Benicio placed his dagger beneath his mat. He pulled his blanket over him and turned towards her. For many long moments, he watched her back rising and falling with her breaths.
How clever she was, he thought, to have conjured water from this parched land.
Rogelio said that she had shrieked that day at the beach, right after he had thrust his blade into Benicio’s chest. Rogelio claimed that it was why he had abandoned Benicio—the sound of Tula’s voice.
Benicio stretched out on his back and stared up at the stars, but it might as well have been daytime, for he was not seeing them. Nor did he take out Luisa’s sketch and stare at it in the dim starlight, as was his custom. Instead, his mind churned with visions of Tula shrieking in the jungle.
By attempting to condemn Tula, Rogelio had unknowingly given Benicio another reason to stand in awe of her. Tula, this small, beautiful enchantress who coaxed fish from the sea and water from the desert, had also saved Benicio’s life.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The wall protecting the border of Tlaxcala Territory was nine feet high and twenty paces wide. It stretched across the mouth of the river valley in three leagues of fitted stone. The Spanish–Totonac army had finally reached the home of the fierce Tlaxcalans, whom Cortés planned to rally to his cause.
Cortés guided his men through an open gate, then up an empty road that paralleled the river, increasing the speed of their march. Benicio began to wonder why not a single Tlaxcalan had yet come out to greet them. It was widely known that the Tlaxcalans refused to submit to Montezuma. Surely they would embrace the idea of joining with the Spanish and the Totonacs to invade the Mexica capital?
Benicio studied the quiet forest. Something was amiss.
He stepped out of formation, pretending to relieve himself on the side of the road. As the other men passed, he wrestled with the wraps of his cotton armour, pretending to be busy as the women’s company approached.
He spotted Tula immediately. She walked next to Marina at the head of the entourage, her hair tied in two smart braids, her heavy skirts flouncing. There was a flower tucked behind her ear—a flower, by God!—and she appeared to be laughing, as if sharing some private joke with Marina.
Benicio bristled. This was no time to be laughing and wearing flowers. Marina of all people should know that this land of Tlaxcala was not safe. Cortés should not have taken their company a step beyond the gate without assurances of peace from the Tlaxcalan rulers. This valley was nothing but a trap.
Benicio jumped out from the side of the road and pulled Tula aside. ‘You must stay here,’ he commanded. ‘Until I know that it is safe.’ There was a wave of scandalous chatter as the other women passed and Malinali motioned to Tula to rejoin them.
But Benicio would not allow Tula to continue onwards. He might not have served in any army, but something inside him knew that there was danger up ahead. It was as if he could smell it.
Tula shook her head. She shrugged off his hold in frustration and made to rejoin the women, who were practically trotting now to keep up with the increased speed of the men’s march.
‘No,’ Benicio commanded. He pulled her by the arm back to his side and pointed down the bank towards the river. ‘You stay here, where it is safe. Stay near the river.’ How could he explain to her that he was trying to protect her, that the women were wrong and that he was right?
He could not even begin to try, for once again she had slid her slender arm right out of his grasp. She hurried to catch up with the other women, who had disappeared around a sharp curve. Benicio sighed. He was not proud of what he was about to do.
He jumped to his feet and broke into his fastest run, reaching her well before she was able to disappear around the bend and rejoin the others. He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her to the ground.
He straddled her body with his and held her wrists together above her head. ‘It’s not safe,’ he explained pointlessly and as he spoke he noticed that she was studying his lips.
A pang of lust vaulted through him. The enchantress was doing it again. No, no, no. He was shaking his head at her. Your trickery will not work on me any more.
But she caught his eye and he saw a sweetness in her expression that could not have been feigned. His heart pounded as she studied his nose, his cheeks, his chin, returning finally to his lips. It was as if she were observing the territory that she had conquered, or would soon conquer. Then she did something unexpected. She ceased her resistance, sighed and closed her eyes.
What fresh deception was this? Had she given up her fight for freedom so easily? He doubted that very much. Perhaps she had resolved to feign rest until he relaxed his hold on her. Or perhaps she simply abhorred the sight of him.
Demonios, this was not going as he had hoped it would. His objective was to protect her and to win her friendship, not to allow himself to dangle like a fish at the end of one of her spears. Slowly, he removed his hands from her wrists. She did nothing, just continued to lie upon the ground, feigning sleep.
He jumped up and ran up the road. ‘Malinali,’ he called, motioning to the woman in the feathered cloak. He arrived huffing at her side. ‘I need your help,’ he explained.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I need you to translate. Please, come.’
Reluctantly, Malinali took her leave of the other women and accompanied Benicio back down the road where Tula still lay stubbornly still, her eyes sealed shut. They squatted beside her.
‘She will not obey you, if that is what you want,’ said Malinali.
‘I only wish to keep her safe.’
‘She does not wish to abandon the other women. She cares for them.’
‘She will wish to run from this place once she understands the danger. So will you.’
Malinali shook her head and sighed. ‘What do you want me to tell her?’
Benicio paused, realising that he did not know. She was as defiant as a child and he knew that any explanation or command he might give her would just be met with more silence.
