The Other Time

by Mack Reynolds

  The ships had anchored off Cempoala and Narvaez was making that town his base.

  Then came the Sandoval touch. He, of course, was based in Vera Cruz and had but forty men capable of bearing arms. Narvaez hadn’t even bothered to march on him but had sent envoys to demand the town’s surrender. Sandoval promptly arrested them and was rushing them to Tenochtitlan trussed up in hammocks and carried by Totonac porters working in relays and traveling night and day. They couldn’t make as good time as the runners who had brought the message, of course, but they should make the run in about four days.

  The situation was too tense for humor and Avila was the only one to laugh. “That Gonzalo,” he said. “By my conscience, he would not fear the devil. Forty men at his disposal and he risks the wrath of an army of thirteen hundred by arresting its envoys!”

  Cortes looked around at them, wanly. “Opinions, anyone?”

  They were fighters, not thinkers.

  Malinche said finally, “My lord?”

  He looked at her a bit impatiently. “Yes?”

  Her Spanish by now was quite good. She said, “Are these new teteuhs as hungry for gold as all you others?”

  Olid growled, “All Spanish are hungry for gold, Dona Marina.”

  “Then, my lord,” she said to Cortes, “perhaps this is the weapon to use against them.”

  All eyes were on her.

  She said, “If I understand correctly, you have at your disposal quantities of gold beyond that which any of you have ever seen before. It will do you no good if you are dead or imprisoned. So why not use it?”

  Diego de Ordaz said darkly, “By my beard, we have worked and fought for that treasure for a year and more.”

  She looked at him, her eyebrows high in a very feminine sarcasm. She repeated, “What good will it do you if you are dead or imprisoned?”

  Cortes said, “What do you propose?”

  “That when these envoys arrive that Sandoval sends, meet them with full honors. Make friends of them. Apologize for the manner in which they were trussed up in hammocks. Explain that there is plenty of gold for all. Tell them that it would be a mistake to upset the situation here by fighting among yourselves. Then load them down with riches and let them return to the camp of this new teteuh, Narvaez. Send him friendly messages and, with the messengers, send still more gold to be distributed among his captains and men.”

  Silence fell as they thought about it.

  She said, “Among this great number of teteuhs, are any of them your friends or blood kin?”

  Pedro de Alvarado grumbled, “How could we know?”

  “The messengers you send could find out. These in particular should be given presents of gold.”

  The Captain-General shifted in his chair unhappily. He, more than any of the rest, disliked the idea of giving up any of their loot.

  He said finally, “We could send Fray Olmedo as a messenger. He’s a priest; Narvaez would not dare lay hands on him. And he is acquainted with practically every Spaniard in Cuba. He would know whom to attempt to win over through bribery.”

  Alvarado said, in argument, “They must be the dregs of Cuba. When we gathered up this army of ours, we took the best men on the island, most of them veterans of the Indian fighting in Hispanola or Puerto Rico, many of them veterans of the European wars or those against the Moors. And we have been fighting since first we landed in Yucatan and Tabasco. One of us is worth a score of them.”

  Cortes shook his head. “Brave words, Pedro, but on my faith as a gentleman, no Spaniard is worth twenty other Spaniards. Twenty Indians armed with stone weapons, yes, but not twenty Spaniards, or even three or four. No, Dona Marina is correct. We must use diplomacy. Pedro, send messages to de Leon and de Rangel and to Sandoval. Order them to rendezvous with me on the road to Vera Cruz. You will remain here with seventy men and four hundred of the Tlaxcalans. Your orders are to remain here in the palace, as quietly as possible. Do not issue forth from the gates. We wish the city to remain tranquil. I will leave Dona Marina with you, since I will have little need of an interpreter. One of the Indian boys Don Fielding has taught will suffice for me. And, Pedro…”

  “Yes, my Captain-General?”

  “Nothing is to happen to Don Fielding. I have future need of his services.”

  Pedro de Alvarado sucked in air as he shot one of his patented glares at Don. “Yes, my Captain-General.”

