War God (15 page)

The sphere was Cortés’s pride and joy, a gift from his father Martin who had won it during the conquest of Granada in ’92. Save the ring defining the equinoctial colure, which was broken, the costly device was in perfect working order.

Slap!

For the third time in as many minutes Cortés heard the sound of flesh striking flesh followed by the suppressed whimper of a child in pain.

The sounds were coming from the far side of the partition that divided the flagship’s original capacious stateroom into two equal halves, one half of which Cortés now found himself uncomfortably crammed into. The other half, on urgent orders received from Velázquez only yesterday, had been assigned to the abominable Father Muñoz. Through the thin pine partition, the best the ship’s carpenter had been able to rig at such short notice, it was impossible not to hear Muñoz trampling about, or the harsh words he barked at his young page, or the intensifying sounds of blows and cries.

Cortés sighed. He’d intervened on the harbour road because the Inquisitor’s bizarre and bullying behaviour was unseemly in public and unhelpful for the good name of the expedition. But if Muñoz wanted to beat his page in the privacy of his own cabin, there was really nothing to be done about it.

Even if he beat the boy to death?

Even so, Cortés admitted. Even so.

Because it was a sad fact of life in today’s Cuba that a Dominican Inquisitor with the favour and support of the governor could get away with literally anything, even murder, if it pleased him to do so.

Indeed, there were rumours about the page who’d accompanied Muñoz on the ill-fated Córdoba expedition. His relationship with his master had been strange – everyone had noticed – and, one night, the boy had disappeared at sea, presumed lost overboard. Perhaps his death had been an accident? Perhaps suicide? Or perhaps, as some of the survivors whispered, Muñoz was a violent sodomite with a taste for adolescent boys who’d killed the page to silence him?

Cortés had scorned the whispers, refusing to believe a man of God could ever commit such crimes; but what he’d witnessed this afternoon had changed his mind. Rarely had he taken so instant or so extreme a dislike to anyone as he had to Muñoz! It was bad enough that the Dominican had been foisted on him at the last moment by Velázquez – undoubtedly as much to spy on him and confound him as to attend to the spiritual wellbeing of the expedition. But what added insult to injury was the foul unnatural air of this Inquisitor! Recalling the scene on the harbour road, it was the perverted
pleasure
Muñoz had taken from inflicting pain on his little page that stood out.

Cortés swung down off the hammock, padded barefoot over to the table below the porthole, and retrieved his well-thumbed Bible from beneath a heap of maps and charts. It was one of the new mass-produced editions, printed on paper by the Gutenberg press, and as he opened its leather covers he felt again, as he always did, the magic and the mystery of the word of God.

He turned to the New Testament, the Book of Matthew, and after some searching found the passage he was looking for in Chapter Seven. ‘Beware of false prophets,’ he read, ‘which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.’

A false prophet! It was amazing how often you could find the exact thought you wanted in the Good Book – and this was a thought that seemed to fit Muñoz very well. Outwardly the respectable sheep’s clothing of the Dominican habit, inwardly a ravening wolf …

There came another
slap
from beyond the partition, another cry, a tremendous, incoherent yell from Muñoz, a loud crash as of a body thrown against a wall, and then silence.

Cortés started upright in his hammock – Jesu in Heaven, surely the boy was not already dead? Then he heard that thin pitiful whimper again and a surge of fierce anger and revulsion shook him.

His powerful impulse was to find any excuse to have Muñoz removed from the expedition. But if he did that it would draw unwelcome attention from Velázquez at just the time when he most wanted the governor to stay away.

So instead Cortés closed his eyes and forced his tensed muscles to relax. The key to health in these climes, he had discovered, was to take a siesta of at least one hour’s duration in the afternoon. It wasn’t always possible; he completely understood that. But when it was possible he gave it as much priority as prayers or alms.

Sleep embraced him.

The two girls who’d attacked Tozi this morning were mischief-makers, not leaders, and the other Tlascalans snooping around also seemed to be waiting for someone to tell them what to do. So it was the big woman with the black teeth and the rubber lip who was the main danger. Deal with her and the others would fall into line.

Maybe …

Malinal had been sheltered from violence by noble birth. When she was sixteen her fortunes fell but, even in the five strange and terrible years she’d spent as a slave since then, she’d been protected by the high value placed on her beauty by powerful men. The result, in her twenty-one years, was that she’d never once had to fight for her life. Her strengths were sensuality, flattery, dissimulation and subtle influence; she was not well equipped to use force.

Black Teeth had been stopped in her tracks by Tozi’s nightmarish scream, and stood gazing at her with fear, but also with something unexpectedly like pity as she thrashed and snapped her teeth on the floor, while Coyotl fought desperately to keep her from harm. With a flash of intuition, Malinal stepped to the big Tlascalan woman’s side, laid a long slim hand gently on her shoulder and said in a hushed tone: ‘She’s no witch. She’s just a poor sick child. Aren’t you a mother yourself? Can’t you see that?’

Black Teeth’s massive body twitched. ‘I am a mother.’

‘And your children? Where are they now?’

‘The gods only know. The Mexica raided my village. I was captured, my two children were snatched away from me, I haven’t seen them since.’

‘Would you tell me their names?’

The Tlascalan woman’s brutal manner suddenly dissolved and to Malinal’s surprise she sobbed. ‘Huemac,’ she said, ‘he’s five. And then there’s Zeltzin. She’ll be fourteen this summer.’

