Aztec Blood

by Gary Jennings

  "This one claims to be a prince in his own country," the slave owner laughed. He picked up a rock and threw it, hitting the tied-up slave with it. "Eat that for dinner, Prince Yanga." He roared again with laughter.

  "He's a tough one," the other Spaniard said.

  "Not after I geld him."

  No por Dios! Castración!

  I glanced at the slave, and he stared blankly at me. He already knew his fate. But as I continued to look at him and his brown eyes met mine, I saw both intelligence and pain. Not just the pain of his bruises, but a much deeper hurt. His eyes told me that he was no animal but a man. That he, too, was human!

  Not able to stand the sadness in his eyes, I looked away. Slaves were castrated on the theory that it made them more malleable—just as bulls are gelded to soften their meat and make them more docile.

  Another merchant, overhearing the conversation, recognized my look of revulsion.

  "Slaves are property," the merchant said, glaring at me. "They are to be used in the fields or in bed, whatever suits the owners. They are like the indios, gente sin razon." Without reason. Childlike. "But at least the africanos and indios have pure-blood. Mestizos, such as yourself, are the lowest."

  I got up and found another tree to rest under, certain I would open my mouth and receive a beating if I stayed.

  "His spurs are stuck up his own ass," Fray Antonio sometimes said privately of certain "wearers of the spurs." The fray's criollo resentment of those born on the Iberian Peninsula came out frequently. But as a mestizo, I knew that criollos were as harsh on slaves and half-castes as the other Spaniards. Because criollos were kept out of high office in the Church and government by the spur wearers, they tended, like the fray, to characterize anyone who wielded power ruthlessly or arbitrarily as spur wearers, forgetting about their own sharp spurs.

  NINETEEN

  I fell into a deep sleep and awoke in the dark of the night. A ghostly moon navigated a sea of dark clouds, emerging for only a moment at a time. When she was obscured, the heavens were black as pitch. The night was filled with nocturnal birdcalls, the rustle of bushes as something bigger moved in the forest, and the noises made by the travelers—someone snoring, a mule snorting about something in its sleep.

  A thought came to me, one born of madness. Perhaps it was the pulque, the drink that even intoxicated gods, warping my mind until I did things that any lépero would find insane.

  When I was certain that no one was stirring in the area, I slipped my knife from its holder and arose from the ground. Crouching low, I went into the maguey field, away from the area where people were camped. If anyone saw me, they would think I was relieving myself or was stealing pulque.

  Circling around, I came to the area where the slave Yanga was tied with his back to a tree. Down on my hands and knees, I crawled as quietly as a snake slithering up to the tree. Yanga twisted his head to watch my approach. I paused and put a hand to my mouth to signal silence.

  Coughing erupted from the slave master, and I froze. I could not discern him in the darkness, but I believed he rolled over. A moment later he snored, and I moved forward.

  The cough had put my heart in my throat. The pulque was wearing off, and I was starting to realize I was in danger. If caught, I would face the same flogging post and gelding knife.

  My fear was overwhelming, and I longed to crawl back. But in my mind's eye I still saw Yanga's eyes, intelligent eyes, not those of a dumb animal but of a man who knew love and pain and knowledge and desire. Amigas, amigos, I wish I had had the courage of a lion, the strength of a tiger. But I was a boy of little consequence. It was time to return to my bed. Tomorrow, I would take to the road with the hounds of hell at my back. There was neither glory nor profit in helping a slave escape. Not even the fray would expect me to risk my own manhood to save the cojones of another.

  Ah, the spur wearers are right. Mestizos are without reason, and without guidance, I succumbed to my baser instincts. I crawled to the tree and cut Yanga's ropes.

  He didn't speak, but his eyes signaled his thanks.

  Just as I reached my sleeping spot, I heard running and Yanga rushed by me into the bushes.

  A moment later the slave master, stirred by the noise, shouted the alarm and ran into the same bushes. The man's sword was raised high and glinted when the moon peeked out of the clouds. Loud confusion erupted around me as other men shouted and drew their swords, not knowing what had caused the disturbance, assuming a bandit attack.

