War God: Nights of the Witch

  La Peña was also of the Velazquista persuasion, hence the plotters’ willingness to speak in front of him. Indeed, after spending the first night of the voyage from Santiago sharing the brig with him, the kidnapped physician had clung to Escudero like shit to a shoe. Repulsive little arse-licker, thought Alvarado. The only saving grace was that the snivelling, deceitful, trouble-making doctor, whose outsized buttocks wobbled like jellies in his pantaloons as he busied himself preparing the bandages, was good at what he did. His skill with casts and poultices had undoubtedly speeded up the healing of Alvarado’s broken arm and that was a small mercy to be thankful for. ‘How long do you think now, La Peña? A week? Two …’

  The doctor made insincere clucking noises – meant, presumably, to mimic concern. ‘No, no,’ he said. ‘It’s not yet ten days since your … err … accident. You’ll have to wear the cast for at least another month. Maybe longer.’

  ‘Another month! That’s damned inconvenient. I’m a fighting man.’

  ‘Indeed so, Don Pedro, and one whose prowess is legendary. But I should refrain from battle, if I were you, until that arm is fully healed …’

  ‘It’s my right arm does the fighting,’ Alvarado glowered.

  ‘And your left that holds the shield.’

  ‘I’ve gone into battle without a shield before …’

  ‘As you’ll have to again if battle is imminent,’ said La Peña. He glanced over the rail at the peaceful bay of Cozumel and added, ‘But that does not appear to be the case.’

  Escudero sniffed loudly and wiped a drop of clear mucus from the end of his long nose. ‘We’ll not be fighting fellow Spaniards, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Alvarado, ‘were we expecting to?’

  ‘All that nonsense about Pedrarias and a rival expedition to the New Lands,’ Escudero growled. ‘It’s obvious now that Cortés was lying …’

  ‘It was just a pretext to dupe us into leaving Santiago in an unholy rush without proper procedure,’ complained Velázquez de León, scratching his huge black beard.

  ‘Without the blessing of His Excellency the Governor,’ added Escudero. He turned to fix Alvarado with a fanatical glare. ‘You supported Cortés in that folly,’ he said, ‘and look what your loyalty to your so-called “friend” earned you. We all saw the shameful way he treated you over the matter of Cozumel. That’s why, despite our differences, we thought it right to approach you yesterday with our proposal. I hope we were not mistaken.’

  ‘Ah, yes, your proposal. But yesterday you beat about the bush somewhat, and I prefer straight talk – therefore tell me plainly what you want of me.’

  Escudero paused to peer suspiciously around the deck and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Why that you join us, of course, to save the expedition …’

  ‘To make it legal again,’ added Velázquez de León, with an emphatic thump of his fist on the rail, ‘to bring it back under the jurisdiction of Don Diego de Velázquez …’

  ‘Your cousin,’ Alvarado noted.

  ‘Yes, my cousin.’ The tanned skin of the big man’s face turned beetroot red in the few areas where it was not covered by hair. ‘But also your patron for many years. Why, if my memory serves me right, he even advanced you the funds to purchase this great carrack of yours.’

  ‘And besides, Don Diego is the governor of Cuba,’ prompted Escudero, ‘the secular power throughout this region, appointed by His Majesty the King himself, whose will we flout at our peril.’

  ‘So, to get back in his good books,’ Alvarado said, ‘you want me to help you arrest Cortés and ship him back in irons to Cuba. Excuse me for speaking plainly, but do I understand you correctly on this?’

  Velázquez de León looked uncomfortable: ‘Well, yes … More or less.’

  Tsk, Tsk, from Escudero: ‘No “more or less” about it. That’s what we want you to do, Don Pedro, and because your role will be crucial in preventing a rebellion amongst Cortés’s friends, we offer you joint command of the expedition thereafter. Now tell us, here and now, are you with us or are you against us? Are you in or are you out?’

  Alvarado looked at the fat doctor who knelt at his side listening intently while pretending to fuss with his arm. ‘What do you say, La Peña? Should I be with or against this cunning plot? Should I be in or should I be out?’

  Escudero bristled at once. ‘Don’t toy with us, Don Pedro. This is a matter of life and death.’

