War God (65 page)

Huicton shrugged. ‘You know my mind on this; I can only pray that you will listen to me.’ He leaned forward and embraced her. ‘I wish you luck, little Tozi.’

‘So I’ll see you on the fourth day then?’

The arrangement, unless anything went radically wrong, was that Tozi, in her disguise as the goddess Temaz, would visit Guatemoc tonight and for the two nights following, returning to Tenochtitlan to report to Huicton on the fourth day. But that had changed. Huicton’s arrangements often changed.

‘I regret not, little one,’ he said. ‘I’ll be gone when you return. My master Ishtlil has entrusted me with a mission. I’m to go to Tlascala and meet the famous battle king Shikotenka.’

Tozi made a face: ‘I met many Tlascalans in the fattening pen when I was waiting to be sacrificed. I didn’t like them at all.’

‘No one likes the Tlascalans! They’re fierce, prickly, downright difficult, but they’ve kept Moctezuma at bay until now and for that reason Ishtlil intends to make an alliance with them.’

‘Make an alliance or don’t make an alliance – either way Moctezuma is going to fall. Quetzalcoatl
is
coming, Huicton. He’s coming right now. So you’d better tell those Tlascalans to be with him not against him.’

Huicton cupped her face in both his hands and kissed her on the nose. ‘I believe you,’ he said, ‘about Quetzalcoatl. But no one else will until they see proof of it. That’s why it’s best to keep quiet about him for now.’

‘Like you want me to keep quiet with Guatemoc?’

‘Exactly! Quiet as an owl in flight. Will you promise me you’ll do that, Tozi?’

‘I promise,’ Tozi lied.

Melchior had been sullen and uncommunicative since that night on Cozumel when they’d taken their part in murdering Muñoz and disposing of his body. Pepillo thought he knew why. It was the Inquisitor’s claim to have ‘had’ Melchior for a peso – surely also overheard by Díaz, Mibiercas and La Serna – that had shamed him and made him withdraw so far within himself.

Pepillo now had a clear idea of what ‘having’ someone meant, and it was horrible and disgusting, but even if Melchior had once allowed Muñoz to do that abominable thing to him, he could not and would not look down on his friend because of it. God alone knew what other indignities he must have suffered as a slave, but he was good and brave and true and this was all that mattered.

Throughout the long voyage, hugging the coast from Cozumel to Potonchan, Melchior had gone about the work that Cortés had assigned to him without any of his usual laughter, bravado and cynical jokes, and whenever Pepillo had tried to talk to him he’d responded with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ or a grunt, or simply said nothing, but now, suddenly, there was a change in him.

Again it wasn’t difficult to work out why.

Since anchoring at the mouth of the Tabasco river on Sunday 21 March, the caravels and carracks of the fleet, the
Santa María
amongst them, had sat idle in the bay while the brigantines and longboats ferried soldiers, guns and supplies ashore to reinforce a beachhead that it seemed Cortés had established on the riverbank near Potonchan. Pepillo had learned what he could by listening to the talk of the men as they came and went, but had been able to establish nothing first-hand because he and Melchior had been confined to the ship with nowhere to go and nothing to do except attempt, as best they could, to exercise the stiff, torpid, fearful horses on the bobbing deck. In a curious way, Pepillo thought, the condition of the horses seemed to mirror Melchior’s own depressed inner state.

Since this morning, however – it was Wednesday 24 March – all on board ship had heard the distant sounds of cannon and musket fire that spoke of a sustained battle, and now, as evening drew in, a longboat had come out from Potonchan. Its crew brought news that the town had been captured, and orders from Cortés to prepare the ropes, pulleys and harnesses to lower the horses into the brigantines, which would follow directly. Pepillo’s heart leapt when he heard that he and Melchior were to accompany the horses, he bringing parchment, quills and ink – for there were certain matters the caudillo wished set down in writing – and Melchior paying special attention to Cortés’s own mount Molinero. With a flash of insight Pepillo realised it was his friend’s sense of being needed again, the prospect of action and, last but not least, freedom for his beloved horses, that had brightened his dark mood.

