War God: Nights of the Witch

  ‘Melchior,’ repeated Pepillo. ‘Right. Good to meet you.’ He awkwardly withdrew his hand: ‘Look … You asked me my business here and it’s very simple. I’m trying to find my master’s quarters.’ He indicated the two large leather bags he’d been lugging on board the Santa María de la Concepción when Melchior had confronted him. He’d dumped them on deck at the end of the gangplank, right below the forecastle. ‘My master’s belongings,’ Pepillo explained. ‘He came in from Hispaniola this morning and they were held up in the Customs House. I’m supposed to bring them to his cabin …’

  An angry frown contorted Melchior’s face. There was something ferocious about this frown. Something hateful. Perhaps even something frightening. ‘This master of yours,’ he spat. ‘He have a name?’

  ‘Father Gaspar Muñoz.’

  ‘Muñoz!’ The frowned deepened, became a grimace.

  ‘Yes, Muñoz. You know him?’

  ‘He got stick legs, this Muñoz? Like a crow? He got a little fat belly? How about his front teeth? Look like he been sucking too hard on something he shouldn’t?’

  Pepillo giggled at the crude image: ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen my master before.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘I was assigned to him this morning and—’

  ‘—Assigned? Assigned you say? That’s a pretty word …’

  ‘I was sent straight to the Customs House for his bags. There’s two more I still have to fetch …’

  A shadow distracted Pepillo and he glanced up to see a heavy brass cannon soaring overhead in a cat’s cradle of ropes. With raucous shouts, and much squealing of pulleys, a gang of sailors manoeuvred it into the deep shadows of the hold.

  ‘That’s one of the lombards,’ said Melchior. A note of pride crept into his voice: ‘We’ve got three of them with the fleet. You can settle a lot of arguments with guns like that.’

  ‘Are we expecting a lot of arguments?’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ Melchior sneered. ‘After what happened last year?’

  Pepillo decided not to bluff: ‘What happened last year?’

  ‘The Córdoba expedition?’

  Pepillo shrugged. It meant nothing to him.

  ‘Hernandez de Córdoba led a fleet of three ships to explore the New Lands, see what trade was to be had there and bring the word of Christ to the Indians. He had a hundred and ten men with him. I was one of them.’ Melchior paused: ‘Seventy of us got killed.’ Another pause: ‘Seventy! Córdoba himself died of his wounds and we barely had enough hands on deck to sail back. It’s been the talk of Santiago ever since. How can you not know anything about it?’

  ‘I’ve been living in a monastery …’

  ‘So?’

  ‘We don’t get much news there.’

  Melchior laughed. It was a big, easy laugh, as though he was genuinely amused. ‘You a monk?’ he asked eventually. ‘Or some such?’

  ‘Not a monk,’ said Pepillo. ‘The Dominicans took me in when I was orphaned, taught me to read, taught me to clerk, taught me to keep numbers.’

  ‘Ah, that would be why they chose you to serve Father Muñoz.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘He’s our Inquisitor,’ said Melchior. ‘He’ll need numbers and letters and clerking to keep track of all those people he’s going to burn.’ He leaned down, put his mouth close to Pepillo’s ear: ‘Muñoz was with us on the Córdoba expedition too,’ he whispered. ‘People used to say he was “vigilant for God”. Vigilant for the devil’s closer to the truth! It was him as caused all the trouble.’

  As Melchior told the story, Muñoz had been so ‘vigilant for God’ during his time as Inquisitor with the Córdoba expedition that he had burned whole Indian villages to the ground and consigned their entire populations – men, women and children – to horrible deaths in the flames.

  ‘But why would he do that?’ asked Pepillo. He felt outraged.

  ‘We brought them the word of Christ,’ said Melchior, ‘and they accepted conversion, but when we moved on some of them returned to the worship of their old gods.’ He lowered his voice: ‘Can’t blame them really. They didn’t think they’d see us again, but we came back and Muñoz rooted out the heretics and burnt them …’

  ‘Didn’t he give them a second chance? People like that who were new to the faith?’

  ‘Never. Sometimes he tortured them first to make them name other heretics so he could burn them too. But I never saw him give anyone a second chance. Maybe that’s why he brought the wrath of God down on our heads …’

  ‘Wrath of God?’