  Yes, thought Alvarado, your death – if I know my friend Hernán well. But he answered: ‘I never toy, Juan. Cortés has offended me mightily, as you all observed, and I’m attracted by your offer. I’m just not sure this is the right time to strike.’

  Now it was Escudero’s turn to flush, quite an achievement since the man’s skin had the pallid, lifeless quality of a five-day-dead cadaver. ‘Not the right time? After you’ve made us show our hand to you in this way? By God, Don Pedro, you will join us or I’ll see you dead.’

  Alvarado pushed La Peña aside and stood up, his hand dropping to the hilt of his falchion. ‘You’ll see me dead? Begging your pardon, Don Juan, but I think not. Even with only one arm, I’ll cut you down in a trice should you be foolish enough to come at me.’

  Escudero lunged forward but Velázquez de León stepped in his way. ‘No! No! This is not what we planned, this is not what we came here to do. Don Pedro is our friend, our natural ally and much wronged by Cortés. If he says now is not the right time then let’s at least hear his reasons …’

  Fool, thought Alvarado, weak, bearded fool. But what he said was: ‘I don’t share your view about Pedrarias. For all we know his fleet could be within a day’s sail of us now, either to land here and attempt to overwhelm us or strike direct for the mainland to beat us to its richest treasures. Either way, until we’re sure of the matter, I don’t think it’s wise to fight amongst ourselves.’

  ‘There is no Pedrarias fleet!’ Escudero was practically foaming at the mouth. ‘It’s an invention of Cortés’s, a clever fabrication, to suit his purposes.’

  ‘Perhaps … Perhaps not. We must wait and see.’

  Escudero was muttering about security risks, Alvarado knowing too much, a trap, a ruse …

  ‘You’ll keep what’s been said here today to yourself?’ Velázquez de León said anxiously.

  ‘Yes of course,’ Alvarado replied. ‘I’m the soul of discretion. We’ll watch and wait for another week or two. If the threat of Pedrarias fails to materialise, then feel free to approach me again. You’ll find me much more amenable.’

  Escudero stepped forward until his long ugly face was just a finger’s breadth from Alvarado’s. He said nothing, just stood there looking at him, then turned his back and stamped off, followed, like a tame dog, by Velázquez de León.

  ‘Well,’ said Alvarado half to himself, half to La Peña who was still pretending to be busy with the plaster cast on his arm, ‘that was interesting.’

  Ten minutes later, after La Peña had scurried off to join his masters, there came a clump of boots and Bernal Díaz climbed the steps from the main deck. The jumped-up farm-hand whom Cortés had promoted to ensign was followed by the swordsman Francisco Mibiercas, more a man of Alvarado’s own class, and another young soldier named Alonso de la Serna. All three were carrying crossbows and quivers stuffed with bolts.

  ‘Excuse us, Don Pedro,’ said Díaz without preamble, ‘but since we won’t be sailing until the refits are finished, and that’s going to be a few more days, we’d like your permission to take a bit of shore leave.’

  Raising a quizzical eyebrow, Alvarado cast a glance across the bay and up the hill towards Cozumel. ‘Shore leave? There’re no taverns in this town, you know. No ladies of the night either.’ He laughed: ‘Unless you fancy tupping these Maya she-goats.’

  ‘We want to do a bit of hunting,’ said Mibiercas, holding forth his crossbow, ‘but not for ewes. We’re told there are big herds of deer grazing on the south side of the island. Thought we’d head down there this afternoon, ca
mp out for a couple of nights and see what we can bag.’

  ‘Not sure I should let you go. There’s been a murder in the town.’

  ‘I was told there had been two,’ said Díaz.

  ‘Seems the Indians are holding us responsible. There are those who think there might be trouble.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ interjected Mibiercas. ‘The Indians don’t have the stomach for it after the beating we gave them.’

  ‘Agreed!’ Alvarado grinned. He pointed to the hilt of the longsword jutting above Mibiercas’s left shoulder: ‘I hear you know how to use that, but how do you rate it against a broadsword, for example, or a good Toledo rapier?’

  ‘I always say it’s not so much the weapon that counts, as the man wielding it, but I like the range the longsword gives me.’

