War God: Nights of the Witch

  ‘That’s why he wants to kill me,’ Muñoz sneered. ‘With this.’ He held up Melchior’s rusty dagger, then pushed his mouth closer to Pepillo’s ear. ‘I expect he told you otherwise, yes? Some high-principled story about defending the Indians? Was that what brought you out here tonight? Well, now you know the truth, boy! Now you know the truth!’

  He cast the dagger aside and suddenly he was on his feet again, pacing about the clearing where he’d obviously dragged both of them after knocking them out, shadows dancing across his coarse features as the candles glimmered. ‘The great dragon was hurled down,’ he said, his voice rising, ‘that ancient serpent called the devil who led the whole world astray.’ As he spoke he strode close to Melchior and kicked him twice in the ribs with such incredible violence that Pepillo distinctly heard something crack followed at once by a terrible groan of pain. ‘You are tempters,’ Muñoz boomed, ‘tempters, I say, who have wickedly tempted me, and the flesh is weak.’ He raced across the clearing, drew back his foot and Pepillo winced and moaned as two kicks now thudded into his own ribs. He felt a gush of vomit rising up his throat and bit it back, fearing he would choke and die.

  But of course he was going to die anyway. They were both going to die, he and Melchior, here in the dark woods at the hands of this evil madman.

  Muñoz was muttering to himself, and this was even more frightening than his shouts and yells. ‘In that day,’ he intoned, ‘the Lord with his sore great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent, and he shall slay the dragon.’ Through the tears pouring from his eyes, Pepillo saw the friar’s hand disappear inside his habit and emerge holding a straight razor. Then in a single step he surged back to Melchior’s side, planted a hand in his thick hair and flicked the razor open so that its long steel blade glittered in the candlelight. ‘A man who lies with a man,’ he said, ‘has committed an abomination and shall surely be put to death.’

  As he placed the blade at Melchior’s throat there came a rush of footsteps and a huge sword lanced in seemingly from nowhere, pierced the Inquisitor’s back and emerged through his belly. The man wielding it was tall, bearded and powerfully muscled. He dipped the hilt of the weapon and, holding the friar impaled, forced him screaming to his feet.

  ‘Mercy,’ Muñoz shrieked. ‘Mercy! In God’s name.’

  Two other men had closed in around him, their faces grim. They held daggers which they now used to stab him repeatedly, while he still wriggled on the sword blade like a gaffed fish.

  It took some minutes, and a great deal of blood, before he was finally still.

  The bearded, hard-eyed soldiers who had killed Muñoz were Bernal Díaz, Alonso de La Serna and Francisco Mibiercas, the latter being the owner of what Pepillo would ever afterwards think of as the sore great and strong sword. Although they sailed with Alvarado, Pepillo remembered Díaz from his visits to the Santa María, most recently over the matter of the murders in Cozumel, and it seemed that Melchior knew all three men from the Córdoba expedition.

  The first thing they did after they had cut the boys free and allowed them to dress was very strange. ‘Are these yours?’ asked La Serna, holding up Pepillo’s hatchet and Melchior’s dagger.

  They admitted ownership of the weapons.

  ‘And what did you plan to do with them?’

  Melchior looked at Muñoz’s gashed and bleeding corpse lying face down on the forest floor. ‘We followed him here,’ he said. ‘We were going to kill him.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Díaz.

  ‘We hate him,’ said Pepillo. ‘He is – I mean he was – a murderer. Two days ago we saw him track and kill an Indian child. He killed another last night and he … he …’

  The three soldiers shared meaningful glances.

  ‘He was a filthy sodomite,’ said Melchior.

  ‘He said he was going to “have” me,’ Pepillo added, ‘after he’d killed Melchior.’

  La Serna held out the dagger and the hatchet. ‘Right, boys,’ he said. ‘Take your weapons and do what you came here to do.’

  ‘What do you mean, sir?’ asked Pepillo. The hatchet weighed heavy in his hand. Heavier than he’d remembered.

  ‘You came here to kill him,’ said Mibiercas, who was cleaning the blade of his sword on Muñoz’s habit. ‘Now’s your chance.’

  ‘But he’s already dead, sir,’ Pepillo objected.

  ‘Just do it,’ growled Díaz. ‘Do your part.’

