Tozi was laughing too; some of the other women around joined in. Coyotl giggled, but Malinal’s voice had become serious again. ‘After he was done,’ she said, ‘he moved about, I think he was cleaning himself but we didn’t dare look. Then we heard him talking at the door. Soon afterwards a group of guards and priests entered. The poor witness never knew what hit him; he was strangled on the spot. The executioner turned to me, put his hands round my throat. I thought I was done for until Ahuizotl came storming in and stopped him. “No!” he said. “I want this woman for sacrifice!” There was no one to overrule him – Moctezuma had left the room – and in this way I was set aside.’
‘But,’ said Tozi, ‘obviously not for sacrifice …’
‘Not at first. Ahuizotl used me for sex these past four months … Uggh! His breath smells of carrion.’ Malinal made a face and blushed. ‘This is what you told me you didn’t need to know,’ she said apologetically, ‘but here we are back at it in a roundabout way.’ She shrugged. ‘So he used me for four months then, last night, guards took me from the house where he kept me prisoner and threw me in here. He’d had what he wanted from me, I suppose, so he sent me for sacrifice.’
‘You’re a knife at his throat,’ said Tozi, ‘as long as you’re still alive.’
Malinal nodded. ‘Because of his vows … I know. He’d be afraid I’d bear witness against him. But really – celibate priests! Believe me, it’s a joke! It’s easier to find a virgin in a whorehouse than a celibate in the Temple.’
Tozi made a habit of being aware of people in her surroundings at all times, so she noticed immediately that the two hellions from Xoco’s gang had followed her here. They would never give up, it seemed! They were whispering to other Tlascalans around them, and some who’d been friendly enough moments before were now giving them ugly glances. Tozi heard the word ‘witch’. Coyotl heard it too and huddled closer. Malinal looked scared but calm somehow.
‘Witch! Witch! Witch!’
It’s all starting again, Tozi thought wearily. She tried to marshal her strength and found she had nothing left to give. If these Tlascalans decided to tear them to pieces now, she knew she would be helpless.
But then there came a commotion, the swaying, undulating dance in the plaza abruptly ceased, some of the lanterns fell to the ground, the gates of Moctezuma’s palace swung open and a phalanx of heavily armed soldiers marched out.
A lot of soldiers!
They cut across the plaza, straight towards the fattening pen.
At their head, flanked by his two acolytes, was Ahuizotl.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Tlascala, Thursday 18 February 1519
From the direction of the forest a storm of arrows whirred around Shikotenka in the dusk, passed him on both sides and smashed the Cuahchics down before they could close with him.
He turned with a broad grin. All fifty of his men were out of the trees and coming on at a run, a second volley of arrows already nocked to the string. But they lowered their bows and slowed to an easy walk when they saw the Cuahchics were no longer a threat. Two were dead and the third writhed on the ground, bristling with arrows and filling the air with screams and curses.
‘A nice surprise,’ called out Shikotenka. ‘I thought I was on my own.’
The plan had been to meet three hours later by a sweet-water spring in the depths of the forest. There was no reason for his men to be here.
Panitzin was out in front. He was nicknamed ‘Tree’ for his massive size, stolid features, dark skin the colour of ahuehuete bark and long, wild hair. ‘Too many mosquitos at the spring,’ he growled as they embraced.
‘No reasonable man could be expected to stand it,’ agreed dagger-thin Acolmiztli, who’d jogged up right behind Panitzin. At forty-two he was the grandfather of the squad, but had proved his worth in countless battles and could outrun warriors fifteen years his junior.
‘So you just decided to wait here instead?’
Tree spoke again, which was unusual for such a taciturn man. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘More comfortable.’
‘And close to the path,’ added Shikotenka’s cousin Tochtli, ‘so we would spot you as you entered the forest.’