  ‘Thousands of angry Indians, driven mad by his cruelties, hell-bent on revenge. We had to fight our way out. Those of us that lived … we all hate Muñoz.’

  There was an earsplitting crash as a massive ramp dropped into place and half a dozen trembling, sweating cavalry horses were led on board to makeshift stalls further aft. They neighed and snickered. One of them deposited an enormous heap of dung. Their iron hooves rang on the deck.

  ‘You been to sea before?’ Melchior asked.

  Pepillo said he’d sailed with the Dominican mission from Spain to Hispaniola when he was six and again on the much shorter journey from Hispaniola to Cuba when he was nine.

  ‘And since then?’

  Pepillo told Melchior he’d lived in Cuba for the last five years, most of that time spent here in Santiago, helping old Rodriguez in the monastery library, assisting Brother Pedro with the accounts, running errands for Borges the quartermaster, and doing odd jobs for anyone who asked.

  ‘Sounds boring,’ prompted Melchior.

  Pepillo remembered how he’d secretly yearned for freedom from the drab routine of his life and dreamed of stowing away on a ship and sailing to distant lands. Now, unexpectedly, it seemed his dreams were about to come true and it was all thanks to his new and as yet unknown master, the increasingly mysterious Father Gaspar Muñoz. Melchior might be right that he was a nasty piece of work, but for the moment Pepillo simply felt overjoyed to be on board this great vibrant ship, to feel its timbers move beneath his feet, to hear the shouts of the sailors in the rigging and the creak of the towering masts and to know that, very soon, he would be going … somewhere.

  Anywhere …

  Which wasn’t the library.

  Hurrah!

  Which wasn’t counting beans in Don Pedro’s windowless cell.

  Hurrah again!

  The Santa María was a hundred feet in length, big enough, Pepillo thought, to serve as flagship for what was obviously a major expedition. Judging from the other ships – surely at least ten of them! – also loading supplies, weapons and soldiers along the dock, something much more than preaching the faith was going on here.

  ‘All these preparations,’ Pepillo asked. ‘All these soldiers. What are they for? Where are we going?’

  Melchior scratched his head. ‘You mean you really haven’t heard?’

  ‘I told you. I’ve been living in a monastery. I don’t hear anything.’

  Melchior drew himself up to his full height and pointed theatrically due west: ‘If you sail in that direction for four days,’ he said, ‘you come to the mainland we explored last year with Córdoba. It’s a beautiful land, and there seems to be no end to it. There are mountains, and navigable rivers, and great cities and fertile fields there, and gold and many precious things.

  ‘And that’s where we’re going?’

  ‘Yes, God willing … It’s a fine land. We can all become rich there.’

  Melchior had been so hostile just moments before, but he already seemed much more likeable. In this alien world of ships and warriors, Pepillo thought, was it too much to hope he might have found a friend?

  ‘You’re thinking I might become your friend,’ said Melchior. ‘Don’t waste your time. It’s never going to happen.’

  ‘I’m not thinking any such thing,’ said Pepillo. He was surprised at how indignant he managed to sound, and how disappointed he felt. ‘I don’t want to
be friends with you. It was you who started talking to me.’ He picked up the bags: ‘Just tell me which way to go for my master’s cabin.’

  ‘I’ll show you,’ said Melchior, ‘but you must not vex me with friendship.’

  ‘Look, I already told you I don’t want your friendship! I’ve got my job to do. I’m sure you’ve got yours …’ Pepillo paused, realising he hadn’t yet asked. ‘What is your job by the way?’

  Melchior’s chest visibly swelled: ‘I’m manservant to the caudillo,’ he said.

  ‘The caudillo?’

  ‘Cortés himself.’

  Cortés … Cortés … Another name Pepillo was apparently supposed to know.

  ‘He bought me after the Córdoba expedition,’ Melchior continued, ‘and then he set me free.’

  ‘And you stayed with him? Even after he gave you freedom?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I? He’s a great man.’