  When Hernando Cortes marched out from the city, he had but seventy men with him, and no Indian allies. The Tlaxcalans made it clear that though they were willing to mobilize for him in an attack upon the Tenochas, they would not fight teteuhs armed with cannon, crossbows, and arquebuses backed by cavalry. By the time he picked up the forces of the other captains, including those of Sandoval, his small army numbered some three hundred and thirty. Three hundred and thirty against an enemy that outnumbered him by a thousand, and with superior firepower! Whatever else he was, Hernando Cortes was no coward.

  On the second day after Cortes left, Don Fielding looked up Bernal Diaz and suggested a stroll in the great square.

  Bernal didn’t like the idea. “The Captain-General wished us to remain here in the palace.”

  “You forget that I am a nephew of the king and a citizen of this city. Far from provoking the people by my presence, they will be glad to see me, and it will give an air of the tranquility Don Hernando wished to be expressed.”

  Bernal was not convinced, but: “I’ll ask Alvarado,” he said.

  Pedro de Alvarado, impatient at being left out of the action, was too busy biting his nails to give a hoot. He granted permission, but warned them to go no farther than the city square.

  The two strolled around, Don noting the increased antagonism in Tenocha citizens at the sight of Bernal Diaz. There was open hatred in some faces.

  Bernal said, “On my faith, I should teach some of these devil-worshiping dogs a lesson at the point of my sword.”

  Don said dryly, “I wouldn’t recommend it; we’d never make it back to our quarters. Besides, remember the Captain-General’s orders. Nothing to upset the tranquility…”

  When they reached the vicinity of the huge buildings which housed the Eagle clan, Don spoke nonchalantly to one of the young men walking past them. “I would see my blood brother as soon as possible,” he said pleasantly, in Nahuatl, not raising his voice.

  “I will give him the message, kinsman,” said the Indian in the same tongue.

  Don’s luck was holding; the other was an Eagle clan member.

  Bernal Diaz looked at him suspiciously. “What did you say to him?”

  “I passed greetings of the day. He is a slight acquaintance.”

  “You are a strange one, on my faith. It has never been clear to me how you could possibly be a nephew of the great Montezuma.”

  “It is a long story,” Don told him.

  They returned to the tecpan and Don retired to his room and waited.

  Cuauhtemoc showed up in surprisingly short order. He was dressed in his usual disguise, barefooted and wearing nothing but a loincloth, as though he was one of the Indians utilized by the Spanish who were too lazy to perform their own menial tasks.

  Don pulled the mat securely over the door and the two of them sat on the floor.

  Don said, “We must speak quickly since the tecpan is now in command of one who hates me and very possibly I am spied upon in hopes that I will commit some act that will give him any excuse to kill me.”

  Cuauhtemoc nodded. “Very well, my giant brother. Speak.”

  “How goes the feeling among the people about the Spanish?”

  “They hate them, but they fear them more.”

  “I see. And how do you and the young chiefs feel?”

  “We wish to fight. We and the members of the confederation in Tetzcuco and Tlacopan.”

  Don accepted that. “All right. Now, this is what has to be done. First, your high council must depose your uncle Motechzoma and elect a new chief of war of the confederation.”
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br />   The other took him in, wide-eyed. “This is within our traditions. Any chief can be disposed if he is incapable of fulfilling his duties. But no Tlacatecuhtli has ever been removed from his office in our annals.”

  “He is worthless to you and the time for action is upon us.”

  Cuauhtemoc sighed. “You would not have known my uncle before the coming of the teteuhs.”

  “I am sure. But now he is worthless to you. As you said once before, he has become an old woman.”

  “Yes. And then?”

  “And then we need a spark. Something must happen to enrage the people and allow the fighting to begin. There are only seventy of the Spanish now in the city, so it will be easier for the people to find the courage to attack them. Once the step has been taken, they will continue to fight when the others have returned from the eastern sea.”

  “What kind of a spark?”

  Don Fielding was not a man of violence. He had never been. In his own era, he had seldom gone to the movies or watched television shows. They were too replete with violence. He hated war; he even detested sports that involved death, such as bullfights.

  He sucked in breath and said, “Some must be killed so that the people will rise in anger and attack these invaders.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  There was a stirring at the mat which covered the door.

