Aztec Blood

by Gary Jennings

  The obrajes owners contracted with the authorities for prisoners. One arrested for a minor offense was sold to the shop owner by the authorities for a specific time. A sentence of three or four years for stealing something of little value or failing to pay a debt was common.

  The system had great merit in the public mind. The officer who sold the prisoner had himself bought his position from the Crown. The sale helped him recoup his investment, and the prisoner earned his keep. It permitted the shop owners to produce goods cheaply while still turning huge profits. Most of the bond workers were chained to their work station for all their waking hours, being released only to take in food and eliminate waste.

  Some workers were slaves who were not chained to their workplace but spent their days unloading raw materials and loading finished goods or running errands to pick up food or supplies. Investigating a shop for rumors, after a few hours I realized it was useless. The shop owner and his overseers kept the workers going at full speed at all times. I left and went back onto the streets.

  I saw Ramon de Alva walking along the arcade on the main plaza. A young man about my own age was with him and at first I supposed him to be Alva's son, but realized that the similarity was in style, not physical appearance. They walked like predators, sizing up the next kill, and studied the world with hardened eyes. I followed them, puzzling over Mateo's remark that one day Ramon would tell me why he wanted me dead.

  The younger man stirred a memory in me, but the recollection stayed out of reach, slipping away like a fish each time I reached to grab it. Noting the coach's coat of arms inscribed on its doors, I knew who the young man was. Luis. The last time I saw him he was the proposed betrothed of Eléna in Veracruz. His facial scars, the result of pox or some type of burning, remained with him. He was handsome despite them, but they coarsened his appearance.

  On impulse, I followed the coach. It moved no faster in the heavy traffic than quick-footed pedestrians. I wanted to know where he lived. He was not only involved with Ramon, but was related to the old woman.

  The palatial house that the coach stopped at bore the same coat of arms on the stone wall near the main gate. The house was near the Alameda on a street that held some of the finest palaces in the city. Clearly, Luis belonged to one of the most prominent families in New Spain.

  I noted the house well, determined to investigate it further, and turned to leave after the carriage had entered the premises and the street guard went inside to assist the occupants. Another carriage pulled up as I started to walk away, and I stopped and pretended to examine something on the ground in the hope that it held the elderly matron and that I would get a fresh look at her.

  Rather than entering the compound, the carriage stopped beside the main gate and a young woman stepped down from it unassisted. I shuffled toward her, toying with the idea of practicing my beggar skills on her, when she turned and looked at me.

  Holy Mother of Christ! I stared into the face of a ghost.

  The years since last I saw her had not left her food for worms in the grave but had turned her into a woman. What a woman! ¡Bella! Beautiful! The beauty Michelangelo created when God directed his hand to paint angels.

  Gaping, I staggered to her, my knees weak. "I thought you were dead!"

  A small scream escaped her lips as she saw me rush toward her in my lépero guise.

  "No! No! It's me—from Veracruz. They told me you were dead."

  The gate guard came at me with a whip. "Filthy beggar!"

  I caught the blow on my forearm. Before going out on a street mission to expose violent insurrectos, I'd put on the metal forearm guard Mateo recommended. I blocked the whip with my right forearm, stepped in, and hit the guard across the face with the metal of my left one.

  Eléna's carriage driver leaped off the coach, and I heard the pounding of footsteps from the courtyard. Scrambling around the carriage, I dashed across the street and ran between houses.

  I returned home to shave my beard and change my filthy ragged hat and shirt for different filthy rags before I returned to the street to continue the slave investigation. In a few days my nose would be back to normal size, but I would not be recognized—they would be looking for a full-bearded lépero. It would be assumed that I had intended to attack Eléna. A lépero who attacked a gachupin would be sent to the silver mines for a life sentence at the hardest imaginable labor—if he was not hanged instead.

  I wished I had struck Luis's face rather than the guard's. But I was more excited about Eléna than my increased peril.

  "She's alive!" I thought, my heart pounding.

  Why did the servant say she was dead? Was the servant merely mistaken—or was the picture not of Eléna? I rolled my memory over and over and decided that there was a good resemblance between Eléna and the girl in the picture, but no more than one might expect between sisters. Regardless of the solution to the mystery, the truth was that Eléna lived.

  How was a half blood, a breed lower than a cur, filthier than a pig, with the habits of sloths and the rats that eat their own babies, to claim a Spanish beauty betrothed to nobleman? ¡Ay de mí! It suddenly struck me. She may already be married to Luis. If she was, I will kill him and marry his widow.

  But she had seen me back on the streets as a lépero. Would I never shed my scabrous outer shell? Dirty feet, dirty hands, dirty face, dirty hair, unkempt, unbathed, how would I ever find a dark-eyed Spanish beauty like Eléna to love me if I am forever the Marqués de Beggars?

  The only way I would ever be able to stand in the same room with her was if I possessed wealth and power.

  My mind began to toy with ideas on how to become wealthy. Mateo had also condemned our lack of money and had spoken of the days when he made much dinero selling libros deshonestos.

  Eh, amigos, I would have to sell many dirty books to make my fortune. But as with Hercules shoveling mierda from stables, there would be a reward after the dirty work was finished.

