War God (20 page)

Shielded from view by three large coils of rope and piles of canvas sheeting he’d arranged around himself, Pepillo lay on his back in the aftcastle of the
Santa María de la Concepción
, trying to decide what to do. Here he was well away from the whirl of activity on the main deck, where bales and barrels were still being loaded. He heard men shouting, seemingly arguing. Others sang a vulgar song in unison as they hoisted some great burden. He heard roars of laughter. The horses brought on board earlier stamped and snuffled in their stalls. Far below he heard the slap, slap, slap of wavelets lapping against the hull of the great ship.

He could run, he thought bleakly, if his legs would carry him after the beating he’d taken. But then what? If he returned to the monastery, the brothers would bring him straight back here and hand him over to Muñoz again. And if he tried to hide, where would he shelter, how would he find food? He didn’t have a centavo to his name.

Pepillo groaned. His body was a mass of pain. His buttocks ached from the repeated kicks Muñoz had delivered to them. His nose, where Muñoz had broken it, was swollen and inflamed and still hurt more than he could believe. His scalp stung as though scalded where Muñoz had wrenched a clump of hair out by the roots. His head pounded because Muñoz had repeatedly punched him, and a tooth at the front of his lower jaw had been knocked loose. His side, chest and arms were horribly bruised from being thrown against the cabin walls by Muñoz. There was a red stripe across his shin, another diagonally across his belly and three more on his thighs where Muñoz had struck him with a bamboo cane. Finally, in a crescendo of rage, Muñoz had seized Pepillo by the shoulders, savagely bitten his left ear, hurled him across the cabin again and told him to get out.

He’d been hiding on the deck of the aftcastle since then, watching early evening dusk edge into night. Now the first stars were showing amongst scudding clouds and he hoped Muñoz was sleeping deeply.

In fact Pepillo hoped Muñoz was sleeping so deeply he would never wake up.

But then he thought how wrong it was to wish death on any human being, particularly a religious, so he whispered, ‘Dear God forgive me’, and returned to his gloomy concerns about the future.

He could not run; there was nowhere to run to. Besides – he felt the great carrack bob beneath him, heard the creak of its rigging in the freshening breeze – he very much wanted to stay. Truth was, he wanted this adventure more than anything else in the world. To sail into unknown waters with brave men, to explore fabled New Lands, to bring the faith to benighted heathens, even perhaps to earn some gold – he could not imagine anything he would rather be doing. All his dreams seemed poised on the verge of coming true.

Except for Muñoz.

No position in which Pepillo put his body was comfortable and now, with a grunt of pain, he rolled onto his stomach to ease the distress in his back. As he turned, brushing against the canvas sheeting, he heard the sound of a stealthy footstep on the navigation deck below, where the whipstaff that steered the great ship was mounted. There was a beat of silence, then another step – this time plainly on the stair up to the aftcastle.

Fear gripped Pepillo by the throat, and then at once relief as he heard Melchior’s voice. ‘So there you are! Come down to the main deck, Pepillo Dogbreath. Food’s a’cooking – fish stew and beans.’

‘Thank you,’ said Pepillo. ‘But I can’t come just now …’

‘Otherwise engaged are you, your lordship?’ Lanterns burned bright on the main deck so the loading could continue, but little light reached the aftcastle and Pepillo lay behind the coiled ropes in a pool of deep shadow. ‘Too important to eat with the common herd?’ Melchior asked, looming over him. His tone suddenly changed. ‘What are you doing down there anyway?’

With some difficulty and pain because his injuries were stiffening, Pepillo rolled on his side and forced himself to sit. ‘Muñoz beat me up,’ he said.

A backwash of lantern light from the main deck fell across his face, his bloody nose, his torn ear, and Melchior dropped into a crouch beside him. ‘That devil!’ he said. ‘I expected something like this. Just not so soon.’

Pepillo was startled. ‘You
knew
? Why didn’t you warn me?’

‘I did try to warn you but you ran off to the Customs House … Look, there’s no good way to tell you but I’d say you’re lucky this stopped at a beating. Most of us who sailed on the Córdoba expedition think Muñoz murdered his last page …’

‘Murdered?’ Pepillo’s voice was a squeak …

‘That’s what I said.’