Tochtli, whose name meant ‘Rabbit’, was the newest and by far the youngest member of the squad. His smooth complexion, slight stature and soft brown eyes contributed to a gentle, almost womanly manner that exposed him to constant ridicule. Perhaps to compensate for this, and to win the approval of the more experienced fighters, he’d taken what Shikotenka considered to be unnecessary risks during both the prior skirmishes with the Mexica in which he’d so far been engaged.
Shikotenka frowned. ‘Spot me as I entered the forest, eh?’ He snorted and spat. ‘That sort of plan usually goes wrong …’
Tochtli’s face immediately fell and he looked round uncertainly at Tree and Acolmiztli.
‘But today it went right!’ Shikotenka laughed, taking the pressure off his cousin. ‘If you’d stayed where you were supposed to, I might have had my work cut out here.’
As the rest of the squad milled around, laughing and joking, Tree unslung his great mahogany war club, strolled over to the surviving Cuahchic and dealt him a single massive blow to the head. His screams stopped abruptly as his shaved skull shattered, spattering warriors standing nearby with fragments of brain and bone, provoking roars of complaint.
‘All that yelling was giving me a headache,’ Tree explained with an apologetic shrug.
Shikotenka clapped him on the shoulder: ‘Looks like you gave him a worse one,’ he said.
The squad was formed of five platoons of ten, with Tree, Chipahua, Etzli, Acolmiztli and jade-nosed Ilhuicamina as the platoon leaders. They were battle-hardened, clever, calculating men, but they were also independent and argumentative and the death of Guatemoc had provoked controversy.
‘I don’t see the problem,’ said Tree, who liked nothing better than a good battle. ‘You fought Guatemoc and you killed him. Dead men don’t tell tales.’
Shikotenka was repairing the broken obsidian teeth of Guatemoc’s macuahuitl from the squad’s stock of spares. ‘Sometimes they do,’ he said as he slotted another of the razor-sharp blades into place. ‘If the Mexica find his body it’ll put them on high alert. They’ll have search parties out combing the area. Our task tonight was hard enough anyway. I fear this will make it much harder.’
‘Do you want to call it off?’ asked Chipahua. His bald head was as big as a chilacayohtli gourd, smooth and domed on top, narrowing somewhat at the temples but widening again to accommodate his prominent cheekbones and full fleshy face.
‘No,’ said Shikotenka. ‘We can’t call it off.’
‘Then all this is empty talk.’ A brace of white-tailed deer roasted on spits over the banked-down fire and Chipahua reached out, worked loose a steaming chunk of bloody meat and transferred it to his mouth. He chewed slowly, almost lecherously, smacking his sensual, sneering lips and making a great show of sucking his fingers. ‘Reckon that’s ready to eat,’ he said.
The entire squad was gathered round the fire and now everyone dived into the feast. There had been an element of risk in cooking it, but the men needed their strength for the trial that lay ahead. They’d found a place a mile into the forest, boxed in tightly by great stands of trees and undergrowth, where there was almost no chance a fire would be seen. The roasted meat would more likely be smelled, but there was nothing to be done except bolt it down quickly.
Acolmiztli’s eyes glittered and the planes of his narrow face caught the glow of the fire, emphasising his usual hollow-cheeked and ghoulish appearance. ‘If they’ve found Guatemoc the whole camp’s going to be buzzing like a hornet’s nest,’ he complained. ‘We’ll not get anywhere near Coaxoch’s pavilion, let alone inside it to kill him.’
Etzli was with him. ‘We should think again. We’re fifty but they’ve got four regiments. With surprise on our side we might have pulled it off; without, we don’t stand a chance.’
‘Perh
aps the death of Guatemoc will make things easier for us?’ Tochtli dared to offer. He’d been watching the older warriors, his eyes shifting eagerly from man to man, obviously summoning up the courage to make his voice heard. ‘The Mexica won’t know exactly what happened, or who knifed their prince. Could be just the distraction we need.’
‘Quiet, little Rabbit,’ snarled Etzli, showing teeth filed to sharp points. ‘What do you know, who’s fought in only two battles?’ Etzli’s name meant Blood and, despite his caution this evening, he was a seasoned, brutal killer. It must have taken some nerve, Shikotenka realised, for Tochtli to contradict him.
