Aztec Blood

by Gary Jennings

  I barely got a glance at the scenery cart.

  "Let's go," Mateo commanded.

  Ay, faithful, stupid, pudgy Sancho trudged away, following Don Quixote on another mission to joust with windmills.

  ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINE

  We met with Jaime and a prostitute a block from the warehouse.

  "You have given the puta her instructions?" Mateo asked.

  "Sí, señor. But she requires more money to do the task." Jaime held out that ever-demanding hand.

  "Do you remember what I told you about your ears?" Mateo asked. "You and she are to do what I tell you, or you will both lose your ears and noses. Here," Mateo said, giving him a single coin, "this is the last. Finito!"

  The hand dropped. But I did not like the look in the boy's eyes. I said so when Mateo and I left them to get into position.

  "You should have given the boy more money," I said.

  "No. The little thief's rich already. He's gotten enough."

  "You don't understand the mind of a lépero. There is always famine after feast, so there is never enough."

  Four guards were at the front of the warehouse. Only one was on duty. The other three were around a fire, two of them asleep and one dozing on and off, waiting for his shift to begin. One guard was at the back. Only one was needed because a yell from him would bring the others.

  Jaime and the puta went to work, walking near the back of the warehouse, attracting the guard's attention. Jaime went over to speak to the guard, offering him the woman's service for a nominal amount. It was to be expected that the guard would refuse, not wanting to risk severe punishment by leaving his post. And that is exactly what happened: The boy gave us a subtle hand signal that the guard would not leave his post.

  As the boy kept the guard talking, we approached in our costumes.

  The guard grinned at us as we came near. Jaime jerked on his sleeve. "Eh, I offer you a good deal."

  "Get out of here, lépero—"

  That was all the guard got out before Mateo put him out with a blow from the hilt of his sword.

  "Quick now," Mateo told Jaime.

  The boy and the prostitute left to attract the attention of the men in front of the warehouse, while Mateo and I broke the lock on the back door. With the lock off, I dumped on the ground the contents of a sack I had been carrying. It contained a dozen torches dipped in pitch. Mateo lit straw and used it to light a torch. From it we lit the others.

  The earth floor was blanketed with chaff and husks, and corn dust was thick in the air.

  "Ah, Chico loco," Mateo said, grinning, "this place is a tinder box ready to blow!"

  Even as we lit the torches, these remnants and leavings began to ignite, and by the time we threw the blazing brands into the corns sacks, the floor was aflame. I counted us lucky that all that air-borne corn dust hadn't exploded like gunpowder, blowing us all to Mictlan. By the time we left the warehouse, everything was burning. The floor chaff and corn-sack conflagrations were converging into lakes of fire.

  We fled that inferno for our lives, tongues of flame licking the sky.

  Returning to the house where we were holed up, darkness was falling. Behind us the sky was filled with explosions of shooting flame and high, twisting coils of billowing smoke as the huge warehouse turned into a single hell-fired holocaust.

  By now Jaime would be telling people that the viceroy's guards had been seen starting the fire. So would other street people paid to spread the story.

  "What if the city burns down?" I asked Mateo.

  "Mexico is not a city of wood hovels like Veracruz. It will not burn down. And if it did"—He shrugged—"it would be God's will."

  He was in a jolly mood by the time we were back at the house. I had to argue to keep him from going to a cantina to find trouble and a card game. Still something about the night's work had left me uneasy.

  I awoke in the middle of the night, my paranoia as much afire as the warehouse had been. I went into Mateo's room and shook him awake.

  "Get up. We're leaving."

  "Are you loco? It's still dark."

  "Exactly. The viceroy's soldados will be here soon."

  "What? How do you know?"

  "How do I know the sun will rise in the East? It's in my mind and my blood. I used to be a lépero. This well may be running dry for Jaimie, but not if he sells us to the viceroy. We're worth a fortune to the little beggar."

  He looked at me for a long moment and then flew out of bed. "Andando!"