‘Tell her that her lips are like soft cotton pillows and that her lashes remind me of the feathers of the majestic nighthawk.’
Malinali gave Benicio a look of confusion, but quickly translated his words into Totonac.
Benicio studied Tula’s face and thought he saw her blink.
‘Tell her that she is cleverer than a priest, faster than a hummingbird and lovelier than the forest at dusk. Tell her that when she walks across the earth all of nature takes notice.’
Malinali rolled her eyes, but did his bidding.
Benicio watched as the beginning of a grin played at the edges of Tula’s lips.
‘Tell her that I would fight a jaguar with my bare hands to keep her safe.’
Malinali laughed, choking out the translation. Finally, Tula opened her eyes. She frowned at Benicio and shook her head, but he could tell that he had made her heart smile.
Benicio delighted at the small triumph. He spotted the iris behind her ear. Without thinking, he bent to smell it.
He was rewarded with a sweet, earthy scent. He took in another noseful and realised that he had in fact arrived quite close to her lips. His heart hammering inside his chest, he bent his head down closer.
He wanted so badly to kiss her. His lips hovered over hers like a theory that had yet to be proved. ‘Malinali, tell Tula that I think about her all the time, that I cannot get her out of my mind. Tell her that I—’
At that moment, there was a loud boom.
He stood up in alarm. In the distance, he heard the shrieks of the women—beyond them, the sounds of gunfire. ‘To the river!’ Benicio commanded, motioning down the steep riverbank beside the road. He helped Tula to her feet.
‘Follow the river upstream until you are outside the gates,’ he told Malinali, pointing in t
he direction that they had come. Meanwhile, the rest of the women came running back around the curve. ‘I will tell the men where you are hiding. We will come for you when it is safe.’
Malinali nodded in understanding. She shouted instructions to the frightened women and soon the large troupe had disappeared down the riverbank. Only Tula and Malinali remained on the road.
There was more gunfire in the distance and a crescendo of haunting, high-pitched screams.
Malinali motioned for Tula to follow her down the slope, but Tula hesitated. She took both of Benicio’s hands in hers and said something urgent to him in her language. Her eyes flickered with emotion and she squeezed his hands tightly. Then she closed her eyes, lifted the back of his right hand and pressed her lips to it. An instant later she had disappeared with Malinali down the riverbank.
Benicio was stunned. Had she just bade him farewell? Had she told him to take care? He ran down the road to rejoin his compatriots, but he felt as if he were floating.
When he rejoined the rest of the company, he quickly tumbled back to earth. They stood, open-mouthed, as a legion of painted warriors approached. The fearsome feathered men marched in ordered regiments of fifty men each—just like the Spaniards. Unlike the Spaniards, however, there were thousands of them. Tens of thousands.
‘Crossbowmen and musketeers, support the flanks,’ Cortés shouted. ‘Infantrymen, fight to kill. Do not break ranks! For God and Spain!’
The men whooped and cheered, though Benicio suspected that many of them only did so to keep from crying. He saw several of the men making emergency confessions to Father Olmedo and Father Diaz. The Tlaxcalan drums beat out their ominous rhythms as waves and waves of the warriors approached. Then the two armies met and the sounds of violence rent the air.
Benicio had no choice but to fight. He unsheathed his sword and let it clang against the Tlaxcalans’ obsidian blades. The men who fought next to him killed with abandon, slashing the shrieking warriors in single strokes. Benicio’s own blows were slow and reluctant. Still, they hit their marks. In defending his life, he took the lives of dozens of strong, healthy men.
Slowly, the air filled with the stench of blood and the moans of the dying, and Benicio imagined how many wives had lost their husbands on this day, and how many fathers had lost their sons.
* * *
By the end of the day, and by some miracle, the Spanish and Totonacs had triumphed. For the second time since their arrival in the New World, the Spanish had managed to hold off the native people—thousands upon thousands of them—without a single casualty of their own.
Something was not right. Simple mathematics told Benicio that the Indians, who were well armed and physically stronger than the Spaniards, should not be dying in such great numbers. Their numbers alone should have decimated the Spanish army.
Yet hundreds of Tlaxcalan warriors lay dead on the ground, many placed there by Benicio’s sword. More useless fighting. More unnecessary death. The other conquistadors praised him and slapped him upon the back, as if he were some kind of hero.
But he did not feel like a hero. His arms ached and his soul stank. As he slunk back to the river, he thought of Luisa. She was the reason he had done it—but why? To keep her in fine skirts? To pay for the servants she required to attend her? To own the lands that she wished to rule?
He had not been hurt, but Benicio felt strangely wounded. A familiar laceration had opened up inside his soul and bled there now, and every time he tried to imagine Luisa’s spirit, he lost connection with his own.
He was so very tired and confused, and when he arrived at the river he collapsed upon its low bank, sending up a cloud of dry dirt all around him. He lay there for many moments, desiccated like the earth. At length he scooted forward like the lowly creature he was. He hung his head and drank, hating how good its sweet water tasted upon his tongue.
