Aztec Autumn a-2

by Gary Jennings

  "I go at once, my lord," he said, and he did.

  Next, I gave quick and desultory approval to all the would-be servants that G'nda Ké had gathered in the hall. I recognized a number of them from the old days, and I was sure that if any of the others had ever been in league with Yeyac, they would not now have dared to apply for service under my eye. From then on, we pípiltin of the palace—Améyatl, Pakápeti, G'nda Ké and myself—were most assiduously attended and most sumptuously fed, and we never had to lift a finger to do anything that could be done for us. Though Améyatzin now had a bevy of women to wait upon her, she and I both were pleased that Tiptoe insisted on continuing to be her closest personal handmaiden.

  What time Tiptoe was not attending Améyatl, she gladly passed in accompanying the warriors I sent to arrest and execute the Aztlan townsmen whose names had been on Nochéztli's bark papers. I gave no orders except "execute them!" and I never bothered to find out what means the warriors employed—whether the flower-garland garrote or the sword or arrows or the knife that tears out the heart—or whether Tiptoe personally dispatched some of those men with one or another of the horrid methods she had mentioned to me. I simply did not care. Sufficient for me that all the property and possessions and wealth of those who died came to Aztlan's treasury. I may seem callous in having said that, but I could have been even more callous. By ancient tradition, I could have slain those traitors' wives, children, grandchildren, relatives of even more remote degree, and from that I refrained. I did not wish to depopulate Aztlan entirely.

  I had never been a Uey-Tecútli before, and the only other one I had ever observed in the exercise of that office had been my Uncle Mixtli. It had seemed to me—then—that to accomplish anything whatsoever that required accomplishing, all Mixtzin had to do was smile or scowl or wave a hand or put his name-sign to some document. I soon learned—now—that being a Revered Governor was no easy occupation. I was being continually petitioned—I could say pestered—for decisions, judgments, pronouncements, intercessions, advice, verdicts, consents or denials, acceptances or rejections...

  The other officials of my court, charged with various governing responsibilities, regularly came to see me with their various problems. A dike restraining the swamp waters needed crucial repairs, or the swamp would soon be in our streets; would the Uey-Tecútli authorize the cost of materials and the rounding-up of workmen? The fishers of our ocean fleet were complaining that the long-ago draining of that same swamp had resulted in the gradual silting up of their accustomed seaside harbors; would the Uey-Tecútli authorize the dredging of those harbors deep again? Our warehouses were bulging with sea-otter pelts, sponges, shark skins and other unsold goods, because, for years now, Aztlan had been trading only with lands to the north of us, none to the south; could the Uey-Tecútli devise a plan to get rid of that glut, and at a profit?...

  I had to contend with not just my court officials and major matters of policy, but also with the most trivial doings of the common folk. Here a quarrel between two neighbors over the boundary between their plots of land; there a family squabbling over the division of their recently dead father's meager estate; here a debtor asking relief from an usurious and harassing moneylender; there a creditor asking permission to oust a widow and her orphans from their home, to satisfy some obligation her late husband had failed to meet...

  It was exceedingly difficult for me to find time to attend to matters that were—to me—of much more urgency. But somehow I managed. I instructed all the loyal knights and cuáchictin of my army to put their forces (and every available conscript) to intensified training, and to make place in their ranks for the additional warriors levied and daily arriving from the other communities subordinate to Aztlan.

  I even found time to take out of hiding the three arcabuces Pakápeti and I had brought, and to give personal training in the use of them. Needless to remark, every warrior was, at first, timorous of handling these alien weapons. But I selected only those who could overcome their trepidation, and who showed an aptitude for using the thunder-stick efficiently. Those eventually numbered about twenty, and when one of them asked, diffidently, "My lord, when we go to war, are we to take turns employing the thunder-sticks?" I told him, "No, young iyac. I expect you to wrest from the white men their arcabuces with which to arm yourselves. Furthermore, we will also be confiscating the white men's horses. When we do, you will be trained in the handling of them, as well."

