pesos for every one I earn. No, it's not the doña. The viceroy commands my presence. The heavy rains of the past few weeks has resulted in flooding parts of the city."

"What of the drain tunnel?" Mateo asked.

"I don't know what's happened. Too much water for the tunnel, cave-ins; I won't know until I inspect it. I designed the tunnel to handle heavy rainfalls."

While I was concerned about the don's tunnel problem, I was elated that we were going to the great city. The years spent on the hacienda had turned me into a seasoned gentleman—in my own eyes—but the hacienda was a place of cattle and corn. Mexico! The name itself glittered with excitement for me.

I could see from a look Don Julio gave me that he had considered leaving me on the hacienda. I, too, feared the dark shadows in my past, but so many years had passed that I no longer kept an eye on my back. Besides, I was no longer a mestizo boy but a fine Spanish gentleman!

Mateo, too, was eager to get back to city life. And it was safer for him. The don said that the audiencia member who would have caused problems for Mateo had returned to Spain. But the excitement we felt was tempered by our concern for Don Julio. Mateo expressed some of my own fears that night after dinner.

"The don is worried, more than he allows us to see. The command from the viceroy must be serious. The tunnel was the most expensive project in New Spain's history. We know the don is a great man, the best engineer in New Spain—the tunnel must be a marvel."

Mateo tapped my chest with the tip of his dagger.

"But, Bastardo, let us hope that the tunnel the don designedis the tunnel that got built."

"You believe the workmanship was faulty?"

"I believe nothing—yet. But we live in a land where public offices are sold to the highest bidder and mordida buys any favor from a government official. If the tunnel fails and the city is severely damaged, the viceroy and his underlings will not accept the blame. Who better to blame than a converso?"

A fortnight after the don and Mateo departed, I set out on horseback for the city with a train of mules behind me. In my eagerness, I had the servants pack quickly; but while I moved with the speed of a jaguar, Inez dragged her feet like a prisoner setting off for an execution. The prospect of living with Isabella rankled. She did not want to leave the hacienda; but even with a loyal staff of indios, the don feared for the safety of two Spanish women alone.

"I would rather be murdered by bandits than sleep in the same house with that woman," Inez declared.

Personally, I would have slept under the devil's roof for the chance to see Mexico.

I rushed Inez and Juana through their packing, with Inez making excuse after excuse for her slow progress. When the two were packed, we set out, two women, myself, and a train of mules and tenders. I had been at the hacienda for three years. I came as a mestizo outcast and left as a Spanish gentleman. I could ride, shoot, use a sword and even a fork! I could not only herd cattle but had learned the miracle of how sun and water nourished the land.

Another stage of my life was about to begin. What would the gods hold for me this time?

EIGHTY

I first saw the grand city from atop a hill in the distance. It shimmered on a lake like a fine jewel on a woman's bosom.

Mexico!I asked myself, as the conquistadors had before me, Was it real?

Juana spoke to me from her litter carried by two mules.

"Bernal Díaz del Castillo, the conquistador who wrote a history of the conquest, described what the conquistadors thought when they first saw Tenochtitlan. He spoke of enchanted things... 'great towers, temples, and buildings rising from the water.' Cristo, we, too, must ask ourselves if these things we see now, the City of Mexico towering from the ruins of Tenochtitlan, are not a dream."

The towers and temples below were not Aztec, but were marvels of the world anyway, at least the small part of the world my eyes had set upon. Mateo claimed that he had loved and fought in half the great cities of Europe, and the city we call Mexico was as tall and proud as any of them. Churches and palaces, homes so large the great house at the hacienda would have fit in their courtyard, wide boulevards, canals, green fields, and lakes. Causeways ran from the shore to the city, one meeting a great street. But no! Not a street like those in Veracruz or Jalapa, but a grand avenue long enough and wide enough to set both of those miserable towns upon it. Six carriages could travel it abreast. Even the narrower streets could easily have allowed three carriages side-by-side.

In the heart of the city I made out a large square that I knew was called the Zocalo, the main plaza. It was the largest and most important square in the city, distinguished by fine buildings like the viceroy's palace and the cathedral that was still being improved upon.

And the canals! As if an artist had drawn them with his hand directed by God. The lake and canals swarmed with canoes and barges, supplying the city like a fleet of water bugs, while the broad causeways streamed with coaches, litters, horsemen, and pedestrians.

