Then he heard Norte scream, felt him fall.
Benítez finished his own opponent and swung around. An Otomí was dragging Norte away by the hair. He was unprepared for another attack, thought his part of the battle was done. Benítez drove his sword deep into his chest and stepped back, his feet planted either side of Norte's body to defend him.
The Otomís snarled and another left the group to face him.
✽ ✽ ✽
It was Sandoval who reached him first, driving his mare among the indians, a running wedge of pikemen following him in. He reached from the saddle and held out his hand.
Benítez pushed the hand away, stood his ground over Norte's body. This renegade had saved his life and honour demanded he must die rather than leave the field without him, alive or dead.
As any good indian would do, he found himself thinking, and the thought made him laugh aloud.
Malinali
As the sun sinks, the valley is filtered in shades of grey. My lord's soldiers limp from the field of flowers, supported on the shoulders of their comrades; others sit on the ground, their heads on their knees, spent. Bodies, two or three deep, litter the ground in front of Mesa's artillery, a twitching, moaning mass. The acrid reek of the iron serpents' breath hangs heavy in the air.
The man I speared lies on his back beside one of these iron monsters, still living. I can hear the noise of his breathing. I wish one of these moles will finish him but they are concerned with their own wounds and with those of their comrades and do not worry about the suffering of a single indian.
"You must confess," I turn around. It is Aguilar, clutching his tattered book to his chest, his greasy hair plastered to his skull with sweat. "You have committed the mortal sin of murder."
This madness echoes in my head. How can it be wrong to kill your enemy on the battlefield?
"We must pray for your soul."
"Look around you, Aguilar. There are a hundred times a hundred murders everywhere you look.”
"Cortés' soldiers have a special dispensation from the Pope. What they do is in Christ's name."
I turn away. This Aguilar is a madman, and talks in riddles.
"You must ask forgiveness from God!" he shouts at me.
Flores, tiring of the noises from the dying indian, slashes quickly with his sword and there is silence. Brother Aguilar makes the sign of the cross and moves on.
Chapter 40
The hut stank of blood. Men lay on floor in their own ordure crying for their mothers. Fray Olmedo and Fray Diaz could be heard murmuring in the candlelight, taking confessions, administering the rites of extreme unction. Mendez and Malinali were busy with more practical needs, binding the soldiers' wounds as best they could.
Norte was sobbing with pain. Rain Flower knelt beside him, holding his hand. She had bound a poultice of vinegar-soaked herbs to the wound in his side. She was weeping.
Benítez had come, as a brother in arms, to whisper words of thanks and say a prayer for his recovery. When he saw Rain Flower he felt as if he had walked into a wooden post. He stood at the foot of Norte’s litter, stunned.
What a fool I am! This Norte was my intermediary with this girl. How did I not see that he had become so much more? How they must have laughed at him behind his back.
Rain Flower looked up, startled. She wiped away the wetness on her cheeks with her sleeve. Too late.
Benítez knelt down beside the wounded man's pallet. "Norte," he whispered.
His eyes flickered open. He blinked, trying to focus.
Benítez leaned closer. "There is something I must tell you. First, I have to thank you for saving my life."
Norte tried to speak but no words came.
"The second thing I want to tell you - I hope you die. I hope you die in the Devil's own searing agony."
He walked out.
The rain beat a steady rhythm on the woven roof, rivulets of water ran down the ridge pole into the churned and blood-stained mud at the entrance. He took a lungful of air, sickened by the sweat and the stink and the crying in there.
Forget about it, he told himself. She is just a naturale and a puta. What does it matter? Still, he was glad that Norte was suffering. Damn him.
And damn her, too.
Malinali
We are camped at a place called the Hill of the Tower. The moles have found some supplies of maize and spiced our meal with meat from the village dogs. My lord suspects that the Totonacs are supplementing their own diet with Texcálan prisoners, but Fray Olmedo has dissuaded him from confronting them on this vexed question. He rightly pointed out that we cannot afford to antagonise our only ally in our present dire straits.
