Clouds raced across the moon, the smell of camp smoke and rain hung on the air. Feelings of confusion; exhausted yet unable to sleep.
Chapter 43
Rain Flower examined the wound in the light of the candle. As she removed the filthy bandage, her nose wrinkled at the taint of infection. A Texcálan lance had sliced cleanly through the skin and deep into the muscle, and the lips of the wound were swollen and inflamed. A watery discharge wept from the flesh.
Benítez gave a small grunt of pain.
Rain Flower had with her a foul-smelling poultice of herbs. She placed it on the wound and bound it tightly with cloth strips. When she had finished she looked up at him and did something he had not expected her to do.
She smiled.
Despite himself, he found himself reaching out a hand to stroke her hair.
So beautiful, he thought, once you became accustomed to this coppery skin. She was perhaps more beautiful than any Castilian women he had ever courted, but then he was not as experienced as others in such matters. He was not what most women thought of as an attractive man; he was clumsy, his nose was too large and his features too coarse. He was not like Alvarado or even Cortés, who had a reputation for chasing every doñetta on Cuba. No, he had never been a lady's man, had never possessed the wealth or the power or the personality to outweigh the shortcomings in his appearance.
He was suddenly overwhelmed by the force of his own loneliness. He could not even talk to this woman in the simplest terms. He wondered what she was thinking; about Norte no doubt, he thought with a stab of anger. Norte with his torn ears and tattooed face, Norte who could speak her language and could talk to her about her own ways and her own gods.
But it was no good. He could not sustain the same force of rage he felt when he first discovered her betrayal. Now there was just the pain of his own clumsiness. He had never been able to keep beautiful things; it was his fault, not hers. And Norte? Hard to hate a man when you have stood back to back with him in a fight.
Her fingers touched his cheek.
"Cara," he whispered. But, of course, she could not understand.
She kissed him. Gently. Not a kiss of obligation or even of reward. Indeed, no woman had ever kissed him quite that way. Be careful, a voice said to him, do not pretend to yourself that you can fall in love with a naturale. You simply take what is offered, when you can. That is the nature of soldiering.
He pulled her gently down beside him on the mat.
Malinali
The man is dressed only in a loincloth. I can see each muscle and sinew of his body rippling beneath the skin. He is on his knees, his feet roped together, and one of the thunder gods, Jaramillo, has a foot on the rope; his right hand holds the bonds that are looped around the man's neck and wrists. He keeps it taut, forcing his prisoner's arms up between his shoulders while simultaneously choking him.
Alvarado has another rope around the man's upper arm, an iron spike knotted in the cord as a lever. He twists it tight so that it bites deep into his prisoner's arm, cutting off the supply of blood. The limb is swollen and purple.
The young man gasps and writhes but does not shame himself by crying out. Not yet.
He had been captured during the night attack. The moonlight had betrayed the Texcaltéca's movements; a sentry had seen them and given the alarm. This warrior was not as fortunate as their other prisoners. Instead of gifts and offers of peace Feathered Serpent has decided on quite a different tactic.
I look up at him. Can he not stop this? I fear the bout of fever has changed him somehow. He no longer behaves as a god, but as a man.
"Ask him if he knows who I am," he says to me. He has a look on his face I have not seen before.
"Feathered Serpent asks if you recognise him," I say to the young warrior. "You must tell him and stop your suffering. He is very angry."
Jaramillo takes the tension from the rope to allow him to reply. Our warrior gags and coughs, fighting to catch his breath, froth spilling down his chin. He rakes air into his lungs. After a few moments Jaramillo jerks on the rope to remind him of the question.
The Texcálan looks up at me, his eyes silently pleading with me to make them stop the torture. Death in battle or on the sacrificial stone holds no fears for any warrior. But this!
"Some say .... he is indeed ... a god .... others that ... he is a man. Lord Ring of the Wasp ... is unsure."