Joaquin, Don Julio's indio valet, who served him both at the hacienda and the town house, accompanied us. He pointed at the main plaza. "The largest marketplace is in the square. There are many shops besides the places of the Church and viceroy. The great houses of the nobles and rich merchants are on adjoining streets."

He indicated a large, green area not a great distance from the plaza.

"The Alameda. In the afternoon the ladies wear their best silks in their carriages and the men dress as gallants upon their finest horses and parade up and down the Alameda. It is a place where many times men draw their swords and," he leaned closer to whisper to me, "women lift their dresses!"

If Mateo was not at the don's house when we arrived, I knew where I would find him.

We joined people on a main road leading to one of the causeways that stretched across the lake to the city. Foot, horse, mule, carriage, and litter traffic increased as we drew closer to the causeway. The largest number of people on the road were indios carrying fruits, vegetables, and handmade household items. As the indios approached the causeway, dozens of africanos and mulattos diverted them to an area off the side of the road where cargo was being piled and examined on the ground. An indio carrying a large sack of corn on his back tried to proceed around the men and was roughly shoved to the roadside with the others.

I asked Jose what was going on.

"Recontonería."

The word meant nothing to me.

"Africanos buy the fruits and vegetables from the indios and resell the goods in the city for two or three times as much."

"Why don't the indios take the stuff into the city themselves?"

"One who defies the Recontonería is found floating in a canal. Everyone, the bakers and innkeepers, all buy from them. Some indios try to bring the products into the city with their canoes, but few can slip by the Recontonería's boats."

These bandits and pirates robbed the indios through brute force. I was outraged. "Why doesn't the viceroy put a stop to this crime! It not only cheats the indios, but raises the cost of food for everyone. I shall complain to the viceroy personally."

"Everyone knows but nobody will stop it, not even the viceroy."

"Why not? A few soldados with muskets—"

Joaquin studied me with amused forbearance. I suddenly realized how stupid I must have sounded.

"Obviously, the scheme is not stopped because it is profitable to people besidesthe africanos, people high enough that even the viceroy tolerates the practice."

The Spanish blood in my veins told me that people who shared that blood would not permit africanos and the like—slaves, ex-slaves, and mulattos—to profit. No doubt many of the africanos involved were not freed men but slaves, who left their masters' homes in the morning to walk to the end of the causeway empty handed and return that night with a pocketful of money after buying vegetables cheap and selling them dear. Of course, it would be the masters who profited.

Indios hated and feared the africanos because of the way the Spanish used the blacks to intimidate them.

"It's sad," I told Joaquin, "that the indios and africanos, both of whom are maltreated by the Spanish, cannot find some common ground that would lessen their mutual suffering."

Joaquin shrugged. "It doesn't matter to us who takes our land, our women, and our money, anymore than which fox steals the chicken. They are gone anyway, are they not, señor?"

EIGHTY-ONE

We crossed the causeway and my heart beat faster. I had entered the greatest city in the New World. The avenue before me pulsated with people, sounds, and color.

"Do you know about the Arabian Nights?"I asked Joaquin.

"No, señor."

"A tale of brave men and beautiful women, gold and jewels, exotic places, fascinating people, and strange beasts. I will be satisfied if I die tomorrow, Jose, for I have seen the Arabian Nights today."

What sights! What color! What sounds!

Exquisite women in woven gold-and-silk dresses traveled in silver carriages that would not have shamed a duchess in Madrid; caballeros and caballos rode past, gallant men on magnificent prancing horses—reddish-brown sorrels, dark-stripped grays, black-and-white piebalds—with jingling silver spurs, silver bridles, and Joaquin told me, often even silver horseshoes.Uniformed bearers, africanos in livery, trotted not just beside carriages but could be seen behind men on horseback, stepping in the horse's droppings as they carried whatever items the men needed for business or social gatherings that day.

Four things in Cuidad Mexico are fair to behold—the women, the apparel, the horses, and the carriages. I had heard this saying many times in my life, but now I understood that it was not an old wives' tale. Not that all the pomp and display was necessary or a sign of good breeding.

Mateo, who himself is not adverse to pomp, says that every cobbler with a helper and every muleteer with six mules will swear that he is a descendant from a great house in Spain, that the blood of the conquistadors runs in his veins, and now, though fortune has frowned upon him and his cloak is threadbare, he should be addressed with the honorific "Don" and his pompous airs recognized as good breeding. If that were so, Mateo said, New Spain boasts enough "great lords" to fill the ranks of every noble house on the peninsula.