  Melchior needed no further urging. His breath was already coming in short fast gasps, low moans rising in his throat, and now he fell on Muñoz in a rage, burying his dagger over and over again in the friar’s inert, bloodied back. Pepillo saw tears running down his friend’s cheeks and great sobs racking his chest. Before he was done La Serna nodded. ‘You too, boy,’ he said.

  ‘Me, sir?’ Pepillo asked in a small voice.

  ‘Do you see any other boys here?’ snapped La Serna.

  Pepillo turned to Díaz and Mibiercas but there was no give in their eyes. Feeling sick, he joined Melchior by the body, knelt and raised the hatchet but at first couldn’t bring himself to strike a blow. ‘Do it!’ Melchior snarled, his face so livid with violence and fury that Pepillo started back in shock. ‘Do it if you’re my friend!’

  Suddenly something broke inside Pepillo and he chopped the hatchet down into Muñoz’s shoulder, then again – hack! hack! – into his neck, feeling the vertebrae separate, and finally, in a frenzy himself now, into the back of the friar’s head until the bones of his skull splintered.

  ‘Good enough,’ said Díaz. He stood behind Pepillo and Melchior, put his big, strong hands under their arms and lifted them to their feet. As he did so the swordsman Mibiercas favoured them both with a grim smile. ‘Well done, lads!’ he said. ‘We’re all in this together now.’

  The world spun. Pepillo doubled over, clutching his stomach, and vomited.

  A few moments later, still feeling faint, Pepillo sat on the trunk of the fallen tree where Muñoz had perched triumphantly not long before, and watched as Melchior helped the three soldiers tidy various items away into a knotted canvas sack lying empty and open on the ground. When he’d waded naked through the sea from the San Sebastián, it was presumably inside this sack that the friar had bundled his habit, his sandals, his bone-handled razor, his Bible, several coils of rope of different lengths and the two altar candles he’d used to illuminate the scene. Now one by one, with the exception of his slashed and blood-sodden habit, which was left to cover his body, they all went back into the sack.

  ‘Did he know you were going to follow him up here?’ Díaz asked.

  Pepillo and Melchior both shook their heads. ‘He couldn’t have known. We didn’t tell anyone what we were planning.’

  ‘He must have been onto you,’ said Díaz, coiling away the last of the lengths of rope, ‘because he came prepared – right down to candles so he could see what he was doing.’

  Pepillo felt a shiver run down his spine. ‘How did you know we’d be here?’ he asked.

  ‘We didn’t,’ said La Serna. ‘We were waiting for our chance and tonight was it – which was good luck for you boys.’

  ‘We were with Córdoba,’ explained Mibiercas. ‘A lot of good men died because of Muñoz. He had this coming to him.’

  ‘And more good men would have died if we’d let him live,’ added Díaz. ‘At least now Cortés can run this expedition the way it should be run, and make us all rich, without having to take a meddling Inquisitor into account.’

  ‘Does Cortés know about this?’ Pepillo asked.

  ‘No, lad, he knows nothing,’ said Díaz. ‘And he must not learn of it. What happened tonight didn’t happen. You will never speak of it again and we will never speak of it again.’

  Mibiercas, his great sword now slung in its scabbard across his back, was more emphatic. ‘If word of this gets out,’ he said, glaring at Melchior then shifting his gaze to Pepillo, ‘I’ll have your heads. Remember that.’
r />   ‘Word won’t get out, sir,’ said Pepillo. ‘We’re truly grateful to you for saving our lives and we’ll keep our mouths shut.’

  Melchior nodded his agreement: ‘It’s like you said, Mibiercas. We’re all in this together and we all have to watch each other’s backs.’

  Pepillo was impressed by Díaz and his friends, and not only because of the rescue. They could have left Muñoz in the clearing but they wouldn’t do so because the Indians of Cozumel would certainly be blamed if he was found, and another bloodbath might result. Instead they’d decided to dump the corpse in the sea off a remote headland they’d reconnoitred more than a mile away from the fleet’s anchorage. ‘It’s better we have a mystery than a murder,’ La Serna explained with a lopsided grin.

  Most of the night had passed and dawn was beginning to lighten the sky in the east by the time they reached the headland. Gulls wheeled and squawked, waves crashed and burst against jagged rocks with a strange booming echo, and a strong wind was blowing as the soldiers gathered heavy stones and used the ropes from the canvas sack to tie them securely to Muñoz’s body.

