The Seven Serpents Trilogy (28 page)

“Don Luis de Arroyo,” I said, speaking in Spanish, in the rolling accent of a Sevillano, “either you surrender or I give the signal for the hundreds of warriors you see on the ship and in the canoes to come ashore. We have, as you well know, a dozen cannon and an ample supply of powder. My soldiers are at your gates this moment. Many are armed with Spanish muskets.”

Don Luis heard my words without changing his expression. He still did not seem to know that behind the feathered mask was an old enemy.

Yet something must have stirred his memory—my height, my voice, the accent of Seville. For I noticed that as I spoke he took a firmer grip on the sword.

The warriors waiting in the canoes kept up their angry chant. The fighting at the gates had grown louder. Don Luis looked at me steadily, holding fast to his sword. Now was the moment for him to use it and thus, by the rites of Maya warfare, end the battle.

Clammy fear seized me. I was tempted to give the sig nal that would send a volley of shot crashing down upon the temples and hundreds of warriors storming into the streets.

I glanced at the caravel. I could see the gun ports, the black maws of the cannon leveled upon the city. The cannoneer would be standing ready. Nearby the
nacom
and Cantú, the dwarf, were waiting for my signal.

Don Luis gripped his sword. Something held him back. It was not fear, because he was fearless. Nor was it any feeling of concern for my life, because he had no conscience about such matters.

“What lies beneath the mask?” he said, speaking in tones he commonly used with servants. “What do you hide under the feathers, señor?”

My moment of panic passed. I turned my back upon the caravel and faced him.

“We are Spaniards,” he said, “not savages. Let us talk together like Spaniards. The fighting at the gates will continue while we talk. And for many days, if I choose, since I have a large army and many reserves.”

As he spoke, a loud, angry buzzing started up behind us, a sound that I had heard several times while I stood there. The buzzing grew louder for a few moments. Then two small clouds rose up from somewhere, ap parently out of a hole, and swept past us toward the sea.

“You may have a large army,” I said, “but they fight with clubs and hornets.” A third angry cloud hovered over us as I spoke. “You can't win a battle with insects,” I said.

Don Luis smiled but did not answer.

 

I
T SEEMED IMPOSSIBLE THAT ATTHIS MOMENT HE WAS NOT SUSPICIOUS
, for I stood not two paces away, towering over him by a head, a young Spaniard with a metal crucifix around his neck.

And yet I, Julián Escobar, once a worker in his vine yards, musician and seminarian who had followed him blindly to the New World, must have been the farthest from his mind.

Surely he thought that I had long been dead, drowned with the rest of the crew, my bones picked clean. For when I took off the serpent mask and dropped it on the stones between us he uttered a cry of surprise and horror, as if a watery ghost had risen up from the wreck of the
Santa Margarita
to question him about his crimes against God.

Since he stood openmouthed, staring at me, I broke the silence.

There was no time to recount what had happened from the day we had parted in the storm. And there was no reason to do so. He would believe nothing of what I told him, and certainly not that at this moment he was in the presence of the Feathered Serpent, the god Kukulcán.

“Call off your warriors,” I said. “I have an army at your gates, as you can hear, and another army waiting in the harbor, as you can see.

The
Santa Margarita
you know well from other days—the powder she carries and the cannon she mounts.”

His mouth closed at the sound of the name
Santa Margarita.
His whole manner changed. He took his hand from the sword and for a moment seemed about to clasp me in a tight
abrazo.
He glanced toward the ship. “The gold?” he stammered. “Is it safe?”

“Safe. In the hold, where you left it,” I said.

“A miracle,” he said and laughed, acting as if we were seated comfortably at a table somewhere, not standing on a battlement with fighting behind us and an armed ship riding at anchor.

The sounds had grown louder. They came now from streets just beyond the temples, not more than half a league away.

“Call an end to the fighting,” I said. “My warriors have breached the walls. The
Santa Margarita
has her cannon trained on the city. You have lost the battle.”