  Melchior had led Pepillo to the rear of the ship and now pointed to the twin doors at the back of the navigation deck below the aftcastle. ‘All the rest of us bunk on the main deck,’ he said, ‘but those are the cabins for your master and mine. It used to be one big stateroom with two doors, but my master partitioned it into two rooms to accommodate your master.’ Melchior looked furtively around: ‘Muñoz hasn’t come on board yet,’ he sniffed. ‘I expect he’s up to no good in town.’

  ‘Hasn’t come on board? He’s supposed to have been here since before dawn …’

  ‘Not my problem. Like I say, he’ll be up to no good in town.’

  ‘That sounds sinister … and a bit mysterious.’

  ‘He’s a sinister man, your master.’ Melchior leaned closer, lowered his voice to a whisper: ‘There’s something you have to know about him …’

  But Pepillo had suddenly remembered the second pair of bags. ‘Tell me later,’ he interrupted. ‘I have to go back to the Customs House right now!’ He put down the bags he was carrying: ‘Will you stow these in my master’s cabin? I beg you. I’ve got no one else to ask.’

  Melchior nodded. ‘I’ll stow the bags,’ he said, ‘and here’s my advice. Whatever you need to do at the Customs House, make it snappy. Cortés has itchy feet.’ He lowered his voice still further: ‘A lot of supplies have been brought aboard at night. I think he’s about to pull a trick on Velázquez.’

  Velázquez! Now there was a name Pepillo did know. Diego de Velázquez, the conqueror and governor of Cuba, the most powerful man on the island whose word was law. ‘The governor?’ he asked, realising how stupid he sounded even as he said it. ‘He’s involved in this?’

  ‘Of course he’s involved! He’s the one who gave Cortés command of the expedition. He’s paid for three of the ships out of his own pocket.’

  ‘So why would Cortés want to pull a trick on him?’

  Once more Melchior glanced shiftily around. ‘Rumour has it,’ he whispered, ‘that Velázquez grows jealous. He imagines all the gold Cortés will win in the New Lands and wants it for himself. There are those who say he will relieve Cortés of command and put someone else he’s better able to control in charge.’

  ‘He can’t control Cortés then?’

  ‘Never! Cortés has always been his own man.’

  ‘So why did he appoint him in the first place?’

  ‘There was bad blood between them in the past. Something about Cortés getting the governor’s niece pregnant and then refusing to marry her. It all happened a couple of years ago and I don’t know the details, but maybe Velázquez felt sorry about the way he treated Cortés then. He put him in jail for eight months, threatened him with death and only pardoned him when he agreed to marry the girl. Maybe he gave him the expedition to keep him sweet after all that …’

  Pepillo whistled: ‘And now he wants to take it away from him again?’

  ‘Which Cortés won’t accept! I’d say he’s a man who would sail with the fleet even before it’s properly loaded. He’s quite the lawyer, and if he never gets the order relieving him of command then he won’t be breaking any rules.’

  Pepillo felt a knot of fear in his stomach.

  It was a new fear.

  He feared the unfamiliar world of the ship, but now he feared even more an enforced return to the familiar prison of the monastery.

  He told himself he was being ridiculous – that this caudillo called Cortés was still in the midst of loading his fleet and couldn’t possibly be ready to embark for at least another three days. Muñoz wasn’t on board, after all, and surely the fleet would not sail without its Inquisitor? Even so, Pepillo couldn’t shake the feeling of lurking dread. With a shout of thanks to Melchior, he charged down the aft gangway onto the pier, swerved to avoid a water-seller, dodged around a butcher’s cart, stretched out his legs and ran.

  He was still daunted by the chaos and confusion of the piers and the harbour, but he didn’t think it would be difficult to find his way back to the Customs House. All he had to do was retrace, in reverse, the route he had taken this morning.

  The San Sebastián now lay on his right and, as Pepillo approached the big carrack, he saw a mounted herald on the dockside, waiting at the foot of a gangplank. The herald was dressed in the scarlet and gold livery of the governorate and his splendid black horse wore a trapper of the same design.