I turn back to my lord. "He knows who you are."
"Ask him then why his people are fighting us."
When our young warrior man hears this question, he shouts: "Because you are on our land! You are thieves and ... murderers! Soon we will .... roast all your hearts and feed them to the gods!"
Jaramillo does not understand what is said but hears the defiance in his prisoner’s voice and jerks hard on the rope, forcing his head back, silencing him. I look up at my lord. Why does he allow this? To kill in battle is glorious, but to inflict such torment deliberately is shameful.
"What did he say?" he asks me. There is a sheen of perspiration on his forehead, even though it is deathly cold in the room.
"He says ... he thinks we are invaders."
My lord sinks into his chair, the small effort of standing even for so short a time leaves him exhausted. After a few moments he looks up at Jaramillo. "Cut off his nose and hands, tie them around his neck and send him back to his village."
No! I cannot believe what he has just ordered. I cannot speak against him in front of the other thunder gods, so I implore him with my eyes to revoke the order. He looks straight through me, dead to all kindness. Could this be my Feathered Serpent, the god who weeps for suffering, the commander who looked so forlorn when he signed the death warrant for the traitors at Vera Cruz, who prays every night on his knees in front of a painting of a mother and child?
"Mali, before we send our prisoners back, you must give them a message for Lord Ring of the Wasp. They are to tell him that I have lost all patience with them. I will give them two days to come here in peace or I will march to their capital and burn it to the ground."
Outside Jaramillo has set about the task Cortés has assigned him. He holds the man's hands on a chopping block, grinning into his face as Guzman wields the pike. As the blade crunches into the wood our unfortunate young warrior screams, blood spurting rhythmically from his wrists. Jaramillo plunges the stumps of his arms into a bucket of hot pitch to cauterise the wounds.
He is still screaming when Jaramillo cuts off his nose with his knife.
It is worse, much worse, than anything I have witnessed in the temples. Our prisoners are not even allowed a warrior's death and the certainty of afterlife. They will go to the underworld as old men and cripples.
Why, why has my Lord of Gentle Wisdom allowed this?
"My lord ..."
He dismisses me with a wave of his hand. "I am tired. I have to rest. Just do as I say." And he signals to his major-domo to send me out of the room.
Chapter 44
Young Ring of the Wasp shook his head. "I still do not believe they are gods."
The Council of Four no longer shared his conviction. "Then how do you explain our defeat?" Laughs at Women said. "Even if they are men, as you say, then they must surely have a god leading them. These teules can see at night, as well as read our minds."
"We can defeat them," Young Ring of the Wasp insisted.
"No," his father said. The old cacique was tired of this, tired of these endless debates, tired of hearing the funeral drums for his young warriors. "You are wrong, we cannot vanquish them. We have fought them through the whole Month of Sweeping and still they will not retreat. First, they send us words of peace, claiming they wish only to fight the Mexica, now they send back our young warriors without hands and faces." He sighed. "He is unpredictable like a god and if he is Feathered Serpent then we have tried his patience too far. These teules offer us an alliance against the Mexica. What if this is true? For fifty years Montezuma and his ancestors have drained the blood of our
youth on their altars. At last we will have the opportunity to free ourselves from their arrogance and cruelty. When these teules return to the Cloud Lands, we will be the masters of the Valley."
Young Ring of the Wasp began to protest but the old cacique put up a hand to silence him. "You have had your chance, my son. We have made war, without effect. Now we must sue for peace."
Malinali
They are shabby, compared to the Mexica. Indeed, some of their robes must have been stolen from enemies; you can see the bloodstains. The rest of them wear poor mantles of maguey fibre.
I stand behind Cortés' chair as he receives them, ready to offer my translations from the elegant speech. There are perhaps as many of fifty in the delegation, and judging by their feathers and jewels they are all senators of the Texcála republic. Their leader is as tall as a Spaniard, his skin spotted by disease. He identifies himself as Ring of the Wasp the Young, son of the Texcála chieftain.
