When they saw that I could both speak and write Nahuatl, they encouraged me to try my hand at translating from Latin and Spanish. This I could do but poorly, being by nature a man of the sword rather than of the pen. Yet I was not displeased with my rendering of some of the Psalms of David, although Don Cayetano smiled at them and said he feared I was still more a heathen than a heretic.
Among all my friends I loved the Indians best, and it seemed to me great pity that I might not go outside the city to visit them in their quarters. They are a most loving people, quick in understanding and ingenious with their hands. But all of them hate the Spaniards, except the friars, never forgiving them for the bloody conquest. Yet they obey because their kings had long accustomed them to obedience.
They taught me to play a game which they called Tlachtli. Each side defends a hole in a standing stone, through which the other side tries to throw a ball, only touching it with elbows hips or knees. Very seldom does it pass the hole. When it does, the winners take all the clothes of the losers. This made it a hazardous game for me, who could be sent to the galleys if stripped of my fool’s coat. In the days when the Aztecs ruled in Mexico, the game was played in courts like our tennis courts. My workmen and I were content enough with two ruined walls.
The ball was made of the hardened juice of a tree: a most curious substance durable as wood itself, yet bouncing higher and more freely than our balls of leather stuffed with feathers and hair. If the Indian craftsmen could mould the juice into strips as well as balls, wheels might be shod with them and carts and coaches move more silently through our city streets.
The Chief was my closest companion. When we were alone, I called him Xolotl, not Jose. Many of the simple Indians were proud of the names in which they had been baptised; but Jose, being a descendant of the royal house of Texcoco, set great store by his native name which was that of a god and an emperor. So he used one for the street and another for the house, as they say.
He would often come to the monastery on a Saturday to talk Nahuatl with me and to teach me to read the Aztec picture writing. It was so outlandish that I could never do more than read a date, but I learned much of their history and their gods.
One day I asked him if many of his people were still heathen.
‘Not here in the City of Mexico,’ he answered, ‘for we all see that your religion is better than ours was. We were so eager to please the gods, Miguel, that we thought nothing too good for them. That is why we offered them the hearts of human beings, for what greater gift could we bring? We know now that what should be offered to God are the thoughts of the heart, not the heart itself. But just because we are good Christians, we need not forget the splendour of our ancestors.’
I said that I wished I could have seen them as they were, that paintings and drawings were not enough and hard to understand.
‘You shall see them, Miguel,’ he answered.
I thanked him but thought little of it. The Indians often speak in parables, and what they say must not be taken as a plain word.
Some days before the date of the Aztec New Year, Xolotl told me that they still celebrated some part of the ceremony in secret and that they trusted me enough to allow me to watch. Much as I longed to go, it was to gamble with my life. If I were to be seen in my fool’s coat in the Indian quarter of Tlatelolco, I might be accused of encouraging the Indians to heresy or disobedience; if I took it off and were recognised, I should be tried and sentenced again. Either way, nothing that the friars could do would save me from a far worse fate than those suffered by Paul Horsewell and John Perrin.
I reminded Xolotl that there were many spies among the three hundred thousand inhabitants of Tlatelolco, eager to gain favour with the Spaniards by reporting offences against the law, but he smiled at my distrust, assuring me that they would say nothing of the ceremony for fear of having their throats cut. As for my San Benito, he would hide me in a canoe where I could change into Indian dress.
The Prior willingly gave me leave to spend the early part of the night at the house of Don Gil Alvarado, where I was ever welcome. Don Gil himself was compelled to be very distant with me, since the Holy Office was displeased with him and the other gentlemen who had employed prisoners without caring whether they were heretics or not. But the mestizo servants were fond of me, and I could trust them.
So there I went in my fool’s coat and drank with my friends in the kitchen, telling them when I left that I had a message from our gardener to theirs and that he would let me out by the side door. The gardener, who had been warned by Xolotl, kept watch for me while I took off the San Benito by the water steps as if I were about to swim in the lake. When the canoe came past, loaded with vegetables, red, green and white, just as they come from the floating gardens of Xochimilco, I jumped in with my gown and the yellow cloth rolled under my arm and was instantly hidden between baskets.
It was dusk when the canoe turned into a narrow, dark channel. There the two Indian paddlers dressed me in a maxtli and a cloak which was so rich with embroidery that I was clearly to be a noble of high rank. Then we landed by secret steps at the foot of a courtyard. It was surrounded by tall Indian houses, which are beautiful from the outside with many little windows, but the rooms within are too many and too small.
I did not recognise Xolotl when he greeted me, for I could hardly see his face between the gold ornaments which hung from his head ring and the war standards which were attached to his arms, waist and shoulders instead of being carried in the hand like ours. He told me that in the shadows it could never be known that I was not an Aztec. Indeed the sun of New Spain had burned me nearly as brown as they, and my hair was near as dark. But in full daylight I could not pass as an Indian, since my eyes were blue and my hair wavy rather than straight.
Around this closed courtyard were sitting hundreds of Indians; those of high birth on chairs, the others on the ground. In order that I should not have to pass through the crowd and arouse too much curiosity, I was led through the house to a chair among some old men who were chiefs of their clans and held in special honour.
