Aztec Blood

by neetha Napew

  A great armada of ships and troops had been assembled by the Spanish king to invade England and restore the Catholic religion to that blasphemous country, Mateo said. "We were the greatest power in the world then and now. We ruled the land and sea, and our empire embraced the world. The great fleet our king amassed for the invasion was the Armada Invencible, the largest and most powerful ever assembled. And it was defeated. But it was not English guns that caused our fleet to break formation and paved the way for a storm to overpower our ships. It was five miserable fireboats. When our fleet was anchored off Calais, the English sent five blazing ships into their midst. Our captains were so terrified of the fiery ships that many of them pulled anchor and fled without firing a shot."

  We were a week at sea when Mateo shocked me with an attack.

  I awoke to find him bending over me with his dagger in his hand. Before I could move, he slashed my face. I came out of bed with my arms flailing, blood flying from my face.

  I grabbed my own dagger and crouched in a corner. "This is what it has come to, eh, compadre? All the treasure is better than half?"

  Mateo sat on his own bed and wiped blood from his dagger. "You will thank me when we arrive in Seville, and you no longer have a mine brand."

  My hand went to the bleeding cut on my cheek.

  "Sailors know that fresh salt air and seawater heals wounds with less infection than foul miasma of cities." He stretched out on his berth. "If you do not bleed to death by morning, you should be thinking of a story to tell the women in Seville about how your face got scarred."

  My first surprise as we came upon Seville was that the great port was not on the sea but was about twenty leagues up the Rio Guadalquivir, pass the marshy plains of Las Marismas.

  "Seville is the biggest city in Spain. Perhaps only Rome and Constantinople are equal in size to it in all Europe," Mateo said. "It is a city of riches. Through its gates poured the gold of the Incas and the silver of the Aztecs. Stored in the Archivo de Indias are the documents of every nature concerning the discovery and conquest of the New World, from the shipping manifesto of its discoverer, Cristóbal Colon, to letters from Cortes to the king and the few Aztec codices that had survived the wrath of the priests. Everything that is sent to the New World and sent back must pass through Seville. The Casa de Contratación, the House of Trade, controls all aspects of shipping, from what ships may sail, to what they may carry and how much they must pay. Even a Portuguese slave ship must get a license from them to ship slaves from the west coast of Africa to the New World."

  Amigos, Seville was more than I could ever have imagined. The City of Mexico was an elegant gem set on a blue lake. Seville was the bulwark of empire. It was larger, grander, greater, not just in size but in stature. Its massive fortifications were built to withstand armies and the ravages of time—thick, high, defiant. When we disembarked and walked the crowded streets, I played the role of colonial simpleton, my mouth agape, my ears open to every sound. If Mateo had not been beside me, the rapacious street people would no doubt have stripped me of my money, clothes, and honor in a few blocks.

  "That's the Torre del Oro," Mateo said, pointing to a ten-sided stone tower near the river, the Tower of Gold. It appeared strong enough to have flaunted the armies of even the Great Khan, a safe haven of the riches that poured in from the New World and Far East.

  "You could ransom a king with its floor sweepings," Mateo said.

  In the heart of the city was the Alcázar Palace, the fortress-castle of kings. It had stood for hundreds of years, built even before Tula was sacked by barbarians. I had thought the viceroy's palace in Mexico was an edifice for kings, but it was a peón's hovel compared to the Seville palace. The Alcázar did not even house the king.

  "His palace in Madrid is of a much grander scale," Mateo said.

  After sainted King Ferdinand III conquered Seville, he made the city his capital. But the Moorish influence in architecture gave the city a taste of the alien to me, a cast I found provocative. Until I saw that city's Moorish heritage, the Infidels had been little more than a name to me. I saw now that they were a race imbued with grace and beauty, its architects designing buildings with the grace used by poets and artists.

