Aztec Autumn by Gary Jennings
We three were there on the day that an army messenger came to tell me, “The Tequíua Nochéztli sends word, my lord, that the warriors of Yeyac are as fit as they ever were.”
“Then bid Nochéztli to come hither and to bring that Arrow Knight with him.”
When they came, the knight, whose name was Tapachíni, humbly stooped to make the tlalqualíztli touching of the throne-room floor. I let him remain in that subservient posture while I said:
“I offered you and your comrades in treachery three ways of dying. All of you chose the same, and this day you will lead those men marching to that death. As I promised, it will be a death in battle, good in the eyes of the gods. And this I tell you for the first time: You will have had the honor of waging the opening battle of what will be a total and unconditional war to oust the white men from The One World.”
Tapachíni said, his head still bowed, “An honor we could hardly have hoped to merit, my lord. We are grateful. Only command us.”
“Your arms and armor will be returned to all of you. Then you will march southward and attack the Spaniards’ town of Compostela. You will do your best to obliterate it and its white inhabitants. You will not succeed, of course. You will be outnumbered ten to one, and your weapons will be no match for the white men’s. However, you will find the town fatuously believing itself safeguarded because of the pact it made with the late Yeyac. Compostela will be unprepared for your assault. So the gods—and I—will be desolated if you each do not dispatch at least five of the enemy before you fall yourselves.”
“Rely on it, my lord.”
“I expect to hear of it. The news of such an unprecedented slaughter will not be long in reaching my ear. Meanwhile, dismiss any delusion that you and your men will elude my eye as soon as you leave Aztlan.”
I turned to Nochéztli. “Pick sturdy and loyal warriors to serve as escort. Have them accompany Knight Tapachíni and his contingent along the southbound trails—it should be a march of no more than five days—until they get within striking range of Compostela. When the Knight Tapachíni leads the charge against the town—and not until then—the escorts are to return here and report Along the way south, they are continuously to keep count of their wards. The knight and his men number one hundred thirty and eight as of this moment. That same number is to attack Compostela. Is that understood, Tequíua Nochéztli?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“And you, Knight Tapachíni,” I said with heavy sarcasm. “Are those conditions satisfactory to you?”
“I can scarcely blame you, my lord, for having found us less than deserving of your trust.”
“Then be gone. Much may be forgiven you when you have spilled a whole river of the white men’s blood. And your own.”
Nochéztli himself went along with Tapachíni’s men and their escorts during their first day’s march, then turned back at nightfall, and early the next morning reported to me:
“No one of the condemned men tried to escape, my lord, and there were no untoward incidents, and there were still one hundred thirty and eight of them when I left them.”
I not only commended Nochéztli for his assiduous and continued attention to every aspect of this mission, I promoted him on the spot
“From this day, you are a cuéchic, an ‘old eagle.’ Further, I give you permission to select for yourself the warriors who will serve under your command. If any of the haughty knights or the other cuéchictin have any complaints about that, tell them to complain to me.”
Nochéztli so hastily and happily stooped to make the gesture of kissing the earth that he very nearly fell asprawl at my feet. When he scrambled erect, he left my presence even more respectfully, walking backward all the way out of the throne room.
But he had barely gone when he was succeeded by another warrior requesting audience, and this one had brought with him a rather frightened-looking woman of the common folk. They both touched the floor in the tlalqualíztli gesture, and the man said:
“Forgive my urgency, my lord, but this woman came to our barracks to report having found, when she first opened her door this morning, a dead body in the alley outside.”
“Why are you telling me this, iyac? Likely some drunkard who drank beyond his capacity.”
“Forgive my correcting you, my lord. This was a warrior, and he had been stabbed in the back. Furthermore, he had been stripped of his battle armor, left wearing only his loincloth, and he bore no weapons.”
“Then how do you know he was a warrior?” I snapped, rather peeved at having my day start this way.
Before he answered me, the iyac stooped again to touch the floor, and I turned to see that Améyatl had entered the room.
“Because, my lord,” he continued, “I have served as guard of the prisoners in the Coyolxaúqui temple, so I recognized this dead warrior. He was one of the late Yeyac’s detestable accomplices.”
“But…but…” I stammered, confounded. “They all were to have left the city last night. They did leave. All one hundred thirty and eight of them…”
Améyatl interrupted, her voice unsteady, “Tenamáxtzin, have you seen anything of Tiptoe?”
“What?” I said, even more confounded.
“She was not at my bedside this morning, as she always has been. I do not recall having seen her since we three were in this room yesterday.”
Améyatl and I must both have realized, on the instant. But we and every remaining servant and even G’nda Ké went searching the palace, every corner of it, and all the palace grounds. No one found Pakápeti, and the only significant discovery was made by me—to wit, that one of the three hidden thunder-sticks also was missing. Tiptoe had deliberately gone forth to kill—and to have whatever was inside her killed—and to be killed herself.