"We have come to ask your Lord Malinche for forgiveness," the young chief begins, his face a sullen mask. "At first we thought he had been sent to invade us by our great enemy, Montezuma. We thought this because you were accompanied by their vassals, the Totonáca. Now we see that we were ... wrong." He seemed to choke on the last word.
I relay his sentiments to my lord. If he is relieved to hear these soothing words, he does not show it. "Tell them they only have themselves to blame for this war," he answers. "I came here in friendship and they attacked me and caused much disruption. Now my officers want to burn their town and I do not know if I can keep them from it."
A churlish and astonishing reply. Burn their town? Our soldiers can barely light a cook fire at night.
But his reply seems to cause Young Ring of the Wasp great consternation. "Please remind your lord Malinche that he entered Texcála without our consent. We would be less than men if we had not fought to defend ourselves. However, we regret this misunderstanding and our Council of Four offer him their friendship if he will make an alliance with us."
But my lord is sulky when I tell him this, couching Young Ring of the Wasp's words in more pleasantries than I heard from his lips.
"I see no reason to forget past injuries," my lord says, and his fingers drum impatiently on the arm of his chair.
"So what should I tell him, my lord?"
"Tell him that my terms for peace are these: that he must submit to me immediately and offer his allegiance to His Majesty, King Charles of Spain. If he refuses, I shall come to Texcála, burn it to the ground and make all the people there my slaves."
I take a moment to compose my thoughts. "Feathered Serpent says that you must agree to obey him, in everything he says, or he will come to Texcála and punish you all."
Young Ring of the Wasp stares at Feathered Serpent, then at me. "Are they really gods?"
"What does he say?" my lord wants to know.
I lean towards him so that no one else can hear, though I see Aguilar crane his neck trying to eavesdrop. "He asks if you are a god, my lord," I whisper.
"Tell him I am a man, as he is, but I serve the one and only true God."
What can I say? If I tell the Texcaltéca he is not a god, they will want to fight us again, and this time they will surely win. I look into Feathered Serpent's wild grey eyes and wonder why he tries to conceal the truth about himself this way.
I turn to Young Ring of the Wasp and give him the only answer that makes sense to me. "He is just a man, but he has a god inside him. That is why he cannot be defeated in battle."
And now I see my lord's wisdom for it is the only answer that this young warrior will accept. Yes, that is possible, I can see him thinking. Sometimes gods return as men. Feathered Serpent had been a man when he ruled the Toltecs.
It is an answer for the Texcaltéca, but is it answer enough for me? Can a man really be a god and not know of it? Or is there some mystery here greater than I have so far divined?
Painali, 1508:
The Yucatan is a place of scrub and thorn, a low plateau of limestone nestled against a coast of salt pans and lagoons. In places the rain percolating through the stone has caused underground caverns to collapse and form deep wells we call cenotes, where the rain gods live.
One day my father takes me by the hand and leads me to the litter that waits for him outside our house. My mother watches us leave and I see the poison in her eyes. She wishes Montezuma had chosen me for his altars instead of my brothers and I know also that she is jealous of the time my father spends with me.
You should understand that my father was a man of some importance and renown in our district and had a litter to carry him everywhere. He was of striking appearance. His head had been bound with boards as an infant so that his skull had the elongated shape of a nobleman. He was a man of distinction among us. His hair was bound in four plaits and there were expensive jade ornaments in his ears, nose and lips. His body was painted in the blue of a priest and his front teeth had been sharpened to points and capped with expensive topaz.
I adored him.
When we reach the waterhole, we climb from the litter and he leads me by the hand down a steep and crumbling path. The shadows close around us and the water is black and very cold. Butterflies dance in the emerald twilight, a hummingbird dances from flower to flower.
But this is no paradise garden. We step over a skeleton mouldering at the base of a cliff, and the air is sickly and tainted with rotting flesh. A column of ants is busy at work, harvesting the latest prize.