They knew who I was, receiving me with great courtesy into their company. They explained to me that the dance which I should see was of a war in which the sun was slain, and that the Knights of the Jaguar would fight the Knights of the Eagle.
As we spoke, the two bands entered the courtyard. They wore armour of quilted cotton hardened with brine, which gives such good protection against swords and arrows that the Spaniards, when they first came to New Spain, preferred it to their own steel which was too heavy in the heat.
The cotton armour of an Eagle Knight was painted like the plumage of a bird. His helmet was of the shape of an eagle’s head with the face of the warrior looking out between the upper and the lower beak. He had a tail made from the tail feathers of an eagle, and more eagle feathers beneath his shield. Behind his back and over his head was a great crest made of the feathers of all the birds of the air set in basketwork like flowers in a narrow flowerbed.
The Knights of the Jaguar were less fantastic and more terrible. The faces looked out between the jaws of great cats. Their shields and armour were spotted. They carried their standards supported on their shoulders like Xolotl. These were strange devices of wood, very light but as large as the whole body of the man, decked with streaming feathers and stars and fountains of feathers.
The swords of both sides were of wood, in which were closely set fragments of a glass which they collect from the slopes of the volcanoes around the lake. Before the Spaniards came they had no knowledge of iron. But with these glass-toothed swords of theirs they could hack their way to the flesh through the weak points of any armour, as Cortés and his band of heroes found to their cost.
The two arrays danced and cut at each other, taking the blows on their shields; and never did I see so mad a whirling of feathers. When the Aztecs fought against the Indian allies of the Spaniards, it must have been as if angels from the coloured windows of churches were in battle. But
wicked angels they were, thinking only to drag out prisoners, burn their hearts and hang up their skulls in the temples.
When the dance was over, they all took to drinking pulque. Xolotl, having removed his great golden head-dress, then took me on one side and asked me if the English would help them to drive out the Spaniards. I could see now, he said, how his people would fight if they had steel swords and horses. I answered him that indeed we would be willing and that I myself would act as interpreter for our general, but that it was a matter for Her Majesty and her Council, which he very well understood.
This much is certain; that if we could set an army on shore, the Indians and the Negroes would join us. But it would not be so profitable a task as to hold for ransom some harbour on the Main or in the islands. The City of Mexico is so far from the sea that we could no more maintain an army than in the heart of Spain itself.
I warned Xolotl to lower his voice, for we were among the old men who were chattering wildly and careless of what they said. The Indians think it a disgrace for a young man to be drunk, but the old are allowed to drink as much as they please since they have so few other pleasures.
‘Oh, they are already at three hundred rabbits,’ said he, ‘and can hear nothing but themselves.’
I asked him what he meant by his rabbits, and he told me that was the way they measured the effect of pulque. At twenty rabbits a man was cheerful and at four hundred he was unconscious. Between those two extreme limits they distinguished many steps. I would reckon by their measurements that when Mr Hawkins, Master Barrett and the officers dined in the great cabin they would seldom exceed one hundred rabbits, but might reach two hundred when there were Spanish dignitaries to be entertained.
The hour was now late, and I was in a great taking lest I should not be safely back in my monastery before the gates were shut. The knights, the paddlers who had brought me and even Xolotl himself were well rabbited, and had determined among themselves to conceal me in the hills. But I had no wish to live as a fugitive with little chance of ever returning home.
So I was obstinate with them. At last Xolotl called to two of the women and ordered them to paddle me back, fruit, vegetables and all, to Don Gil’s water steps. During the dance the lower windows and galleries had been full of women, dressed in their embroidered smocks and skirts with their hair loose on their shoulders. They are gentle and devoted creatures, but not to be compared with Spanish women. Loveliest of all is the mestiza, having the good qualities of both races and the bad of neither and a skin so golden that never such treasure came out of the mines.
My two paddlers would not go as they were, but must needs change into their market clothes. And they dilly-dallied, as is the way of women, plaiting their hair and I know not what. But once they were in the canoe they paddled as fast as any man.
When we came to the Alvarado gardens, the blackness of night had gone and the waters of the lake were grey. With dawn so close upon me I dared not walk through the streets; so I asked my fair paddlers to turn into a canal which ran close to one side of the monastery and to make their escape as soon as I had landed.
I hid my gown and fool’s coat under red peppers in a little basket and began to steal along the walls of the monastery looking for a way in, though I knew well it would be hard to find. The stones were sheer and smooth, and all the windows which opened on the street were barred with iron. While I skulked from shadow to shadow, a night watchman saw me and came running up, shouting that I was an Indian thief and that he would have me beaten to death. I fell on my knees and begged for mercy, since in such a plight the Indians never resist. God preserved him from looking in my basket, for if he had seen my San Benito I should have been forced to kill him or to be lit like a candle in the great square.
