The Other Time

by Mack Reynolds

  These were highly experienced fighters, all Eagle Knights, the most highly experienced in Tenochtitlan. They immediately got the idea. Don wasn’t thinking in such terms at the time, but at that moment the first primitive phalanx was born in Mexico.

  They drilled for the balance of the day, impatient to be left out of the combat sounds which could be heard from the square. Now that they had the idea, they could do a better job of drilling themselves than he could. Don left them and returned to the pyramid vantage point.

  It was upon this day that Hernando Cortes decided to utilize diplomacy in view of the fact that force was proving inadequate. Don found later than it was Malinche who made the suggestion.

  During a lull in the fighting, a small group of soldiers with shields came up on the walls of the tecpan surrounding Motechzoma, who was in his full regalia as the First Speaker of the Tlatocan high council. Evidently, he hadn’t heard that he had been deposed. He held up his hands and the firing fell away completely, from both sides.

  He held that position and finally the Tenochas left their shelters and gathered beneath the walls or stood on nearby rooftops fully exposed.

  From the pyramid top, Don and his two Indian companions could barely make out the former chiefs words.

  If the fighting stopped and the beams were returned to the bridges over the causeway, Malintzin and all his army would march out of the city and back to the sea where they would take their ships and leave this land forever.

  Somebody called something from the crowd that Don didn’t catch.

  Motechzoma answered that Malintzin himself had given his word.

  The crowd stirred, whispered, murmured.

  Don said, “No.” He said urgently, “We’ve got to end this.”

  Cuauhtemoc said, “But they promise to go. That is what we wish.”

  “He’ll leave only temporarily. He’s getting desperate and wants out. He’ll regroup his army at Vera Cruz, get more reinforcements, and then return stronger than ever. We must inflict more casualties upon him. Many more. We must wound him as badly as we can.”

  The crowd was still stirring. The Tenochas had not gone unharmed in this past few weeks of fighting. There was not a clan in town that hadn’t lost its scores of warriors.

  Don said flatly, “They’re listening to him. After all, he was their respected head war chief for years. Fire on him, Cuauhtemoc.”

  “But he is an Eagle, a member of our clan! He is my uncle, our uncle, our kinsman.”

  “But all he can think of is getting the Spanish out of the city, in hopes that all will return to be the same as before. It won’t. You can never go back, and certainly he can’t. Fire on him, Cuauhtemoc! If we don’t, all is lost. Tenochtitlan is lost. The warriors must be kept at full fighting pitch.”

  Cuauhtemoc said, “You know this to be the truth, giant brother?”

  “Yes. I know it.”

  The other turned to a group of nearby slingers. “Bring him down before he says another word to influence the people.”

  Their slings spun. A shower of stones rained.

  The Spanish soldiers below, who had been guarding the former war chief, had lowered their shields when it seemed as though his message was being received. He staggered back, hit several times.

  A cannon boomed and the crowded Indians scattered for cover. Motechzoma was carried away by the soldiers.

  Cuauhtemoc looked emptily at Don Fielding. “You know all. Is he dead?”

  Don shook his head in negation. “No. He lives, but the Spanish will kill him when they retreat. This is the final straw. He is of no more use to them whatsoever. He has, in their eyes, signed over to the Emperor Charles the Fifth all of New Spain. But his people have rejected him. He is of no use any longer and they will murder him.”

  “When will they attempt to flee?”

  “I don’t know. One of these nights, but which one I don’t know.”

  “I thought you could foresee the future.”

  “Some of it. But… this I cannot explain to you… but the future I can foresee is being changed. I myself do not understand. But every day that goes by, it is being changed more. How much longer I will be able to foresee anything at all, I do not know.”

  The Indian shook his head. “The ways of the gods cannot be understood by man.”