But support came from Ilhuicamina who looked scornfully at Acolmiztli and Etzli. ‘You’re both turning into old women,’ he snapped. A livid scar where a macuahuitl had struck him traced a thick, puckered, horizontal track from left to right across the middle of his face. His prosthetic nose, fashioned from small jade tiles to cover the most hideous part of the injury, glittered eerily in the firelight. ‘The boy’s right. We can still do this.’
‘I’m certain we can do it,’ agreed Shikotenka. ‘But the risk will be great.’
‘For a chance to kill a piece of shit like Coaxoch,’ said Ilhuicamina, ‘I’ll take that risk.’
Shikotenka’s men were sworn to follow him even into death, and in return he gave them the right to speak their minds. The time had come to tell them the truth about this mission. The stakes were higher than any of them knew. ‘To be honest,’ he said, his face deadpan, ‘if this was just about Coaxoch, I’d call the attack off.’
Ilhuicamina blinked. Even Tree sat up and paid attention.
‘But Coaxoch is only the bait.’ Shikotenka lowered his voice so everyone had to lean a little closer, and in the fire’s glow he told them the plan.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Santiago, Cuba, Thursday 18 February 1519
Shielded from view by three large coils of rope and piles of canvas sheeting he’d arranged around himself, Pepillo lay on his back in the aftcastle of the Santa María de la Concepción, trying to decide what to do. Here he was well away from the whirl of activity on the main deck, where bales and barrels were still being loaded. He heard men shouting, seemingly arguing. Others sang a vulgar song in unison as they hoisted some great burden. He heard roars of laughter. The horses brought on board earlier stamped and snuffled in their stalls. Far below he heard the slap, slap, slap of wavelets lapping against the hull of the great ship.
He could run, he thought bleakly, if his legs would carry him after the beating he’d taken. But then what? If he returned to the monastery, the brothers would bring him straight back here and hand him over to Muñoz again. And if he tried to hide, where would he shelter, how would he find food? He didn’t have a centavo to his name.
Pepillo groaned. His body was a mass of pain. His buttocks ached from the repeated kicks Muñoz had delivered to them. His nose, where Muñoz had broken it, was swollen and inflamed and still hurt more than he could believe. His scalp stung as though scalded where Muñoz had wrenched a clump of hair out by the roots. His head pounded because Muñoz had repeatedly punched him, and a tooth at the front of his lower jaw had been knocked loose. His side, chest and arms were horribly bruised from being thrown against the cabin walls by Muñoz. There was a red stripe across his shin, another diagonally across his belly and three more on his thighs where Muñoz had struck him with a bamboo cane. Finally, in a crescendo of rage, Muñoz had seized Pepillo by the shoulders, savagely bitten his left ear, hurled him across the cabin again and told him to get out.
He’d been hiding on the deck of the aftcastle since then, watching early evening dusk edge into night. Now the first stars were showing amongst scudding clouds and he hoped Muñoz was sleeping deeply.
In fact Pepillo hoped Muñoz was sleeping so deeply he would never wake up.
But then he thought how wrong it was to wish death on any human being, particularly a religious, so he whispered, ‘Dear God forgive me’, and returned to his gloomy concerns about the future.
He could not run; there was nowhere to run to. Besides – he felt the great carrack bob beneath him, heard the creak of its rigging in the freshening breeze – he very much wanted to stay. Truth was, he wanted this adventure more than anything else in the world. To sail into unknown waters with brave men, to explore fabled New Lands, to bring the faith to benighted heathens, even perhaps to earn some gold – he could not imagine anything he would rather be doing. All his dreams seemed poised on the verge of coming true.
Except for Muñoz.
No position in which Pepillo put his body was comfortable and now, with a grunt of pain, he rolled onto his stomach to ease the distress in his back. As he turned, brushing against the canvas sheeting, he heard the sound of a stealthy footstep on the navigation deck below, where the whipstaff that steered the great ship was mounted. There was a beat of silence, then another step – this time plainly on the stair up to the aftcastle.
