‘What’s he after?’ Pepillo asked as Muñoz continued his rapid investigation of the town, sniffing at doorways, peering through windows, darting into alleys.
‘He’s like a dog after a bitch in heat,’ Melchior said grimly. ‘What do you think he’s after?’
Pepillo felt his face flush hot as they hurried along in pursuit. He guessed that Melchior was referring to sex but didn’t really understand the details. He had to agree, though, that there was something hungry and animalistic about the way Muñoz kept casting around, now hurrying, now slowing down, now lurking at a corner looking this way and that before moving on.
It was as though he were following a trail … But of what?
Being built around the summit of a hill, the town’s streets sloped steeply on all sides, giving way to mixed patches of woodland and open ground that in turn led down to the turquoise waters of the bay where the fleet bobbed at anchor. Striding along one of the narrow streets in the lower section of the town, Muñoz’s pace suddenly quickened and he forked abruptly left into a side street. Pepillo and Melchior were a hundred paces behind and lost sight of him for a moment, but when they charged up to the corner where he’d turned, there he was again, still maintaining the same lead.
They also saw what had excited him, why his body strained forward so eagerly, why he was moving so fast.
Running just ten paces ahead of him, crying out in fear, was a little Indian boy, naked but for a string of coloured beads around his waist.
‘Hurry!’ said Melchior. Pepillo wasn’t sure whether he was alarmed or relieved to see the rusty knife in his friend’s hand again as the child bolted round the next corner and was lost to view, with Muñoz right behind him.
With an oath Melchior increased his pace and Pepillo scrambled to catch up. They reached the corner together and peered cautiously round it into a maze of hovels, some intact, some burnt and sprawling in smouldering ruins down the hillside to the edge of a large patch of woodland.
It was as though the earth had opened, swallowing Muñoz and the child – for there was no trace of them. Melchior cursed again and thrust his head into a doorway. Pepillo apprehensively peered into another. A group of Indians sat inside in the gloom and stared at him, saying nothing, with expressions he could not interpret. He mumbled a hasty apology, blundered out again and followed Melchior. The next house was burnt, the next deserted. They continued to search fruitlessly for a little longer, but increasing numbers of Indians were emerging onto the devastated streets and the atmosphere was becoming hostile. Agreeing it would be good to be back on board the Santa María before Cortés returned, Pepillo and Melchior began to make their way downhill in the direction of the anchorage.
Their route took them close to the copse, dense with knotted and gnarled strangler figs festooned with hanging vines, growing across the slope below the last of the dwellings. The sky remained clear blue, as it had all morning, but it was now early afternoon and the heat was dense, clammy, heavy with damp. As they skirted the wood a flock of bright green parrots shifted and squabbled in the leafy canopy and suddenly, like an evil spirit, Muñoz reappeared from amongst the trees a few hundred paces below them, raven black in his Dominican habit, his cowl raised, concealing his head and face. He did not look back but strode rapidly down the hill.
Without a word, Melchior dived into the forest. ‘Where are you going?’ Pepillo called, hastening after him, struggling with the rank undergrowth.
‘To find out what that bastard’s done,’ said Melchior, plunging on ahead.
The going did not prove as difficult as it had seemed to Pepillo at first, and they found a trail, perhaps made by animals, perhaps by the people of the town, where they were able to keep up a good pace. The sun’s light was much reduced as they forged deeper, filtered by the thick canopy into a dreamlike emerald dusk, but shone through again, harsh and dazzling, as they entered a small, irregular clearing where the trees had been felled leaving only rotten stumps.
‘God and his angels,’ breathed Melchior, staring across the clearing.
Pepillo blinked, seeing nothing.
‘There!’ Melchior’s voice was thick with rage.
Pepillo looked again and this time he did see what had drawn his friend’s attention – a pair of small, brown naked feet protruding from the undergrowth where the forest resumed.
It took them only moments to pull the body free. Still warm, but stone dead, it was the same little Indian boy, with the bright string of wooden beads round his waist, whom Muñoz had been following. There was blood on the child’s scrawny buttocks and livid bruises marked his throat and neck. A wide patch of his scalp extending from his crown to his left ear was missing, crudely hacked away to expose the white and bloody skull beneath.