“On the contrary, señor, it's just beginning. I have a horde of warriors in reserve, waiting to surround you. I'll block the mouth of the estuary with a hundred canoes so you can't reach the sea. I'll capture the
Santa Margarita
and slaughter your army, every one, if need be.”

He paused, fingered the hilt of his sword for a mo ment, and then gave me a friendly glance.

“But there is no need for this,” he said. “I don't know what your position may be in the place you come from. But whatever it is, señor, it's temporary, as is mine. We are the first small wave of a tide that will soon engulf this savage world. It behooves us both to give careful thought to our fortunes. The conquistadores who will descend upon us by the hundreds, by the thousands, will not look kindly upon us, their brothers, who go about dressed in rings, anklets, masks, and feathers. We'll be killed or driven into the jungle to die slowly in any num ber of ways.”

The sounds of fighting abruptly ended. A band of warriors appeared on the terrace of the temple our can non had not hit. Don Luis glanced up at them and then at me.

“There are more where they came from,” he said. “But why should I call upon them when we can settle matters between us? Forget what has happened in the past. Working together we can accomplish wonders. We'll join our two towns, which now are weak, into one powerful city. We will ask the king for all necessary titles. When the flood of conquistadores descends upon us, we'll greet them not as savages dressed in paint and feathers, but as Spanish gentlemen, proprietors of a thriving empire, duly blessed by governor and king, under the banner of God.”

The fighting had not started again. More warriors came out and stood on the terrace. I heard the cry of a conch-shell horn. In the silence that followed there drifted up to me from the caravel a neigh, twice repeated.

Don Luis turned pale. “Bravo?” he said. I nodded. “Thanks to God!”

He crossed himself and stood quiet, waiting for the stallion to neigh again. I think that he loved this animal more than anything in the world, next to his Toledo sword.

The warriors who had gathered on the terrace—there were several hundred by now—began to chant, one word over and over. The word had a warlike sound, but I could not tell what it meant.

I glanced at Don Luis. He was no longer thinking about the stallion. He, too, was listening to the chant. I had a strong urge to raise my hand and signal the
nacom
to unloose our cannon.

Don Luis went on about the miracle we would per form together, talking in his most gentlemanly voice, with an eye on the warriors who stood above us. Then there came from somewhere beyond the plaza the screech of conch-shell trumpets. This was followed by the beat of drums. Suddenly, from between the two temples, a phalanx of Tikan warriors came into view.

They swarmed out of the morning shadows, marching slowly. They came to the center of the plaza and stopped. Those on the terrace descended the long flight of stairs. Together they crossed the plaza and moved in my direction.

There was not a sound except the shuffle of sandaled feet. The silence was menacing. I turned and glanced down at the caravel with its cannon trained on the city, at the warriors waiting on the shore.

Don Luis had always had a habit of drawing his lips together when he was about to issue a command. He pursed them now and said, speaking in the formal tone he used with inferiors, “Señor Escobar, late citizen of the village of Arroyo in the Spanish province of Andalusia...”

His words were lost in a blare of trumpets that came from somewhere beyond the glittering temples.

The warriors were still advancing toward me. They walked slowly, shoulder to shoulder, less than a dozen men, though they seemed like a thousand in their armor of quilted cotton, carrying tortoise shields and obsidian clubs.

They came to the edge of the terrace and stopped, not ten paces away.

Here they dropped their weapons and bowed, touch ing their foreheads to the stones, and spoke my name in hushed voices, over and over. From our warriors they had somehow learned of my presence. The God of the Evening Star and the Four Directions, Kukulcán him self, stood before them.

Trumpets blared again. Black-painted warriors surged out of the secret passageways where they had been hidden. They began to chant to the beat of wooden drums.

Don Luis glanced at his kneeling warriors, then at the caravel and the fleet of canoes. At last he looked at me.

There was no sign of fear or surprise in his gaze. At that moment I doubt that he had the least idea of what was taking place. I doubt that he had ever heard the name Kukulcán.

