As my addled wits began to clear somewhat, I growled, "You have no authority to knight anyone at all."
"Have I not? Why, cousin, you even brought me the quetzal-feather headdress. I am again the Uey-Tecútli of Aztlan."
"Then why would you want me alive, able to contest that gross assumption?"
"I am merely obliging my confederate, the Governor Coronado. It is he who wants you alive. For a short time, at least, so he can ask you certain questions. After that... well... he has promised you to me. I leave the rest to your imagination."
Not being overeager to dwell on that, I asked, "How many of my men are dead?"
"I have no idea. I do not care. All those who survived certainly scattered in a hurry. They are no longer a fighting force. Now, apart and in the darkness, they are doubtless wandering far and wide—lost, unnerved, disconsolate—like the Weeping Woman Chicocíuatl and the other aimless ghosts of the night. Come daylight, the Spanish soldiers should have little difficulty subduing them, one by one. Coronado will be pleased to have such strong men to slave in his silver mines. And, ayyo, here comes a squad to escort you to the governor's palace."
The soldiers loosed me from the tree, but kept my arms tightly bound as they led me out of the woods and down the trail to Compostela. Yeyac followed, with Ualíztli, and where they went I did not see. I was penned overnight in a cell room of the palace, unfed and unwatered but well guarded, and not brought before the governor until sometime the next morning.
Francisco Vásquez de Coronado was, as I had been told, a man no older than myself, and he was—for a white man—of goodly appearance, neatly bearded, even clean-looking. My guards untied me, but stayed in the room. And there was another soldier present, who, it became apparent, spoke Náhuatl and was to serve as interpreter.
Coronado addressed him at length—of course I understood every word—and the soldier repeated to me, in my native tongue:
"His Excellency says that you and another warrior were carrying thunder-sticks when you were captured and the other was killed. One of the weapons was obviously the property of the Royal Spanish Army. The other was obviously a handmade imitation. His Excellency wants to know who made that copy, and where, and how many have been made and how many are being made. Tell also whence came the pólvora for them."
I said, "Nino ixnéntla yanquic in tláui pocuíahuíme. Ayquic."
"The indio says, Your Excellency, that he knows nothing about arcabuces. And never has."
Coronado drew the sword sheathed at his waist, and said calmly, "Tell him that you will ask again. Each time he pleads ignorance, he will lose a finger. Ask him how many fingers he can spare before he gives a satisfactory answer."
The interpreter repeated that in Náhuatl, and asked the same questions again.
I tried to look properly intimidated, and spoke haltingly, "Ce nechca..." but I was temporizing, of course. "One time... I was traveling in the Disputed Lands... and I came upon a guard post. The sentinel was fast asleep. I stole his thunder-stick. I have saved it ever since."
The interpreter sneered. "Did that sleeping soldier teach you how to use it?"
Now I tried to look stupid. "No, he did not. He could not. Because he was sleeping, you see. I know one squeezes the little thing called a gatillo. But I never had the chance. I was captured before—"
"Did that sleeping soldier also show you all the inner parts and workings of his thunder-stick, so that even you primitive savages could make a replica of it?"
I insisted, "Of that I know nothing. The replica you speak of—you must ask the warrior who carried it."
The interpreter snapped, "You have already been told! That man was killed. Struck by one of the balls of the trip-string trap. But he must have thought he was facing actual soldiers. As he fell, he discharged his own thunder-stick at them. He knew well enough how to use one!"
What I had said, and what he had said, the interpreter again relayed in Spanish to the governor. I was thinking: Good man, Comitl, a true Mexícatl "old eagle" to the last. You are by now enjoying the bliss of Tonatíucan. But then I had to start thinking about my own predicament, for Coronado was glaring at me and saying:
"If his comrade was so dexterous with an arcabuz, so must he be. Tell the damned redskin this. If he does not instantly confess to me everything he—"
But the governor was interrupted. Three other people had just entered the room, and one of them said, in some astonishment:
"Your Excellency, why do you bother employing an interpreter? That indio is as fluent in Castilian as I am myself."
