The Seven Serpents Trilogy (44 page)

He writhed within his black cassock. He began to twist the large, violet-colored stone he wore on the fourth finger of his right hand—the amethyst ring of a bishop. His voice rising to a shout, he burst out with, “I carry a message of grave importance.”

I let him wait a while longer. “You carry this message where?” I said at last. “In a letter? If so, bring it forth.”

“I carry it in my head.”

He had a huge head, long and narrow. In such a turret he could easily carry many things.

“I have a message from his honor, the governor of Hispaniola, to Hernán Cortés,” the bishop said. “It is of great urgency. If you would kindly put me onshore, I will proceed to deliver it. And may I remind you that any interference with this mission will go hard with you.”

“Cortés,” I said, giving the name a derisive ring, “will be difficult to find. I have just come from Tenochtitlán, where his men were slain on the causeway and drowned in the frigid waters of the lakes that surround the city. When I saw him last he was hiding among the trees, freezing beside a meager fire. Captain Cortés has no need of a message. What he needs is a new army.”

The bishop's expression did not change at this, as if he had heard the news before. But he couldn't have heard it.

“By chance,” I said, “this message you carry about in your head, which is a bad place for it should you be killed, does it concern Lord Kukulcán?”

“Any message from Governor Velásquez to Captain Cortés would certainly concern Kukulcán,'' the bishop said, omitting my title, deliberately I assumed.

“Since it does concern me,” I said, “kindly let me hear it.”

“The message is meant for Captain Cortés only,” the bishop said.

The answer nettled me. Suspicious, I called to the
nacom.
“Search Pedroza's ship,” I said. “Search every cabin and likely hiding place for letters. Have the dwarf assist you in the search. He's clever at that sort of thing.”

Flint Knife set off at once in the longboat. He was gone only a short time, during which I left Pedroza and went below to make certain that the gold had not been stolen. The
nacom
and the dwarf returned with a letter addressed to Captain Cortés, sealed by a red ribbon and a daub of wax upon which Governor Velásquez had left his broad thumbprint.

“Is this the letter you were commissioned to deliver?” I asked Pedroza.

He answered by tightening his lips.

“Do you wish to read it or shall I?”

The bishop was silent.

I broke the seal and read, having some difficulty with the governor's affected flourishes, “Esteemed Captain, it has come to the attention of His Catholic Majesty the Emperor Don Carlos, and thus to me, that Julián Escobar, a native of Arroyo in Spain, has seized upon an island near the coast of Yucatán, first sighted by Admiral Grijalva, and there set himself up by various cunning devices as king. Furthermore, it is said on evidence that he has secreted an amount of gold, in excess of ten thousand ounces, upon which he has not paid the royal fifth. I suggest that at your earliest pleasure you take this Escobar into custody and deal with him as you wish. I am privy to the fact that you have said in the past, ‘It would be better not to know how to write. Then one would not have to sign death sentences.' Yet I also know that with the scoundrel Montijo you displayed no mercy and had his feet removed.”

“It seems,” said the dwarf in his execrable Maya, “that we must put an end to this messenger who brings us threats of quick disaster.”

A shadow dimmed the bishop's eyes. It told me that he had some knowledge of the Mayan language and had caught the gist of Cantú's words.

“On the contrary,” I said, “we should treat Bishop Pedroza with the utmost courtesy. He only brings us a message. He is not here to execute it.”

I walked to the rail, tore the letter into pieces, and tossed the pieces into the sea. I did so to warn the bishop that while he was to be treated with courtesy, he was no longer protected by the laws of King Carlos and the governor of Hispaniola. The act was not lost upon him. Pieces of the letter, a length of ribbon, floated away on the tide. Standing stiff and silent by the mainmast, he watched them disappear.

The sun shone on his violet vest. A flash of color blinded me. I suddenly remembered the words Don Luis de Arroyo had spoken on an April morning long ago. “This I promise you,” he had said to me, “one day you yourself will become a bishop. As powerful as the bishop of Burgos.”