Frays sweated in grays and black and brown habits, while lordly gentlemen strutted with swaggering arrogance under large, plumed hats and brandished silver-and-pearl hilt swords as a mark of their station in life. Ladies in hooped skirts and white petticoats, their faces layered with French powder and bright red lip coloring, carefully made their way over the cobbled stones in heeled slippers, followed by pages holding silk parasols to shade their mistresses' delicate faces from the sun.

Ponderously heavy, squeaking carts, world-weary oxen, baying donkeys, cursing muleteers—is there any other profession that knows more bad words? Wrinkled old women selling tortillas dripping with salsa, mulattas selling peeled papayas on a stick, whining, avaricious léperos beseeching alms– damn their larcenous souls!Why don't they work as honest people do like me?

Deeper into the city the evil smells attacked me, and I realized that the canals were open sewers, often so filled with refuse and God-knows-what—things that I didn't even want to guess the true nature of—that boatmen were having a difficult time making way with their canoes. But I didn't care if boiling lava flowed in the canals. I had so long smelled only hay and manure that the stench of a great city was a nosegay to me.

Like heroes of those sultry exotic nights in Arabia, I had found a green oasis, Allah's paradise on earth. I started to tell Joaquin my thoughts about Allah and his garden but quickly reined in my words. I had already blasphemed in mentioning the Arabian Nights. If any more profanation dribbled off my tongue, the next smell I suffered would be the Inquisition dungeon.

We crossed the main plaza. Two sides were lined with covered passageways to shelter merchants, government officials, and shoppers from the sun and rain. Grandees filled with smug importance carried papers to meetings with the viceroy, while household servants haggled with women squatting by mats covered with fruits and vegetables, and great ladies entered the shops of merchants who sold everything from Chinese silk to Toledo blades.

Across the square was the viceroy's palace and prison, the complex looking much like a stout fortress with its stone walls and great gateways.

To the left of the palace, was the house of God, a great cathedral that had been started long before I was born and was still rising in the rubble and dust accompanying its construction.

Despite the grandeur of the city, its buildings do not challenge the heavens like Babel's Tower. I commented to Joaquin that I saw few buildings more than two stories high.

He waved his hands up and down. "The ground shakes."

Of course, earthquakes. New Spain has as much passion in its earth—earthquakes that shake the world beneath our feet and volcanoes that spit fire—as in its people who blaze with the fires of love and hate.

The shops of merchants and government buildings slowly faded as we made our way toward the Alameda, the great greenway in the heart of the city where the caballeros and ladies showed off their clothes, horses, and smiles.

Our train of mules and the litter chairs of my two charges passed by houses so magnificent to call them palaces is not to boast. In front of the great gates stood africano servants in finer clothes than any I possessed.

When we got to the Alameda, the parade of gallants and ladies had commenced. I was embarrassed to be leading a mule train. I was now a young Spanish gentlemen, in name if nothing else, and we did not soil our hands with work.

I pulled my hat down over my eyes in the hopes that later, when I returned as a caballero, I would not be remembered as a mule driver.

The greenway was pleasant, a place of grass and trees and a fine pond, but I barely noticed the natural surroundings—my eyes were on the men and women, on the sly and shy glances, the unspoken but communicated invitations, the flirtatious giggles, and masculine snorting of gallants and horses. Ah, what spirit, mettlesome steeds, mettlesome men, horse and man, high-spirited, fiery, sexually vigorous, stomping, pawing, rearing, a sword on the hip, love sonnets on the lips!

Eh, this was the man I wanted to be—brave and arrogant, a fiery demon in a woman's bed, a deadly swordsman on the dueling field. To be outgoing and charming, a swan with a blade, contending for a lady's favor, drawing my sword and dagger to best a rival—or two—or three. I would fight a dozen of these perfumed dandies for a minute in the arms of a beautiful woman!

No actor of comedias could have put on more mystery or romance than these gallants and ladies. Each gentlemen had his train of africano slaves following the prance of their proud horse, some as many as a dozen waiting on them. Each lady had a like number by her coach, in brave and bright apparel, almost as garnish as her own clothes and coach.

"Before the night is over, someone will draw a sword in anger and jealousy," Joaquin said, "and blood will follow."

"Do the authorities punish such acts?"

"The viceroy's men make much ado, rushing toward the assailant with their swords drawn, telling him that he is under arrest, but there is never an arrest. The friends of the gentlemen surround him with drawn blades and escort him to a nearby church where he seeks sanctuary. Once inside the church, the viceroy's men cannot follow. After a few days all is forgotten. The blade is back on the Alameda, this time drawing his sword to defend a friend or fight off the viceroy's men."