  Don Fielding jumped to his feet, snatched his Beretta .22 from its holster, and flung the mat aside. It was the page, Orteguilla, the one Cortes had loaned to Motechzoma and the sole Spaniard in the expedition who had a smattering of Nahuatl.

  “Good God,” Don snarled. “Every time I have a private conversation I find one of these Spanish kids under my feet!”

  Orteguilla, his eyes wide now, turned and darted away.

  Don brought the gun up and drew a bead on the boy’s back. But then he lowered it again and shook his head. If it had been a man—perhaps. Things were desperate.

  He grabbed up his entrenching tool, attached it to his belt, returned the gun to its holster. Cuauhtemoc was also standing by now.

  “Quickly,” Don snapped. “We must get out of here. The boy will report the talk of revolt to Alvarado, the one you call Tonatiuh, the sun. He’ll have his excuse to execute me. And you with me. What is the best manner to get from the tecpan?”

  He led the way out the door.

  Cuauhtemoc said, “But all entries are guarded.”

  “Which is least guarded?”

  “That to the canal to the rear of the buildings. It is there they unload the canoes which carry the supplies for the teteuhs and their allies.”

  It was the area where most of the Tlaxcalans were quartered and Don didn’t know it very well. But they hurried in that direction.

  At the small dock two Spanish soldiers were posted. Both of them looked bored. They were armed with swords alone, in both cases sheathed. Don knew one of them slightly, Juan Sedeno.

  Don Fielding came up and said to him, “Juan, Pedro de Alvarado wants to see you.”

  The other looked surprised. “Me? Why? I’m supposed to be on guard duty.”

  Don shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. He seems awfully upset about something or other. Listen…”

  From the center of the tecpan came shouts and the clatter of men running in armor.

  “Por Dios!” the soldier snapped. Holding his sword scabbard in his right hand so that it wouldn’t trip him up, he started for the tumult at a run.

  Don Fielding turned to the other, opened his mouth as though to say something, but then let his eyes widen. He looked beyond the soldier at the canal, packed as it was with the transport canoes.

  “What’s that!”

  The Spaniard spun and stared.

  The oldest wheeze in the world, Don thought as he pulled out his entrenching tool and clipped the other on the back of the neck, immediately below the helmet.

  “Quick,” he snapped at his Indian companion and jumped into an empty canoe.

  He sat in the bottom, knowing he was worthless with paddle or punting pole. It was Cuauhtemoc’s ball now and the other went at it with a vim. He headed straight across the narrow canal for the community house there. As was common in these buildings, an arm of the canal went directly into the establishment for landing stages inside.

  Just as they darted into the narrow entry, a crossbow quarrel banged into the masonry. Don involuntarily ducked. They jumped onto the landing stage.

  “They’ll be after us in moments.”

  His companion laughed exuberance even as he led the way. “I spent my boyhood playing around these buildings, my giant brother. If they can catch us, they deserve to!” They ran through a maze of corridors, courtyards, arches, and in moments Don had lost his sense of direction. They came upon another canal, evidently on the far side of the building, and confiscated another canoe. In moments, Cuauhtemoc had it under way at full speed up the canal.

  “We cannot go to our home,” he said. “There the teteuhs might seek us out and the people are not yet ready to resist them. We will go to the home of the Turtle clan. Their chief, Tetlepanquetzaltzin, is a great friend of mine and hates the teteuhs beyond all others.” He laughed his exuberance again. “Except for me.”

  Don said, “Does that boy, Orteguilla, know you? Has he ever seen you with your uncle, Motechzoma?”

  Even as he paddled, the other thought about it. “I do not think so. I hope not, for tomorrow I lead the dancers in the great square before the temple.”

  “What dancers?”

  “It is the beginning of the feast of Toxcatl in which we dance and make merry in honor of the god Huitzilopochtli. Tonatiuh, the sun, has given permission to my uncle to hold it.”

  “No,” Don said.

  Cuauhtemoc looked at him in surprised questioning.

  Don said, “If you dance in that enclosure, you will die.”

  “But it is a great honor to lead the young warriors in the Dance of the Serpent. It was undecided who to choose and I won out over Ocuitecatl when Xochitl, the high priest, sided with me.”