  I did not know if I should run or remain at the tree where I had been sleeping. If I ran, the men in the camp surely would know that I had cut the slave's bonds. My panic demanded that I flee, but my survival instincts told me to remain still. When the slave master looked at the ropes, he would see that Yanga had not broken them, that someone had cut them for him.

  From the bushes where the slave and his master had disappeared came the sounds of a struggle and cries of pain. No! What had I done? Cut Yanga free so the scoundrel could chop off his head? More cries, a whimpering sob, came from the bushes. It was too dark to see anything but the movement around me of dark figures until torches were lit. Brands blazing, the men went into the brush, following the sounds.

  I followed close behind, determined to appear as part of the curious crowd rather than the culprit. As I got closer I could see men examining someone prone on the ground who was in severe pain.

  Someone said, "Holy Jesu, he's been castrated!"

  My heart sank. I had cut Yanga loose just to have his manhood cut off. I pushed my way into the crowd of men and stared down at the person on the ground.

  It was the slave master, not Yanga. He was sobbing.

  The crotch of his pants was bloody.

  TWENTY

  I hid in the bushes and waited for the travelers to go on their way. When the last mule headed toward Jalapa, I walked over to a nearby indio hut and purchased a tortilla as my breakfast. The india woman—no doubt the wife of the maguey worker whose pulque I'd purloined—was young, little older than myself. Her harsh life, however—working the fields, preparing food, and dropping babies every year or two—had aged her prematurely. By age twenty-five she would be wizened beyond her years. That she had seen so little of youth weighed on me as she cooked the tortilla. She offered it to me with sad, dark eyes and lonely smile, refusing the cocoa bean I offered in trade.

  The tortilla—without even beans or peppers or a little hint of carne—was my entire desayuno. From a nearby stream I washed it down, forgoing another trip to the pulque cache.

  I then considered my plight. The fray would come for me; of that I was certain. I would wait at this spot, halfway to Jalapa, for the fray to catch up. It was a natural place for travelers to stop. I could also stay hidden and watch for the man named Ramon if he came looking for me. There was pulque to steal, and if I could no longer go without solid food, I could use one of my reales to buy enough tortillas and carne to last several days.

  Although I was certain that the fray would try to come... I also feared that he might be in trouble because of me and that I might now be on my own. How would I eat? Where would I sleep? These thoughts dogged me as I lay in the bushes and watched the trail from Veracruz.

  My own plight was not that different from Vida del Picaro Guzman de Alfarache, the life and adventures of the picaro, Guzman de Alfarache. The book—also known as as The Spanish Rogue—was one of the titles the fray tried, and failed, to hide from me, a work whose popularity surpassed even that of Don Quixote whose misadventures delighted readers throughout Spain and New Spain alike.

  If Cervantes sounded the death knell for the romantic knight, Guzman de Alfarache replaced that sentimentalized hero with a figure more in keeping with our cynical times: the picaro. As all know, the picaro is an amoral rascal who would rather live by his wits and his sword than the sweat of his brow.

  Like the poet-swordsman-philandering rogue Mateo, Guzman's picaro was a casteless wanderer. An adventurer of neither peasant stock nor of aristocra
tic blood, he roamed the world at will, mingling with people of all classes and professions, barely escaping punishment for his lying, conniving, stealing, and womanizing.

  Guzman's saga began in Seville, the crowning glory of Spain's greatest cities. All of the New World's treasure is shipped to Seville; and from that city, everything sent to the New World flows. A few years ago a sailor from the treasure fleet confided in me that the streets of Seville were paved in gold and only the most beautiful women in the world were allowed to enter its city walls.

  At fourteen years of age our picaro's father, a profligate scoundrel, squanders the family fortune and dies bankrupt. Our destitute hero must then set out to seek his own livelihood—following his father's ignoble example, it seems. Bad blood begets black blood, as the priests like to say.