I was marveling to myself at the wonder and justice of such a fine system of honor when a horseman suddenly came up beside me and slapped me on the back so hard I nearly fell off my horse.

"Mateo!"

"It is about time you got here, Cristóbal." In private he referred to me only as Bastardo, but Joaquin was in listening range. "I have many fine adventures to tell you. I spent the last three nights in a church. Does that tell you that I am ready to be a priest?"

"That tells me that you were one step ahead of the viceroy's men. What is that? A new woman?" I indicated a small but ugly gash on the side of his neck.

"Ahhh," he touched the raw wound. "This is Julia. For a moment in her arms, I braved a dagger thrown on the Alameda. The cowardly blackguard who threw it thought he could increase his life span by at least a few moments by wounding me."

"And Don Julio? Doña Isabella? They are well?"

"There is much to talk about, my young friend. The don has been anxiously awaiting your arrival. We have work to do!" He slapped me on the back again, hard enough to knock my breath away.

I noticed he was riding a horse that was different than the one he'd left the hacienda on. It was a fine sorrel, more red than brown. I was instantly envious that he had such a beautiful animal. I would need such a horse to prance about the Alameda.

"Is that fine animal part of the don's city stable?"

"No, I purchased it from my winnings at cards. I paid twice what any sorrel in the city would go for, but it was worth it. Its pedigree goes back to a famous sorrel of a conquistador. Ahh, my young friend, is it not true that even a woman cannot satisfy a man's pride and ego like a horse?"

He threw back his head and sang Balbuena's ode to the horses of New Spain:

Their glory here is such

that we're moved to declare

they must come from the stud farm of Mars...

Half the horses in New Spain are claimed by its owner to have a bloodline traceable back to one of the fourteen horses of the conquistadors who terrorized the indios during the conquest. And most of the nags had as much claim to such a grand bloodline as muleteers who struck it rich hauling supplies to the silver mines and started calling themselves "dons."

I clicked my tongue. "Amigo, you have been defrauded. Did you forget that there were no sorrels in the company of Cortes?"

He looked at me and his face turned so black that I felt fear down to my spurs.

"That knave who sold it to me shall be dead by sunset!"

He spurred his horse. In panic I shouted after him. "Stop! I was only joking!"

EIGHTY-TWO

Don Julio's city house, while not as magnificent as a palace, was more stately than the house at the hacienda. Like most fine homes in the city, it had a garden courtyard with bright flowers and fountains, vine-covered arched passageways whose shadows provided coolness even when the sun was high in the sky, a large stable for the carriages and horses, and, of course, in the main house, a grand, sweeping stairway.

A servant showed me to my room—over the stable, with heat and manure smell. Mateo grinned.

"My room is next to yours. Doña Isabella wants us to know our place."

Don Julio was waiting for us in his library, already instructing servants on the unpacking and shelving of his books. We followed him into a sitting room. He stood as he spoke to us.

"The city suffered flood damage during the heavy rains because cave-ins occurred, fouling the tunnel. A tunnel, like a piece of pipe, will only conduct as much water as its narrowest portion."

More for my benefit than Mateo's, who already had some knowledge of the tunnel project, he went on to tell us about it.

The city is set upon a lake, or what many people thought of as a series of five interlocking lakes. The lake is on a flat plain, deep in a vast valley, over seven thousand feet high, shouldered by mountains, many of which are a league high. Tenochtitlan was originally built on a soggy island and was slowly expanded by the floating gardens that took root in the shallow lake. Because the city was so low to the waterline, the Aztecs built an elaborate system of canals and dikes to protect the city from floods.

Almost from the time of the conquest, the city began to suffer periodic flooding. The indios thought of the flooding as having a spiritual source. In revenge for the Spanish defilement of Aztec gods, Tlaloc, the blood-thirsty god of rain, brought torrential precipitation that threatened the city. To build a large city on the footprint of Tenochtitlan, the Spanish deforested the tree-covered slopes. It was said that Cortes's palace alone absorbed nearly ten thousand trees.

With the slopes stripped of vegetation, water cascaded off the mountains, carrying soil to fill the lakes, raising the waterline. The first floods led to reconstruction of the Aztec dikes. But as the lake beds filled with more and more dirt from the mountainsides, the dikes could not keep back the rising water.