  My being continuously busy had at least one gratifying aspect: it kept me from having anything to do with the Yaki woman G'nda Ké. While I was occupied with affairs of state, she occupied herself with overseeing the palace household and its domestics. She may have been a nuisance to those servants, but she had little opportunity to be a nuisance to me. Oh, occasionally we might meet in a palace corridor, and she would utter some taunting or teasing remark:

  "I weary of waiting, Tenamáxtli. When do you and I go forth together and commence our war?"

  Or "I weary of waiting, Tenamáxtli. When do you and I go to bed together, so that you may kiss every one of the freckles that sprinkle my most intimate parts?"

  Even if I had not been kept too busy to bed anybody, and even if she had been the last human female in existence, I would not have been tempted. Indeed, during my tenure as Uey-Tecútli—when by custom I could have had any Aztlan woman I wanted—I was having none at all. Pakápeti seemed staunch in her determination never again to couple with any man. And I would not have dreamed of intruding myself into Améyatl's sickbed, even though she was getting healthier and stronger and more beautiful every day.

  I did visit my cousin's bedside whenever I had a free moment, simply to converse with her. I would apprise her of all my activities as Uey-Tecútli, and of all happenings in and about Aztlan—so that she could the more easily resume her regency when the time came. (And, frankly, I was yearning for that time to come, so I could be off to war.) We talked of many other things, too, of course, and one day Améyatl, looking vaguely troubled, said to me:

  "Pakápeti has taken loving care of me. And she looks lovely, now that her hair is nearly as long as my own. But the dear girl might as well be repellently ugly, because the anger in her is so very nearly visible."

  "She is angry toward men, and she has reason. I told you of her encounter with those two Spanish soldiers."

  "White men, then, I could understand. But—excepting only you—I think she would gladly slay every man alive."

  I said, "So would the venomous G'nda Ké. Perhaps her propinquity has influenced Pakápeti to an even deeper hatred of men."

  Améyatl asked, "Including the one inside her?"

  I blinked. "What are you saying?"

  "Then you have not noticed. It is just beginning to show, and she is carrying it high. Tiptoe is pregnant."

  "Not by me," I blurted. "I have not touched her in—"

  "Ayyo, cousin, be at ease," said Améyatl, laughing despite her evident concern. "Tiptoe blames that encounter of which you spoke."

  "Well, she could reasonably be bitter about carrying the mongrel child of a—"

  "Not because it is a child. Or a mongrel. Because it is a male. Because she detests all males."

  "Oh, come now, cousin. How could Pakápeti possibly know it will be a boy?"

  "She does not even refer to it as a boy. She speaks savagely of 'this tepúli growing inside me.' Or 'this kurú'—the Poré word for that same male organ. Tenamáxtli, is it possible that Tiptoe's distress is causing her to lose her mind?"

  "I am no authority," I said with a sigh, "on madness or women. I will consult a tícitl of my acquaintance. Perhaps he can prescribe some palliative for her distress. In the meantime, let us both—you and I—be watchful that Tiptoe does not try to do some hurt to herself."

  But it was a while before I got around to summoning that physician, because I had other distractions. One was a visit from one of the guards at the Coyolxaúqui temple, come to report that the imprisoned warriors were most miserable, having to sl
eep on their feet, eating nothing but mush, being so long unbathed, and so forth.

  "Have any of them yet suffocated or starved?" I demanded.

  "No, my lord. They may be near dead, but one hundred thirty and eight were confined in there, and that number still remain. However, even we guards outside the temple can hardly endure their stink and their clamor."

  "Then change the guard more frequently. Unless those traitors begin to die, do not trouble me again. Near dead is not punishment enough for them."

  And then Nochéztli returned from his mission as a quimíchi in Compostela. He had been gone for about two months—and I had begun to worry that he had again defected to the enemy—but he came back, as promised, and came brimming with things to tell.

