Aztec Autumn by Gary Jennings
The bishop looked troubled. “As I said, I am not a pragmatic man. But I can recognize expediency when I see it. Coronado and Don Antonio de Mendoza are old friends. Coronado is married to a cousin of King Carlos. Mendoza is also a friend of Bishop Zumárraga, and he, I fear, is ever too ready to endorse any venture calculated to please and enrich King Carlos—and endear himself to the king and the pope, may God forgive me for saying so. Marshal all those facts, Juan Británico. Is it likely that anyone, high or low, will speak to Coronado a discouraging word?”
“Certainly not I,” I said lightly, “and I am lowest of the low.” The worm in the coyacapúli fruit, I thought, long having eaten from within, now about to burst the fruit asunder. “I thank you for your graciousness in receiving me, Your Excellency, and for the refreshing cakes and wine, and I ask your leave to be on my way.”
Still being more decent to a lowly indio than any other white man I ever met, Padre Vasco cordially urged me to remain awhile—to reside under his roof, to attend services, to make confession, to take communion, to converse at greater length—but I lied some more, telling him that I had instructions to hurry and “bear the message” to a still un-regenerate pagan tribe some distance away.
Well, it was not entirely a lie. I did have a message to deliver, and at a considerable distance. I left Compostela, not having to sneak this time, no one paying any attention to me at all, and went briskly toward Chicomóztotl.
“Thanks be to Huitzilopóchtli and every other god!” exclaimed Nochéztli. “You have come at last, Tenamáxtzin, not a moment too soon. I have here the most numerous army ever assembled in The One World, every man of it impatiently stamping his feet to be on the march, and I have been barely able to hold them in check, awaiting your orders.”
“You have done well, faithful knight I have just come through the Spanish lands, and clearly no one there has any inkling of this gathering storm.”
“That is good. But, among our own people, the word must have been passed from mouth to ear to mouth. We have acquired far more recruits than the many we enlisted from the lands hereabout, and the very many who came from the north, wave after wave of them, saying you had sent them. For example, all those women warriors from Michihuácan have made their way hither. They say they are tired of inflicting merely skirmish attacks on Spanish properties; they want to be with us when we march in force. Also there are countless runaway slaves—indios and Moros and mixtures of breeds—escaped from mines and plantations and obrajes, who have managed to find this place. They are even more avid than the rest of us to wreak havoc on their masters, but I have had to put them to special training, because few have ever even held a weapon before.”
“Every man counts,” I said, “and every woman. Can you tell me how many we have, in total?”
“As best I can estimate, a hundred of hundreds. A formidable host, in truth. They long ago overflowed the seven caverns here and are camped all over these mountains. Since they hail from so many different nations and perhaps a hundred different tribes within those nations, I thought it best to assign and segregate their camping places according to their origins. Many of them, as you doubtless know, have been for ages inimical to one another—or to every other. I did not want an intestine war erupting here.”
“Very astute management, Knight Nochéztli.”
“However, the very variety of our forces makes the management of them most complicated. I have delegated my best fellow knights and under-officers, each to be responsible for one or another mass of warriors. But their orders, instructions, reprimands, whatever, given in the Náhuatl tongue, can be given only to those tribal chief warriors who can understand Náhuatl. Those, in turn, must relay the words to their men in their language. And then the words must be passed along to the next tribe, who may speak a different dialect of the same language, but can at least be made to understand. And then they somehow transmit the words to yet another tribe. Probably one man in every hundred of all these hundreds spends a good part of his time acting as interpreter. And of course the commands frequently get contorted down the course of that long process, which has made for some marvelous misunderstandings. It has not quite happened yet, but one of these days, when I form a contingent of our men into ranks and give the command to the first rank, “Stand to arms!’ and the command is passed along, the men in the last rank are going to hear it as ‘Lie down and go to sleep!’ As for those Yaki you sent, none of us can communicate with them. They would not understand if I did order them to go to sleep.”
I had to stifle a smile at Nochéztli’s overflow of exasperation. But I was proud and admiring of the way he had handled the vast army under those difficult conditions, and told him so.
“Well, so far,” he said, “I have been able to keep all the men from getting too restive, and from quarreling among themselves, by giving them orders that can be conveyed—even to the Yaki—with gestures and demonstrations instead of words, and thus keeping them all occupied with various labors. Appointing certain groups to do the hunting and fishing and gathering of food, for instance, others to do the burning of charcoal, the mixing of pólvora, the casting of lead balls and so on. Those couriers you sent to Tzebóruko and to Aztlan did return with ample supplies of the yellow azufre and the bitter salitre. So we now have as much powder and as many balls as we can cany when we leave here. I am pleased to report, too, that we have many more of the thunder-sticks than before. The Purémpe women bought many that they captured from the Spaniards in New Galicia, and so did numerous warriors of the northern tribes who stole them from Spanish army outposts as they came hither through the Disputed Lands. We now have nearly a hundred of those weapons, and about twice that many men who have become expert at using them. We have also acquired a goodly armory of steel knives and swords.”