  “They sure as hell can’t,” Don muttered in English. “And usually they can’t be understood by the gods, either.” The Spanish took their final bitter pill two days later. Cortes, thinking that they had broken the back of the Indian resistance, sallied forth with forty of his horse and possibly eight hundred foot, leaving just enough of his force in the tecpan to man the walls and to preserve a reserve of horse in case of emergency. He was, on the face of it, out to deliver such a crushing blow that the city’s defenders would be demoralized.

  At the far side of the square, Cuauhtemoc’s Eagle Knights were drawn up in their simple phalanx, each man about three feet from his neighbors to each side. Behind them a drummer beat out the march, an innovation that Don hadn’t thought of. Evidently Cuauhtemoc had.

  Cortes shouted his battle cry, swung his sword, and led his horsemen on the charge.

  He had without doubt never seen Indians so arrayed. Not in Cuba, not in Hispanola, where he had once campaigned against naked savages; not in Yucatan, Tabasco, or Tlaxcala. But it obviously never occurred to him that they would stand fast upon the impact of the cavalry.

  Cuauhtemoc snapped a command; the beat of the drum changed and his men came to a halt and dressed their lines. The Spanish were but a few yards away. He snapped another command. The drum broke into a staccato. The first rank knelt and grounded the butts of their pikes, the spearheads at a forty-five degree angle. The rear rank extended their lances over the shoulders of the first.

  Don Fielding was too far off to see the expression on the face of Captain-General Hernando Cortes when the reality of the situation hit him, but it must have come as a shock. Cavalry should not charge disciplined footmen. The axiom had been laid down long hence. But it was too late to reverse the charge now. The Spanish hit and impaled themselves on the spears, going down almost to a man before it was through.

  The Captain-General, bearing a charmed life, was one of the few who survived. He staggered back, his horse dead, Cortes badly wounded in one arm.

  The new-born phalanx had taken its casualties. Possibly half of them had gone down. But so great had been the soldier’s debacle that even the Spanish foot were demoralized. They covered their own retreat with crossbow and arquebuses, but their hearts weren’t in it. They were driven, helter-skelter, back to the tecpan fortress.

  Don was atop the pyramid with Cuitlahuac.

  He said grimly, “Have the drummer increase the tempo of the kettledrums. And then summon the council of the war chiefs. Tonight the Spanish will attempt to break out and reach the mainland.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No. But if I was Malintzin, that is what I would do. His army must be demoralized and a good number of them wounded. He knows that after that success, tomorrow there will be two hundred warriors instead of sixty in our phalanx, and the next day, two thousand. Armed, of course, largely with lances tipped with obsidian or flint rather than with steel, but still more than a match for his few men.” The full complement of war chiefs was in the dining hall of the Eagle clan’s buildings. The process had been slow so that Don Fielding hadn’t particularly noticed it, but for all practical purposes he had taken over the prerogatives of Cuitlahuac, the First Speaker. Not that the other took umbrage. He was enough of a commander not to argue with success, and this tall white man they now called Quetzalcoatl was giving them successes with his new weapons, his new tactics.

  Don stood, flanked by Cuitlahuac and Cuauhtemoc, while the others squatted Indian-fashion on the floor.

  He said, “Tonight, most likely the enemy will try to retreat to the mainland. Thus it is that the Tetzcucans and the Tlacopans and the rest of the allies, instead of returning to t
heir own towns in their canoes for the night, must remain ready for the big fight. The Tlacopans will remain at their end of the causeway; when they hear the sounds of battle, they must dash down it and join the fray, preventing the Spanish from crossing. The Tetzcucans will all be in canoes on each side of the causeway, and they will drag down the enemy and carry them off.”

  “Ha! Later to be sacrificed to the gods,” one of the allied chiefs chortled.

  Don ignored him and went on. “We wish to capture as many of the Spanish as possible and the horses as well. Do not kill either a Spaniard or a horse unless absolutely necessary. The Tlaxcalans it would be best to kill, since those that escape will come back another day, using our new tactics perhaps. The Tenochas will remain in the city and pursue the army down the causeway from this end, once again capturing as many as possible.”