For the third time that day Pepillo vomited, but this time Melchior didn’t cuff him.
Cortés, Sandoval, Brabo and Díaz all went for their swords but were somewhat reassured as Little Julian shouldered forward through the thirty or forty Indians crowded onto the summit platform. The stooped, cross-eyed interpreter was sweating and wheezing from the climb. Peering uneasily from beneath the fringe of his long greasy hair, he told Cortés: ‘They not here crisis you sir; they say you are buffoon.’
As Cortés bristled at the insult – A buffoon? How dare they call him a buffoon? – the Indians launched into an extraordinary display. Those who were unarmed dropped to their knees, scrabbled at the paving stones with which the platform was surfaced and shoved their fingers into their mouths whilst smacking their lips. Those who carried weapons proceeded to slice or skewer their own flesh in a variety of painful but non-lethal places such as their lips, tongues, biceps, buttocks and outer thighs. In two cases penises were shamelessly produced from beneath loincloths, stretched forth and pierced with stingray spines.
‘Dear God,’ Cortés barked at Julian. ‘What are they doing?’
‘Eat great fear,’ the interpreter said. ‘Honour blood.’
‘What?’ Cortés couldn’t make head or tail of the explanation. ‘Does anyone understand what this idiot is talking about?’
‘His Castilian is atrocious,’ offered Díaz, who had sailed with Julian on the San Sebastián, ‘pretty much non-existent, and what little he does know he gets all mixed up. Let me try and make sense of this.’
While drops of blood continued to spatter down on the platform and one of the Indians sawed a stingray spine back and forth transversely through his penis, with the Spaniards looking on in a mixture of fascination, amusement and horror, Díaz talked urgently with the interpreter. After a moment he turned back to Cortés. ‘I think I’ve sorted it out now,’ he said. ‘He’s trying to say tierra, “earth” – but his accent’s so bad he makes it sound like terror, “fear”. It’s a custom amongst these people to show respect to those more powerful than themselves by eating earth in their presence. Same goes for the blood. They’re honouring you, sir, by bleeding themselves. They do this before their idols as well. It’s a kind of sacrifice.’
‘Well tell them to desist immediately!’ Cortés snapped. Díaz spoke urgently to Julian who in turn said something in the local language. The bloodletting stopped at once.
‘By the way,’ Cortés asked, ‘why did they call me a buffoon?’
Díaz laughed. ‘They didn’t, sir. That’s just Julian mixing up words again. He’s saying un gracioso – “a buffoon, a funny man” – but what he means is dar las gracias, “to thank”. The “crisis” bit is pretty clear too. What it boils down to is they’re not here to cause us trouble but to thank us. As you might imagine, the priests and elders are much beholden to you for halting their execution.’
‘Well, very good.’ Cortés smiled. As he thrust his sword firmly back in its scabbard, one of the Indians, a tall elder in a blue cotton loincloth, made his way forward, his dignified presence only slightly compromised by the streaks of blood on his chin and chest from the wounds he’d made to his lower lip.
‘The cacique, sir,’ said Julia
n proudly, using the word for chief that the Spanish had adopted from the Taino Indians of Hispaniola and Cuba. ‘Him name B’alam K’uk. He funny you say.’
During the encounter that followed, fuelled by general goodwill but constantly fogged and befuddled by Julian’s poor grasp of Castilian, Cortés accepted the gratitude of the Indians, who belonged, they said, to a great confederation of peoples called the Maya. He in turn apologised for the cruel and unwarranted behaviour of his deputy, Alvarado, and said he hoped sufficient compensation had been offered. On impulse, as an additional gesture, he sent Sandoval down to the Santa María to return with Spanish shirts for each of the elders and a chest containing a velvet doublet, mirrors, small brass bells and several strings of glass beads. These treasures Cortés bestowed upon B’alam K’uk, the chief, much to that worthy’s apparent satisfaction.
Sandoval also brought a platoon of men with him carrying parasols, wooden stools, cushions and comfortable rugs, and a rather fine folding chair that Cortés had asked for and now proceded to sit in.