‘But why?’

‘The
peccatum Sodomiticum
,’ Melchior whispered.

Pepillo had learned Latin in the monastery. ‘The sin of Sodom …’ he translated. He felt himself blushing: ‘You can’t mean …?’

‘That Muñoz is a sodomite? That he likes his pages’ arses? That he kills them to keep them silent. I certainly can mean that! And I do!’

‘But … But …’ With this horrible new thought, Pepillo had completely forgotten about his aches and pains.

‘Did he grope you?’ asked Melchior. ‘Did his fingers get in private places?’

‘No …
No!
Of course not. Nothing like that.’

‘Are you sure?’ said Melchior.

‘I’m sure.’

But Pepillo’s hand went unconsciously to his ear. He’d not been groped, but he’d been bitten! It was so unexpected and so astonishing a thing that he might almost have convinced himself it had never happened if it wasn’t for the torn flesh of his earlobe and his vivid memory of the wet, soft, heat of Muñoz’s lips …

The prospect of being confined on board ship with such a monster, constantly at his beck and call, exposed to his every cruel or perverse whim, was almost more than Pepillo could bear. But the prospect of
not
sailing in the
Santa María
and of missing his chance for the adventure of a lifetime seemed even worse.

A pulse of pure hatred shook him and he clenched his fists. This time he wouldn’t ask God’s forgiveness. ‘I wish Muñoz would die,’ he whispered.

Melchior was just a shadow, crouching in the darkness. Now he stretched his back, looked up at the stars. ‘People die all the time,’ he said. ‘Even big, important people like Muñoz. They go overboard or they get killed and eaten by savage tribes, or they mysteriously fall from the rigging and break their necks. Accidents happen. They’re expected. Usually no one digs too deep.’

‘What are you suggesting?’

‘I’m not suggesting anything, you silly mammet. I’m stating facts. Fact One – accidents happen. Fact Two – most people don’t like Muñoz.’ Melchior sauntered to the railing surrounding the aftcastle and rested his elbows on it, leaning out over the pier.

In the distance, but coming closer at speed, Pepillo heard an urgent drum roll of galloping hooves on the cobbles. He stood and limped to the railing. It sounded like an entire squadron of cavalry was thundering towards them but, moments later, scattering the crowds still thronging the pier, a single rider, blond hair flying about his shoulders, exploded out of the night. He brought his huge white horse to a rearing halt beside the
Santa María
, leapt down gracefully, handed the reins to a dumbfounded guard and stormed up the gangplank onto the ship.

‘That’s Don Pedro de Alvarado,’ Melchior said. ‘He does like to make a dramatic entrance.’

Smash! Thud! Crash! Bang!
Cortés awoke in hot darkness, sweat lathering his body, his mind sluggish, a stunning headache addling his brains. Trapped! He was trapped in some thundering Hell!
Smash! Crash! Thud!
His arms and legs were tangled, every movement seemed to constrict and bind him further and for a few terrifying, vertiginous seconds he had no idea where or even who he was. Then he heard
Bang! Bang! Bang! Crash! Thud!
– hammer blows following one another in quick succession – and suddenly it all came back to him. He was tangled in his hammock in his stateroom on the
Santa María
. He had overslept his siesta. Night had fallen. And a few paces away, on the other side of the partition, Muñoz was still beating his page. Thud! Smash! Bang! Bang!

Enough!
thought Cortés. With a mighty effort he wrestled himself free of the hammock and dropped barefoot to the floor. He was about to pound on the partition and yell some insult when he remembered his dream. He hesitated, heard further loud banging and a gruff voice shouting ‘Cortés, wake up!’, and realised with relief the noise wasn’t coming from Muñoz’s quarters at all. Cursing as he stubbed his toe in the darkness on the corner of his sea chest, he strode to the door, slid back its heavy bolts and flung it open.

‘Ah,’ said Alvarado, ‘at last! It’s like trying to wake the dead.’ He was holding a lantern and brushed past Cortés into the much-reduced stateroom. ‘Dear God!’ he said, waving the lantern at the partition. ‘What happened here?’