  ‘Here, let me take a look,’ said Alvarado, holding out his hand.

  Mibiercas reached back across his shoulder, unsheathed the weapon and passed it over for the other man to examine.

  ‘Nice weight,’ Alvarado commented. ‘Double fuller cross-section too, so it’s strong. Good sharp point on it. You can put it through plate armour, I’d hazard?’

  ‘Like a hot knife through butter, Don Pedro.’

  ‘Well, very good then.’ Alvarado passed the weapon back. ‘Perhaps we’ll do some sparring when this damned arm of mine is better.’

  ‘I would be honoured,’ said Mibiercas with a bow.

  Díaz coughed. ‘About the hunting, Don Pedro? Do we have your permission?’

  ‘By all means yes. Be back on Monday. Enjoy yourselves, but half of what you bag goes in the communal pot.’

  By Sandoval’s count, some sixty of the Mayan fighters, with varying degrees of injury, had survived the carnage. Menaced by the musketeers and crossbowmen, they now sat hunched on the ground, miserable, vanquished and terrified, while the dogs – called back from inflicting further harm on the fleeing women and children – feasted on the flesh and offal of the dead.

  Sandoval viewed the spectacle with disgust, but the animals needed to eat. He turned to Brabo and asked: ‘What shall we do with the prisoners?’

  The sergeant’s face was expressionless. ‘We’re still outnumbered,’ he said, ‘they might turn on us at any time.’

  ‘They don’t look capable of turning on anybody.’

  ‘No guarantee they’ll stay that way.’

  Sandoval sighed. ‘I suppose we’d best tie them and leave them here.’

  A sour look. ‘I don’t advise it, sir. The townspeople will return and free them when we’re gone. They might come after us.’

  ‘So what should we do?’

  ‘Well, let’s get them bound hand and foot to start with. The men will find it good sport to set the dogs on some of them and it won’t take long to cut the throats of the rest.’

  ‘You can’t be serious.’

  ‘I’m completely serious, sir. This is war.’

  The worst of it was that Sandoval could see the logic of Brabo’s position. In many ways killing these captives was the easiest and most sensible thing to do. But his guilt at permitting the torture of the spies still burned him and he was loath to add to it. ‘Tie their hands for now and march them into the town,’ he said in a firm tone that he hoped brooked no dissent. ‘I’ll make a decision later.’

  Though it was mid-afternoon, the sun’s rays could not penetrate the hot, fetid, claustrophobic prayer cell in the hold of the San Sebastián that Alvarado had given Father Gaspar Muñoz for his quarters.

  The friar did not object. He had endured far worse in his rise through monastic orders. Of course the little cell was less grand than the accommodation he was to have enjoyed on Cortés’s ship before his rift with that vile man. But the discomfort and the darkness were a form of continuous mortification – to say nothing of the lasting pains from this morning’s flagellation! – like thorns in the flesh to buffet him lest he exalt himself too highly for the great works he was called to do.

  A single candle burned in the darkness and, by its light, Muñoz repeatedly passed first one side then the other of the steel blade of his razor back and forth, back and forth, across a leather strop, from time to time testing the edge with his thumb. When he was satisfied it was fit for tonight’s purpose, he folded the blade away into its bone handle and tucked the instrument into an inner pocket of his habit.

  He snuffed the candle and got to his feet.

  It was time to take a stroll on deck. Since it was Saturday he thought he might preach a sermon for the edification and improvement of any of the crew and soldiers who happened to be gathered there.

  Mutul was a town of some four hundred hovels and shanties, for the most part consisting of a single room with walls of wattle and adobe, and roofs thatched with palm fronds. Even with the small force at Sandoval’s command it was a simple matter to search them all but, except for a few of the aged and the sick, who had clearly been too infirm to run, every one of them was deserted. It seemed that all the inhabitants had fled into the surrounding jungle.

  Then came a shout from Brabo, who was investigating a group of larger structures close to the base of the ancient pyramid. ‘Better get over here, sir,’ the sergeant yelled. ‘Something you need to see.’ Signalling Little Julian to follow, Sandoval broke into a run, feeling a surge of excitement, and found himself moments later in front of what appeared to be a prison containing about forty naked, ill-kempt inmates. Hope and Star had just reached the spot, Star gripping the bars and peering eagerly through them. Sandoval joined him and asked in Castilian: ‘Is any one of you a Spaniard?’ The prisoners cowered back in terror at his voice. ‘Is any one of you a Spaniard?’ he repeated, louder this time, but again the only answer was a low murmur of fear.