  "Compostela is a much more thriving and populous town, my lord, than when I last saw it. Most numerous of the male white inhabitants are the Spanish soldiers, whom I estimate to number about a thousand, half of those horse-mounted. But many of the higher-ranking soldiers have brought their families, and other Spanish families have come as colonists, all of those families having built houses for themselves. The governor's palace and the town church are of well-worked stone; the other residences are of dried-mud brick. There is a marketplace, but all the goods and produce for sale there have been brought by trains of traders from the south. The whites of Compostela do no farming or raising of herds—they all prosper on the output of the many silver mines now being worked in the vicinity. And evidently they prosper sufficiently to afford the expense of importing all their comestibles and other necessities."

  I asked, "And how many of our own people are resident there?"

  "The indio population is about equal to that of the whites. I speak only of those who serve as domestic slaves in the households of the Spanish—and there are numerous black slaves as well, those creatures called Moros. If the slaves are not domiciled with their masters, they have derelict huts and shacks on the town's outskirts. There is another considerable population of our men working the mines under the earth, and in surrounding buildings atop the earth, called mills. I fear I could not estimate the number of those men, because so many of them work underground, turn about, half of them daylong, the other half during the night. Also, they and their families, if they have any, live penned in locked and guarded compounds where I could not enter. The Spanish call these places obrajes."

  "Ayya, yes," I said. "I know about the infamous obrajes."

  "The word is that those laborers—since our people never before had to slave underground or in such wretched conditions—keep dying off, several every day. And the mine owners cannot replace them as fast as they die, because, of course, all the indios in New Galicia not already enslaved have made haste to move and hide themselves far beyond the reach of the slave-catchers. So Governor Coronado has asked the Virrey Mendoza in the City of Mexíco to send to Compostela quantities of Moro slaves from—from wherever those Moros are brought from."

  "Some land called Africa, I have been told."

  Nochéztli grimaced and said, "It must be a place akin to our fearsome Hot Lands in the far south. Because I hear that the Moros can easily endure the terrific heat and closeness and clangor of the mines and mills. Also the Moros must be more like the Spaniards' beasts of burden than like human beings, for it is also said that they can labor unceasingly, under crushing loads, without dying or even complaining. It may be that if enough Moros are imported into New Galicia, Coronado will cease trying to capture and enslave our own people."

  "This Governor Coronado," I said. "Tell me about him."

  "I glimpsed him only twice, when he was reviewing his troops, elegantly costumed and astride a prancing white horse. He is no older than yourself, my lord, but his rank, of course, is inferior to yours of Revered Governor, for he is answerable to superiors in the City of Mexíco, and you are answerable to no one. Nevertheless, he is clearly determined to make a more lordly name for himself. He is remorseless in demanding that the slaves extract every pinch of silver ore—not just for the enrichment of himself and his New Galicia subjects, but for all of New Spain and that ruler called Carlos in distant Old Spain. On the whole, though, Coronado seems less of a tyrant than his predecessor. He does not allow his subjects to torment or torture or execute our people at whim, as the Governor Guzmán used to do."

  "Tell me of the governor's arms and fortifications for the defense of Compostela."

  "That is a curious thing, my lord. I can only assume that the late Yeyac must have persuaded Compostela that it need never fear attack from our people. In addition to the usual thunder-sticks carried by the Spanish soldiers, they have also those much more immense thunder-tubes mounted on wheeled carriages. But the soldiers do not defensively ring the town; they are chiefly employed in keeping the mine slaves submissively at work or in guarding the obrajes where they are confined. And the massive thunder-tubes positioned around the town are not pointed outward, but inward, obviously to turn back any slaves' attempt to revolt or escape."

  "Interesting," I murmured. I rolled and lighted and smoked a poquíetl while I meditated on what I had learned. "Have you anything else of moment to report?"