We have fought two pitched battles with the Texcálans in the last three days. My lord's soldiers are exhausted, their fragile morale shattered. He has withdrawn his forces from the plain and decided to wait.
The finer dwellings in this abandoned village have been requisitioned by the thunder lords for their personal use. Feathered Serpent himself has laid claim to one of the few houses built from adobe. His oaken table and favourite studded chair are set up in a corner of the room and he sits there now, writing on a piece of parchment with quill and ink.
His face looks haggard in the light of the candle.
We have lost forty-five soldiers from a force of four hundred. Another dozen are ill with disease and of the rest almost all have at least two wounds. Another battle like the last will probably finish us.
There is sweat soaking his linen shirt despite the bitter wind that moans through the cracks in the walls. His hand trembles violently with fever. It is as much as he can do to hold the quill to the paper, but he is determined to finish the missive before he surrenders to the black exhaustion that envelops him. He wishes to demand of his god, Olintecle, the right to be king of the Mexica when he captures Tenochtitlán. I do not see how the gods can do otherwise. These lands, after all, have always been his.
The funeral chant of the drums from the Texcaltéca camp carry to us on the night wind. They are sacrificing the Totonáca they captured today.
The letter is done, my lord seals it carefully with blood-red wax and then his shoulders seem to collapse under the weight of a great burden. "What am I to do?" he whispers.
I place my hands on his shoulders, willing strength back into his tired muscles. It is obvious to me what he must do but he is too tired to see it. "Free the prisoners your soldiers took today," I tell him. "Send them back to Lord Ring of the Wasp. Tell him you will pardon everything if he will embrace you and join you in your fight against Montezuma."
He stares at the candle flame for a long time. He appears not to have heard me. But then he calls for his major-domo, Caceres, and tells him to send in two of the Texcaltéca his men have captured today.
Sandoval leads them in. They are hog-tied, their wrists are bound behind their backs and the rope is looped and knotted around their necks. They have been stripped of everything except loin cloths. They glance around the room from under black fringes of hair, eyes hooded, expecting death.
My lord composes his thoughts.
"Tell them," he says to me, "tell them I do not wish to make war on them."
"May your wives all grow fangs in their caves of joy," I begin, using the elegant speech, "you have made my lord very angry. He came here in peace and instead you have attacked him and vexed his patience."
The Texcaltéca do not raise their eyes from the ground.
"They must tell their chief," my lord continues, "that I am on my way to Tenochtitlán for my reckoning with Montezuma. If the Texcálans continue to make war on me I will come and burn all their houses and kill all the people."
His audacity takes my breath away. Our soldiers are barely able to stand they are so exhausted. Yet what else shall a god say to his enemies when he is vexed? "Tell the blind white bird who sees wisdom in the darkness that Feathered Serpent is returned to claim the Lands of Bread. Let him pass quickly on his way to hasten Montezuma's destiny, or the
Mexica's fate may be your own."
These warrior's eyes go wide. Finally, they raise their heads to stare at the shivering, bearded figure at the table, and I see them wonder if this might indeed be Quetzalcóatl.
My lord nods to Sandoval, who steps forward and cuts their bonds with a knife. He hands each of them a string of glass beads that the thunder gods have brought with them from the paradise world of water and boats they call Venice. My lord's prisoners stare at this treasure in bewilderment.
"This is a gift from Feathered Serpent himself," I tell them. "In the Cloud Lands they are more valuable than the most precious jade. Now go and tell your chief what Feathered Serpent has said."
Sandoval bundles the Texcaltéca from the room. My lord dismisses Cáceres also, with a nod.
When we are alone once more, he allows his head to drop to the table. His hands ball into fists. The fever has all but broken him.
