War God: Nights of the Witch

  Tozi lifted her skirt, squatted and let loose a stream of urine. When she was finished she plunged her fingers into the damp puddle and began to knead the earth, churning a few handfuls of it into mud. She looked up at Malinal: ‘Brace yourself,’ she said, ‘this is for you.’

  ‘Me!’ Malinal choked. ‘Why me?’

  ‘Because I’m dirty enough already. So is Coyotl. But your clean skin’s going to get you noticed. We need to filthy you up. It’s a matter of life or death. Are you OK with that?’

  ‘I guess I’m OK with that.’

  ‘Then squat right there and make us some more mud.’

  After she had thoroughly smeared Malinal with the wet earth, got it all over what was left of her hair, rubbed it into her forehead, left long streaks of it down her face, and daubed it on the exposed parts of her legs and arms, Tozi looked the older woman up and down. ‘Much better,’ she said. ‘You’re a real mess …’

  ‘Thank you …’

  ‘You’re still beautiful, of course, but you’re filthy and you smell bad. Let’s hope that’s enough.’

  There were more screams. A wild-eyed, frantic woman charged by, another blundered past, bleeding from the scalp. All around prisoners were murmuring fearfully and trying to sidle away. ‘What’s happening?’ asked Malinal. ‘What do we do?’

  Tozi sat down cross-legged. ‘We do nothing,’ she said. She lifted Coyotl’s head into her lap and beckoned Malinal to sit beside her.

  The priests had approached to within fifty paces and were cutting through the crowd directly towards them. They were followed by their teams of enforcers, armed with heavy wooden clubs, who seized the victims they nominated and marched them off – presumably for immediate sacrifice.

  Tozi didn’t intend to find out. ‘Think of yourself as ugly,’ she whispered to Malinal. ‘You are hunched and wrinkled, your breasts are flat, your stomach sags, your teeth are rotten, your body is covered in boils …’

  ‘What good can that possibly—?’

  ‘Just do it.’

  As the line of priests came on, Tozi’s heart sank to see Ahuizotl again in the lead. There must be scores of priests inside the pen now, so was it just bad luck, or was it some malign intelligence that kept sending the sharp-eyed old killer straight to her? She noticed with some small satisfaction that the left side of his face was badly swollen after Xoco’s attack and he walked with a limp, using his spear as a crutch. Four big bodyguards were clustered round him. They weren’t armed with clubs but with macuahuitls, the wooden battle swords, edged with obsidian blades, favoured by Mexica knights. Obviously no repetition of the Xoco incident would be permitted.

  The priests were forty paces away now, then thirty, then twenty. Under her breath, Tozi began to whisper the spell of invisibility, but for a few moments longer she held to the hope that the disguise would work; that, smeared and dirty as they were, Ahuizotl would simply pass by without seeing them, that inconspicuousness would indeed prove to be the better part of concealment and that there would be no need for her to risk her life in a rash adventure into magic.

  Yet as the high priest continued to advance, some magnetism, some connection, seemed to be drawing him remorselessly towards them, and Tozi saw that he was gazing fixedly at Malinal. Suddenly it dawned on her that he recognised this beautiful, shorn, mud-streaked woman – that he knew her very well and that he had already singled her out from the crowd long before.

  He wasn’t fooled. He wasn’t misled. He was here for her!

  Realising there was no alternative, Tozi turned her mind inward, slowed the urgent beat of her heart, and imagined she was transparent and free as the air. She found she was holding Malinal’s hand, and that it was firm and warm. ‘You can make us disappear,’ Malinal whispered. ‘I know you can …’

  Ignoring a further savage burst of pain across her temples, speaking so quietly the words could not be heard, Tozi brought her focus to the spell and willed it into life.

  Chapter Eight

  Tlascala, Thursday 18 February 1519

  The rocky crevice sank almost horizontally into the side of the hill. Shikotenka had shoved himself into it feet first until it swallowed him, leaving only his eyes visible in the narrow opening as he spied on the Mexica army.

  Scratch … scratch … scrape …

  He was baffled that anyone had found him in such a well-chosen hiding place, but the man on the slope above, stealthy and careful, could be there for no other reason. All that mattered now was whether he was alone or whether he was part of a squad.

  ‘I say,’ came a voice, ‘you there, skulking in that hole … Care to crawl out and fight me for your life?’