“This is all most gratifying to hear,” I said. “Have you anything not so gratifying to report?”
“Only that we are better supplied with armament than with food. Given a hundred of hundreds of mouths to be fed, well, you can imagine. Our hunters and foragers have by now killed every last animal and bird and plucked every fruit, nut and edible green from all these mountains, and emptied the waters of every last fish. I had to set a limit to their foraging, you see, not let them go too far abroad, lest word of their activity reach the wrong ears. But you may wish to countermand that order, Tenamáxtzin, for we are now reduced to scant rations indeed—roots and tubers and frogs and insects. Such deprivation is of course beneficial for warriors. It makes them lean and hard and eager to reap from the fat lands we will be invading. However, besides the Purémpe women now among us, a good number of those runaway slaves who fled here are women and children. I hate to sound like a woman myself, but I do fed sorry for those weaker ones who came trusting that we would care for them. I hope, my lord, that you will give instant order for us all to march from here into more bounteous lands.”
“No,” I said. “That older I will not give yet, and I will not countermand any of yours, even if we all must live for a time by chewing the leather of our own sandals. And I will tell you why.”
Thereupon, I repeated to Nochéztli everything the Bishop Quiroga had confided to me, and added:
“This, then, is my first order. Send sharp-eyed and fleet-footed men west from here. One is to be posted, well hidden, beside every road, every trail, every deer path that wends northward from Compostela. When Governor Coronado passes with his train, I want a count of his men, his arms, his horses, mules, bearers, packs—everything he is taking with him. We will not attack that train, because the foolish man is doing us a favor immeasurable. When I have the report that he and his fellows have passed, and when I judge they have gone far enough north, then—but not until then—will we move. You concur, Knight Nochéztli?”
“But of course, my lord,” he said, wagging his head in wonderment. “What astonishingly good fortune for us, and what astonishingly imbecilic behavior on the part of Coronado. He leaves the field wide open for us.”
“That reminds me,” said Nochéztli. “I almost forgot to mention another astonishing thing. Among those fugitives who came seeking sanctuary with us are two white men.”
“What?” I said, incredulous. “Spaniards fleeing their own kind? Turning against their own kind?”
Nochéztli shrugged. “I do not know. They seem very peculiar Spaniards. Even those few of us Aztéca who have some words of Spanish cannot understand the Spanish they try to speak to us. But the two of them jabber between themselves with noises like geese honking and hissing.” He paused, then added, “I have heard that the Spanish are forbidden by their religion to do away with any children born deficient of brain. Perhaps these are two of those defectives, grown to man-size, not knowing what they are doing.”
“If so, we will do away with them rather than feed them. I will have a look at them later. In the meantime, speaking of feeding, may I request a meal—of whatever grubs and thorns may be the fare today?”
Nochéztli grinned. “We would be as foolish as the white men if we starved and weakened our lord commander. I have some smoked deer parts put by.”
“I thank you. And while I feast on those viands, send me whichever officer you have appointed leader of those Purémpe women.”
“They have their own—a woman. They refused to be ordered about by any man.”
I should have known. The leader was that same cóyotl-faced woman with the inappropriate name of Butterfly. To forestall her trying to bully me, I congratulated her on being still alive, and on the many successful forays she had led against the whites in New Galicia, and thanked her for having spared the Utopía communities, as I had asked. Butterfly preened at being so fulsomely praised, and looked even more appreciative when I said:
“I want to arm your gallant contingent of women warriors with a special weapon all your own. Also, it is a weapon that can best be made by women, whose fingers are more delicate and nimble and precise than any man’s.”
“Only command us, Tenamáxtzin.”
“It is a weapon that I invented myself, though the Spaniards have something similar, and call it a granada.”
I explained how to wrap clay tightly around a packing of pólvora, and insert into it a thin poquíetl for a wick, and bake the thing to hardness in the sun.
“Then, when we go into battle, my lady Butterfly, have each of your women go smoking a poquíetl herself and carrying several of those granadas. Whenever opportunity offers, ignite the wick of a granada and throw it at the enemy or—better yet—inside their houses or guard posts or fortresses. You will see some spectacular damage done.”
“It sounds delightful, my lord. We will get to work on them straightaway.”
When I had done gnawing on the deer meat, drinking some octli and smoking a poquíetl myself, I called for those two “peculiar” white men to be brought before me.
Well, they turned out to be neither Spanish nor defective, though it took me a confusing while to figure that out. One of the men was considerably older than myself, the other a little younger. Both were as white and hairy as Spaniards, but, like all the other slaves now in our encampment, barefooted and dressed in tatters. They had evidently, somehow, been made aware that I was chief of all the people assembled here, so they approached me respectfully. As Nocheztli had said, they spoke very imperfect Spanish, but we managed mostly to understand each other. However, they sprinkled their converse with words that I can hope only to approximate here, for they did sound like goose talk.
I introduced myself in Spanish simple enough for even a defective to comprehend. “I am called by you Spanish folk Juan Británico. What are you—?”