"What?" said Coronado, confounded. "How do you know that? How could you possibly know?"
Fray Marcos de Niza simpered smugly. "We white men like to say that we cannot tell the damned redskins apart. But that one—I noticed when I first saw him—is exceptionally tall for his race. Also, at that time, he was wearing Spanish attire and riding an army horse, so I had further reason to remember him. It happened while I was accompanying Cabeza de Vaca to the City of Mexíco. The teniente in charge of the escort let this man pass the night in our camp, because—"
Now it was Coronado who interrupted. "This is all exceedingly puzzling, but save your explanation for later, Fray Marcos. Right now, there is more urgent information I require. And by the time I have whittled it out of this prisoner, I think he will no longer be so tall."
The interpreter was again required, because now spoke up the other man who had entered with the Lying Monk, my loathsome cousin Yeyac. He had few words of Spanish, but evidently he had caught the tenor of Coronado's remark. Yeyac protested in Náhuatl, and the interpreter translated:
"Your Excellency holds a naked sword and speaks of paring pieces off this person. I can tell you that a flake of obsidian is keener than steel, and can pare even more artfully. I may not have told Your Excellency that I carry inside me a thunder-stick ball put there by this person. But I remind Your Excellency that you promised the chipping and mincing of him to me."
"Yes, yes, very well," Coronado said testily, and slammed his sword back into its scabbard. "Produce your damned obsidian. I will ask the questions and you can hack away at him when his answers are unsatisfactory."
But now it was Fray Marcos who protested. "Your Excellency, when first I met this man he claimed to be an emissary of Bishop Zumárraga. Furthermore, he introduced himself as Juan Británico. Whether or not he has ever been anywhere near the bishop, he has incontrovertibly been baptized at some time, and given a Christian name. Ergo, he is at the least an apostate and more likely a heretic. It follows that he is primarily subject to ecclesiastic jurisdiction. I myself would be happy to try him, convict him and condemn him to the stake."
I was already beginning to sweat, and I had yet to hear anything from the third person who had entered with Yeyac and the Lying Monk. That was the Yaki woman, G'nda Ké, and I was not surprised to see her in that company. It was inevitable that having survived the ambush—or having known of it in advance—she would now have given her allegiance to the victors.
The soldier-interpreter was looking quite giddy from having to turn from person to person while he translated all the foregoing conversations to the various participants. What G'nda Ké now said, and said most oilily, he translated into Spanish:
"Good friar, this Juan Británico may be a traitor to your Holy Mother Church. But, Your Excellency Coronado, he has been much more a traitor to your domain. I can aver that he is responsible for the numerous attacks—by persons unknown and so far unapprehended—all over New Galicia. Were this man to be tortured properly and lingeringly, he could enable Your Excellency to end those attacks. That would seem, to me, to take precedence over the friar's intent to send him straight to the Christian hell. And in that interrogation I would be pleased to assist your loyal ally, Yéyactzin, for I have had much practice in the art."
"¡Perdición!" shouted Coronado, irritated beyond measure. "This prisoner has so many claimants on his flesh and his life and even his soul that I almost feel
sorry for the wretch!" He turned his glare again on me and demanded, in Spanish, "Wretch, you are the only one in this room who has not yet suggested how I should deal with you. Surely you have some ideas on the subject. Speak!"
"Señor Gobernador," I said—I would not concede him any excellency—"I am a prisoner of war, and a noble of the Aztéca nation that is at war with yours. Exactly as were the Mexíca nobles dethroned and overthrown by your Marqués Cortés so many years ago. The marqués was and is no weak man, but he found it compatible with his conscience to treat those earlier defeated nobles in a civilized manner. I would ask no more than that."
"There!" Coronado said to the three latest arrivals. "That is the first reasonable speech I have heard during all this turbulent confabulation." He came back to me to ask, but not menacingly, "Will you tell me the source and the number of the replica arcabuces? Will you tell me who are the insurgents beleaguering our settlements south of here?"