  After spending a day on the streets, listening to the strange mélange of slave languages, I came to the conclusion that the africanos in the city were indeed agitated. A young servant girl had been beaten to death by an older Spanish woman, who believed that her husband was having sex with the girl. The Spanish woman did nothing to her husband because he forced sex on a servant girl, and of course, the authorities did not prosecute the woman for killing the girl.

  I heard the words, "red frog," a number of times, as if it were a meeting place and I soon concluded that it might be a pulqueria.

  Rushing back to the don's house, I found Mateo sleeping on a hammock in the shade of fruit trees. From the pile on the ground near the hammock, he looked like he had had a hard day drinking wine and smoking dog droppings.

  "I know where the slaves meet secretly. A pulqueria called 'the Red Frog.' "

  Mateo yawned and stretched his arms. "And you wake me from a wondrous dream for this? I had just slayed two dragons, won a kingdom, and was making love to a goddess when you interrupted me with your jabber."

  "Excuse me, Don Mateo, Knight of the Golden Cross of Amadís of Gaul, but as one who would like to pay Don Julio back for the gracious food he provides, not to mention his hospitality above the stable, I learned a vital piece of information almost at the cost of my life. Tonight we must investigate fire-breathing africano rebels who meet at a den called the Red Frog."

  Mateo yawned, took a long draw from a wine bottle, smacked his lips, and lay back. "I rented the establishment for the next several nights from the owner with the assistance of the Recontonería. We are offering free pulque to the slaves. If that doesn't get them talking, nothing will. The owner was most accommodating. Not even swine who run illegal pulquerias for slaves want a rebellion—bad for business."

  Mateo went back to fighting dragons and rescuing beautiful princesses. I encountered Isabella going to my room. Feigning an interest in coats of arms, I described Luis's to her and asked her if she knew the family. She told me it was the family of Don Eduardo de la Cer
da and his son, Luis. Isabella was a storehouse of gossip and rumor, and I quickly ascertained that Luis and Eléna were about to be betrothed.

  That meant, that if I hurried, I could kill Luis without making her a widow.

  EIGHTY-SIX

  That night I was a server of pulque to slaves. The lowest possible grade of pulque, barely fermented and watered down, was the usual swill served to the slaves. But thanks to the generosity of Mateo Rosas, pulqueria proprietor extraordinare, they had pure pulque in which both cuapatle and brown sugar had been added to give it gusto.

  Mateo took a taste of it before we opened the doors and spit it out.

  "This stuff would burn the hair off a mule."

  I soon discovered that the fifty africanos in the room, forty men and ten women, had a better constitution for strong drink than the indios. It took barrel after barrel before I could detect its affect in their eyes and voices. Soon, though, they were laughing and dancing and singing.

  "We're going to run out of this swill pretty soon," Mateo whispered to me. "Get the agitators working."

  Two africanos who had been recruited to obtain information were in the room. At my signal, one of them climbed atop a table and shouted for silence.

  "Poor Isabella was killed by her master, beaten to death because the woman's husband raped her, and no one does anything about it. What are we going to do about it?"

  Angry roars came every corner of the room.

  Isabella? Too bad it was the wrong Isabella.

  Soon the room was in an uproar as one person and another shouted solutions, most of which involved killing all the Spanish in the country. No one seemed to take notice that the generous bartender was Spanish.

  More pulque made the rounds, and someone yelled that they needed a king to lead them. One candidate after another was shouted down, when one stood up and said his name was Yanga. It wasn't the Yanga I had known, and one of our agitators whispered to me, "His name's Allonzo and he's owned by a goldsmith."

  But the name worked magic, and he was quickly elected "King of New Africa." His woman, Belonia, was elected queen on the first shout.

  After that, everyone got drunker.

  There were no plans made to obtain weapons, to recruit soldiers, establish a timetable, kill anyone.

  We broke open the last barrel of pulque and walked out, letting the slaves enjoy themselves at no expense. We did this routine three more nights without any suggestion of insurrection. What we did confirm was that the slaves were victims of hopelessness.

  "Tavern talk," Mateo said, disgusted. "That's all it is, just as the don thought. They are angry over the death of the girl and the injustices to themselves, but it's not enough of a spark to ignite them. These slaves are well-fed, little worked, and sleep on more comfortable beds than Isabella provides us. They are not like their brothers and sisters on the plantations, who are starved and worked to death. Bah! A friend's husband was not returning until late night from Guadalajara. Such a woman! And I missed a night of bliss to serve swill to slaves."

  Don Julio returned from inspecting the tunnel the next day and Mateo and I reported to him.

  "Talk, that is all I thought it was. I will report immediately to the viceroy. I'm sure he will be relieved."

  The don had no assignment for us. I had suggested to Mateo that it was time for us to earn some money so we could live as gentlemen instead of stable boys, and he said he would think the matter over. I soon learned that he did more than think about it.

  "The Recontonería representative is willing to finance the importation and sale of libros deshonesto, the more indecent the better. I have Seville contacts from the days when I was one of the great autors of comedias in that city. It would be little work for them to arrange for the purchase and shipment from Spain and for me to arrange to clear customs in Veracruz. The Recontonería operates there, too, and will provide me with names of each person who must be given a bite."