  Cheated by reprobate innkeepers, waylaid by highwaymen, he learns life's lessons while still a youth. But despite his inexperience, he is a born picaro, a rogue at heart. He is at home everywhere, at every level of society, whether begging a copper off of a hog farmer or supping with a count in a castle.

  As he ambles from Spain to Italy, he loses his good clothes and money, joins a band of beggars, becomes a ne'er-do-well and gambler. He attempts honest labor as a kitchen scullion, but his baser instincts prevail even at that lowly station. When a silver goblet turns up missing—which our light-fingered friend has of course appropriated—the cook's wife is out of her head with fear, knowing that their master will beat her and her husband severely or even send them to jail. But the resourceful Guzman comes to her rescue. Cleaning and burnishing the goblet till it looks like new, he sells it back to her as a new one. Of course, these profits are not long for his purse. He quickly wastes his ill-gotten gain on bad women and worse cards.

  On and on it goes. There is no end to this rogue's depravities. Gambling, begging, thieving his way to Italy. As adept at losing money as he is at stealing it, fortune and misfortune are his inevitable lot.

  After many hair's-breadth escapes, he ends up in Rome, capital of the Catholic world. He joins a band of beggars who have turned begging into high art, even to the point of organizing a beggars' guild, complete with written laws and bylaws.

  Would it not shock the alcalde of Veracruz if were I to present him with written rules for a lépero code of conduct? Of course he would declare me mad. Among other things, Veracruz street denizens would not be able to read the rules.

  Guzman soon learns that while he has seen himself as a master of beggars, the Romans, who had once conquered the world, have much to teach him, including the different techniques for approaching men and women.

  "Men," he is instructed by a mentor beggar, "are not in the least affected by the laments of most beggars. They will be much more likely to put their hands in their pockets when you implore their assistance boldly, for God's sake. As for women," he continued, "as some pay their devotions to Our Lady of the Rosary, it is by one of these exhortations that we wheedle them. It is frequently a good effect also to pray that they may be preserved from all mortal sin, from false witnesses, the power of traitors, and from slanderous tongues; such wishes as these, pronounced in energetic terms and in an impressive tone of voice, will almost always make their purses fly open to assist you."

  He is taught to display ravenous hunger when eating before his patrons, which houses to approach for alms, and how to cadge convincingly. He is instructed never to wear anything new in public; to wrap a dishcloth over his head in winter instead of wearing a hat; to walk with crutches or one leg tied behind; to accept alms only in a cap, never in a purse or pocket; to hire and display small children in rags; a man is to carry one child in his arm and another by hand; a woman is to always have a child at her breast. He is taught to fake leprosy, even to the extent of erupting phony skin ulcers, causing his legs to appear swollen, to dislocate his arms, to render his face pale as death. He is taught these trade secrets and written rules only after swearing an oath of silence.

  Guzman, however, tires of the mendicant life and once again joins the aristocracy. Through trickery, of course. Passing himself off as a young nobleman, he seduces their most desirable women, in the end fleeing with jealous lovers dogging his trail.

  He applies to the priesthood when pious guilt overwhelms him. At the moment of his investiture, however, he runs off with a scarlet woman, who inevitably elopes with another, absconding with every peso of Guzman's ill-gotten savings.

  Reconnecting with his mother, rather than dissuading him from his evil path, she joins forces with him. Captured and sentenced to the galleys, he escapes the oar locks when he informs on his fellow slaves, exposing their planned mutiny. He is rewarded with his freedom.

  At the end of his memoir, he thus regales us: "Friendly reader, I have given you an account of the principal adventures of my life. What followed after the king was graciously pleased to grant me my liberty, you may expect to hear, should I live long enough to tell you."

  Ah, Guzman, would I, too, live long enough to tell all of my adventures.

  I am grateful for all he has taught me, permitting me to become the best beggar on the streets of Veracruz. And I can only hope that my problems in life will be solved by the way he overcame adversity with guile and guts.