  Near the palace was the Cathedral of Santa Maria, exotic and venerable, with Gothic and Moorish influences. Said to be the second church of Christendom, only San Pedro's in Rome was more colossal. San Sophia in Constantinople was not comparable, of course, now that it was in the hands of the Infidels and turned into a mosque. Like the cathedral in the City of Mexico, which rose from the site of an Aztec temple, Santa Maria was built on heathen ground, the space previously occupied by a mosque. The city itself was once the capital of the Moors. It was only fitting that someday a Christian church would stand atop the vanquished Moorish mosques. Gazing on Santa Maria, I could almost believe what so many Spaniards professed: that God favored Spain and therefore had made her the most powerful nation on earth.

  The people were as different from the colonists of New Spain as the buildings were. The city vibrated with raw power, with arrogance. The arrogance was visible everywhere. In the carriages that charged through the city carrying men who decided the fate of nations. In the merchants who held a monopoly on half the world's trade. And even in the street trash. Dios mio! Such haughty swine! No whining, no pleading, instead demands for alms, as if begging was a royal grant. I shouldered them aside, as did Mateo. The lazy lice should work for their food!

  The differences between Spain and New Spain were stark. New Spain colonists were ambitious, earnest, hardworking, God-fearing. They were people who treated their religion and government with homage and fear, their family life with respect and dedication. In Seville, I saw the opposite: a surprising amount of irreverence and freedom of spirit. Men sold libros deshonestos openly on the street—in full view of the Inquisition. And the profanity! ¡Ay de mí! If I had spoken such words as a youth, the fray would not have washed out my mouth, he would have cut out my tongue!

  "In small towns and villages," Mateo explained, "people are more under the sway and fear of the Church and the king, but in the large cities, like Seville, Cadiz, and even Madrid, they are more worldly. Half the men on the streets have fought in foreign wars. The finest ladies have to rub shoulders on the streets with sailors and soldiers who travel around the world. Inquisitors are ever more careful about whom they accuse on the peninsula. Unless they are certain the person is a Jew or a Moor, they tread carefully because they may get their own throats cut."

  Cutting the throat of an inquisitor? I crossed myself at the spoken sacrilege without thinking. Eh, had I been educated on the streets of Seville!

  "To milk a cow," Mateo said, "you must keep it penned up so no one else gets the milk. The king keeps tight control on the colonies because they are the cows that are milked. Not only iron control of the ships so that everything that goes in or out is ruthlessly regulated, but the viceroy's soldados, the Holy Office, the Santa Hermandad's constables, all are expressions of the king's power. All of those controls are also in Mother Spain; but after centuries of fighting the Moors, the people have little tolerance for petty tyrannies."

  In the City of Mexico, thousands of indios scuffled along, dignified and polite, their heads bowed, their shoulders weighed down from the collapse of their culture and way of life. No such humility was evident in the City of Riches. Nor was the quiet charm of the colonial capital evident in the loud, brash, smelly streets and alleys of Seville.

  Seville, I decided, was a strutting bull—rich and fat, but also crude, rude, and disgustingly indecent.

  "Eh, Bastardo, if you think that the comedia audiences in Mexico City were boisterous and troublesome, wait until you experience them in Seville. Actors have been killed over the way a line is uttered."

  "You promised we would not get involved in comedias," I said. "A visitor from New Spain may spot us."

  "You are too cautious, compadre. And I did not promise. To stop your incessant whining, I pretend
ed to agree with you."

  "You told me that you had to stay clear of the comedias because you owed money and had slashed a creditor who insulted you."

  Mateo patted the gold in his pocket. "I knew an alchemist who believed that gold could cure disease. He was right—but it is social diseases like debts and public offenses money cures. Bastardo, wait until you see the great playhouse of Seville. Those little corrals we toyed with—eh, you could put half of the City of Mexico under the roof of the Corral de El Coliseo. My favorite is the Doña Elvira, built by the count of Gelves. It is older than the Coliseo, and without as much roof, but an actor can be heard in it much better. But it is the play that will determine where we attend. Depending on what is playing, we will patronize de las Atarazanas, the Don Juan..."

  I sighed. Arguing with him was futile. Plays were in the autor's blood. And my own inhibitions were weakening. I had spent years in hell, and now I shared his excitement. My blood was on fire just hearing about plays.