‘Zeltzin … Beautiful.’ The name meant ‘delicate’ in the Nahuatl tongue. ‘She and Tozi are almost the same age …’

‘Tozi?’

‘This child –’ Malinal looked down at Tozi, still thrashing on the ground – ‘whom you believe is a witch but who really is just sick and in need of help and love.’

Black Teeth grunted and wiped away a tear. ‘Why should I care what she needs?’

‘Because in this world of pain the gods see to it that what we give out is what we get back. Wherever they may be today, perhaps in another fattening pen, perhaps slaved by some merchant, don’t you hope someone will care for your own children’s needs – if they’re sick, if they need help like poor little Tozi?’

Black Teeth looked round at the girls whose provocations had sparked this trouble. ‘It’s them as told me she’s a witch,’ she said.

‘And they attacked her this morning, and got the worst of it, and now they’re trying to use you to get revenge.’

On the floor Tozi was quieter, her struggles less desperate, her features calmer. The two Tlascalan girls began to edge towards her but Black Teeth called out ‘Wait!’ and they hesitated, scowling at Malinal.

‘You have children yourself?’ Black Teeth asked.

‘No. I’ve not been blessed. The Mexica slaved me, used me for sex. I fell pregnant twice but they forced me to drink
epazote
and I miscarried.’

The woman spat. ‘Brutes. How they use us!’

Malinal pressed home her advantage. ‘We’re all their victims. Why do we fight and kill each other when the Mexica persecute us all? They’re the real witches and sorcerers – not innocent children like poor Tozi.’

Black Teeth looked doubtful. ‘If she’s not a witch, then what is she? How is it that she’s never selected for sacrifice?’

Malinal had her answer ready. ‘
Yollomimiquiliztli
,’ she said gravely, invoking the Nahuatl word for epilepsy. ‘Perhaps she who cursed her also protects her.’

Everyone knew that the terrible affliction of epilepsy, which caused fits exactly like the one that Tozi had just suffered, was the work of the fickle goddess Cihuapipiltin. And everyone also knew that in return for the suffering she caused Cihuapipiltin sometimes gave magical gifts to her victims.

Black Teeth thought about it for what seemed like a long time as Tozi’s shaking and foaming at the mouth gradually ceased and she lay still. Finally the big Tlascalan woman nodded to Malinal. ‘What you’ve told me makes sense,’ she said. She turned to the other Tlascalans and spoke up: ‘This child is not a witch. Poor one! She has been touched by Cihuapipiltin. We should leave her alone.’

One of the troublemakers clenched her fists and gave a little scream of frustration, but Black Teeth silenced her with a glare.

Within a few moments all the Tlascalans withdrew, leaving Malinal alone with Tozi and Coyotl.

Perhaps an hour later Tozi opened her eyes. Linking arms with Coyotl, Malinal helped her sit up. ‘You OK?’ she asked. It seemed such an ordinary question after all the extraordinary things that had happened, but it was what she wanted to know.

‘I’m OK,’ said Tozi.

‘Me too,’ said Coyotl. ‘Malinal saved us from the bad girls.’

Tozi was looking at the nearby group of Tlascalans. ‘We had trouble?’

‘Yes, but it’s over. Everything’s going to be fine.’

‘Good,’ said Tozi, ‘because I’m all used up.’ Her eyes were bright but the whites were jaundiced, her skin was grey with fatigue and there was a sheen of sweat on her brow.

‘What happened to you?’ Malinal asked.

‘I’m trying to remember … For how long did I fade us when Ahuizotl came?’

Malinal thought about it. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Maybe a two hundred count, maybe a three hundred count?’

Tozi gave a low whistle. ‘I didn’t even know I could do that.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘When I fade for more than a ten count I get sick. Really sick. Something breaks inside my head. If I faded us for a two hundred count, I’m lucky to be alive.’

‘You were in a bad way.’

‘I’m still in a bad way.’

Malinal reached out and brushed her fingers down Tozi’s pale, exhausted face. ‘You’ll get better,’ she said, but it was more a hope than a statement of fact.

‘I’ll get better,’ Tozi echoed dully, ‘but I won’t be able to fade us again. Not today. Not tomorrow. It always takes me a long time to get my strength back.’

‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Malinal. ‘Don’t worry about anything. I’ll take care of you.’ She ruffled Coyotl’s hair. ‘And you too, little one.’

She knew it was a hollow promise, even as she made it.

Thanks to Black Teeth they were, for the moment, probably safe from further accusations of witchcraft, but the threat of sacrifice had not receded and, beyond the bars of the prison, Ahuizotl still lurked. He would not forget or forgive how badly he’d been embarrassed by Tozi’s magic.

Realising anew the endless horror of their predicament, Malinal felt all her strength and resolve ebb away.

Then Coyotl tugged at her hand, gazing up at her with his big serious eyes.

‘Do you know how to fade us?’ he said.

When Alvarado dipped his wrist, Zemudio predictably followed the flow of force, and thrust down hard, sliding the falchion along the blade of the rapier, grinding out the keening song of steel, sending sparks of hot metal flying. Alvarado had invited this savage cut with the heavier weapon. It was a standard move in the Talhoffer system of
messer
combat – engage, slide the blade, pivot to misdirect your opponent’s force, hack off his arm at the elbow. But the blow was ill matched against the Nuñez rapier with its guard of steel rings spun round the hilt. The falchion skidded over the guard and, as Zemudio whirled into the pivot, Alvarado trapped the thick blade between two of the rings, deftly twisted the weapon from his grip and cast it to the ground.