When the rains do not come the priests bring a sacrifice here, and they are thrown from the top of the cliff as offering. Our gods are not greedy. One or two slaves and they are mollified.
“You are wondering why I brought you here,” my father whispers.
He points to a ledge above us, halfway up the cliff.
“When I was as old as you are now, the rains did not come. The maize crops shrivelled in the field. Clouds gathered on the horizon, but they shunned us, and would not venture in from the sea, frightened away by Tlaloc, Rain Bringer, who was angry with us. Scores of slaves were sacrificed here, but still Tlaloc did not relent.
“So it was decided to offer a true sacrifice, the son of a freeman. The one they chose was me.”
He was silent, the past relived behind his black eyes.
“I did not understand what was happening, of course. I was too young to understand death. I remember only a feeling of importance, briefly enjoyed, and then the terrible fear as the priests led me towards the edge of that cliff.
“I remember they told me that when I met the gods I was to ask humbly for rains and knowledge of the future. That when this was done I could return to Painali. And then I remember falling.
“That ledge saved my life of course. I do not remember much of what happened. When I woke up it was night and I was in terrible pain, something was broken in my leg. In the morning I managed to crawl out, and the villagers found me. And that day it rained.
“The rain was my destiny. I was immediately raised to the priesthood. From that day on I also enjoyed the gift of prophecy and it elevated me above other men.
“Mali, my gift has shown me that one day soon Feathered Serpent will return from the Cloud Lands to break the hold of the Mexica and bring peace and golden times, as he did before. I know also why I was saved from death on the ledge; so that one day my daughter would grow up to be Feathered Serpent’s consort and guide on his return.”
I cannot tell you how I felt. I confess I had been born with a sense of destiny. I had always known that I would not spend the days of my life pounding tortillas with an infant strapped to my back.
“Do not fear the end of things, Mali,” my father said to me. “From death and drought you will emerge reborn, bowed down with gifts from the gods. Look for destruction, when it comes. Welcome it. It is your destiny.”
The litter carried us back to Painali in silence. A golden future spread before me, rippling in the wind, like a field of ripening maize.
Texcála, 1519
A silver river snakes across the valley below us. White stone buildings cling to the hillsides as if balanced there by weather and time, well-tended gardens clustered about the high walls. To the surprise of my thunder lords, Texcála is even more beautiful than Cempoallan.
The entire population comes out to welcome us. The day before these people were our bitter enemies; now they crowd the streets and roofs, throwing flowers, and they are beating drums and blowing their conch horns in welcome instead of war.
We enter Texcála on the first day of the month known as Return of the Gods.
Ring of the Wasp the Elder waits in the plaza to greet us, seated on a palanquin, a great train of lords and servants behind him. He is very old, his face so nut-brown and wrinkled that he looks like a small monkey. Gold ornaments and bolts of cloth are spread on mats in front of his litter. Not a great treasure, but an offering, of sorts.
My lord dismounts his horse, and Old Ring of the Wasp is helped to his feet by his attendants. He makes a short speech. My lord turns to me for translation.
"He welcomes you to Texcála and offers you these poor gifts in tribute," I say, indicating the gold and the cloth. "He says he would like to offer you much more but Montezuma keeps him besieged here in the mountains and so his people are very poor."
Today Feathered Serpent, smiling and radiant, has returned. Perhaps it was just the fever that stole him away from me for those few hours. "Tell Ring of the Wasp that I value his friendship more than I value all the gold in the whole world. Tell him also that he shall suffer under the yoke of the Mexica no longer, for I have been sent by a great Lord to free men from the tyrannies of kings."
I relay his words in the elegant tongue and Old Ring of the Wasp answers: "He thanks you for your kind words. He wishes very soon to confirm this alliance by offering you and your officers some of their women in marriage. But for now he wishes to touch your face."
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