  "Our attire must first fit our station as rich caballeros. Nothing but the finest silks and linens, the softest wool, for our doublets, pants, and capes. Boot leather smoother than a baby's bottom, hats with the rarest of plumage. And swords! Fine Toledo blades that draw blood with the ease of a clumsy barber. And jeweled daggers. One cannot kill another gentlemen with a woodsman's ax!"

  ¡Ay de mí! We possessed a king's ransom, but to a man whose views of money came from the grandiose fantasy of Amadis de Gaul, even the riches of Croesus were a pittance.

  Our plan to live modestly and avoid attention was already in tatters. I would feel fortunate if Mateo did not storm Seville in a chariot like Caesar returning to Rome with his legions.

  ONE HUNDRED AND NINE

  "Don Cristo, may I present Doña Ana Franca de Henares."

  "My lady." I greeted her with a low, sweeping bow.

  Eh, amigos, did you think it would be long before Mateo and I enjoyed the charms and arms of feminine companionship?

  Mateo had warned me about Doña Ana. Her ennobled title of doña was as genuine as my own beknighted don-hood. The daughter of a butcher, an elderly nobleman had retained her as a serving wench at age fourteen. Most of her services were performed in his bedroom. He was so decrepit he used her primarily as a foot warmer, mostly employing the private place between her legs for his cold feet.

  She ran away at the age of seventeen with an itinerant acting troupe, instantly assuming the role of the autor's mistress. She had talent though and soon commanded leading roles in Madrid, Seville, and Barcelona. With fame, power proliferated, and her liaisons turned legion.

  I admit to Mateo's warning not to get romantically involved with her. Not because she was a fortune hunter; that was to be expected. Not because she was immoral; that was to be desired. Nor because she had had many lovers; that made her knowledgeable. But because of the danger.

  "The Count of Lemos is her current lover," Mateo told me before he introduced me. "He is a bad lover and an even worse swordsman. He makes up for his lack of ability in bed by being generous with his money to his mistresses. He makes up for his dueling deficiencies by engaging thugs to kill or cripple all would-be challengers."

  "Why are you telling me these things?"

  "Because she is an old friend who needs a new friend. The count seldom escorts her to functions or provides the love she needs."

  "Bravo! Mateo, you are a mastermind. I come across a great ocean to dwell in this lordly land so a jealous lover can hire thugs to kill me—and I will not even desire the death by having pillaged the man's woman. Is that what you have in mind?"

  "No, Bastardo, actually, what I had in mind is that for once in your life you associate with a real woman, a woman who can teach you things about being a gentleman that are impossible for me to convey. When she finishes with you, the colony clod will be gone, and a polished gentleman standing in his place. This is a woman who was made for love. Sadly, she is also intelligent, scheming, and greedy like a man, but in bed she would singe Ero's wings."

  "Then why don't you keep her for yourself?"

  "Because I consider my compadre's comfort and delight before my own."

  I gave him my best horselaugh.

  "Besides," he said, "I have another woman, one with a jealous streak as wide as the Rio Guadalquivir, who requites faithless lovers with a knife in their testiculos. The count knows Ana needs an escort for social functions but wants assurance that her charms will not be poached. She has described you to perfection, but I do not fit her august description." He grinned slyly. "She told the count that her escort prefers other men."

  Ay, and I was chosen to play the sodomite. While I had no intention of playing this woman's fool, Mateo at last browbeat me into meeting her.

  After one look in her eyes, I was ready to don motley and play a lunatic idiot.

  Unlike so many famous actresses, there was none of the coquette in her. Those women flirted and teased their way into wallets and coffers. Ana Franca, on the other hand, was quiet and reserved, very much the lady. But of course she was that—with elegant silks, dazzling jewels, and demure eyes, fluttering behind an ivory-handled Chinese fan. Her lure was not beauty, though her looks were exquisite—skin softly white, lush chestnut hair piled high and cinched by pearls, an aquiline nose, while high, slanting cheekbones framed her extraordinary emerald eyes. Still it was not her beauty that drew me to her but the radiance of her being. She was muy grande mujer, a very great woman.