When he finally sat up, he was shocked to behold Tula’s sandaled feet. She had sneaked up beside him without a sound. He squinted up at her and could see that she carried something in her overskirt. She bent to her knees and held it out to him. At its bottom was a cluster of tiny, urn-shaped fruits. They appeared to be figs.
‘Tuna,’ she whispered, nodding down at the bounty.
‘No,’ said Benicio, rolling away. He could not even think of eating. He never wanted to eat again.
She moved closer. ‘Benicio?’ Are you all right? she seemed to ask.
‘I am fine,’ Benicio mumbled. They are clearing a place for me in Hell.
He wished she would go away. He did not want her to see him now, fresh from battle, stained with blood and reeking of death. He was not the man she believed him to be. He was not some omnipotent god, come to earth to help save her sister from the wicked Mexica.
She was still holding out her skirt. He watched the river in silence, pretending she was not there. She reached out her hand to touch the wound above his eye and he flinched. ‘Benicio?’ she whispered.
Fuming, he tilted his head to look at her.
Christ, she was beautiful. Not in the sweet, round, comely way that Luisa was beautiful, but in the way of a star—sharp and restless and ablaze with light. Where did it come from, all that smouldering radiance? The Mexica had taken her sister—that was really all he knew about her. Surely it was anger that danced behind those dark, luminous eyes. Perhaps she had buried her wrath so deeply inside herself that it was part of her now, like his guilt had become a part of him.
Though in moments like this, with her pride and cunning stripped away, with her compassion wrapping around him like a cloak, she was only kind, only loving, and his heart seemed to reach towards her, catching inside his throat.
He buried his head in the dust. He wished she would go away. He did not deserve her kind of tenderness.
‘Go!’ he snarled. He swatted her hand away from his eye and watched her recoil. Many moments passed as she sat there regarding him, as if considering what to do. He held himself frozen, certain she would soon give up her efforts to rouse him.
Instead, she redoubled them. She lifted a fig from the pile she had gathered and held it close to his lips. ‘Tuna,’ she said. ‘Benicio.’
Her voice was like a soft caress and he hated it. He was a killer, did she not realise that? He had slain over two dozen men today alone. He was not one of Plato’s men of virtue and civilisation. He was no more than a beast, come to kill and plunder.
He shook his head. He closed his eyes and pressed his face against the cold ground. No, he did not deserve a woman like Tula. He did not deserve any woman. ‘Leave me alone,’ he pleaded, grinding his forehead into the dirt.
If she stayed any longer, he feared he would explode into a thousand broken pieces of himself. But there she remained, unmoving. ‘Get out of here!’ he yelled at last. He swatted at her again, carelessly swiping up an armful of dirt.
It mushroomed into a cloud—a dry, angry cloud of dust that was thick enough to blot out the sun. It settled on her face, on her blouse, on her fine skirt and on all of the figs she carried within it. She coughed as she shuffled backwards, blinking to recover her sight. The figs tumbled to the ground all around him.
He could not look at her now. He could not witness the state of disgrace that he had placed her in. Indeed, it made him hate himself even more. It meant that he was not just a soulless killer, he was also a brute. He was the kind of man that kicked dirt into a good woman’s face. And not just any woman. His woman. His clever, beautiful, kind woman.
The woman he loved.
He stared blankly at the ground, stunned. She was the only thing real in his life—the only person in the world who made him want to be a better man.
His heart twisted in his chest, and he rolled over in shame. ‘I am so sorry, Tula,’ he muttered at last. ‘I did not mean to treat you that way.’
But she was already
gone.
Chapter Twenty-Three
He lay alone that night, shivering by the river. There was no sleep for his weary body, no rest for his wicked soul—only visions of wild animals and enemy tribes and dishonourable Spaniards prowling the forest.
Was she sheltered? Was she warm? Perhaps she had taken refuge amongst the agave plantations on the dry plains below. He pictured her there, exposed among the thorny plants and without Benicio to protect her from the cold mountain winds.
He could not even bear to think of the other possibility: that Rogelio had found her.
Benicio knew that Rogelio had many friends among the ranks—evil men who would not hesitate to seize Tula and collect on some promised reward. Benicio buried his head in his hands. He had shunned his most important ally, had humiliated the woman who had likely saved his life. What kind of man did that?
* * *
The next morning, she was nowhere to be found. He wandered up and down the river in the pale hours before dawn, watching his own breath.
After sunrise, Benicio and the other soldiers marched down the narrow valley to meet their enemy once again. ‘Santiago y Cierra España!’ cried Cortés and the men cheered and rallied at the invocation of their fathers’ campaigns against the Moors.
But Benicio would not be moved. ‘For fame and treasure!’ he shouted bitterly and the men of his regiment looked at him in alarm. ‘That’s what we are really here for, is it not? That is why we kill? We wish to return to Seville and have our choice of well-born ladies.’ Several of his proud compatriots started towards him in anger. Benicio spat on the ground and readied himself for a fight.
He would not get his wish, however, because in that moment the sound of a hundred trumpeting conch shells filled the air and thousands of Tlaxcalan warriors bore down upon their small company in a blur of feathers and war paint.
By the afternoon, the Tlaxcalan forces had been vanquished once again.
The Spaniard's Innocent Maiden Page 15