With the deck of the
Santa María
the height of a man above the deck of the brigantine, lowering the horses was difficult and risky work. Fortunately the sea was calm and the big moon, just past full and still bright in the clear sky, made lanterns almost unnecessary. Still Melchior fussed like an old maid over Molinero and cursed the crew like a trooper as one by one they cinched all ten of the great destriers into their leather harnesses, raised the derricks and swung the quivering and blindfolded animals down to the close-moored smaller vessel.

Bundles of long cavalry lances followed, their lethal steel warheads enclosed in leather sheaths, and finally several large, very heavy wooden chests that had to be handled with almost as much care as the horses themselves.

While this was being accomplished, the second brigantine collected the five horses from Alvarado’s
San Sebastián
and the three from Puertocarrero’s
Santa Rosa
, together with more lances and chests, and finally the two ships made for shore.

Pepillo saw how Melchior stayed with Molinero, stroking his sweating flanks, calming him with whispered endearments as their brigantine entered the mouth of the Tabasco and rowed steadily upstream. There was an atmosphere of hushed expectancy on board and the musketeers and crossbowmen who had come along as guards watched the banks fiercely – as though they expected an attack at any moment. Thickets of
manglars
, weird and otherworldly in the moonlight, pressed down to the water’s edge, transforming the wide river, in Pepillo’s eyes, into the haunt of devils and spirits. No one talked and for a long while the only sounds to be heard were the splashes of the oars, the nervous whinneys of the horses, mysterious shrieks rising and falling from all quarters of the night, and the distant, spine-chilling thunder of a thousand native drums.

‘What do the drums mean?’ Pepillo asked Melchior. ‘What are those cries?’

‘They mean trouble,’ his friend replied. ‘We heard them when we were here with Córdoba just before the Indians threw ten thousand men at us.’

Pepillo looked down at the deck. It was obvious the brigantine had seen action earlier because the moon’s glare showed smears of blood and arrows still embedded in the planking. ‘Looks like there’s been plenty of trouble already,’ he said.

Melchior shrugged. ‘Sure. There’s been a big fight for Potonchan and Cortés won. But the enemy have towns and villages all over this region, hundreds of thousands of people, more warriors than you can imagine. They’ll be gathering their men and then they’ll be back.’

‘So we could die here?’ Pepillo wondered.

Melchior seemed not to have heard his question and fell silent for a long while. Then abruptly he spoke. ‘About Muñoz,’ he said, but so quietly that men even a few paces away would not hear him. ‘There’s something I want to tell you.’

Alvarado was in a furious bad temper as he crashed, lantern in hand, through the empty, echoing rooms, devoid even of wall hangings and furniture, of the big two-storey building identified by the prisoners as the chief of Potonchan’s palace. Like the shrine on top of the pyramid, and the three stinking temples he’d already searched in the plaza, there wasn’t a single item of value in it. The Indians had used the time while Cortés had been strengthening his beachhead to remove all the treasures from the town!

Not only that, but as the prisoners had revealed through Aguilar, the painted savage called Muluc – who’d presented himself merely as an emissary of the chief – was in fact the chief himself! These swine had a sort of low cunning that Cortés had not anticipated, and had taken liberties that they must not be allowed to repeat.

Feeling murderous, Alvarado stormed out of the palace, across the plaza, back to the spot under the silk-cotton tree where Cortés was still patiently interrogating the prisoners and announced: ‘Nothing, Hernán! Not a jewel, not a ring, no gold plate. Nothing at all! They stripped the town bare before they left.’

‘Ah well,’ said Cortés mildly, ‘it’s as I expected. But don’t be put out, Pedro, our work has just begun. I’ve learned there’s an even larger town to the south called Cintla where the chief of the whole region – a far more important man than Muluc – has his seat. I’m certain when we take Cintla that great wealth will fall into our hands.’

He turned his attention back to the prisoners whom, to Alvarado’s horror, it appeared he was about to set free. ‘Go to Cintla,’ he said, speaking through Aguilar, ‘and tell its chief I know the truth of many great mysteries and secret things of which he’ll be pleased to hear. Tell him we do not want war. Tell him we sorrow at the injuries and death we’ve been forced to inflict on the people of Potonchan. We would rather not have done so, but it was their own fault because they attacked us and gave us no choice. Tell him we come in peace to teach him about our God who has the power to grant him immortal life.’