  The man spoke Nahuatl, the shared mother tongue of the Mexica and the Tlascalans, but with the distinctive sneering drawl only affected by the top rank of Tenochtitlan’s nobility. This was some primped-up prince, Shikotenka realised with a flash of annoyance, maybe even a member of Moctezuma’s close family. It didn’t make him any easier to kill – Mexica aristocrats were superbly trained from childhood in all the warrior arts – but it should mean that a long-established knightly code would govern what happened next.

  Shikotenka’s hopes began to rise that he faced only one enemy. He clenched the long flint blade of his battle knife between his teeth, leaving his hands free to propel himself from the crevice. He felt no fear and a surge of energy coursed through his body.

  The Mexica was speaking again. ‘Why not just surrender to me?’ he said. ‘I’d think about it seriously if I were you. It’ll make your life much simpler and you’ll avoid the terrible beating I’ll have to give you if you put up any kind of fight.’

  Much simpler! thought Shikotenka.

  Much shorter was the truth.

  Because if he once even breathed the words ‘I surrender’, he would absolutely be obliged to become this Mexica’s prisoner, would be bound by the code of honour to attempt no escape, and would be sacrificed to Hummingbird on the appointed day, his heart sliced out and his thigh-meat eaten by his captor in a stew with chillies and beans.

  ‘We will fight,’ said Shikotenka from the crevice.

  ‘Ah-ha, the ground speaks,’ said the Mexica.

  ‘But I have two questions for you …’

  ‘A man in a hole facing a man with a spear is in no position to ask questions.’

  ‘Unless the man with the spear is a noble and honourable lord of the Mexica … But perhaps I am mistaken …’

  ‘I am Guatemoc, nephew of the Great Speaker himself. Is that noble and honourable enough for you?’

  Guatemoc!

  Shikotenka had heard much about this young man. He was rumoured to be a hothead but brave and skilful. According to some accounts, he had captured eleven high-ranking warriors in battle for sacrifice to Hummingbird – an impressive total. No doubt he was here to increase his score to twelve.

  ‘I was going to ask if you are alone,’ said Shikotenka, ‘but now I know the answer. The warrior pride of the great Guatemoc would never allow him to seek help to capture a solitary enemy.’

  ‘And who is this solitary enemy who speaks to me from beneath the ground?’

  ‘I am Shikotenka, son of Shikotenka.’

  There was a long silence. ‘Shikotenka!’ Guatemoc said finally, ‘Prince of Tlascala.’ He gave a low whistle: ‘Well, I must say I’m impressed. When I spotted you here amongst the rocks I thought you no more than a humble spy, good for a few hours’ entertainment at most. Instead you turn out to be the highest-ranking captive I’ve ever taken. You’ll make a noble sacrifice when I bring you to the temple.’

  ‘You think you’re going to bring me to the temple just like that,’ said Shikotenka. ‘You think you’re going to defeat me. But here’s my second question – what if we fight and I win?’

  ‘You? Win? Frankly, that’s most unlikely.’

  ‘When I come out of this hole I’m going to be in full view of your army. If we fight and I kill you or take you prisoner, thirty thousand of your warrior
s are going to see it. I’ll have no chance at all of getting away.’

  ‘Should I care?’

  ‘Of course! It’s meaningless to invite me to fight for my life if I’m going to be killed whether I win or not.’

  ‘Hmm … I suppose I see your point.’

  A moment’s silence followed before Guatemoc spoke again. ‘There’s a hollow thirty paces above us,’ he said. ‘I came through it on my way down. It’s deep enough to hide us from view. I’ll saunter up there now and you can follow – you know, crawling in the grass. You won’t be seen and I won’t give you away.’

  Shikotenka heard the shuffle and scrape of footsteps retreating up the hill. He forced himself to count slowly to ten, then thrust himself out of the crevice and into the light.

  Chapter Nine

  Tenochtitlan, Thursday 18 February 1519

  At one level Moctezuma knew he was sitting cross-legged on the floor of Hummingbird’s temple, his hands folded in his lap. He still held the empty linen bag in which Ahuizotl had sent him the seven teonanácatl mushrooms. Rearing above him, as though about to stoop down and devour him, casting monstrous shadows in the flickering flames of the torches, the idol of the god gleamed with gold and jewels.