  “If you dance in that enclosure, you will die the same day.”

  “You know this, giant brother?”

  “Yes.”

  The Indian sighed. “And you say you are no magician.” They spent the night in the community house of the Turtle clan and with the friend of Cuauhtemoc. While they sat around and talked, word came that there had been a fight between Cortes’s men and those of Narvaez. Cortes had won hands-down.

  “It wasn’t much of a fight,” Don told them. “The weapon used was gold. But now the ranks of the Spanish are more than tripled.”

  The shoulders of the two Indian chiefs slumped at that. “Then we are lost,” Cuauhtemoc said lowly. “For even with the lesser number of teteuhs, the people are afraid to rise.”

  “Not quite yet,” Don said. He looked at his friend. “When you are preparing to march out to war, how do you summon the warriors?”

  “Why, the priests beat the great drums from the top of the great pyramid.”

  Early the next day, Don and Cuauhtemoc ascended the pyramid from the far side so that Spanish sentries on the walls of the tecpan could not detect them. They hid in the temple at the top, to the surprise of Xochitl and his priests, and peered out the doorway at the proceedings below.

  The dancers in their barbaric finery began to assemble early, excitement in the air.

  “That is Ocuitecatl,” Cuauhtemoc said glumly. “He will lead the young warriors in the Dance of the Serpent. It was to be my honor.”

  A large group of the Spaniards came over from the tecpan and stood around as though curious to watch. Don noticed that they were strategically placed at each of the entrances to the temple enclosure, but evidently none of the laughing, chattering Indians did. He was sick inside. It was a fiesta; there was not an armed Indian in sight. The Spanish, as always, wore their swords and armor.

  The singing and dancing were well under the way when Alvarado gave the signal. At each entry, t
he Spanish set guards, shoulder to shoulder. Then the balance of them, swords swinging mercilessly, began the attack with cries of “Santiago, and at them!”

  Don sat down, his eyes on his feet.

  Cuauhtemoc stared at him. “You knew this was to happen?”

  Lowly, Don said, “Yes. I knew it was to happen.”

  “And you didn’t warn them? Some of them are our kin, blood brother.”

  “I know,” Don Fielding said in agony. “But we needed our spark.” He turned to Xochitl, who had, for once, horror in his face rather than madness.

  “Begin the sounding of the great drums,” Don told him.

  By noon, the Spanish and their allies were under full siege. The square was packed with screaming Indians launching veritable clouds of arrows, javelins, stones from slings. From the top of the pyramid, archers were able to see down into the tecpan courtyards and no man was safe to issue forth from cover. On the walls, the Spanish cannon fired over and over again, cutting bloody swaths in the ranks of the attackers, but still they came on.

  In the buildings of the Eagle clan, the war chiefs held a conference. There was one chief from each calpulli, four head war chiefs from the four divisions of the city, one head chief from Tlaltelolco, the sister city of Tenochtitlan, and one each from Tetzcuco and Tlacopan, the other two members of the confederation.

  The first item on the agenda was the election of a new First Speaker, Motechzoma being replaced. The position fell to Cuitlahuac, member of the Eagle clan and a brother of Motechzoma.

  He was a warrior born. He came to his feet, eyes flashing enthusiasm. “We will now go forth and storm the tecpan and kill or capture them all!”

  A shout went up. Arms were brandished. Somewhat to his surprise, Don noted that several of them, besides Cuauhtemoc, bore longbows.

  “Here we go,” he muttered under his breath. He came to his feet and held up his arms. All knew him and fell silent.

  “No,” he said.

  Cuitlahuac scowled. “But you too are their enemy. Why do you not wish to rush in and destroy them all?”

  Don said, “Because Malintzin will soon be on his way back. With him are fifteen hundred Spaniards, and they have many guns and almost one hundred horses. If we kill Alvarado and his seventy men at this time, Malintzin will remain on the mainland and invest the city, and the other tribes will come over to him in large numbers because all of them hate your confederation and wish to participate in the looting. With that many men and all his guns, he will eventually triumph, no matter how valiant the Tenochas.”