  We left dressed as poor street people.

  We were walking away from the house, when a group of soldados on foot and on horse converged on the house.

  Under ordinary circumstances, we would have been challenged on the street because we were out past the ten o'clock curfew the viceroy mandated. On this night people were still on the streets because of the celebration following the parade and an extra attraction: The warehouse still glowed and smoldered from the fire.

  We had to get off the street and had no place to go. I led Mateo to a place where the door was always open: A House of the Poor.

  This one was larger than the dirt-floored hovel in Veracruz. Each of us secured a bed with a straw mattress rather than just straw flung on the ground.

  ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY

  The next morning we stayed in the House of the Poor until the streets were alive with people. The day had special significance to me. It was the day of Eléna's wedding to Luis. Rather than the formal wedding involving all of the great families of the colony, the wedding was to be a simple affair in the viceroy's chambers. The archbishop would preside.

  "Your face looks like Montezuma's after he discovered Cortes was not an Aztec god."

  "It's Eléna's wedding day. She may be getting married at this very moment."

  "It is also the day of reckoning for us. The viceroy's men will be on the streets looking for us. We will not last long if our plan to start a riot does not work."

  Jaime the lépero knew some of our sins, but nothing of our plans. As for Ramon, Luis, and the viceroy, they might conclude that I'd fired the warehouse, but they would not know about my larger plans.

  We went onto the streets dressed as léperos, our swords hidden under ragged cloaks. We headed for the marketplace where maize would be sold. What we found there was turmoil. A large crowd had gathered before the stalls of the maize sellers. The dealers were literally auctioning off the maize to the highest bidders. And the bidders were the servants from the wealthiest families in town.

  "Nothing will be left for us," I heard people mutter.

  "It's not fair!" Mateo shouted. "My babies will starve! Food and justice!"

  "My family's hungry!" I roared. "What can I feed them? The soles of my shoes?"

  "The viceroy's men fired the warehouse to raise prices!" That from someone, I imagined, who had been paid by us.

  A group of ten guards from the viceroy's palace stood by at the edge of the crowd, uneasy. They were outnumbered by fifty to one. An officer on horseback watched me and Mateo.

  "We will all starve!" Mateo shouted. "It's the viceroy's fault. He eats fatted calves while our children cry and die in our arms!"

  "I need food for my babies!" an old hag yelled. The woman looked many years from having birthed any babies, but I took up her cry and soon other women were shouting for food.

  Arguments broke out between the food sellers, and people demanding they be sold maize at an affordable price. Pushing and shoving ensued and tempers flared. The crowd was already enraged, and with each new indignity, the fury grew, people gathering strength from others around them. People who would normally scurry away like whipped dogs from a spur wearer's whip were shouting for food and justice.

  The officer ordered his men to follow him as he cut through the crowd in a straight line for Mateo and me. We pried stones from the pavement and let them fly. The crowd parted as the officer quickened his horse. My stone went wide, but Mateo's hit the man's helmet. As he came up to us, Mateo pulled
the officer from the horse.

  A musket went off and the old hag crying about her imaginary babies fell to the pavement.

  "Murder!" Mateo shouted. "Murder!"

  The cry was picked up by a hundred voices. Violence spread like the fire in the warehouse. As the other soldados came forward, pushing their way through the crowd to try and reach their officer, people grabbed them. The last I saw of the viceroy's men was a mob of street people beating them.

  The anger and frustrations, not just of a food shortage, but a lifetime of being treated as little more than curs, erupted like a volcano. People attacked the stalls of the maize merchants.

  Mateo climbed onto the officer's horse and raised his sword. "To the viceroy's palace," he shouted, "for food and justice!"

  He helped me up behind him on the horse. The mob followed us out of the marketplace, growing bigger with every step it took. Soon it was a thousand strong, then two thousand as it poured into the main plaza, looting merchant shops.

  A wild frenzy seized the crowd as it neared the palace.

  "Gold!" Mateo shouted and pointed at the palace. "Gold and food!"