  Now Star was shouting something incomprehensible in his language and Sandoval saw a female prisoner looking up. She was perhaps twenty years of age with filthy hair and a mud-smeared body. Star shouted again, and beckoned. Beside him Hope also spoke, his voice low and urgent. The woman rose to a crouch, one hand covering her crotch, the other placed across her breasts, and sobbed repeatedly ‘Ikan, Ikan’ – Star’s name! – then ran across the earth floor of the prison and embraced the young guide through the bars.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ Sandoval asked Little Julian.

  ‘Sir, Ikan find sister, sir.’

  ‘His sister?’

  ‘Yes, these cannibals peoples take her last year. Keep her. We don’t come, next big moon they eat her.’

  ‘Nobody told me Star had a sister.’

  ‘Oh yes, sir, she daughter of Cozumel cacique.’

  Which meant that Ikan must be the cacique’s son! Sandoval mentally reviewed the events of the past two days – the all-too-plausible story about the ‘Castilan’, the insistence that a strong force would be required to free him, young Ikan offered as a guide – and realised in a flash how the Spanish had been played for fools. The wily old Cozumel chieftain had spun a clever web, and offered Cortés a lure he could not resist, with the sole objective of rescuing his own daughter!

  ‘Well I’ll be damned!’ he muttered, restraining himself with difficulty from striking Little Julian, who must have been in on the scheme from the beginning. Turning his back on the squint-eyed interpreter he muttered, ‘All this way, risking our lives, for some slip of an Indian girl.’

  He was half resolved to leave her in the prison – with Star and Hope for company! – and march his men back to the brigantines posthaste when a flash of movement caught his eye.

  There!

  A tall Indian darted from the cover of one of the adobe longhouses near the base of the pyramid, sprinted across a patch of open ground and concealed himself behind a second structure. Fearing he was not alone but part of a new attacking force, Sandoval called a warning to Brabo and charged towards the Indian’s position, skidded round the side of the longhouse brandishing his sword and was confronted by an unkempt, cowering, ragged apparition who held up large, grimy hands in supplication and croaked s
ome words in his barbaric tongue. Sandoval had his sword at the man’s throat as Brabo came running to join him. ‘Julian!’ yelled the sergeant, drawing his dagger. ‘Over here at the double. We’ve got another spy to question.’

  By now most of the conquistadors, drawn by the commotion, were gathering round and, as Brabo stepped in, the cowering Indian began to speak more rapidly, his croaking voice taking on almost the cadence and rhythms of a Latin prayer. How odd, Sandoval thought. A nagging suspicion troubled him and the more closely he looked at the man, filthy and lean, eyes like pale flames burning in the dark hearth of his face, the more strange and incongruous he seemed. He was naked except for a single sandal on his right foot and a squalid breechclout into which his left sandal, which appeared to be broken, was tied. His black hair hung lank and greasy to his shoulders and was braided over his forehead in the local fashion. He was beardless, as were all the Maya, but – another peculiarity – there was heavy stubble about his jowls and these were a people who seemed unable to grow facial hair.

  Julian trotted up and Brabo put the tip of his dagger against the captive’s face, breaking the skin under his right eye so that a line of blood guttered out and ran down his sooty cheek. ‘Right, my lovely,’ said the sergeant, ‘I’ve got a few questions to ask you.’ He turned to the interpreter. ‘Julian, tell him. He answers us straight and he dies easy, he answers us false and he dies hard.’

  ‘Wait!’ Sandoval was surprised by the authority in his own voice. ‘Not so fast.’ He laid a restraining hand on the sergeant’s thick wrist, drawing the dagger down.

  ‘What now, sir?’ Brabo sighed. ‘Not more scruples, I hope? We don’t have time for scruples.’

  ‘No, not scruples. I believe you’re about to torture the very man we’ve come to find. Back away from him. Give him space. I want to hear what he has to say for himself.’