I help him undress and put him to bed. His body shakes with chills, his eyes are shining, unfocused. I take off my own clothes and warm his body with my own, cradle his head against the softness of my breast. His limbs curl around me and he sucks at my nipple like a baby.
I continue to hold him through the night and now I see not the god, but the man who clothes the god's essence, with all his imperfections. It confuses me for I am no longer sure who I love the most; the god, or the man in whose skin he shelters.
Chapter 41
The candle flickered in the draught, threw deep shadows on the cracked adobe plaster. The men gathered around the table looked furtively towards the door as Benítez walked in. Leon's beard was matted with blood from a slash on his cheek; Alvarado had a blood-soaked rag wrapped tightly around his lower arm; Benítez himself had a deep wound in the muscle of his shoulder.
"Where is Doña Isabel?" Alvarado asked him.
Benítez wondered if he was worried about spies, or did he know about Norte and his treacherous Mayan bride? "She is helping Mendez in the hospital."
"The hospital," Leon repeated. "Where Cortés should be."
Sandoval nodded. "He has the fever."
"What he has is love fever," Alvarado snapped. "He spends too much time alone with Doña Marina. She exerts too much control over him."
"They say she has been his mistress since Jalapa," Sandoval said.
Leon laughed, a noise like a bark. "He covered her the moment Alonso got on the boat back to Spain. By Satan's great spotted ass, he treats her as if she were a Spanish doñetta! He has assigned her her own page and even a litter for when we travel on hard terrain."
"Aguilar says that she has told the indians he is a god," Alvarado said.
There was an embarrassed silence. "We cannot know the truth of that," Benítez said. "But I have never heard those words pass his own lips. Never."
"What are we to do?" Sandoval asked.
"What can we do?" Benítez said. "As Cortés says, there is no way back. We must be victorious here, or die."
"It is the girl's fault," Alvarado said. "She led us to this. She has bewitched him."
"Bewitched or no, let us pray he is better tomorrow," Leon said. "Without Cortés we are lost."
Alvarado bristled at that. "I can lead you in battle as well as Cortés.”
The men stared at the table.
"I can!" he hissed. “You will see!” He turned on his heel and went out.
"As you say," Sandoval murmured, "without Cortés we are lost."
✽ ✽ ✽
The Madonna watched Cortés from a corner of the room. She was bathed in watery light and her face was serene and very pale. She wore a flowing blue robe. She reached out a hand towards him and Cortés tried to grasp it. He murmured the words of a prayer he had learned in boyhood from his grandmother as they knelt before the image of the Señora de los Remedios in the cathedral in Sevilla.
"You have been blessed by God," the Lady said. "You will have me beside you, wherever you go and whatever you do."
"They will not relent," he murmured.
"They will break before you. You must fear nothing for this kingdom is already yours. You will win it for me. This is your destiny."
"My destiny," Cortés repeated.
"You are not like other men. That is why I chose you. You will be my champion. You will bring these people to me and I will reward you a thousand times."
He would have reached out and touched her robe but a hand pulled him back onto the bed. "You're hot," Malinali whispered. "Your skin is burning."
"Maria," Cortés murmured.
"Who are you talking to?"
Cortés looked again for the woman in the blue robes but she was gone. The sweat on his skin felt suddenly chill and he started to shiver again. Malinali lay on top of him to warm him while he shuddered and cursed.
Finally he slept.
When morning came he had forgotten the lady in the blue robes. The memory of her remained buried, something glimpsed and quickly forgotten; a match struck in a darkened room in a dream.
Malinali
I rise naked from the bed. The blanket is dank with cold sweat. I throw it aside.
The plain is still in darkness. The morning star, emblem of Feathered Serpent, is risen in the east and the ocelots are calling him welcome. My lord breathes in deep and peaceful rhythm. The fever is passed.
I put a hand to my belly and wonder if Feathered Serpent's seed already grows inside me. Tonight I thought I felt it move, though it is too soon, it is just my imagination. But what a wonder it would be, to be mother of a god, the womb of a new dynasty for the Toltec kings.