"No, Señor Gobernador. In all the conflicts among our nations of this One World—and I believe in all that your own Spain has fought with other peoples—no prisoner of war was ever expected by his captors to betray his comrades. Certainly I will not, even if I am interrogated by that hen-vulture yonder, so boastful of her scavenger skills."
The scathing glance that Coronado gave G'nda Ké indicated, I was sure, that he shared my opinion of her. Perhaps he really had begun to feel some sympathy for me, because when G'nda Ké, the friar and Yeyac all began indignantly speaking at once, he silenced them with a peremptory slash of his hand, then said:
"Guards, take the prisoner back to his cell, unbound. Give him food and water to keep him alive. I will ponder on this matter before I question him again. The rest of you, begone! Now!"
My cell had a stout door, barred on the outside, where my two guards were posted. In the opposite wall was a single window, unbarred, but too small for anything larger than a rabbit to wriggle through. It was not, however, too small for communication with a person outdoors. And, sometime after nightfall, there did come someone to that window.
"¡Oye!" said a voice, barely loud enough for me to hear, and I arose from the straw that was my bedding.
I looked out, and at first could see nothing but darkness. Then the visitor grinned and I saw white teeth, and realized that I was being visited by a man as black as the night outside, the Moro slave Estebanico. I greeted him warmly, but also in a low murmur.
He said, "I told you, Juan Británico, that I would be always in your debt. You must know by now that I am—as you foretold—appointed to guide the Lying Monk to those nonexistent cities of riches. So I owe you whatever help or comfort I can give."
"Thank you, Esteban," I said. "I would be most comfortable if I were at liberty. Could you somehow draw off the guards and unbar my door?"
"That, I fear, is beyond my ability. Spanish soldiers do not pay much heed to a black man. Also—forgive me for sounding selfish—I value my own liberty. I will try to think of some means of effecting your escape that would not put me in your place. In the meantime, word has just come from a Spanish patrol that may be cheering to you. It assuredly is not cheering to the Spaniards."
"Good. Tell me."
"Well, some of your slain or wounded warriors were found immediately after the ambush that cut them down last night. But the governor waited until this morning to send a full patrol combing that entire area. Of additional dead or incapacitated warriors, they came upon comparatively few. Clearly, most of your men survived and got away. And one of those fugitives—a man on a horse—boldly let himself be seen by the patrol. When they returned here, they described him. The two indios now in league with Coronado—Yeyac and that awful woman G'nda Ké—seemed to recognize the man described. They spoke a name. Nochéztli. Does that mean anything to you?"
"Yes," I said. "One of my best warriors."
"Yeyac seemed oddly disturbed to learn that this Nochéztli is one of yours, but he made little comment, because we were all in the presence of the governor and his interpreter. However, the woman laughed scornfully and called Nochéztli an unmanly cuilóntli. What does that word mean, amigo?"
"Never mind. Go on, Esteban."
"She told Coronado that such an unmanly man, even armed and at large, would be no danger. But later news proved her wrong."
"How so?"
"Your Nochéztli not only escaped the ambush, he apparently was among the few not terrified and panicked and sent fleeing. One of your wounded who was brought here has proudly related what happened next. The man Nochéztli, sitting his horse alone in the darkness and smoke, shouted curses at the others for running away, and insulted them as weakling cowards, and bellowed for them to regroup on his position."
"He does have a compelling voice," I said.
"Evidently he rallied all your remaining warriors, and has removed them somewhere into hiding. Yeyac told the governor they would number high in the hundreds."
"About nine hundred, originally," I said. "There must be nearly that many still with Nochéztli."
"Coronado is reluctant to try chasing them down. His whole force here amounts to not many more than a thousand men, even including those Yeyac contributed. The governor would have to send them all, and leave Compostela undefended. For the moment, he has only taken the precaution of turning all the town's artillería—what you call the thunder-tubes—outward again."