“Don Luis Arroyo,” I said, speaking in a voice that I did not recognize as wholly mine, a tone that had come upon me of late, “You are in the presence of a god, the Mayan god Kukulcán. It is customary to bow and touch your forehead to the earth, to rise, and as you do so, to lower your eyes in reverence.”

Don Luis blinked. He tried to smile. He raised his sword and glanced at its shining blade. Again he tried to smile.

“It may be difficult for you to understand what has happened,” I said, “and I haven't the time to explain. Someday I shall, perhaps. Meanwhile, fall to your knees, as you have seen your warriors do, as you have often done when paying your respect to the emperor, King Carlos.”

Don Luis glanced away. His jaws tightened.

Speaking in a quieter voice, I repeated my command, adding, “And press your forehead to the stones.”

He took a last glance at the square, which was now filled with a chanting crowd, at his warriors bowing in front of me, repeating my name. Slowly he got to his knees.

It was only for an instant that he stayed there—he barely touched the stones—and he did not touch his forehead, but I said nothing more. Nor did I think of demanding his sword, for I knew that he would rather die than relinquish it.

I felt no elation as I watched Don Luis get to his knees in what to him was an act of utter humiliation. It gave me not the smallest pleasure to see his stiff back bent low at my command. My only feeling was one of sudden power.

 

T
HE YOUNG
NACOM
, IN A CONQUERING MOOD, WISHED TO CARRY OUT
his threat to leave no one in the city, men or women, the young or the old, and none of the dogs except those not worth eating.

Against his wishes I decided to take only the able-bodied. I left most of the farmers and all of the priests, who, like our own, wore stinking gowns, stiff with dried blood.

I had a twinge of conscience at this number—some twelve hundred in all—but it quickly disappeared when I remembered from my readings in Caesar that the great general, after a battle with the Atuatoc on the banks of the Rhine, had sold the inhabitants of their village, fifty-three thousand men, women, and children, into slavery.

The hostages were loaded into their own canoes and sent off, guarded by our fleet. At dusk the caravel followed in their wake. Don Luis was scarcely aboard the about the gold—he spoke of it as
our
gold. when he asked
Santa Margarita

I led him below, past the treasure he had wrested from the Indians of Isla del Oro. He picked up a nugget, and hefted it for weight.

“We must weigh this mass,” he said, “down to the last ounce, and keep a strict record of it. The king demands his fifth,
la quinta.
Since the crew has perished, we'll divide the rest, half to you and half to me.

A generous accounting, is it not, señor?” I made no reply. Instead, I led him forward into the bow of the ship and showed him to his quarters: a triangular cubbyhole squeezed tight between the bulwarks, lit by a cloudy window.

He gazed around in disbelief. “This is a hole,” he said. “No light, a horrible stench, and the bilge. Look!” He was standing in water up to his ankles. “What's happened to my cabin?”

“It's occupied.”

“Occupied? Of course, I should have known.”

I marveled at his arrogance. It seemed to have increased since the moment he had accepted defeat. Strolling to the window, he wiped it with his hand and turned to face me in the dim light.

“Are you not uncomfortable in this new guise?” he said, disdainfully. “You're a young man of simple heart. You have simple tastes. You were, when last I saw you, a follower of sweet St. Francis, who gave his clothes to the poor and talked to the flowers in the fields and the small birds in the apple trees. Tell me, señor, how do you feel going about in a mask and feathers, with Indians kissing the stones at your feet, calling you lord of this and that? Answer me, does it not imperil your Christian heart? Does it not bother your Spanish sensibilities? At times, señor, do you not feel silly?”

My answer was not delayed. “Not silly, Don Luis. In truth, at times I have a strong feeling of omnipotence, and this is one of the times. If there were a dungeon handy, I would clap you into it. This cubbyhole, I regret, will have to serve in its place.”

“I can't breathe foul air and stand in bilge water,” he complained.

“Try,” I said. “This is the closet your slaves lived in—thirty of them. They lived here for many days until the night when they could stand their misery no longer and climbed to the deck and flung themselves into the sea.”

I closed the door upon him with the hope that he would have time to examine his conscience, though I knew full well that he possessed none.