Having no fear of so tame an Indian, he presented his pike at my breast and carelessly ordered me to get up. Then I, seizing his spear above the point, gave him such a push with the butt that he fell into the canal. While he splashed and spluttered, shouting for the watch, I ran round the corner into a lane at the back of the monastery which by good fortune was empty. Here was our stable door, with a stone arch above it, high enough for a coach to drive through. I could not climb the door, but at least I could get rid of my basket. So I threw it over the gate, praying that it would be picked up by some friendly friar who would think twice before denouncing me.
Meanwhile the watchman had pulled himself out of the water on to the street, still bellowing for his comrades. He ran the wrong way, but it could not be long before they all caught up with me; nor could they mistake me in my noble cloak with broad bands of colour.
I stood there wondering what I should do and looking at the great Indian aqueduct bringing fresh water into the city, the arches of which stood out against the dawn. Thus it came to my mind what quantity of water we used in our kitchens, bath and wash-house, and how the waste left the monastery. The channel at our end was roofed with paving stones, and high enough for a man to crawl on hands and knees.
I knew that its course was straight and that it must enter the canal not far from the point where I had pushed in the watchman. Whether it was closed by a grating and how long I must hold my breath once I was inside it I could not tell; but anything was better than to be dragged to prison by the watch and recognised as Miles Philips.
I ran back to the edge of the canal and let myself down into the water. I found the mouth of the conduit easily enough, for at that season the level of the lake was low, but the top was only a hand’s breadth above the water. While I hesitated, sure that if I ventured in I should be stuck or drowned, I heard the horses of the watch trotting along the street which bordered the canal. Seeing that I must be discovered if I remained in my white clothes on the surface of the water, I drew a deep breath and entered the pipe.
It was more a passage for an eel than a man, but if I lay on my back I could catch a little air between my mouth and the slime of the roofing. It was now easier to go forwards than back, so on I went, thrusting with knees and elbows, until the channel had risen enough to allow me to turn over and crawl. At last I saw an iron grating above me. Lifting it with my shoulders, I found myself in the kitchen courtyard.
Here I had some hope of safety, knowing that William Lowe would help me, though he had now become as devout a Catholic as any friar. I crept through the kitchens and into his room, where he lay snoring, with his red beard spread over the coverlet. I wakened him softly, but at the sight of a wet and stinking Indian over him he fell to praying that he might be delivered from so horrid a nightmare. When he found that it was his old companion of the Jesus of Lubeck, he saved my life a second time, hastening to the stable gate and picking up my gown and fool’s coat, the basket and the red peppers which lay on the paving. On the way back he passed several brothers who had just risen to go to matins, but they thought nothing of seeing the cook with his vegetables.
As soon as he returned to his room I dropped my wet mantle and maxtli on the floor and dressed myself. The bell was ringing, and I had just time to slip into chapel before the service. Since I was under no obligation to attend it, Don Cayetano greatly approved me, saying that I showed a commendable spirit after enjoying the vanities of the world. As for my Indian clothes, William Lowe used them to mop his room and after that to scrub his stove, so that they became rags only fit to throw away.
The fright I had been in and the thought of God’s mercy which had preserved me caused me to go cautiously and decently about my business for the rest of my time. The Prior reported well of me to the Holy Office, and I was set free at the end of three years instead of serving the full five.
Then there was a great to-do, such as Spaniards love, over taking off my San Benito. All of us youths who had been condemned were led to the cathedral in procession with music and images and enough friars to fill the city of Plymouth. In the sight of the congregation our fool’s coats were pulled over our heads with the choir singing fit to burst their throats and the priests walking and kneeling and tur
ning about as if they had been so many soldiers.
Indeed I remember once confessing my sins to Don Cayetano and saying that all this moving around and changing of garments distracted my soul and that I much wondered why the service should be exact and precise as that of a palace guard.
To that he answered: ‘My son, it is because we ourselves are the soldiers of God. And this day, while you watch your Indians building, I lay it upon you to consider this thought in silence instead of talking follies with Xolotl.’
It surprised me that he should say Xolotl and not Jose. I could never tell how much he knew. Of this I am sure: that when the porter informed him, on the night of my adventure, that he had not seen me pass in through the gate, the good Prior replied that I might have come in when he was not looking, and refused to search for me.
I would willingly have remained a Catholic if all were as wise as my dear friars. But it was too hard for me to be patient with flummery. There in the cathedral I could scarcely keep a solemn face when my fool’s coat was hung up with as much ceremony as if it were a flag of battle. All our coats were there in line, of those condemned to serve in monasteries and those sent to their death in the galleys. Every coat had written under it the name of the man and his sentence, and above it; A Heretic Lutheran Reconciled. Over the coats of those who had been burned, of whom there were two more after George Rively, was written: An Obstinate Heretic Lutheran Burned.
CHAPTER SIX
We were now free to do as we liked and to earn a living as best we could. I myself would have gone back to work in the mines and make my fortune if I had not distrusted the Holy Office. I had been warned that their spies would keep a watch on us for years to come and on me more than the others, since I was reputed to be a bold spirit. It was little use to make money if I were in continual danger of being imprisoned and losing the lot.
Prisoner of the Indies Page 7