I said, "I do not think Nochéztli would mount another assault without instructions from me. And I doubt that he knows what has become of me."
"He is a resourceful man," said Esteban. "He removed more than your army from the reach of the Spaniards."
"What do you mean?"
"The patrol that went out this morning—one of their tasks was to fetch back all the arcabuces that had been fixed in place and strung to be tripped by your warriors. The patrol returned without them. Before he disappeared, it seems, your Nochéztli had them all collected and carried with him. From what I hear, between thirty and forty of those weapons."
I could not help exclaiming jubilantly, "Yyo ayyo! We are armed! Praise be to the war god Huitzilopóchtli!"
I should not have done that. Next instant, there was a grating sound as my cell door was unbarred. The door swung open and one of the guards peered suspiciously into the gloom—by which time I was again sprawled on my straw and Esteban had gone.
"What was that noise?" demanded the guard. "Fool, are you shouting for help? You will get none."
I said loftily, "I was singing, señor. Chanting to the glory of my gods."
"God help your gods," he growled. "You have a damnably disagreeable singing voice," and he slammed the door on me again.
I sat there in the dark and pondered. I was now aware of another misjudgment I had made, not recently but a long while ago. Influenced by my distaste for the odious Yeyac and his male intimates, I had deemed all cuilóntin to be malevolently rancorous and spiteful until—when challenged by a real man—they turned as servile and cowering as the meekest of women. Nochéztli had cured me of that misapprehension. Obviously, cuilóntin were as various in nature as any other men, for the cuilóntli Nochéztli had acted with manliness and valor and capability worthy of a true hero. If I ever saw him again, I would make plain my respect and my admiration of him.
"I must see him again," I muttered to myself.
Nochéztli had, in one swift and daring swoop, armed a good portion of my forces with weapons equal to the white men's. But those arcabuces were useless without ample supplies of pólvora and lead. Unless my army could storm and plunder Compostela's own armory—not a very likely prospect—the lead would have to be found and the pólvora would have to be made. I was the only man of us who knew how to compound the powder, and I now cursed myself for never having imparted that knowledge to Nochéztli or some other of my under-officers.
"I have to get away from here," I muttered.
I had one friend here in the town, and he had said he would try to conceive some plan for my escape. But besides the
understandably inimical Spaniards, I had also many foes in this town—the vindictive Yeyac, the sanctimonious Lying Monk, the ever-evil G'nda Ké. Surely it would not be long before the governor again had me brought to face him—or to face them all—and I could hardly hope for rescue by Esteban in so short a time.
Still, I reminded myself, a summons from Coronado would at least get me out of this cell. Could I perhaps, on my way to him, elude my guards and make a dash for freedom? My own palace at Aztlan had so many rooms and alcoves and niches that the dodging of pursuers and slipping into concealment would not be impossible for a fugitive as desperate as myself. But Coronado's palace was not nearly so big nor so grand as mine. I mentally reviewed the route along which the guards had twice now led me between this cell and the throne room—if that was what it was called—where the governor had questioned me. My cell was one of four at this far end of the building; I knew not whether the others were occupied. And beyond, there was a long corridor... then a flight of stairs... another corridor...
I could recall no place where I might break away, no accessible window through which I might lunge. And once in the governor's presence, I would be quite surrounded. Afterward, if I was not summarily executed right in front of him, there was every probability that I would not be led back to this cell, but to some kind of torture chamber or even the burning stake. Well, I thought dolefully, I would have to be burned outdoors. Conceivably, on the way there...
But that thought provided wan hope, indeed. I was trying to fend off black despair, and reconcile myself to the worst, when suddenly I heard: "Oye."
It was Esteban's murmur again at my tiny window. I bounded to my feet and peered again at darkness that was again split by a white-toothed grin, as he said, softly but jauntily, "I have an idea, Juan Británico."
When he told it to me, I realized that he had been thinking much as I had been, only—I must say—with a great deal more optimism. What he proposed was so reckless as to verge on madness, but he had had an idea, and I had not.
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