XX
I HAD CALCULATED that the Knight Tapachihi’s troop and its escorts should take about five days to get to Compostela, and that the escorts should take rather less time to return and report—or, if there was a good runner among them, he might race ahead and arrive even sooner. Anyway, I had some days to wait to hear the outcome of that mission, and rather than stew in impatience and anxiety, I put the days to profitable use. I left all the boring and exasperating routine of government to Améyatl and the Speaking Council—I was consulted only on major matters—and betook myself to outdoor pursuits.
My four horses had been well fed and groomed, as I had instructed the handler slaves, and were now handsomely sleek and obviously eager to stretch their legs. So I sought volunteers to learn the riding of them. The first I asked was G’nda Ké, for I expected that she and I would soon be traveling far and fast, in advance of my army, gathering recruits for that army. But she disdainfully spurned the idea of riding. In her inimitable way, she said:
“G’nda Ké already knows everything worth the knowing. What point in learning something new? Besides, G’nda Ké has crossed and recrossed the whole of The One World, and many times, and always on foot, as best becomes a stalwart Yaki. You ride, if you prefer, Tenamáxtli, like a weakling white man. G’nda Ké warrants that she will keep up with you.”
I said dryly, “You will wear out a lot of those precious sandals of yours,” but did not press her further.
I next offered the opportunity to the army knights, in deference to their rank, and was not too surprised when they also declined—though of course not so insultingly as G’nda Ké had done. They said only, “My lord, eagles and jaguars would be ashamed to depend on lesser beasts for their mobility.”
So I turned to the ranks of cuéchictin, and two of those did volunteer. As I might have expected, the new Cuéchic Nochéztli hardly waited to be asked. The other was a middle-aged Mexícatl named Comitl, who had, in his youth, been among those warriors brought from Tenochtítlan to train ours. He had more recently been one of the men who learned from me how to wield an arcabuz. My third volunteer was, to my astonishment, the army’s surgeon, that Tícitl Ualíztli of whom I have spoken.
“If you seek only men who can
“I do not refuse you, Ualíztli. I think a tícitl should be enabled to move quickly about a battlefield, the more easily to administer his services. And I have seen many mounted Spaniards much older and heavier than yourself; if they could ride, surely you can learn.”
So, during those days of waiting, I taught the three men as much as I myself knew about handling a horse—devoutly wishing that the far more adroit Tiptoe were there to oversee their training. We did our practices alternately on the paved central square and on grassier grounds elsewhere, and wherever we did, crowds of city folk came to stare—from a discreet distance—in awe and admiration. I let Tícitl Ualíztli use the other saddle on his horse, and Comitl and Nochéztli manfully refrained from complaining at having to jounce about on the ridgepole-steep bare backs of the other two mounts.
“It will toughen you,” I assured them, “so that when eventually we confiscate other horses and their saddles from the white soldiers, you will find riding to be easeful indeed.”
However, by the time my three students had become at least as adept at riding as I was, our activities had ceased to distract me from anxiety. Seven days had passed since the departure of Tapachíni and his men, time enough for a swift-messenger to have returned to Aztlan, and none had. An eighth day passed, and then a ninth, time enough for all the escort guards to have returned.
“Something has gone terribly wrong,” I growled, on the tenth day, as I moodily paced the throne room. For the moment, I was confiding my consternation only to Améyatl and G’nda Ké. “And I have no way of knowing what!”
My cousin suggested, “The condemned men may have decided to evade their doom. But they could not have slipped away from the line of march by ones and twos, or the escorts would have reported to you. So they must have risen up in mass—they were many and the escorts few—then, after slaying their guards, fled together or separately beyond your reach.”
“I have naturally thought of that,” I grumbled. “But they had kissed the earth in oath. And they had once been honorable men.”
“So was Yeyac—once,” Améyatl said bitterly. “While our father was present to keep him loyal and manly and trustworthy.”
“Still,” I objected, “I find it hard to believe that not one of those men would have kept his oath—at least to come and tell me that the others had not. And remember, it is virtually certain that Pakápeti was among them in man’s disguise. She would never desert.”
“Perhaps it was she,” said G’nda Ké, with her distinctive gloating grin, “who slew them all.”
I did not dignify that crass remark with any comment of my own. Améyatl said, “If Yeyac’s men did kill their escorts, they would scarcely have balked at killing Tiptoe—or any others of their own—who stood firm against them.”
“But they were warriors,” I continued to object. “They still are warriors, unless the earth opened and swallowed them. They know no other way of life. Together or separately, what will they do with their lives now? Resort to vulgar skulking banditry? That would be unthinkable for a warrior, however dishonorably he had behaved otherwise. No, I can think of only one thing they must have done.”
I turned to the Yaki woman and said, “In a time before time, a certain G’nda Ké turned good men into bad, so you must be well versed in the matter of betrayal. Do you think those men treacherously resumed their alliance with the Spaniards?”
She shrugged indifferently, “To what end? As long as they were Yeyac’s men, they could expect favor and preferment. Without Yeyac to lead them, they are nobodies. The Spanish might accept them into their ranks, but would utterly despise them—rightly reckoning that men who had turned against their own people could easily turn again.”
I had to admit, “You speak with logic.”