  ‘Anyone want to say a few words on behalf of the deceased?’ asked Díaz.

  ‘He was a wicked man,’ said La Serna. ‘May his soul rot in Hell.’

  ‘He asked for mercy,’ said Mibiercas, ‘that he never showed to others.’

  ‘We gave him a bad death,’ said Díaz, ‘and he must account for himself before his maker now. When we’re judged for what we’ve done, as we surely will be when our own time comes, I pray the Lord does not deal too harshly with us.’

  Just before they rolled the corpse into the deep water, Pepillo caught a glimpse of Muñoz’s broken skull and pale, blood-smeared face.

  The friar’s black eyes were wide open and they seemed to glare back at him with a fierce and living hunger.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Tenochtitlan, Saturday 20 March 1519

  ‘I’ve had a report from my informant in Cuitláhuac’s household,’ Huicton said. ‘It seems Guatemoc makes daily offerings to the goddess Temaz for her miraculous intervention. Would you consider paying the prince another visit?’

  Tozi’s heart raced at the thought. She could not forget poor, lost Coyotl but she had ceased her fruitless search for him and during the twenty days since the dramatic events in the royal hospital, Guatemoc had been more on her mind than she cared to admit. ‘Pay the prince another visit?’ she asked, feigning nonchalance. ‘What would be the purpose? We achieved our goal of disturbing Moctezuma’s household. Suspicion is everywhere now. A rift has opened between him and his brother that can never be mended.’

  ‘We must think ahead to when Moctezuma is gone … We must look to his successor.’

  ‘Quetzalcoatl will succeed him.’

  ‘So you believe. But we must live in the real world of men where gods do not descend from the sky every day. I pray you’re right, but I must plan for the possibility that you’re wrong.’

  ‘I’m not wrong, Huicton! You’ll see.’

  ‘Very well, Tozi. You’re not wrong. But humour me. Imagine for a moment that Quetzalcoatl does not return but that we succeed in driving Moctezuma mad – and so far we have done rather well – and bring about his downfall anyway. His son Chimalpopoca is sickly and, even if he lives, will be too young to take the throne for many years. There will be a struggle for power …’

  ‘And surely Cuitláhuac will win it,’ Tozi said begrudgingly. She disliked any line of thought that didn’t involve Quetzalcoatl.

  ‘Cuitláhuac may not want power. He’s not a natural leader and there’s every sign he knows his own limitations. If Moctezuma falls, Guatemoc will become a contender. Let’s take this opportunity to make him our man …’

  ‘Guatemoc? Our man? That puffed-up Mexica bully? You must be even crazier than Moctezuma if you think we can do that!’

  ‘Far from it, Tozi!’ Huicton rested a gnarled hand on her shoulder. ‘Recent events have put us – you! – in a unique position of influence. Not only did you foil Moctezuma’s plot but also my informant tells me that the prince holds you responsible for the healing he has experienced. After the goddess Temaz warned him of the poison, it seems she placed her hands on the battle wounds Guatemoc received fighting the Tlascalans. He felt a warm glow suffuse his body. At once his injuries, which were of the utmost seriousness, began to close up, as though by magic, and within days the sepsis had vanished. He is still in a great deal of pain, I am told, but his doctors say he will make a complete recovery and he attributes all of this to you—’

  ‘To Temaz you mean!’

  ‘There’s no difference. You are Temaz in his eyes! Go to him again in the regalia of the goddess. Appear to him. Work your way deeper into his affections and into his trust so we can use him for our own ends when the right time comes.’

  ‘That all sounds very clever,’ Tozi said, ‘but it could easily go wrong. Suppose Guatemoc sees through my disguise? Catches me out in some way? Then instead of making an ally we’ll make an even worse enemy.’

  ‘I don’t see why you should get caught,’ the old spy said. ‘You’re confident of your invisibility now?’

  ‘Yes, completely confident!’

  ‘More to the point, I’m confident of it after what you did with Guatemoc, Mecatl and the poison. When you make yourself invisible no one can see you, no one can seize you. So if anything does go wrong you simply slip into invisibility and escape.’

  Seeing her chance, Tozi admitted: ‘There’s something I haven’t told you.’

  ‘Oh?’ Despite their milky opacity, Huicton’s eyes could sometimes be very expressive and now was one of those times.

