Aztec Blood

by Gary Jennings

  "Do you know these actors?" I asked Mateo.

  "No, but I am sure they have heard of Mateo de Rosas Oquendo."

  If they had not already, they would before long.

  "The troupe pretends to be Spanish, but I can tell from their accents that they are not. I suspect they are Italians. Everyone wants to come to the Spanish stage. It is known everywhere that our plays and actors are the best in the world. This play is written by my amigo, Tirso de Molina. The Trickster of Seville is a comedia in three acts."

  "Like what you put on—on," I stammered, "in Seville?" I almost said, 'at the fair.' I had already resolved in my mind that Mateo knew I was the boy from the Jalapa fair, but the matter remained a secret unspoken between us.

  "Yes, like Seville, though a Puebla production will not be so grand."

  The temporary theater was grand to my eyes. The only play I had ever seen other than ones put on by the churches during religious holidays was the one at the Jalapa fair, where a grassy knoll and some blankets served as a theater. The audience there had been rough muleteers and traveling merchants, but I could see from the balconies and rooftops that much more genteel people had come to see this play.

  Mateo wanted seats on a balcony or roof, but none were left. We went to the far wall opposite the stage. Benches were available there for a few coppers more, and we stood on them to get a good look at the stage.

  Close to the stage were what Mateo called the vulgos, the vulgar people.

  "The mosqueteros are the lice of the theater," Mateo said. "When they step into a corral, suddenly a butcher and baker who sign their names with an X are experts on comedias. Men whose only acting has been to lie to their wives suddenly believe themselves as much a fault finder with an actor's performance as an Inquisitor with a blasphemer's denials."

  The play began in a room in the palace of the king of Naples. We were told that we were in the Italian palace by an actor who indicated a hanging cloth that had an elaborate door painted on it. It was nighttime, the actor says, and Isabel, a duchess, was awaiting the arrival of her lover, Duke Octavio, in a dark room.

  "Pretty wench," Mateo said, of the actress who played Isabel.

  The main character in the play arrived. His name was Don Juan. He entered the room with his face concealed by his cloak and pretended to be Duke Octavio. When palace guards catch the two, Don Juan boasted that he had fooled Isabel into thinking he was Duke Octavio and made love to her.

  The mosqueteros bunched near the stage yelled insults to the actors, attacking their accents. The mosqueteros had picked up on the same thing Mateo did—the actors had Italian accents. While the play was set in Italy, the area was under the control of the Spanish king; most of the characters were supposed to be Spanish. One particular vulgo was the loudest and the most aggressive. He was familiar with the play, having seen it in the Corral del Principe in Madrid, or so he claimed. He shouted corrections to the lines he believed the actors blundered.

  Mateo grimaced at the noise made by the mosqueteros. "No autor or actor has failed to be a victim to this rabble."

  But the play went on. Don Juan's jest ruined the duke and the Lady Isabel, and Don Juan fled Naples. He was shipwrecked and washed ashore near a fishing village, where he was taken to the hut of Tisbea, a fisher maid. When the young woman saw him, she fell in love with him. As he lay unconscious in her arms, she said, "Gallant and handsome youth of noble brow, return, I pray, to life."

  With a change of dress and a different-colored wig, Tisbea is played by the same actress who played Isabel.

  Don Juan tells her as he lies in her arms that he has fallen madly in love with her. "My country girl, I wish that God had drowned me in the waves that I might have been spared the madness of my love for you."

  Convinced by him that although he is high born and she a peasant girl, his love is true, she yields to his demands that they share a bridal bed. As soon as he is through with the girl, he and his servant flee the village on horses they have stolen from her.

  Tisbea, in anguish at the betrayal, cries, "Fire! Fire! I'm burning! Sound the alarm, amigos, while my eyes bring water. Another Troy is in flames. Fire, my compadres! May love have pity on a soul in flames. The caballero deceived me with his promise of marriage and soiled my honor."