“Those deserters would find themselves the lowliest of the low. Even that Arrow Knight would be degraded to yaoquizqui in rank. Certainly he and all the others would have known that, even before they deserted. So why should they? No warrior, however desperate to escape your wrath, could have accepted so much worse a fate.”
“Well, whatever they did,” said Améyatl, “they did it between here and Compostela. Why not send another quimíchi scurrying to find out?”
“No!” snapped G’nda Ké. “Even if that troop never got near”Compostela, the news will inevitably have got there. Any rustic woodcutter or herb-gatherer taking his wares to the town’s market must by now have mentioned having seen an armed and menacing force of Aztéca in the vicinity. That Governor Coronado may already be bringing his soldiers hither to forestall your planned insurgency by laying waste to Aztlan. You can no longer afford, Tenamáxtli, merely to afflict the Spaniards with random engagements—like this failed one and those of the Michihuácan women. Whether you are ready or not, whether you like it or not, you are now at war. Committed to wage war. Total war. You have no alternative but to lead your army into it.”
I said, “It galls me to admit again that you are right, witch-woman. I wish I could deny you your greatest pleasure, that of seeing blood spilled and destruction widespread. However, what must be, must be. Go you, then, since you are the most war-eager of all in my court Send word to every knight of Aztlan, to have our army assembled in the central square at tomorrow’s dawn, armed and provisioned and ready to march.”
G’nda Ké smiled her vile smile and left the room in a hurry.
To Améyatl I said, “I am not going to wait for the Speaking Council’s assent to this deployment. You can summon them at your leisure, cousin, and inform them that a state of war now exists between the Aztéca and the Spaniards. The councillors can hardly countermand an action already taken.”
Améyatl nodded, but not joyfully.
“I will detach a number of good men to remain here as your palace guard,” I went on. “Not enough to repel an assault upon the city, but enough to rush you to safety in case danger threatens. Meanwhile, as regent, you again wield the authority of Uey-Tecútli—the Council knows that—until such time as I return.”
She said wistfully, “The last time you left, you were gone for years.”
I said cheerfully—trying to cheer her—”Ayyo, Améyatl! On my return this time, whenever that may be, I hope it will be to tell you that our Aztlan is the new Tenochtítlan, capital of a One World rewon, restored, renewed, unshared by aliens. And that we two cousins are the absolute rulers of it.”
“Cousins …” she murmured. “Time was, oc ye nechca, we were more like brother and sister.”
I said lightly, “Rather more than that, if I may remind you.”
“I need no reminding. I held you very dear, then, when you were only a boy. Now you are a man, and a most manly man. What will you be when you return again?”
“Not an old man, I trust. I should hope to be still capable of… well… worthy of your holding me very dear.”
“I did and I do and I will. When that boy Tenamáxtli departed from Aztlan, I gave him only a wave of farewell. The man Tenamáxtzin deserves a more heartfelt and memorable leavetaking.” She held out her arms. “Come … my very dear…”
As in her youth, Améyatl still so gushingly personified the meaning of her name—Fountain—that we repeatedly enjoyed our mutual surges, all the night long, and finally fell asleep only when our juices were totally exhausted. I might have overslept the appointed assembly of my army, except that the uncouth G’nda Ké, never a respecter of privacy, strode unbidden into my chambers and roughly shook me awake.
Curling her lip at the sight of myself and Améyatl intertwined, she brayed loudly, “Behold! Behold the alert and keen and vigilant and warlike leader of his people—wallowing in lechery and sloth! Can you lead, my lord? Can you even stand? It is time.”
“Go away,” I grunted. “Go and sneer elsewhere. I will steam and bath
But the Yaki woman had to fling a rude insult at Améyatl before departing:
“If you have drained Tenamáxtli of all his manhood, my lustful lady, it will be your fault should we lose this war.”
Améyatl—having the grace and wit that G’nda Ké did not—only smiled with drowsy, happy satisfaction and said, “I bear witness that Tenamáxtzin’s manhood will stand any test.”
The Yaki gnashed her teeth and dashed angrily out of the room. I did my ablutions, donned my quilted armor and the quetzal-feather-fan headdress of command, then leaned to give a final kiss to Améyatl, still abed and still smiling.
“This time I will not wave good-bye,” she said softly. “I know you will return—and victorious. Only do try, for my sake, to hasten the day.”
To the gathered army, I announced, “Comrades, it appears that Yeyac’s despicable warriors have again betrayed us. They have either failed or disobeyed my order to sacrifice themselves in an attack on the Spaniards’ stronghold. So we will make an assault in full force. However, it is likely that Compostela now is expecting us. For that reason, you knights and cuéchictin, pay heed to my instructions. During our first three days of going southward, we will march in standard column formation, to advance as rapidly as possible. On the fourth day, I will issue different orders. Now… we go!”
I rode, of course, at the head of the train, with the three other mounted men abreast behind me and, behind them, the warriors in a column of fours, all of us proceeding at a brisk walking pace. G’nda Ké trudged along at the tail of the procession, without arms or armor, for she was to do no fighting, but merely accompany us on our expedition—after the fighting—to recruit other warriors from other nations.