  Guzman was, in truth, a mentor, but in the end he taught me more than begging tricks; he showed me a way of life. As I lay in the shade—reflecting on Guzman, waiting for the fray, and wondering what I would do if he failed to show—I found the answer to my own life's journey in the picaresque saga. Like Guzman—expelled from a comfortable life—I would do what I had to do to survive. If it meant lying, stealing, conniving, womanizing... so be it.

  Looking back on my lépero life, I was ashamed. I now believed my destiny demanded greater things that cadging alms. Among other things, I read Latin, Greek, and was conversant in waterfront tongues.

  I realized at that moment that by exposing me to Guzman, God Himself had pointed out the path of my life.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Near midday I spotted the fray on the road. With him was Fray Juan, the two sharing a mule. I ran out from my place of hiding and shouted my joy but quickly restraining myself when Fray Antonio gave me a warning look. Obviously he had not revealed my troubles to his friend, and I can imagine why. Fray Antonio, while not a man of sword or fire, had the heart of a lion, a sometimes frightened lion, but one driven by his passion to confront injustice. Fray Juan was more ethereal, a sweet and gentle soul whose heart was faint and tender.

  "Cristo, I told Fray Juan that you were so eager to accompany your friends to their village near the road to Jalapa that you asked to meet us along the way. Did your friends reach home all right?"

  The fray was asking me if I had had any problems. "Yes, but we were unable to connect with the one named Ramon. He didn't show up."

  The fray looked relieved.

  I followed behind the mule of the two Spaniards, in accordance with my station.

  Jalapa is north of Veracruz and inland. It was on the way to the City of Mexico, and several days' hard walk from Veracruz. I had covered less than half the distance when I met up with the two frays. It would take longer to cover the second part of the journey. After crossing the sands of the tierra caliente and starting up the mountain range, the path became steep and narrow. During the rainy season new streams sprang up along the trail, and the rivers jumped their banks.

  There was little talk along the route. I had many questions for the fray, but they went unspoken. From the dark tightness of his features, I knew that all had not gone well in Veracruz. Even though Fray Juan had not been told of my troubles, he was quickly aware that something was wrong.

  "Antonio says he has trouble with his stomach," Fray Juan said. "What do you think, Cristóbal, could it be that he is having a problem with a woman instead?"

  He was only joking, but the fray's problem was a woman, though not in the way Fray Juan suggested.

  Every hour up the foothills and mountains brought cooler air. Th
e trip was almost pleasant until we reached a pulqueria. Like the one I had stopped at, it was conducted from an indio hut. A large clay pot of pulque and a stone oven cooking tortillas sat in the shade, flanked by logs, under shade trees. It might have been a pleasant respite if the frays, seated on a log, had not struck up a conversation with priest inquisitors.

  There were three of them, Dominicans, two simple frays dressed in black and a prior wearing the green cross of the Holy Office of the Inquisition. I was immediately taken for an indio or mestizo servant to the frays and as such was of no more interest to them than our mule. Their own six servants sat a distance.

  The Dominicans greeted Fray Juan with friendly words but pointedly ignored Fray Antonio. I had seen this attitude toward him exhibited by other priests. Fray Antonio had fallen from grace with the Church. The fact that he shined in the eyes of God and the poor meant nothing to clerics who wore expensive hose, leather shoes, and silk shirts under their robes.

  The inquisitors immediately began to torment Fray Antonio and Fray Juan, one for breaking the rules of the Church, the other for associating with the rule breaker.

  "Fray Juan, tell us what news there is from Veracruz. We heard along the road that the archbishop has arrived."

  "That is true," Juan said. "I'm sure the festival, celebrating his safe journey, still goes on."

  "And what of sinners? Our good amigo of the Holy Office, Fray Osorio, is said to have his eye on a blasphemer in Veracruz who will test his faith in the fire of the stake."

  Fray Juan noticeably flinched at the mention of the dreaded Veracruz Inquisitor. Fray Antonio kept his eyes averted from the Inquisitors, but his face reddened from anger at the mention of Osorio.

  "What business brings you on the road?" Fray Juan asked, changing the subject. "Are you going to greet the archbishop and escort him to the City of Mexico?"