Cortés held up a warning finger. ‘Next door is my guest, Father Gaspar Muñoz. He’ll sail with us as the expedition Inquisitor.’

Alvarado made the face of a man sucking a lemon and mouthed, ‘Velázquez?’

Cortés nodded yes.

Alvarado grinned. ‘There’s trouble at the Customs House,’ he boomed. ‘They’ve impounded our whole consignment of falconets. You need to come now.’

Cortés knew that all the expedition’s small cannon, including the falconets, had already been safely loaded, but made appropriately disbelieving and infuriated noises as he dressed in haste, tugged on his boots and sword and marched out onto the navigation deck with Alvarado, calling for his horse to be saddled and brought down to the pier. The two men talked of nothing but falconets and Customs duties until they rode off, but when they reached Alvarado’s ship they reined in, dismounted and went quietly on board. The moon was up now, and the sky bright, making them visible from the
Santa María
, but no one seemed to be watching.

The
San Sebastián
was built to the same design as the
Santa María
, with the stateroom abaft the navigation deck occupying the whole of the stern beneath the aftcastle. On the
San Sebastián
, however, there had been no need to partition the captain’s quarters to make space for a black-robed friar and Alvarado had the full, generous, well-lit area to himself. ‘We can talk safely here,’ he said. He reached into his jerkin and pulled out a single sheet of vellum. ‘First you need to read this.’

Cortés took the sheet but deliberately ignored it as he moved to one of the two stuffed chairs with which Alvarado had furnished the stateroom. He sat down, noticing for the first time that there was something odd about the manner of his oldest and closest friend. He was holding his left arm in an awkward, delicate way, his hair was wildly dishevelled, and there were streaks of what looked like dried blood – apparently not his own – on his jerkin and hose. He wore one of the new Toledo rapiers in a scabbard on his hip, but also carried a huge single-edged falchion, thrust into the front of his sword belt.

‘Isn’t that Zemudio’s blade?’ Cortés asked. He’d been in and out of the governor’s office more times than he’d care to count in the past month and the bodyguard was always there.

Alvarado grinned like a puppy waiting to be praised. ‘I just killed Zemudio,’ he said.

Cortés frowned. Knowing his friend as he did, he had no difficulty in believing him. Still he had to ask: ‘Why would you do such an insane thing?’

‘To get that sheet of vellum you’re holding in your hand.’ Alvarado was bouncing up and down with impatience: ‘Read it now! It proves everything.’

‘Proves what?’

‘Just read it!’

From the Hand of His Excellency Don Diego de Velázquez, Governor of Cuba

To Don Pánfilo de Narváez

This 18th day of February, Year of our Lord 1519

Don Pánfilo,

The matter of our previous discussions has now reached its crisis and all is to proceed as we have planned. Tonight I will relieve Don Hernando Cortés of command of our expedition to the New Lands and appoint you as captain-general in his place. Cortés will be arrested discreetly, late at night, so as not to excite resistance from his supporters. So, prepare yourself my friend! When we have him in chains I will send for you.

May God bless this night’s operations, and our expedition, which I am certain will be lucrative and crowned with success for us both.

Yours in Christ,

Diego de Velázquez

After Cortés had read the letter, turning over in his mind all the layers of bad faith and betrayal between him and Velázquez, Alvarado flopped down in the armchair opposite him. ‘The discreet arrest he talks about,’ he said with a knowing wink, ‘that involves me.’

Cortés sighed: ‘What’s he paying you?’

‘Twenty thousand gold pesos. I was actually able to get five thousand up front … Mine to keep, I reckon. Spoils of battle and all that … Anyway, I’m to invite you to dinner at ten o’clock tonight here on the
San Sebastián
and pour this in your wine,’ Alvarado fished in his pocket and produced a little glass vial containing a colourless liquid. ‘An hour later you start puking your guts out and running a deathly fever. I’m to send for Dr La Peña – another one of Velázquez’s stooges. He’ll ship you off to his hospital in a horse-drawn carriage, but you won’t ever get there. Velázquez’s guards will detain you on the road, you’ll be flung in jail in his palace and, when the drug wears off, you’ll be questioned under … I think the term is “extreme duress”?’