  But in his mind Moctezuma was quite somewhere else, transported to some far-off battlefield strewn with corpses. Strangely, he noted, all the dead were Mayan warriors. Some bore upon their ruined bodies the marks of the fangs of beasts, some were utterly crushed and destroyed, some decapitated, some torn limb from limb, some trampled, some burst apart into unrecognisable fragments of flesh and bone. Through this shambles, his feet bathed in blood, Moctezuma walked side by side with Hummingbird himself.

  The god had chosen to manifest in the appearance of a strong, tall man of middle years, very handsome and commanding with golden hair and dazzling bright skin. He wore a robe of hummingbird feathers and a garland of human hearts, hands and skulls. ‘It’s been long since we last talked,’ he said to Moctezuma, ‘but I’ve been watching you.’

  The Great Speaker of Tenochtitlan trembled: ‘Thank you, lord. You are gracious …’

  ‘I am disappointed. I had high hopes when I raised you to the throne sixteen years ago that you would find new and ingenious ways to serve me …’

  ‘My lord, I have done everything in my power—’

  ‘NO!’ thundered Hummingbird, ‘you have not, by any means done everything in your power! I wanted sixteen years of innovation. You’ve given me sixteen years of more of the same.’

  ‘But have I not served you faithfully, lord? Have I not continued to bring you hearts?’

  ‘Hearts?’ said Hummingbird. ‘I suppose you have.’ He yawned, showing his large, even teeth. ‘And today? We’ve had such a dismal start. Let me guess what’s in store …’ The god’s red tongue, strangely pointed, flicked out between his lips, and his eyes rolled up until only the whites were visible. ‘Ah … How completely predictable … Virgins.’ His nostrils flared and he sniffed the air. ‘The hearts of five hundred and twenty sweet young virgins.’

  Moctezuma suffered a moment of acute anxiety. ‘I cannot promise virgins, lord, though I hope some will be intact …’

  ‘So, not even virgins then …’ The god’s irises, black as obsidian beads, rolled back into view: ‘What’s this splendid offering in honour of?’

  Moctezuma was transfixed by the glittering eyes. They seemed to swallow his soul. Finally he summoned the courage to speak. ‘Most vengeful lord,’ he said, ‘two years ago dark omens began to be witnessed, unexplained visitations, terrible signs … And now the year One-Reed has returned.’

  Another cavernous yawn from Hummingbird. ‘Tell me of these omens and signs.’

  ‘A great column of flame, lord, that seemed to bleed fire, drop by drop, like a wound in the sky. It was wide at the base and narrow at the peak, and it shone for a year in the very heart of the heavens …’

  ‘Ah,’ said Hummingbird. ‘My fiery messenger … I suppose you’re going to tell me about the temple struck by lightning next?’

  ‘The temple of Tezcatlipoca was indeed struck, lord, and there came a violent agitation of our lake until it washed against half the houses of the city. A man with two heads appeared. We captured him and imprisoned him, but he vanished from the prison without a trace. A woman was heard lamenting, passing nightly through our streets, but she was never seen. A fisherman found a strange bird. The bird was brought to me. It was somewhat like a crane, with feathers the colour of ashes. A mirror, pierced in the centre like a spindle whorl, was set into its head and in the face of this mirror the night sky could be seen. The hour was noon, lord! Noon! Yet I saw clearly, as in the deepest night, the mamalhuaztli and other stars. Of course I had the fisherman strangled …’

  ‘Of course …’

  ‘Then I looked in the mirror again. The stars were gone, the night was gone and I saw a distant plain. A host of beings moved across it in ranks, warriors armed with metal weapons, dressed in metal armour. Some seemed like humans but bearded and with light skin, as the companions of Quetzalcoatl are described in our ancient scriptures. Some also had golden hair like yours, lord. Others seemed part-human, part-deer and ran ahead very swiftly …’

  ‘I sent you that mirror,’ said Hummingbird. ‘Return it to me now.’

  ‘I cannot, lord,’ Moctezuma sobbed. ‘I tore it from the bird’s head and destroyed it.’

  ‘Like the violent, petulant child you are.’

  ‘I could not bear the visions it showed me …’

  ‘Yet the visions were true, were they not? Isn’t that really why you’re here today?’

  Moctezuma lowered his eyes: ‘For a year after I destroyed the mirror, there were no more signs. I began to believe that all was well in the one world, that my kingship would again flourish under your blessing …’

  Hummingbird uttered a harsh laugh, like the bark of a coyote.