  The cry was picked up by the mob and shouted by thousands of voices.

  The palace was not a fortress. The city had no walls, and the palace walls were designed more for privacy than protection. The city was in the center of New Spain, a week's journey at least for any invading force. No one had ever challenged the city, so there had been no need for a fortress.

  The viceroy's gates offered little resistance to the mob. A cart filled with paving stones being used by laborers to repair ruts was grabbed and slammed through the gate; nor did the vastly outnumbered palace guards, who melted away at the sight of two thousand angry people marching at them, offer resistance. Not even the futile shots that would have been fired at foreign invaders were expended at the crowd.

  "That bench!" Mateo shouted at those who followed us to the front door of the palace, "we'll use it to knock down the door!"

  A dozen hands lifted the heavy wooden bench and sent it crashing against the tall double doors. Two more times it was rammed before the doors flew open. Mateo and I rode the horse into the palace, followed by an army of looters.

  While the mob surged down the great hall, we dismounted and went up the stairway. Coming out of the viceroy's chambers at the top, I saw a group of people: The viceroy, archbishop, and aides were hurrying down the upstairs hallway. Behind them came Ramon, Luis, and Eléna.

  "Eléna!" I shouted.

  The three of them turned to us. Mateo and I saluted the two men with our swords.

  "Go!" Mateo yelled. "Run like women from their husbands' penes. Return with a rolling pin to fight us."

  Ramon stared down at us calmly. "You two have caused me a great deal of trouble, but killing you will be worth something."

  He came down the hallway with Luis beside him as we went up the stairs. I stole one frantic glance at Eléna in her wedding dress before we met the two swordsmen.

  Mateo was a step ahead of me and immediately engaged Ramon as I squared off against Luis. The sound of our striking blades played above the sounds of the mob below. We heard musket shots. Apparently the viceroy's guards had decided to take a stand.

  Luis's features were contorted with hate yet also a strange sort of glee.

  "I'm going to show my new bride how a gentleman handles lépero scum," he said.

  His swordsmanship was dazzling. He was far better than I would ever be. I could not believe my own rage had sucked me into this. I would be cut to pieces in front of Eléna. Only raw hate kept me going, giving me speed and strength and cunning I never dreamed I had. Still it was not enough. He slashed my forearm, cut my right shoulder, and reopened the wound I had gotten from the Veracruz pirate.

  "I am going to carve you into pieces, not kill you quickly," Luis said. "I want her to see every drop of your tainted blood spill."

  His blade sliced my knee. I was bleeding in four places, and he was backing me up with sword work I could never hope to match. He touched his newly shaved cheek with his sword—the cheek I had impaled with my writing quill.

  "Sí, you cut my face so I would look like you, and I hate you even more for that," he said. He backed me against a wall, and his blade cut my other knee. My leg collapsed, and I went down on one knee.

  "Now your eyes and then your throat," he said.

  He suddenly expelled air from his mouth as if he had been struck in the back and lost his breath. He stared at me with wide eyes and then slowly turned around.

  Eléna was standing behind him.

  As he turned, I saw the dagger in his back. It had not gone in far and, he shook it off.

  "Bitch!" he screamed.

  I leaped forward and hit him with my shoulder. He flew backward and hit the railing. I kept my momentum going and hit him again. He burst through the railing and fell to the floor below. I staggered to the edge and looked down. He was on his back, still alive, moaning and moving his arms and legs, but nearly unconscious. The pox marks on his face were not visible from the top of the stairs. With his shaven face and cheek scar, it was as if I was looking down at myself.

  Luis had made the same mistake that the pirate had: He had underestimated a woman.

  "Eléna." I held out my hand to her. She grabbed me around the waist and I leaned on her for a few seconds before pulling away. "I must help Mateo."

  The picaro was faring no better with Ramon than I had with Luis. Mateo was a better swordsman than I, an extraordinary bladesman for certain, but Ramon was said to be the best sword fighter in all New Spain.