  "Much else, my lord. Though Guzmán claimed to have conquered Michihuácan and sent its few surviving warriors into slavery abroad, it seems he did not subdue all of them. The new Governor Coronado hears regularly of uprisings in the south of his domain, mostly in the area around Lake Pátzcuaro. Bands of warriors, armed only with blades made of the famous Purémpe metal, and with torches, have been assaulting Spanish army outposts and the estancias of Spanish settlers. They attack always by night, slay the armed guards and steal their thunder-sticks, and set afire the estancia buildings, thereby killing many white families—men, women, children, all. Those whites who have survived swear that the attackers were women—though how they could tell, considering the darkness and the fact that all the Purémpecha are bald, I know not. When the remaining Spanish soldiers comb the countryside by daylight, they find the Purémpe women doing nothing but what they have always done—peaceably weaving baskets, making pottery and the like."

  "Ayyo," I said to myself, with satisfaction. "Pakápeti's troops are indeed proving their worth."

  "The result has been that additional troops have been sent out from New Spain to try—so far, in vain—to quell those disturbances. And the Spaniards in the City of Mexíco are vociferously lamenting that this diversion of troops leaves them vulnerable to indio invasions or insurrections. If the attacks in Michihuácan have done damage that is really only trifling, they have undoubtedly made all the Spaniards—everywhere—uneasy and uncertain of their security."

  I muttered, "I must find some way to send my personal commendation to that frightful cóyotl-woman Butterfly."

  "As I say," Nochéztli went on, "the Governor Coronado receives these reports, but he refuses to send southward any of his own troops from Compostela. I heard that he insists on keeping his men ready for some grandiose plan he has conceived to further his own ambitions. I heard also that he was eagerly awaiting the arrival of a certain emissary of the Virrey Mendoza, from the City of Mexíco. Well, that person arrived, just before I left Compostela, my lord, and a very peculiar emissary he turned out to be. A common Christian friar—and I recognized him, for he had been a resident in Compostela before, and I had seen him there. I know not his name, but at that earlier time he was disparagingly called the Lying Monk by all his fellows. And I know not why he has returned, or why the viceroy sent him, or how he could possibly assist in the ambitions of Governor Coronado. The only other thing I can tell you in this respect is that the friar arrived accompanied by a single attendant, a mere Moro slave. Both of them, friar and slave, went immediately into private conference with the governor. I was tempted to stay and try to learn more about this mystery. However, by this time, I was beginning to get suspicious looks from the townspeople. I feared also that you, my lord, might have had suspicions about my being so long away."

  "I confess that I did
have, Nochéztli, and I apologize. You have done well—very well indeed. From what you have discovered, I can divine much more." I chuckled heartily. "The Moro is leading the Lying Monk in search of the fabulous Cities of Antilia, and Coronado expects to share the credit when they are discovered."

  "My lord...?" said Nochéztli, puzzled.

  "No matter. What it means is that Coronado will be detaching some of his troops to aid in that search, leaving the complacent town of Compostela even more defenseless. The time approaches for the late Yeyac's pet warriors to expiate their crimes. Go you, Nochéztli, and tell the guards at that temple prison to start feeding those men on good meat and fish and fats and oils. They are to be made strong again. And have the guards let them out of the temple occasionally, to bathe and exercise and drill and get themselves fit for vigorous action. See to this, Nochéztli, and when you deem the men ready, come and tell me so."

  I went to Améyatl's chambers—where she was no longer bedridden, but seated on an icpáli chair—and told her everything I had heard, and what I had deduced from that information, and what I intended to do about it. My cousin seemed still dubious about my plans, but did not withhold her approval of them. Then she said, "Meanwhile, cousin, you have done nothing yet about Pakápeti's precarious condition. I worry more about her each day."

  "Ayya, you are right. I have been remiss." To one of her other servants, presently in attendance, I ordered, "Go and fetch the Tícitl Ualíztli. He is surgeon to the army. You will find him at the knights' barracks. Tell him I require him immediately."

  Améyatl and I chatted of various matters—for one thing, she said she felt quite her former self again, and if I would allow it, she would begin to help me with some of the routine details of my office—until Ualíztli arrived, bearing the pouch of instruments and medicaments that all tíciltin carry everywhere. Being a rather elderly, stout man, and having hurried at my summons, he was slightly out of breath, so I had the servant bring a cup of chocólatl to refresh him, and told her to bring Tiptoe at the same time.