But the older one interrupted, “John British?!” and both of them stared at me, wide-eyed, then quacked excitedly at one another. I could catch only repetitions of that word British.
“Please,” I said, “speak Spanish, if you can.”
So they did, mostly, from then on. But in my recounting of that conversation, I am making them sound much more fluent than they were, and also I am doing my best to pronounce the frequent goose words.
“Your pardon, John British,” said the elder of the two. “I was saying to Miles here that, by the blood, we are finally having a run of—a run of what we call luck—a run of buena suerte. You must be a castaway, same as us. But Miles said, and so do I—begod, Cap’n, you do not appear to be British.”
“Whatever that is, I am not,” I said. “I am Aztécatl—you would say indio—and my name is properly Téotl-Tenamáxtli.” Both men looked at me with faces as blank as only white faces can be. “None but the Spanish call me by the Christian name of Juan Británico.”
Some more honking and hissing went on between them, the word Christian occurring several times. The elder turned again to me.
“At least you are a Christian indio, then, Cap’n. But would you be one of these damned crossback Papists? Or would you be good Bishop’s-Book Church of England?”
“I am not any kind of Christian!” I snapped. “And I am asking the questions here. Who are you?”
He told me, and it was my turn to look blank. The names could as well have been Yaki as goose. They certainly were not Spanish.
“Here,” he said. “I can write.” He looked about for a sharp stone, while saying, “I am a ship’s sea-artist, I am. What the Spaniards call a navegador. Miles is only fo’c’sle, and ignorant.” With the stone, he scratched in the earth at my feet, which is why I can accurately render the names here, JOB HORTOP—“That is me”—and MILES PHILIPS—“That is him.”
He had mentioned ships and sea, so I asked, “Are you in the sea service of King Carlos?”
“King Carlos?!” they bellowed together, and the younger one added indignantly, “We serves good King Henry of England, bless his brass ballocks. And that, God damn it, is why we are here where we are at!”
“Pardon him, John British,” said the elder. “Common seamen got no manners.”
“I have heard of England,” I said, remembering what Padre Vasco had once told me. “Are you perhaps acquainted with Don Tomás Moro?” Blank looks again. “Or his book about Utopía?”
The sea-artist sighed and said, “Your pardon again, Cap’n. I can read and write, some. But I never read no books.”
I sighed, too, and said, “Please just tell me how you come to be here.”
“Aye aye, sir. What happened, see, we shipped on a Hawkins merchantman out of Bristol, sailing under Genoese patent to take a cargo of ebony—you know what I mean—the middle passage from Guinea to Hispaniola. Well, we got as far as Tortoise Island. A storm wrecked us on them reefs, and me and Miles was the only ones of the white crew that washed ashore alive, along with numerous of the ebony. The damned piratical Jack Napeses there took us slaves, same as they did the blacks. We been passed from hand to hand ever since—Hispaniola, Cuba—wound up picking oakum in a Vera Cruz dockyard. When a bunch of the blackamoor slaves busted loose, we come with them. No place to aim for, but the blacks got word that some rebels was mustering in these mountains. So here we are, Cap’n. Rebels against them firking Spanish we be, by damn, if you will have us. And happy we will be, me and Miles, to kill every whoreson Jack Napes you can point us at. Just give us a cutlass apiece.”
Not much of that made any sense to me, except the last part, at which I said:
“If you mean you wish to fight beside us, very well, you will be given weapons. Now, since I am the only person in this army who can—even toilsomely—understand and be understood by you…”
“Your pardon again, John British. A good many of them slaves yonder—blacks and indios and mongrels too—speaks the Spanish better than we does. One little half-breed wench, she can even read and write it.”
“We been called worse names,” said Dos. “And please, sir, can we call you Cap’n John? Make us feel at home, like.”
XXVIII
“THE MAN CORONADO … passed me… six days ago …” the runner gasped, as he sank wearily to his knees and elbows on the ground before me, his body heaving for breath and streaming with sweat.
“Then why,” I demanded angrily, “has it taken you so long to report here?”
“You wanted … a count… my lord,” he panted. “Four days counting… two days running…”
“By Huitztli,” I murmured, now sympathetically, and I patted the man’s wet, trembling shoulder. “Rest, man, before you speak more. Nochéztli, send for water and some kind of food for this warrior. He has been hard at his duty for six days and nights.”
The man drank gratefully but, being an experienced swift-runner, drank only sparingly at first, then tore voraciously at the stringy deer meat. As soon as he could speak coherently and uninterrupted by gasps, he said:
“First came the man Coronado and beside him a man in priest-black garb, both mounted on fine white horses. Behind them came many mounted soldiers, four by four where the path was wide enough, more often two by two, because Coronado chose a trail not much traveled, hence not much cleared. Every horseman, except that one in black, wore the metal helmet and full metal and leather armor, every man carrying a thunder-stick and steel sword. Every mounted man led behind him one or two more horses besides. Then there came more soldiers, similarly armored, but these on foot, carrying thunder-sticks and long, wide-bladed spears. Here, my lord—the count of all those soldiers.”