Once the parasols were erected to provide shade for himself and the other Spaniards on the summit platform, he invited the Indians to be seated and told them, to the limited extent that Julian was able to convey these ideas, that their idols were evil, not gods at all, but devils who would only lead their souls to hell. He would take it as a sign of friendship between them and his own people if they would see to it that every idol in every temple on the island was smashed within the next few days. At this Olmedo whispered fiercely in his ear, but Cortés ignored him and added that the idols must be replaced by images of the Virgin Mary and by wooden crucifixes which the Spanish would supply. He had been informed, he said, that a crucifix and a statue of the Virgin had been placed here in the temple when Spaniards had visited the island before. He professed sorrow and disappointment that these sacred objects had been removed and insisted this must never happen again. There was only one God, he said, the creator of heaven and earth and the giver of all things, and the cross and the Virgin Mary were amongst his most precious symbols.
As he spoke, Cortés was aware that very little of what he was saying was being understood, but he felt compelled to continue anyway. He had kept up a cheerful demeanour throughout the meeting, but the truth was that Muñoz’s last words to him had thrown him into turmoil. That the Inquisitor had known about his special feelings for Saint Peter, and known Peter was his patron saint – these things were not in themselves surprising. He could have acquired the information from a variety of sources. Much harder to explain, however, was Muñoz’s revelation that he too had dreamed of Saint Peter, who had spoken to him of Cortés – just as in dreams the saint had spoken to Cortés of Muñoz. This, surely, could not be mere coincidence!
For all these reasons, Cortés decided, he was going to have to think extremely carefully about how to handle the Inquisitor in the future, and find an accommodation with him as Saint Peter required. Meanwhile, although it had been essential to put Muñoz in his place, and prevent the auto-da-fé in the plaza, Cortés also felt it was right, notwithstanding Olmedo’s more cautious counsel, that he should continue to support and enforce Muñoz’s policies regarding the removal and smashing of idols and their replacement by Christian symbols.
He closed the meeting with a lengthy homily against human sacrifice, a foul practice, he told the Indians, that they must agree to abandon at once. If they did not do so, he warned, he might be unable to prevent his Inquisitor a second time from burning them at the stake. Some further confusion resulted here, since it seemed the chief and the elders laboured under the misguided impression that Muñoz had wanted to burn them as sacrifices to his God, and Cortés found it very hard to disabuse them of this repugnant notion which, to make matters worse, it appeared that both Díaz and Olmedo had some sympathy with! He soldiered on, however, patiently working round the execrable interpreting skills of Little Julian, making his points again and again in different ways, until he was reasonably sure he had been properly understood.
What happened next convinced Cortés he was on the right track and that, despite his harsh treatment of Muñoz, he did still have Saint Peter’s blessing for his expedition.
As the elders were taking their leave, the chief – now dressed in the splendid doublet he had been given – put an arm round Cortés’s shoulder, drew him to the edge of the pyramid and pointed northwest, towards the mainland. He then made a short speech in his own language, but interspersed within it was a familiar-sounding word – something like ‘Castilan’ – repeated several times and with great emphasis. As he spoke, the chief rubbed his own hairless chin with his fingers and pointed to the beards of the Spaniards.
Intrigued, Cortés delayed the elders’ exodus from the pyramid and inquired further. More excruciating difficulties of interpretation followed but, bit by bit, with Díaz’s help, the story was teased out. Some days’ journey away on the mainland, which the Indians called the ‘Yucatán’, it seemed there lived a bearded white man, much like the Spanish in appearance. He had been carried there a long time before in a boat and was held captive by a lord of that land. Apparently this white man called himself a ‘Castilan’. He had learned the language of the Maya and spoke it like a native.
Could it be, Cortés wondered, that God had delivered into his hands the very gift he now so obviously required, namely a shipwrecked Spaniard, a man of Castile, who might serve as a proper interpreter for his expedition? With growing excitement he asked the chief to send a messenger to the Yucatán requesting the release of the ‘Castilan’ and offering rich gifts – which the Spanish would provide – in return.
The chief demurred. The men of the Yucatán, he said, were fierce and warlike and, moreover, cannibals; any messenger was likely to be killed and eaten. If Cortés wished to free this ‘Castilan’, the only solution would be to send one of his own great boats and soldiers there to seize him by force of arms – in which case, the chief promised, he would be happy to assign two Indians who knew the way to accompany them.