  The Snake-Woman spoke up. “But how can they possibly expect to make the mainland when the bridges have all been raised?”

  “They have built a portable bridge in the tecpan. They plan to carry it with them. Each time they cross a break in the causeway they plan to put the bridge down, have the whole army file across, then pick it up again and carry it to the next break.”

  “How do you know?” Cuappiatzin, chief of the House of Arrows, demanded.

  “I know,” Don said. He added, “There is just one more thing. When the retreat begins, capture Malinche. Above all, capture Malinche unharmed! She is the strongest weapon in the Spanish arsenal.”

  “But she is only a woman,” someone blurted.

  “That makes no difference. She doesn’t have to fight with a sword; she operates with her brain and it is the most dangerous brain in all the land. In the abilities of that girl lie the downfall of this city. Capture Malinche.”

  Later, when the war council was over, Don took Cuauhtemoc aside.

  He said, “How many Tenocha women still remain inside the tecpan with the Spanish?”

  The other wasn’t sure. “Perhaps a hundred. They were offered to the army as servants when the teteuh first arrived. Now they are kept on, in spite of themselves, as tlacotli slaves.”

  Don thought it out. “So the Spanish are quite used to having these women about. Would it be possible to smuggle one more in?”

  “But why, giant brother?”

  “I want to get a message to Malinche.”

  “It should be possible. In spite of our blockade, a few canoes get through to the teteuhs, bringing them food and other supplies. When we catch these, we kill them, but still a few attempt it, mostly women who have become infatuated by a teteuh and would do anything for the man she loves.” He considered it. “Yes, she could enter with a canoe-load of food and undoubtedly the Spanish would welcome her. What is the message?”

  “Malinche is to be told that the Spanish cause is lost. She has probably already come to that conclusion. She is to be told to drop behind when the Spanish retreat begins and to hide in what was formerly my room when I lived there. She knows where it is. She is to be told that the message comes from me.”

  “But why all this?”

  “For two reasons, Cuauhtemoc. First, as I said, she is the most dangerous person in the Spanish army, save only Malintzin himself. Second, she is the woman I love.”

  “Perhaps I understand, my giant brother.”

  Don Fielding’s prediction was correct. The Spanish army, shaken by the day’s defeat, chose that night for its dash for freedom.

  From the top of the pyramid, well concealed, Don, Cuitlahuac, and Cuauhtemoc watched. The moon was still bright enough that they could make out the movement of the column below, which was maintaining a ghostly silence in spite of its numbers.

  Sandoval—Don thought he recognized the slim figure—led with a small group of horse and about two hundred Spanish foot. Cortes himself was evidently in command of the center, in which went some of the cannon and most of the baggage, probably including most of the treasure, Don decided. Pedro de Alvarado brought up the rear with the better part of the infantry.

  When the full column had departed the buildings which they had converted into a veritable fort, Pedro de Alvarado spurred his horse around and reentered. Don’s eyes narrowed; he didn’t like that.

  He said quickly, “There are three branches in the causeway before they reach Tlacopan. Let the full Spanish army get over the first one, then sound the conches. Then mount the attack. And remember, above all, capture as many as possible and as many of the horses.”

  He stood, preparatory to descending the pyramid.

  “Where do you go, brother?” Cuauhtemoc said.

  “I am no longer needed for the time. All will be complete confusion until dawn and past, and it is only midnight now. I am going down into the deserted tecpan.”

  Cuitlahuac looked at him strangely. He said, “To rescue my brother, Motechzoma, Cacama, and the others?”

  “Perhaps, if they are still alive,” Don said, and left.

  The column had already disappeared down the street which led to the causeway, making remarkably little noise as it went. He darted across the square and into the entry, his Beretta .22 in one hand, his entrenching tool, unfolded, in the other.