  As I limped toward the action, Mateo suddenly moved into the circle of death, lunging at Ramon. Ramon's blade swung around to Mateo's neck, and Mateo's left arm went up and caught the blade against his forearm. At the same time Mateo stuck his dagger in the man's abdomen.

  The two stood face-to-face, almost nose to nose, Ramon staring at Mateo in wide-eyed disbelief, unable to accept that he'd been bested, let alone killed. Mateo's thrust had set the man onto his tiptoes.

  Mateo twisted the dagger.

  "This is for Don Julio."

  He twisted the dagger again.

  "For Fray Antonio."

  He stepped back and faced Ramon, who rocked back and forth on his heels, the dagger still stuck in him. He grinned at Ramon and held up his forearm, pulling back his sleeve to expose the metal guard on the arm. "I regret that I am no gentleman."

  Ramon collapsed.

  Musket sounds became epidemic, and the mob was pouring out of the palace in retreat from the palace guards.

  "Take him out of here," Mateo told Eléna. "Get him to the stables and into a carriage. Get him away from here."

  "Where are you going?" I asked.

  "I have an idea." He whispered to Eléna, not letting me hear.

  Before we went out the door I turned back and saw Mateo bending over Luis. He stood up and shouted to guards coming down the hallway.

  "Here! Take this man! It's Cristo the Bandito!"

  ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-ONE

  Eléna commandeered a coach and frightened coachman, instructing him to take us out of the city. We went to a hacienda owned by Luis. It was the closest place where we could find shelter and help with my wounds.

  "Luis rarely visited the hacienda. He had only recently acquired this one and seldom visited any of them."

  "The people there, they'll know I'm not Luis."

  "The servants and vaqueros would not know you from Luis. If we say you are Luis, they will not question it. The majordomo was recently fired. Luis frequently fired majordomos."

  She wrapped a piece of petticoat around my face after staining it with blood from my other wounds. "There. I could tell them you were the viceroy, and they would not know the difference."

  She refused to tell me what Mateo had whispered to her.

  She doctored my wounds again, just as she had after I was wounded in Veracruz. I lay in bed all day, healing.

  To
me it was a temporary sojourn from reality. I expected at any time that the viceroy's men would be coming to get me. Mateo had erred in not killing Luis. The idea that he would turn the man over to the guards and they would accept the fact that Luis was Cristo the Bastardo was nonsense. There was a physical resemblance but the moment Luis recovered his senses he would tell them who he was.

  I cursed Mateo for his stupidity.

  Several days later Eléna came to the room. She looked a little distraught.

  "He is dead."

  "Who?"

  "Cristo the Bastardo. My uncle had him almost immediately put to death as a lesson to the rioters."

  "You mean Luis? But... how? How could they not believe him when he told them who he really was?"

  "I don't know."

  She cried, and I held her in my arms.

  "I know he was the devil," she said, "but I blame that evil grandmother of his as much as I do him. I never loved him. In truth, he was not really even likable. He had no true friends, which was one reason I tried to be his friend. But he has been with me almost all of my life. And no matter how he talked, I know that his love for me was real."

  There was more news. Mateo had been rewarded by the viceroy. He was a hero of the city, having almost single-handedly driven the mob from the palace and capturing Cristo the Bastardo after the bandit killed Ramon de Alva.

  I gaped when I heard the story. Dios mio! Why would it surprise me? No doubt Mateo had written the act as part of his original plan for the riot.

  That night, when I was tucked in bed, Eléna had a servant bring a pot of boiling hot oil. After the servant left, Eléna barred the door. She sat down beside me on the bed.

  "You asked me what Mateo whispered. He gave me instructions, ones that will hurt you."

  I looked over at the hot oil. "You're not intending to cauterize my wounds with that—"

  "No, you've told me that is not the proper way. I'm going to drip the oil on your face."

  ¡Santa Maria!

  "Have you gone as loco as Mateo? You intend to conceal my identity by wiping away my face."