  ‘… But four months ago,’ Moctezuma continued, ‘with the birth of year One-Reed looming close, I received tidings from the land of the Chontal Maya. Strange beings had emerged from the eastern ocean. They resembled humans but they were bearded and light-skinned like the beings I saw in the mirror, lord – like the companions of Quetzalcoatl! They wore metal armour and used powerful metal weapons that belched fire. They worshipped a god who they said had been killed and returned to life, and they forced some tribes of the Maya to worship this god. Others refused and there was a great battle. The beings numbered little more than a hundred, lord, but they defeated a Mayan army of ten thousand! Then they returned to the sea, climbed onto three floating mountains and were carried away eastward by the wind.’

  ‘So naturally you were puzzled,’ said Hummingbird, ‘and wanted my advice. Your thoughts turned to victims and to sacrifices to appease me …’

  ‘I made war on the Tlascalans, on the Huexotzincos, on the Purupechas. I levied extra tribute on the Totonacs. My armies brought many prisoners to Tenochtitlan. We have fattened them here, prepared them for you. Truly, lord, I have a great feast of victims ready for the knife …’

  ‘What do you ask of me in return?’

  ‘Knowledge of the beings who emerged from the eastern ocean …’

  ‘These are not tidings you will wish to hear,’ said Hummingbird.

  ‘Still I beg you to tell me, lord.’

  ‘Very well,’ said the god. ‘These beings were the first scouts of a great army that gathers across the eastern ocean to sweep you away. Soon you will hear they have returned in their floating mountains. Before the year is out they will be at the gates of Tenochtitlan.’

  The whole concept was so impossible, intolerable and extraordinary, yet also somehow so inevitable and so long foretold, that it made Moctezuma’s head spin. ‘I fear them, lord,’ he confessed. ‘Are they gods or men? Is this perhaps the One-Reed year when the ancient prophecy is to be fulfilled and the god Quetzalcoatl will appear in his power to walk amongst us again?’

  Hummingbird didn’t answer di
rectly. Instead he said: ‘You have nothing to fear, for I fight at your side … I will bring you victory.’

  Moctezuma’s mood soared and he felt suddenly inflated with joy and confidence: ‘Tell me what I must do …’

  ‘First finish your work here,’ said the god and vanished like a dream at dawn.

  Moctezuma looked up.

  Ahuizotl had entered the temple. He held a terrified young girl pinned under each of his arms. ‘The women are ready, Magnificence,’ he said with a horrible leer. ‘The sacrifices can begin.’

  Chapter Ten

  Santiago, Cuba, Thursday 18 February 1519

  Despite his fifty-five years and his tough reputation, Diego de Velázquez, the conqueror and governor of Cuba, seemed on the verge of tears. A blush suffused his pale pasty skin and his jowls, grown fat and heavy of late, wobbled with every movement of his oversized head.

  ‘Ah, Pedro,’ he said, ‘my friend.’ He put a menacing edge on the last word and thrust out his double chin with its neatly trimmed spade beard streaked with yellow tobacco stains. ‘Something’s going on.’ He set his lips in a line so mean and thin that they became almost invisible. ‘I have to know where you stand on it.’

  Velázquez’s notoriously bad temper was popularly attributed to haemorrhoids the size of grapes. He sat in obvious discomfort on a mahogany throne behind a massive square mahogany writing table in the midst of an echoing, high-ceilinged marble audience chamber. Pedro de Alvarado had met the governor frequently, but never here and never before in the ceremonial robes he wore today. He guessed with annoyance that the events of the last two hours – the herald, the summons, the gallop from the docks to the palace, the insultingly long wait in a sweltering, heavily-guarded corridor, this huge formal room with its imposing furniture and even Velázquez’s robes of office – were all part of an elaborate set-up designed to intimidate him.

  Alvarado stood opposite the governor on the other side of the table, with his right hand open, long fingers resting lightly on his sword belt. He was thirty-three years old, broad-shouldered and strong but light on his feet with the easy grace of a practised fencer. His thick blond hair hung to his shoulders and an extravagant blond moustache, elaborately curled and waxed, decorated his upper lip. Fine featured, with a firm chin, a long straight nose, bright blue eyes and a duelling scar that he found rather fetching running from his right temple to the corner of his right eye, he was a man who had broken many women’s hearts. He was also rich in a small way, having prospered in Cuba these past five years thanks to lands, mines and Indian slaves granted him by Velázquez.