  The mosquetero who considered himself a master of the play ran to the stage. "You stupid woman! That is not her correct speech!" He threw a tomato at the woman.

  Mateo moved with the speed of a jungle cat. One instant he was standing beside me, and the next he was at the stage with his sword in hand. He grabbed the mosquetero and swung him around. The brute stared at him, startled, and then grabbed for a dagger. Mateo hit him on the head with the hilt of the sword, and the man crumbled to the ground.

  Mateo turned to the audience. He lashed the air with his sword. "I am Don Mateo Rosas de Oquendo, caballero for the king and autor of comedias. There is to be no more disturbance while this lovely lady with serene eyes," he turned and bowed to the woman, "speaks her lines." He nudged the unconscious man at his feet. "I would kill him, but a gentleman does not soil his sword with the blood of swine."

  Clapping came from the balconies and rooftops. The vulgar people said nothing.

  Mateo bowed once more to the actress, and she threw him a kiss.

  Returning to Seville, Don Juan kept up his scandalous conduct. Betraying a friend, he deceived another young woman into believing that he was her lover. The woman shouted for help when she discovered the trick. Her father, Don Gonzalo, came to her rescue and was killed by Don Juan in a sword fight.

  Despite the tragedy, Don Juan, driven by demons, unable to be the honorable gentleman that was his birthright, continued his intrigues, tricking women into surrendering their honor to him.

  His downfall came, not at the hands of the living, but the dead. Don Juan came upon a statue of the fallen Don Gonzalo. Making fun of the stone statue, Don Juan pulled its beard and invited it to dine. Only to have the invitation accepted.

  In a scene of ghoulish horror, Don Juan and the stone specter of the dead father have dinner. The dinner takes place in a dark church, and a tomb is the dinner table.

  Eating a dish of spiders and vipers, and washing it down with bitter wine, Don Gonzalo said that all debts must one day be repaid:

  Mark those well whom God has judged,

  And punished for their crimes.

  The day of reckoning arrives

  When this world's debts are repaid.

  The arrogant Don Juan at first challenges the ghost, showing no fear. But when the ghost clasps his hand, the fires of hell grip the seducer. With a clap of thunder, we were told the tomb is swallowed by the earth, taking Don Juan and the ghost with it. However, in this case the actors fell to the floor and they and the tomb were covered with blankets. The "thunder" was a drum.

  When the play was over, I was eager to return to our campsite and discuss it with Mateo, but he had other plans. He twirled his mustache as he told me to go back alone, "I have some unfinished business." I followed his look to the stage where the actress was giving him the eye.

  I trudged back to the camp alone and ate beans around a campfire, while Mateo, caballero and autor, lay in the arms of an actress and tasted a bit of heaven. Ay, there was another reason for my melancholy. This play about the scandalous Don Juan was the very play that the dark-eyed beauty Eléna had hidden under the seat of the carriage the day she saved my life.

  SIXTY-THREE

  We did not see the naualli magician at our encampment or in Puebla. Circulating among the other indio traders and magicians, I learned that he had been seen a week earlier on the road that leads south. One of the traders looked at me suspiciously when I asked about the naualli, and I told him that I was growing tired of assisting the old Healer and was looking for a new master.

  Mateo was anxious to leave the area. He had not returned from his tryst with the actress until almost dawn. His doublet had a tear, and the side of his head was bruised.

/>   "Did you bed with a den of wild cats?" I asked.

  "In truth, there was one too many in the bed last night, the woman's husband showed up at a most inopportune time."

  Eh, amigos, was this a familiar tale with the picaro? I pretended to be shocked. "Dios mio. And how did he feel about you making love to his wife?"

  "He found it very painful at the time. My problem is that I am not sure he feels anything anymore. He was bleeding profusely when I last saw him. We need to get on our way before his friends or the constable seek you out."

  "Me? What have I done?"

  He shook his head with feigned sadness. "You were born, Bastardo. I told the woman to tell them that a mestizo boy broke into the room and was raping her when her husband came to her rescue."