For a fleeting moment the memory was a bitter one. Then it faded in the sound of the crew's quiet chanting, “Kukulcán, Lord of the Lightning and Thunder, protect us from evil gods…”

“On your feet,” I shouted to them. “Bring the horses on board. Put out your hands,” I said to Bishop Pedroza, “and I'll unbind them.”

 

WE ARRIVED AT THE ISLAND OF THE SEVEN SERPENTS NEAR EVENING on a day of sultry heat and tumbling clouds.

Viewed from a distance, with the sun setting, the city looked unchanged from the hour I had left it. But as we turned toward the harbor I noted that the feathered poles that marked the channel were draped in black.

The wharves and embankment were deserted. Along the thorough fare that wound upward into the heart of the city not a light showed. The god house on the roof of the Temple of Kukulcán was dark. The temple itself I could not make out; it seemed a part of the falling night. The only light came from far away, murky flames that crept along the crest of St. John the Baptist, the fiery mountain. I expected to find a city in mourning, since my death at the hands of Moctezuma had been reported by high priest Chalco, but I was not prepared for the scene that now lay before me.

What adoration, what love, I must have inspired in the hearts of the people to bring them to such grief and desolation! I was overwhelmed. Tears sprang to my eyes.

Standing at the rail as we made ready to leave the ship, Bishop Pedroza announced in somber tones to no one in particular that the tales he had heard from Governor Velásquez had been misleading. “Shining towers, such as one sees in Seville,” he said, “where are they? And where the streets paved with gold?”

“In your imagination, sir,” the dwarf announced. “And the governor's. This is an abandoned city that Kukulcán, Lord of the Evening Star, seeks to rebuild. A nearly impossible task.”

I said nothing, satisfied that Bishop Pedroza remained un aware of the reason for the deserted streets. In due course he would discover it. Already the curious had gathered around the ship, ignorant of my presence.

When the animals were lowered to the wharf, I insisted that the bishop ride forth on one of the mares. He had never ridden a horse before and was reluctant to do so now, but I led him haltingly into the saddle and up the ramp.

As we came to the embankment, Flint Knife announced us with a blast of trumpets. The sound echoed forlornly through the silent streets. But a second blast from the conches brought people running. By the time we reached the Temple of Kukulcán, a crowd of shouting thousands pressed in upon us, carrying noisemakers and flaming torches.

Bishop Pedroza clung desperately to his saddle horn. In the light of the torches his face looked ghastly, not from fear, though he must have believed that danger was closing in on him from every side, but from some emotion deeper than physical fear, an assault upon his spirit. He must have seen many of the faithful moving down cathedral aisles in orderly processions. But never before had he looked into the countenance of a pagan multitude, nor felt its hot breath upon him, nor heard its wild, animal cries. Nothing in all Christendom had prepared him for this moment. Words formed on his lips but he could not speak them.

Guards made a path for us across the square to the gates of the temple and into its dark passageways. We rode in silence upward along gray walls dripping water, through nests of stalagmites that sprang from the earthen floor, past the Cavern of the Dead, where our torches shone upon endless rows of bleached skulls.

In all this journey, Bishop Pedroza said nothing. Only when we came to the place where the skulls of those who had died on thesacrificial altar were carefully arranged, their white cheekbones touching in friendship, did a sound come from him, a gasp of horror, chilling to hear. But when we left our mounts behind and stepped out on the lofty terrace, Pedroza had regained his composure. Like someone just returned from a ride in the park, he glanced around indifferently, at the god house, at the stained stone altar, at the men in masks gathered beside it, and far below at the swarming multitude that filled the plaza.

Priests and lords were toiling up the steep face of the temple, zigzagging back and forth to lessen the strain on their legs. Among them, though he wore a mask, I made out the stooped figure of high priest Chalco, taking one deliberate step at a time, no doubt rehearsing the excuses he would offer for leaving us to die on the altar of the Azteca war god.

At my side the dwarf, who was also watching, gave out his silly laugh, “He, he, he,” and said, “It surprises me to see him here.”

“The man never lacked for courage,” I said.

“He has much to explain.”