  "What does the Recontonería get out of this?"

  "Our heads if we cheat them. They have their own version of the royal fifth—they get one peso for every five that we earn."

  "Is there any competition for this business?"

  "There was, but we no longer have to worry about him."

  "Why did he leave the business?"

  "The Inquisition burned him in Puebla a week ago."

  Life seemed bright as I went to bed that night Don Julio was pleased with our work on the slave revolt rumors. Mateo had a scheme to make us rich enough to afford the horses and clothes we needed to prance on the Alameda. I intended to become the richest man in New Spain by smuggling books banned by the Inquisition. And to marry the best woman in the colony.

  ¡Ay de mí! We mortals make many plans for our puny lives, but the Dark Sisters weave the Fates's shroud, not ourselves.

  EIGHTY-SEVEN

  Late that night I was awakened by noise on the streets and in the house. I instantly assumed that the house had been attacked. Don Julio had gone back to the tunnel, taking Mateo with him, leaving me as master of the house, at least in name, since Isabella barely permitted me into the main part of the house.

  I grabbed my sword and found Isabella, Inez, Juana, and the servants huddled in terror.

  "The slaves have revolted!" Isabella cried. "Everyone is fleeing to the viceroy's palace for protection."

  "How do you know?"

  Inez, the nervous little bird, flapped her wings and announced that we would all be murdered, with the women raped first.

  Juana said, "People heard an army of slaves running through the streets, and the alarm has spread."

  Clutching a strongbox, Isabella told the servants to follow her to the viceroy's and protect her.

  "I need the servants for a litter for Juana!" I told her.

  She ignored me and left, taking the frightened servants with her, even the africano servants trembling in fear at the slave revolt.

  Carrying Juana on my back with her frail sticks of legs around my waist, I left the house with her and Inez. People were hurrying by, women with their jewel boxes and men with swords and strongboxes. All around me I heard word of one neighborhood after another entirely wiped out, murdered by the rampaging slaves, who were cutting up the victims and performing frightful rites over the remains.

  Where had Mateo and I gone wrong? How could we have so misjudged the intent of the slaves? Even if the city survived, Don Julio and his two trusty spies would end up with our heads rolling off the chopping block.

  Times like this caused my lépero instincts to surface, and my first thought was to get a fast horse out of the city—not out of fear of the slaves, but racing to the tunnel to warn Don Julio and Mateo that we had guessed wrong and must flee. I would have willingly left Isabella and Inez to the unkind hands of the slaves, but I could not abandon poor Juana.

  The whole city appeared to have poured into the main plaza. Men, women, and crying children, most, like us, in bedclothes, screaming at the viceroy to put down the rebellion.

  From a balcony of the palace, the viceroy called for silence. Criers at high places around the square one after the other repeated the viceroy's words.

  "An hour ago a herd of pigs being brought into the city for market got loose and ran through the streets. People heard the pounding hooves and thought it was an army of slaves."

  He was silent for a moment.

  "Go home. There is no rebellion."

  Among more primitive people, great moments in history are remembered and retold or sung time and time again around the night fire. Civilized peoples write the events down and pass their history onto their descendants in the form of marks on paper.

  The night the people of the City of Mexico were panicked into believing a slave revolt was occurring because a herd of pigs had run through the city has been immortalized in a thousand diaries and recorded by historians at the university. Else who would believe that the people of one of the great cities of the world could behave so foolishly?

  Would
the tale have ended there, our children's children and thereafter could have laughed a little at the image of the great dons and ladies of the city running through the streets in their bedclothes, clutching their coin and jewels to their bosom. But the Spaniard is a proud beast, a conqueror of empires, a ravager of continents, and he does not take humiliation without drawing his sword and spilling blood.

  Demands went to the viceroy to take care of the slave "problem." Don Julio's report that a king and queen had been elected and the tavern talk of rebellion were deemed proof that a rebellion was still imminent. Something had to be done by the viceroy to calm the fears and redress the shame.

  The Audiencia, the high court of New Spain over which the viceroy presided, ordered the arrest of thirty-six africanos whose names had been recorded at the pulqueria the night Mateo and I got them drunk. Of those arrested, five men and two women were quickly found guilty of insurrection and hanged in a public square. Afterward, their heads were chopped off and displayed on pikes at the entrance to the causeways and the main plaza. The others were severely punished, the men whipped and castrated, the women beaten until blood flowed freely and bone on their backs glistened.

  I did not attend the hangings and floggings, although most of the gentry of the city had been there, but I had the misfortune to come face-to-face with King Yanga and Queen Isabella. Their eyes followed me as I walked across the main plaza. Fortunately their impaled heads could not swivel on the pikes, and I was able to hurry away from their accusing gaze.

  Mateo left for Veracruz to send off a letter to an old friend in Seville who would arrange for the purchase of books prohibited by the Inquisition. He would send the letter on one of the lobo ships that raced to avoid pirates between Veracruz and Seville in between voyages of the great treasure fleet.