  ¡Ay de mí!

  Along the road we stopped at villages and asked about the naualli. We traveled for three days before we obtained word that the naualli was in the area. Mateo and I had both questioned indios, mestizos and españols along the way and learned nothing. It was the Healer, speaking to a cacique, who obtained the information about the naualli.

  I accompanied the Healer to his meeting with the cacique. We sat in the cacique's hut and were served a chocolate and chili drink by the cacique's nephew. At first I took the boy, who was about my own age, as a girl. He was dressed in woman's clothing and performed the duties of a woman. Later the Healer told me that when there are not enough women to perform household duties in a village because of losses to plagues, that at birth some male babies would be raised as girls and taught womanly chores. The Healer assured me that that did not include acting as a woman to perform ahuilnéma... but seeing the wrinkled old headman together with the boy-dressed-as-a-girl, I was reminded of the old cacique and young wife I had "healed" of the ahuilnéma problem they had with their marriage.

  "My uncle has been told that the naualli is in the area," I told Mateo later. "He operates chiefly around here, serving a number of small towns and villages, leaving only to attend festivals and fairs."

  "Did he learn anything about the Knights of the Jaguar?"

  "The cacique said that the knights will rise and drive the Spanish from the lands of the indios. But other than such boasting, he had no real information."

  Mateo decided we would camp at a larger village along a well-traveled road. From there we would hunt for the naualli within the areas he was said to traverse while we gathered information about him and the knights.

  At the village cantina, Mateo spoke to three Spanish traders. The cantina was nothing more than a covered patio with two tables. I sat down in the dirt nearby as a priest joined them. I was always interested in listening to Spaniards talking. It fed my curiosity about that side of my blood. Because of the fray, I had seen maps of the world and knew that Spain was only one country among many. But, of course, Spain dominated most of Europe and was the greatest power in the world.

  I soon discovered that the conversation was about strange events.

  "Word of missing people is becoming more and more frequent," a trader said. "A hacienda owner rode out to inspect a fence and never returned. His horse came back without him, but searches could find no trace of his body. What is most suspicious is that after he disappeared, some of his indio vaqueros ran away. The overseer said that they believed the owner had been killed by an indio who could take the form of a jaguar."

  "The number of suspicious deaths has risen steadily," another trader said. "I heard a similar story about a merchant who disappeared while traveling. His servants ran away with his goods. One was tracked down and tortured. To his dying breath, he claimed that his master had been attacked by a were-jaguar and dragged into the jungle. And it's not just we Spanish who are victims. My own servants are terrified unless we travel with mule trains and other merchants. They tell me that indios and mestizos who work for Spaniards are being hunted down and devoured by jaguars that have been trained to kill Spaniards and those who support them."

  Mateo made a listening response that showed his sympathy. "Have your servants told you who has trained these animals?"

  There was general agreement that no names were ever mentioned. Mateo did not ask specifically about the Knights of the Jaguar. I supposed he was silent because he was seeking information, not providing it.

  "The viceroy should be taking care of this problem," a trader said. "If he can't handle it, we should send our complaint to the Council of the Indies."

  The third trader scoffed. "I have been traveling the roads and trails of New Spain for half my lifetime. There is nothing new about these stories. There is always talk among the indios that we will be driven from their land. And it is always by some magical means. A man who turns into a jaguar is nothing more than the fanciful imagination of these simple people."

  "It is not fanciful. I believe it is true."

  The pronouncement came from an unexpected source. The priest who had joined them took a deep gulp of wine and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief.

  "I have worked among these savages," the priest said. "They hate us; hate us for taking their land, their women, their pride. They come to church on Sunday and lie about their adherence to our Savior. Then they go out and sacrifice babies. Did you know that? That they sacrifice babies with curly hair?"

  "Babies with curly hair?" a merchant repeated.

  "They sacrifice curly haired babies because the ripples in the hair are similar to the ripples in a lake. The curly hair pleases the lake god. When a baby cries when it's being sacrificed, the tears are symbolic of rain and it pleases the rain god."