  Not that I don't appreciate beauty, but a wise man soon learns that cold beauty means a cold bed. I have been eternally drawn to the inner essence, the warmth of the fire within, not the ephemeral look of skin arrestingly stretched on bone.

  Ana's central allure was her eyes. Like the Sirens, the Odyssey's winged bird-women who lured sailors to their death by the sweetness of their song, Ana Franca's eyes doomed men to perdition. But while Odysseus was warned to deafen his ears against the Sirens' song, Mateo had left my ears and eyes wide open.

  I cannot say I fell in love with Ana Franca. My heart was forever pledged to another. But at the very least I fell hopelessly in lust with her. I could well understand why she would be a count's mistress. Despite her humble beginnings, she had nothing of the working class about her. At our first meeting, she set down the terms of our relationship.

  "Mateo describes you as a colonial bumpkin, and your sole experience is with the crudity of New Spain. We see these unrefined oafs all the time. They come off a ship with their pockets full of gold and the belief that newfound wealth is a substitute for breeding. They are met with sardonic amusement and outright contempt."

  "And how does one acquire the countenance of culture?"

  "One is a gentleman when one thinks like a gentleman."

  Shades of the Healer. Could she tell I was not a gentleman by my smell?

  "You have the clothes of a gentleman. You are not particularly handsome, but the scar from your pirate battles bequeaths boldness to your features. But remove the clothes, and one knows you are not a gentleman."

  The story I had concocted had been a romantic one—a duel for a lady's charms. But Mateo disliked the duel story because other men might view it as a challenge, in his eyes, a self-pronounced death sentence for one of my sword skills. A fight with French pirates had the right measure of dash, without threatening the manliness of others.

  The face that bore the pirate's scar was a stranger to me. From the time I first started growing hair on my face, I had had a beard. But a beard was no longer a disguise. Most of my sins had been committed with facial hair. Nor did I need to conceal the mine slave brand because Mateo had cleverly—and painfully—disguised it. Now a colorfully scarred, clean-shaven stranger stared back at me in a mirror.

  The fashion of the New World had been long hair, but men in Spain for the past several years had been wearing their hair short. The short hair made me even more of a stranger to myself. I felt confident I could stroll through the dungeon of the Holy Office in the City of Mexi
co without being recognized.

  "Doña Ana, what cure is there for this coarseness of soul?" I asked her.

  "For you, there is no cure. Look at your hands. They are rough and hardened, not at all the fine, soft hands of a true gentleman. I suspect your feet are harder than your hands, and your arms and chest. Common laborers, not gentlemen, have such unsightly muscles. Your soldierly past might explain some of that, but not an army of defects."

  "What else am I doing wrong?"

  "Everything! You lack the cold-blooded arrogance of one who has never struggled. You show no contempt toward the lower classes, whom God has denied the privileges of exalted birth. God prescribes a place for all of us. Quality people are born to rule. Common people are born to serve. Your most obvious defect is that you only act like a gentleman. One cannot play the role. You must think like a gentleman. If you have to act, then your roots will constantly intrude and people will see through the pretense."

  "Tell this colonial bumpkin one mistake I've made," I demanded hotly. "Tell me what I've done to give you license to call me coarse and unrefined."

  She sighed. "Cristo, where should I begin? A moment ago my maid brought you a cup of coffee."

  I shrugged. "All right. Did I spill it down my chin? Stir it with my finger?"

  "You thanked her."

  "Never! I never spoke a word to her!"

  "You thanked her with your eyes and a smile."

  "What nonsense is this?"

  "A person of quality would never show appreciation to a servant. No true gentleman would even acknowledge she existed, unless of course they were interested in exploiting her sexually. Then they would leer at her and perhaps comment on her feminine endowments."

  Ayyo. When I thought about it, I knew she was correct.

  "And other than my courtesy toward servants?"

  "Your lack of hubris. Have you seen Mateo enter a room? He enters a fine salon as if it were a pigsty, and he was dirtying his boots in it. When you entered my salon, you looked on it admiringly."