Fear gripped Pepillo by the throat, and then at once relief as he heard Melchior’s voice. ‘So there you are! Come down to the main deck, Pepillo Dogbreath. Food’s a’cooking – fish stew and beans.’
‘Thank you,’ said Pepillo. ‘But I can’t come just now …’
‘Otherwise engaged are you, your lordship?’ Lanterns burned bright on the main deck so the loading could continue, but little light reached the aftcastle and Pepillo lay behind the coiled ropes in a pool of deep shadow. ‘Too important to eat with the common herd?’ Melchior asked, looming over him. His tone suddenly changed. ‘What are you doing down there anyway?’
With some difficulty and pain because his injuries were stiffening, Pepillo rolled on his side and forced himself to sit. ‘Muñoz beat me up,’ he said.
A backwash of lantern light from the main deck fell across his face, his bloody nose, his torn ear, and Melchior dropped into a crouch beside him. ‘That devil!’ he said. ‘I expected something like this. Just not so soon.’
Pepillo was startled. ‘You knew? Why didn’t you warn me?’
‘I did try to warn you but you ran off to the Customs House … Look, there’s no good way to tell you but I’d say you’re lucky this stopped at a beating. Most of us who sailed on the Córdoba expedition think Muñoz murdered his last page …’
‘Murdered?’ Pepillo’s voice was a squeak …
‘That’s what I said.’
‘But why?’
‘The peccatum Sodomiticum,’ Melchior whispered.
Pepillo had learned Latin in the monastery. ‘The sin of Sodom …’ he translated. He felt himself blushing: ‘You can’t mean …?’
‘That Muñoz is a sodomite? That he likes his pages’ arses? That he kills them to keep them silent. I certainly can mean that! And I do!’
‘But … But …’ With this horrible new thought, Pepillo had completely forgotten about his aches and pains.
‘Did he grope you?’ asked Melchior. ‘Did his fingers get in private places?’
‘No … No! Of course not. Nothing like that.’
‘Are you sure?’ said Melchior.
‘I’m sure.’
But Pepillo’s hand went unconsciously to his ear. He’d not been groped, but he’d been bitten! It was so unexpected and so astonishing a thing that he might almost have convinced himself it had never happened if it wasn’t for the torn flesh of his earlobe and his vivid memory of the wet, soft, heat of Muñoz’s lips …
The prospect of being confined on board ship with such a monster, constantly at his beck and call, exposed to his every cruel or perverse whim, was almost more than Pepillo could bear. But the prospect of not sailing in the Santa María and of missing his chance for the adventure of a lifetime seemed even worse.
A pulse of pure hatred shook him and he clenched his fists. This time he wouldn’t ask God’s forgiveness. ‘I wish Muñoz would die,’ he whispered.
Melchior was just a shadow, crouching in the darkness. Now he stretched his back, looked up at the stars. ‘
People die all the time,’ he said. ‘Even big, important people like Muñoz. They go overboard or they get killed and eaten by savage tribes, or they mysteriously fall from the rigging and break their necks. Accidents happen. They’re expected. Usually no one digs too deep.’
‘What are you suggesting?’
‘I’m not suggesting anything, you silly mammet. I’m stating facts. Fact One – accidents happen. Fact Two – most people don’t like Muñoz.’ Melchior sauntered to the railing surrounding the aftcastle and rested his elbows on it, leaning out over the pier.
In the distance, but coming closer at speed, Pepillo heard an urgent drum roll of galloping hooves on the cobbles. He stood and limped to the railing. It sounded like an entire squadron of cavalry was thundering towards them but, moments later, scattering the crowds still thronging the pier, a single rider, blond hair flying about his shoulders, exploded out of the night. He brought his huge white horse to a rearing halt beside the Santa María, leapt down gracefully, handed the reins to a dumbfounded guard and stormed up the gangplank onto the ship.