“We'll listen to his explanations. They'll be clever and be lievable. And we will accept them.”

“In other words,” said the dwarf, “we don't accept them. Now, before they are spoken, or later, when they are spoken.”

“Neither now nor later,” I said.

Votive candles lighted the terrace, shining on pools of half-dried blood left from a recent sacrifice. Bishop Pedroza must have seen the blood, but pretending, perhaps, that he stood on the well-swept stones of some Spanish cathedral, he did not take notice.

He stared down at the crowd that filled the square, at the Indians carrying torches streaming toward the temple from all directions, at the bobbing lights of canoes hurrying in from the sea. At last, as I moved forward to address the chanting crowd, he turned to me with dazed eyes in which I saw a look of bewilderment. Or was it apprehension I saw, or something stronger?

My speech to the multitude began with a few phrases of humble greeting. This was followed by an apology for my absence, reminding the people that I had returned to them after a journey much shorter than my first journey, when I had been gone a hundred years and more. I promised them that in times to come I would have more to say about my meeting with Moctezuma and with others.

Then I flung words at them like stones, like flaming javelins. “Your island and your city are in mortal danger,” I said. “A barbarian, by name Hernán Cortés, came from a country far to the east. He landed upon the shores of Yucatán. With an army he marched to the city of the Azteca, sacked the temples, and caused the death of Moctezuma. Finally he was driven from the city. But now he sulks. Now he gnashes his teeth. Now he cannot sleep, hatching plans to salve his wounded pride.”

The chanting rose in waves and beat against the god house. Of the thousands in the square below, not one could hear me. But I was not talking to them. My words were meant for the lords gathered on the terrace, those who in my absence had listened to High Priest Chalco, for the lesser priests who were in league with him, for Chalco himself. And above all, for the man in the black gown and violet vest, Bishop Rodrigo Pedroza.

“This Cortés,” I went on, “this one who sulks and stews and licks his wounds, when he cannot sleep in the middle of the night, he nurses an idea. It is this. He plans to fall upon the Island of the Seven Serpents, upon us, and wreck our city as he did Tenochtitlán.”

I waited until there was a lull in the chanting, then took a step forward to the very edge of the terrace and raised my hands. “I call you to arms,” I shouted. In the silence that fell, I shouted it again. To those on the terrace, lowering my voice, I said, “All traitors, beware!” I said these words twice, so they could not be mistaken.

With this warning, I finished my speech. High Priest Chalco then stepped forward to address the crowd. When he began an apology intended for me as well as for those in the square below, I gathered Bishop Pedroza, got him on his mare, and left the temple by the back passageway to avoid the crowd. We rode through the garden—where I was pleased to see flowers in bloom and fountains playing—to the palace.

I had planned to settle Pedroza in rooms next to those of Ah den Yaxche, who I thought would keep a watchful eye on the bishop, but to my great distress, the old man had died while I was gone. I had come to trust him and value his counsel. In the critical times ahead I would sorely miss him.

The quarters he had occupied were the most commodious in the palace, caught the morning sun like a golden net, and enjoyed an excellent view of the sacred lake where virgins were sacrificed to the sun god. Here I settled the bishop and ordered him a bountiful dinner, though he protested that he was not hungry.

“How long do you propose to keep me here?” he said as I was about to leave. “From your speech to the horde I gather that it will be some time.”

“Some time indeed,” I said. “The day Cortés is taken care of. Drowned in the sea or slain on the parapets.”

Pedroza stood facing a wall that portrayed in blues and bright reds a scene from the terrace he had just left. It was inspired by the sacrifice of hundreds of slaves, whose bodies could be seen heaped in the background, their hearts piled high in a votive urn that was encircled by a serpent with amethyst eyes.

“In your speech,” he said, “you warned that Cortés has already made plans to capture the city. If that is true, why do you prevent me from giving him the governor's message? It contains no secrets. Nothing that would help him in an attack upon you…”

The bishop paused, overcome, his eyes drawn to the mural in front of him. “Upon this barbaric island, whose inhabitants are the devil's savage spawn. Is it because you wish to hold me hostage?”