  He gave another silent prayer to whoever looked after agnostics that there would be no Spanish stragglers who had possibly dropped behind to acquire one last ingot of the gold that Cortes had been forced to leave behind in the tecpan. There had been plenty, according to history.

  He tried desperately to remember the route to his former room. He had never been over it before at this time of night. He made several wrong turns but finally found the courtyard.

  He called desperately, “Malinche! Malinche!” Not knowing, actually, if she was here or not. Had her disillusionment with those she once thought gods reached a point where she would desert them? Had her regard for Hernando Cortes cooled to the point where she would give him up for a comparative stranger who had but twice kissed her?

  Her form materialized in the doorway. She had one fist to her mouth, obviously frightened.

  “Don Fielding!” she whispered.

  He hurried closer. “They’re all gone,” he said. “They have all fled.”

  “No, they haven’t,” a voice rasped from behind him.

  Don spun.

  It was Pedro de Alvarado, his eyes glaring as they always glared when he looked at Don Fielding. His sword was naked and dripping with blood and there was an additional dark stain on his armor. He looked as though he had been literally wallowing in blood.

  “So,” Don said flatly. “Motechzoma and the other prisoners are no more.”

  Alvarado came forward with deliberation. “And soon neither will you be, Don Fielding.” He took in Malinche. “Nor you, traitoress.”

  Don brought up his Beretta and emptied its clip into the other. He had no time for aim.

  The small bullets splattered harmlessly on the oncoming swordsman’s armor, giving him only a slight pause to register his astonishment.

  Alvarado stabbed, but Don, more through pure luck than anything else, faded to one side. He made a back-handed swipe with his entrenching tool and managed to miss as well. He dropped the gun to the courtyard floor, swearing at himself inwardly for not having aimed at the other’s face. With that many shots in the magazine, he should have hit the swordsman at least once. Once would have been enough, in the face. He switched the entrenching tool from his left hand to right and stood back, crouched.

  Alvarado was an experienced swordsman and had undoubtedly in his time come up against many a far-out weapon, but obviously he had never seen anything like the folding spade. It must have seemed a strange combination of battle mace and short sword. He eyed it for a moment before boring in again, his saber in practiced position.

  Don wasn’t going to get out of this one, he knew. It was all very well his having finished off the assassin in Cempoala, in the darkness of the small room, and all very well his having clipped the sentry in the tecpan while the other’s back was turned, but this wa
s an experienced swordsman, veteran of a hundred person-to-person combats. A bloody damned sure-enough Spanish hero.

  He hissed over to his shoulder to Malinche, “Run!” Pedro de Alvarado laughed aloud and in joy and came lunging in.

  And an arrow transfixed his throat.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Cuauhtemoc said, “I, too, saw Tonatiuh reenter this building, my giant brother. I have just been to the room where Motechzoma and the others were held in chains. They carried their chains to the afterlife.”

  Don Fielding sat down on the steps which led up from the courtyard to the level on which his former room was located. He looked back. Malinche stood there. She hadn’t run. Face it, he told himself, she’s more of a fighter than you are. Hell, he wasn’t a fighter at all.

  He said, “Thank you, blood brother,” his voice shaky.

  Cuauhtemoc said, and the question was not rhetorical, “For what?”

  It was at that moment that the kettledrums, for the first time in a week, fell silent. And then the conches sounded the attack.

  The Indian chief said quickly, “I must go. The battle begins.”

  Don came to his feet, complete exhaustion upon him. “Yes,” he said, picking up his small gun again and reaching for his diminished box of shells.

  “No,” Cuauhtemoc said.

  Don looked at him.

  Cuauhtemoc said, “We cannot risk you in the fight. It is 250 as you said on the pyramid. Some cannot be risked, and you have proven over and over again, giant brother, that you cannot be risked. For in you lies the only hope of all the lands.”

  Don opened his mouth to protest and closed it again. There was simply nothing to say.

  Cuauhtemoc turned quickly and hurried away.