  Pepillo ran on, arms and legs pumping, not wanting anything to slow him down. But when he was twenty paces past the herald he heard a sound like a cannonade and turned to see another rider on an even bigger horse charging down the gangplank from the deck of the San Sebastián. The horse was white, like a vision from a legend, and Pepillo recognised the flying blond hair and the fine clothes of the noble lord he’d glimpsed earlier. Then the herald’s horse bolted and both men rode past him at full gallop, one on either side, shaking the earth under their iron-shod hooves and filling his ears with thunder.

  Pepillo’s legs felt momentarily weak – the monstrous horses had seemed certain to trample him – but he kept on running towards the Customs House, intent on extracting his master’s bags and getting back to the Santa María in the shortest possible time.

  He sensed something in the air, like a bowstring stretched to breaking point, like a great storm about to burst.

  Melchior was right.

  This fleet was poised to sail.

  Chapter Four

  Tenochtitlan, Thursday 18 February 1519

  Moctezuma set down the obsidian knife, wiped blood from his eyes and took stock of the remaining victims on the northern stairway.

  It was as he thought. He had killed forty-one and eleven were left.

  Just eleven!

  And the war god showed no more sign of appearing to him now than at any other time in the past five years.

  Clearly it had been a mistake to begin with only fifty-two victims, even if they were the pick of the crop from the war with the Tlascalans. The priests had said Hummingbird would be pleased with such a number, symbolic of a complete cycle of years in the Calendar Round. But if that was true, then wouldn’t he have been even more pleased with five hundred and twenty?

  An idea was beginning to take shape. Perhaps the god grew bored with male victims? Perhaps females would entice him to appear?

  Five hundred and twenty ripe and fertile young females.

  Moctezuma shrugged off his blood-drenched robes, let them drop with a heavy slap to the floor, stepped away naked but for a loincloth, and took up the knife again.

  The next victim had already been forced down onto the sacrificial stone where he lay gasping with fear, his whole body trembling, his eyes rolling wildly. Such behaviour was not seemly for a warrior and Moctezuma took pleasure in castrating the man before slicing him open from groin to breastbone, dragging forth some loops of his intestines, puncturing his stomach, rummaging around in the mess for his spleen and, finally, amidst a crescendo of screams, ripping out his heart. A great, hot gush of blood spurted up and came spattering down again like a rainstorm as the corpse was rolled away.

  Some
victims, Moctezuma had noticed, just seemed to have more blood than others. Why was that?

  He killed another man. And another. Sticky clots clung around his fingers where he gripped the knife. There was blood in his eyes, in his mouth, clogging his nose.

  He rested a moment while the assistants prepared the next victim, and beckoned Ahuizotl, his high priest, whose bulging yellow eyes, blotchy skin, gaping nostrils, crooked teeth and lecherous monkey features greatly resembled those of the manipulative and vicious species of water monster after which he was named. The high priest was his man, bought and paid for, and he strode forward now in his black, blood-smeared robes.

  ‘You did not give me good advice,’ Moctezuma told him. His voice was soft, but there was a deliberate edge of implied threat and Ahuizotl looked worried.

  As well you might, thought Moctezuma. As well you might. I could have you strangled in your sleep.

  Ahuizotl kept his eyes downcast: ‘I humbly apologise to Your Magnificence if I have failed you in any way. My life is yours to dispose of.’

  ‘Your life is always mine to dispose of …’

  Ahuizotl began to bare his breast but Moctezuma reached out a bloody hand to stop him: ‘Spare me the theatricals. I don’t want your heart. Not yet anyway.’ He looked up at the sun which was high in the sky, standing close to noon. ‘The god does not appear to me,’ he said, ‘because we have not offered an adequate basket of victims. I expect you to remedy this situation, Ahuizotl. Be back here in two hours with five hundred and twenty young women for me to kill.’

  ‘Five hundred and twenty!’ Ahuizotl’s mournful face registered shock. ‘In two hours? Impossible.’

  Moctezuma’s voice grew softer: ‘Why is it always your instinct to say “no”, Ahuizotl?’ he asked. ‘Learn to say yes if you wish the light of my presence to shine upon you.’

  ‘Yes, Magnificence.’

  ‘Very good. So I shall expect five hundred and twenty young women then?’

  ‘Yes, Magnificence.’

  ‘The younger the better. I do not insist that they be virgins. I don’t expect you to perform miracles, you see. But I want them here in two hours.’