  "They do it because they believe the gods will give them water for their crops," a merchant piped in. "It's been a dry year in this region. When it rains too little or too much, the crops don't grow and they starve."

  "I can't stand dealing with these savages," the priest said, mopping his forehead again. "They practice the dark magic of Satan. I don't doubt they are in league with the devil and can turn themselves into were-jaguars, just as there are witches and warlocks in our own country who can take the shape of wolves. They are in the jungle when it gets dark. You never see their bodies but their eyes shine at you. It drove my companion priest mad. Three days ago he hanged himself from the bell rope. I ran into the chapel when I heard the bell tolling. There he was, dangling from the rope."

  SIXTY-FOUR

  The next day we had word that the naualli was seen at a nearby village.

  We went there, the Healer and I to perform the snake magic, Mateo with Jose to sell guitars to Spanish living in the area.

  The village turned out to be even bigger than the one where we had been staying, more of a small town than a simple village. I learned on the way to the magician's hut that the magician was a diviner of dreams. Along the way, the Healer told me the most famous dream in Aztec history. It concerned Montezuma's sister, who rose from the dead to prophesy the Spanish conquest.

  Princess Papantzin was the sister of Montezuma. She was close to him as his friend and trusted advisor. When she died suddenly, Montezuma was in great shock. Because of his love and attachment for her, he had her entombed in an underground vault on the palace grounds. After the burial ceremony, the entrance to the tomb was covered by a slab of stone.

  Early the next morning one of Montezuma's children saw the princess sitting by a fountain in a courtyard of the palace. She ran and told her governess, who, upon determining that it was indeed Princess Papantzin, roused the household.

  Montezuma had the princess brought into his presence and she told him a strange tale. She said that she had become dizzy and passed out. When she awoke, she found herself in the black tomb. She made her way out and was able to push aside the stone slab enough to get out into the garden. She was resting when the child spotted her.

  Before this event, the princess was known to have suffered a fainting malady in which she would fall to the floor and not awaken for several minutes. She had apparently suffered one of much greater duration this time and had been taken
for dead.

  Montezuma was overjoyed at the resurrection of his sister, but his joy was short-lived. She told him she had had a dream that she had walked with the dead in the underworld and they had taken her to the shore of the Eastern Sea. There she had seen boats bigger than a nobleman's house and strange men. The men had light eyes and pale skin and hair. They called themselves Sons of the Sun and said they had come from the House of the Sun beyond the Eastern Sea.

  When they came ashore, their leader was no ordinary man, but a god dressed in a suit of gold. His shield shined with the fire of the sun.

  "I am Quetzalcóatl, the Plumed Serpent," he said. "I have come to claim my kingdom."

  Ayyo, poor Montezuma. Following his sister's dream, Hernando Cortes landed at Veracruz. No wonder he was frozen with fear when the news was brought to him that strange men with pale faces and shiny armor had arrived from the Eastern Sea. In dealing with Cortes, Montezuma's indecision was caused by his conviction that he was dealing with a god.

  The Healer and the dream diviner talked and smoked, filling the magician's small hut so full of smoke I was forced to wait outside. Besides news that the naualli was in the area, I learned another interesting fact before I sought fresh air: a dwarf had disappeared from a neighboring village. The small person was the grown son of an old widow. He had been drinking pulque with a neighbor and had disappeared walking home.

  "It is believed that Tlaloc has taken the dwarf," the dream reader said.

  Eh, Tlaloc gets blamed for many things when the land is dry, I thought.

  Tlaloc was that thirsty god who gives rain. His name means He Who Makes Life Grow. When he was happy, maize and beans grew tall and bellies were full. When he was angry, he let the crops die from thirst or flooded them with too much water. The traders had mentioned that little children were sacrificed to him because their tears looked like raindrops. Because statues of gods were often short, dwarfs were also especially favored by the gods as sacrifices.