Already my lord's soldiers are moving about the camp, wraiths dressed in rags, hunched for warmth over the smouldering embers of their fires. A mist of rain seeps down from the mountains.
I feel someone's eyes on me. He has a jar of wine cradled on his lap. I cannot see his features clearly in this grey dawn light, but I guess that it must be Jaramillo.
My skin feels hot, as if it is crawling with fire ants. I hurry back inside.
Chapter 42
Men lay on mats on the bare earth floors, their wounds covered in blood-soaked bandages, shivering under thin blankets. Some stared hollow-eyed at the rafters, others moaned and called for their mothers. Benítez wandered through the slaughterhouse stink, looking for Norte.
Rain Flower was still with him, crouched beside him on the straw mat where he had lain for almost a week. His cheeks were hollow, covered with the pelt of a beard. Before he was wounded he had shaved his face every day with a piece of obsidian, a practice he had taken up while living with the beardless Mayans. At last he looked like a real Spaniard.
Rain Flower saw him and quickly averted her eyes.
Benítez knelt down. The stench of old blood and waste was overpowering. Our renegade no longer smells so sweet, he thought with some satisfaction.
"Norte," he whispered.
His eyes flickered open. Rain Flower raised his head and held a small gourd of water his lips.
"You have a beard now," Benítez said. "You are one of us."
Norte managed a strained smile. "You ... come here .... to insult me?"
"If possible." He is better since yesterday, Benítez thought. The yellow has gone from his cheeks and his breathing is better. "I hope you are suffering."
"Thank you, yes. The wound is .... not deep but I have broken .... ribs. It is difficult to breathe and the pain ... is very bad."
"I find that most satisfactory."
Benítez glanced at Rain Flower. The little Tabascan girl looked thin and ill, he thought, just like the rest of us.
Norte's eyes went to the girl. "... you know?"
Benítez nodded.
"What are you going to do?"
"I have not decided. The way things are, perhaps I will not have to do anything."
Norte reached for Rain Flower. "Be kind ... to her. She ... does not deserve ... to suffer."
"No?"
"Had you plans for her? ... You could never ... take her back with you
... to Castile. Except as ... a novelty."
"That was not my thought." What was my thought? Benítez wondered. Have I really grown fond of an indian? Or is it just my pride that is wounded?
Mendez had begun an operation on a wooden table in the corner of the hut. Four soldiers had been recruited to hold down the patient, who had been liberally soused with Cuban wine.
"Why did you save my life?" Benítez asked him.
"You saved mine.”
The man on the table let out a piercing scream. Benítez tried to shut his ears to it.
"Was that reason enough to kill your fellow indians?"
"I told you ... they are not ... my fellow indians. I am a Spaniard ... like you. I have a beard and ... blue eyes. Why deny it?"
Rain Flower whispered something to Norte.
"She wants to see ... your arm."
"It is nothing."
Another whispered exchange. "She says wounds get infected ... very easily here. She would like to ... take care of it for ... you."
"What is the point? As you say, we are all going to die here."
Norte's breathing was becoming laboured. The effort of talking had exhausted him. "You should try ... and learn a little ... of her language. If you are kind to her, she ... will be kind to you."
"Why would I need her kindness?"
The man on the table had finished screaming, had thankfully passed into unconsciousness.
"I discovered ... among the Maya ... that every man ... is two men. What he is born to, and ... what he can become. Most follow the road ... they were born to."
"What are you saying?"
"Perhaps you are not ... at heart ... that much of a Spaniard."
He wasn’t going to listen to this any more. He stood up and hurried outside. Damn him.
Damn him.
Damn him because Norte was right, he did not hate the renegade as a true Spaniard should hate him. It was his right to have them both punished for their crimes against him and yet he still did nothing. His slowness to vengeance had unmanned him. They had unmanned him.
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