Cortés needed no further urging. ‘Sandoval,’ he said as they descended the pyramid. ‘I’ve got a little job for you.’
Chapter Forty-Seven
Tenochtitlan, Friday 26 February 1519
Tozi was in the royal hospital, invisible, standing by the bedside of Prince Guatemoc, hating his handsome sleeping face. She was thinking how easy it would be to slit his throat with the sharp little knife Huicton had provided for her, when Moctezuma’s chief physician Mecatl, a famous man in Tenochtitlan, entered the room. He was fat and bald and wore his ornate robes of office, but there was, Tozi immediately detected, something odd about his manner.
Something secretive and jittery.
He seemed nervous, but what would he have to be nervous about in his own hospital?
Wiping a sheen of sweat from his brow, he peered out into the corridor, looking left and right as though seeking to ensure he would not be disturbed, then closed the door behind him and advanced on the bed, drawing a small ceramic bottle from his robes as he did so. He removed the bottle’s rubber stopper, sniffed its contents, lifted Guatemoc’s head from the pillow and muttered, ‘You must drink this medicine, sire.’
The prince groaned and turned his head away. ‘Not again! Can’t you see I’m sleeping?’
‘You must drink the medicine, lord.’
‘Leave me alone, Mecatl. I’m not in the mood for any more of your foul brew.’
‘Your life depends on it, lord. Drink now, please, I beg you. It’s only a matter of a moment and then you may rest.’
‘Come back later, damn you! Let me sleep!’
The doctor was persistent. ‘I’m afraid, sire, that I must insist.’
Guatemoc’s eyes fluttered open. ‘You’re a horrible fat worm, Mecatl. Go away!’
‘I will not, great Prince. I am your doctor, appointed by the Lord Speaker himself. I cannot leave your side until you drink this medicine.’
Another groan. ‘Damn it then, get on
with it – if it’s the only way for me to be rid of you!’
‘Thank you, sire.’ Mecatl lifted the prince’s head again, put the bottle to his pale lips, nudged it between his teeth and upended it into his mouth. Tozi saw Guatemoc’s throat working as he swallowed the draught, leaving a few drops of what appeared to be liquid chocolate on his chin, which Mecatl carefully wiped away with a cloth. The physician then restoppered the empty bottle, placed it and the cloth back inside his robes, stood looking down at the prince for a few moments until his breathing fell back into the regular pattern of sleep, then left the room as furtively as he had entered it.
Tozi followed.
Her connection with the stuff of the world was different, more complicated, when she was invisible. Her clothes and the contents of her pockets always faded with her, and she had learned she could spread the field of magic to other things, and the people around her, if she concentrated her will. She could pick up objects and use them if she chose to do so, but she was also able to make herself as insubstantial as thought and flow in this form even through solid matter. In every case, she had discovered, the keys to control were focus and intention, so she focussed now, flowed through the wall with no more resistance than passing through a light shower of rain, and stayed right behind Mecatl as he waddled along the corridor and into a lavishly furnished office. He went to a cupboard standing in a corner of the room, opened it, took out a large bottle, carried it over to a table, placed the small bottle from his robes beside it and refilled it from the large bottle with more of the same chocolate-coloured liquid. A drop spilled on the table and he carefully wiped it up with the cloth. Finally he placed both bottles and the cloth back inside the cupboard and left the room, closing and locking the door behind him.
When he was gone, Tozi remained invisible while she conducted a rapid search. Laid out on the table was a fine collection of obsidian surgical instruments, a large mortar and pestle and two human skulls. There were shelves stacked with medical books painted on maguey cloth and deerskin and folded zigzag fashion between wooden covers. None of this was of any use to her but on a ledge beneath the shuttered window she found a collection of empty bottles. She took the smallest of these, filled it from the larger bottle in the cupboard, which she then carefully replaced, tucked the smaller bottle inside her blouse, mopped up a few spilled drops with the cloth Mecatl had used, and closed the cupboard. She made a final inspection to ensure she had left no trace of her visit other than the missing bottle, which she hoped would not be noticed. When she was satisfied she flowed out through the wall directly into the gardens surrounding the hospital and thence back into the streets of Tenochtitlan. Finding a patch of shadow in a deserted alley, she re-emerged into visibility again and began to walk briskly northwards through the city.
War God Page 35