  ‘It isn’t just what I was able to do at the hospital that’s made me confident,’ Tozi said. ‘I’ve been going into Moctezuma’s palace as well.’ She giggled. ‘I’ve watched him a few times while he’s been eating his meals. I’ve even been in his bedchamber!’

  ‘You’ve what?’ Huicton looked startled, and genuinely angry. ‘I told you to stay away from the palace. It’s too dangerous there.’

  ‘Well you were wrong.’ Tozi stuck out her lower lip. ‘And I was right. You said Moctezuma had sorcerers who might magic me but they’re useless. I’ve slipped past them and they haven’t noticed a thing and I’ve been there with him, right beside him without anyone knowing – and I’ve been torturing him, Huicton!’

  ‘Torturing him? Whatever do you mean?’

  ‘The gift Hummingbird gave me. To magnify my enemies’ fears? I’ve been using it on Moctezuma the same way I used it that night on the great pyramid.’ Tozi giggled again. ‘He’s troubled by his bowels and I’ve been working on that. Quite a lot actually. His stomach never gives him peace. Oh, and I’ve stopped his tepulli working …’

  ‘His tepulli?’ Huicton was choking with surprise. ‘What do you know of tepullis, young lady?’

  ‘What do you mean, “young lady”?’ Tozi asked scornfully. ‘Girls of my age are married with children. Of course I know what a tepulli is!’ Another giggle: ‘And I know what they have to do if they’re going to work!’

  Huicton just looked at her through his cloudy eyes.

  ‘They have to stand up!’ Tozi shrieked, ‘and I’ve made Moctezuma’s tepulli as limp as a little worm so he can’t enjoy his wives and mistresses. They mock him behind his back. He’s very upset about it.’

  Huicton was laughing now, a great rumbling, rolling guffaw of sheer pleasure. ‘Oh Tozi,’ he said, wiping a tear from his eye, ‘you are a prodigy.’

  She didn’t want to admit she didn’t know what a prodigy was so she said: ‘About Guatemoc? When do you want me to start?’

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Potonchan, Sunday 21 March 1519 to Wednesday 24 March 1519

  It was the auspicious morning of the Vernal Equinox, Sunday 21 March 1519, when Alaminos piloted the Santa María into the wide bay at the mouth of the Tabasco river and Cortés gave the order for the fleet to drop anchor. He would require no
work of the men today, only prayer. Tomorrow, Monday 22 March, they would sally forth against the town of Potonchan to punish the Chontal Maya as Saint Peter required.

  Not that the men knew of Cortés’s dreams! He’d kept his real motive secret, even from Alvarado, and sold the planned attack on Potonchan as a reprisal for the humiliation of the Córdoba expedition the year before. Most of the survivors of that debacle were here, after all, and itching for revenge; many others who’d lost friends and relatives were equally enthusiastic; for the rest, the pride and honour of Spain and the hope of treasure provided ample incentives.

  Much had happened in the twenty days since young Gonzalo de Sandoval had returned in triumph to Cozumel with the shipwrecked Spaniard Jerónimo de Aguilar. After eight years spent amongst the Maya, the castaway knew their language with complete fluency and quickly began to prove his worth as an interpreter. Even his skills, however, which allowed a thorough interrogation of the chief and notables of Cozumel – and in due course almost the entire population of the island – could not solve the mystery of the sudden disappearance of Father Gaspar Muñoz.

  The Inquisitor had preached a sermon on the deck of the San Sebastián on the evening of Saturday 27 February. He had then gone below to a small cabin Alvarado had ordered constructed for him in the hold – and thereafter had not been seen again. Since his habit and sandals, his Bible, two altar candles, his razor and other small personal items were missing from his cabin, it was presumed he had left the ship of his own volition, something he was known to have done on the night of the 26th when he had told the sentries he was going to a secluded spot on the island for contemplation and prayer. On the night of the 27th, however, no one had witnessed his departure.

  Had he somehow slipped by the watch, made his way to shore – no doubt to sodomise and murder another child, Cortés surmised – and ended up being caught and killed by the Indians instead? This seemed the most likely solution, but there was absolutely no proof and no hint of any Indian involvement to be had from the interrogations. Indeed Aguilar had made it clear that in his opinion the islanders were not hiding anything.