‘You’re not really going to let them go, are you?’ said Alvarado.

‘Yes I am, so the big chief in Cintla can have the opportunity not to repeat the mistake Muluc made in Potonchan today.’

‘And what if he chooses not to seize that opportunity?’ sneered Alvarado.

‘To be quite honest with you, Pedro, I am gambling that he will not – because then, by the rules of war, we have the right to destroy him. Today we faced thousands, yet the cost to us was small. Twenty with slight injuries – some hit in the head by their slingers, a few with spear or arrow wounds, but they’ll all mend soon enough. Not a single man killed, Pedro! Not one! And tomorrow we’ll put horse in the field and teach these savages a lesson they’ll never forget!’

Footsteps. The sound of clothing being adjusted. A hoarse whisper: ‘Don Pedro! A word with you if we may.’

Alvarado had walked out from the campfires for a piss and now found himself flanked in the moonlight by two other men, all likewise clutching their privy members – Juan Escudero to his right, Velázquez de León to his left.

‘Gentlemen!’ Alvarado commented as he sprayed a great arc into the bushes, ‘this is passing strange.’

‘Nothing strange about a full bladder,’ muttered Velázquez de León through his beard as he too made copious water.

Escudero had so far summoned forth not even a dribble. ‘You seem to be having some trouble there, Juan,’ Alvarado observed.

‘I’m not here to piss,’ replied the ringleader of the Velazquistas, his voice seething with resentment. ‘When we last talked you gave us to believe you were ready to join us, yet I saw you stand by Cortés tonight.’

‘And I’m standing by you now, Juan, am I not?’ Alvarado shook his member, being sure that a few fat drops flew up to hit the other man in the face.

With an oath Escudero stumbled back, but to his credit retained his composure. ‘We’ve been watching you, Don Pedro,’ he said. ‘You found no gold in the palace …’

‘No gold anywhere,’ Velázquez de León added.

‘It’s clear Cortés has brought us here for reasons of his own,’ said Escudero.

‘Which would be what?’ Alvarado asked.

‘Power? Glory? Personal aggrandisement? Revenge? Who knows? But certainly not the interests of this expedition. These are primitive savages we’re fighting and it seems they have no treasure. We’re wasting blood and strength here for nothing. Córdoba’s reconnaisance last year showed richer and easier pickings further inland …’

‘So you want me to do what?’ Alvarado asked. ‘Turn on Cortés now, when we’re surrounded by the enemy? Arrest him? Truly, gentlemen, I do not think this is the right moment.’

‘On this we agree,’ said Escudero. ‘Cortés has made this bed for us and we must lie on it. But when we’re done here, if God gives us victory over these barbarians, then the time will come to choose. Cortés is not the right man to lead this expedition. You know it in your heart, Don Pedro, and we ask you to be ready to join the friends of your friend the governor of Cuba and help us return this expedition to legitimacy.’

‘What’s in it for me?’ Alvarado asked.

‘Gold, Don Pedro. All the gold a man could possibly want. Put this expedition on the right side of the law, win over Cortés’s supporters to our side, and we’ll make you a rich man.’

‘I’ll think on your offer,’ said Alvarado. He was already walking back towards the light of the fires. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Escudero and Velázquez de León walking in opposite directions, one to the left, the other to the right. Soon both disappeared amongst the shadows.

Last night, after Malinal had gouged Muluc’s face, Raxca’s intervention had saved her from a beating at his hands, but had not stopped Muluc forcing her into the column of his household slaves carrying the palace valuables from Potonchan to the safety of Cintla. The slaves had reached the regional capital in the small hours of the morning where they’d been put to work in the great palace of Ah Kinchil, the wizened and ancient paramount chief of the Chontal Maya. Malinal had been assigned lowly duties in the kitchen under the watchful eye of Muluc’s steward Ichick, who had roped her ankles and allowed her no possibility of escape.