Gary Jennings - Aztec Autumn

Still, the soldiers were no cowards, nor unnerved to the point of immediate surrender. Some, in ranks at a distance, belabored us with arcabuces. But my own arcabuz men, now well versed in the proper employment of that weapon, performed with equal accuracy and killing efficiency. Meanwhile, we others, with spears and swords and maquáhuime, fought the many other soldiers at close quarters and eventually hand to hand. This was no brief battle; the brave soldiers were prepared to fight to the death. And, finally, to that death they all went.

So had a lamentable number of my own men, both outside and inside the palisade. Since, on this march, we had brought no Swaddlers to attend our wounded, and since the post contained no horses on which to transport them, I could only instruct our Swallowers to bestow a quick and merciful death on the fallen who were still alive but too badly injured to make our return march.

It had been a costly conquest, but still a profitable one. The trading post was a treasure house of useful and valuable goods—pólvora and lead balls, arcabuces and swords and knives, blankets and robes, smoked or salted stores of many good foods, even jugs of octli and chápari and Spanish wines. So, with my permission, we survivors celebrated our victory to the extent that we were all quite drunk and unsteady on our feet when we staggered away from there next morning. As I had done before, I invited the local slave families to come with us, and most of them did, carrying our bales and bags and jugs of plunder.

Arriving back at our encampment beyond the ruins of Tonalá, I was glad to learn from Nochéztli that his had been a much less difficult expedition than mine. The estancia community had been guarded not by trained soldiers, but only by the proprietors' own slave watchmen, naturally not armed with arcabuces, and not at all eager to repel an invasion. So Nochéztli had lost not a single man, and his forces had killed and raped and looted almost at leisure. They too had returned with great stores of foodstuffs and bags of maize and warm fabrics and usable Spanish clothing. Best of all, they had brought from those ranches many more horses and a herd of cattle nearly as numerous as those Coronado had taken north with him. We would no longer have to do much foraging or even hunting. We had food enough to sustain our whole army for a long time to come.

"And here, my lord," said Nochéztli. "A personal gift from me to you. I took these from the bed of one of those Spanish nobles." He handed me a neatly folded pair of beautifully lustrous silk sheets, only very slightly bloodstained. "I believe the Uey-Tecútli of the Aztéca should not have to sleep on the bare ground or a straw pallet like any common warrior."

"I thank you, my friend," I said sincerely, then laughed. "Though I fear you may incline me to the same self-indulgence and indolence as that of any Spanish nobleman."

There was other good news awaiting me there at the camp. Some of my swift-runners had gone scouting far abroad indeed, and now had returned to tell me that my war was being fought by others besides my own army.

"Tenamáxtzin, the word of your insurrection has spread from nation to nation and tribe to tribe, and many are eager to emulate your actions on behalf of The One World. From here, all the way to the coast of the Eastern Sea, bands of warriors are making forays—quick strike, quick withdrawal—against Spanish settlements and farms and homesteads. The Chichiméca Dog People, the Téochichiméca Wild Dog People, even the Zácachichiméca Rabid Dog People, are all doing those raid-and-run assaults on the white men. Even the Huaxtéca of the coastal lands, so long notorious for their lassitude, made an attack on the seaport city the Spanish call Vera Cruz. Of course, with their primitive weapons, the Huaxtéca could not do much damage there, but they assuredly caused alarm and fear among the residents."

I was immensely pleased to hear these things. The peoples mentioned by the scouts certainly were poorly armed, and just as certainly poorly organized in their uprisings. But they were helping me to keep the white man uneasy, apprehensive, perhaps awake at night. All of New Spain by now would be aware of those sporadic raids and my more devastating ones. New Spain, I hoped and believed, must be getting increasingly nervous and anxious about the continued existence of New Spain.

Well, the Huaxtéca and others could contrive to make their sudden attack-then-flee forays almost with impunity. But I was now commanding what was practically a traveling city—warriors, slaves, women, whole families, many horses and a herd of cattle—unwieldy, to say the least, to move from battlefield to battlefield. I decided that we needed a permanent place to settle, a place stoutly defensible, whence I could lead or send either small forces or formidable forces in any direction and have a safe haven for them to return to. So I summoned various of my knights who, I knew, had done considerable traveling in these parts of The One World, and asked their advice. A knight named Pixqui said:

"I know the very place, my lord. Our ultimate objective is an assault upon the City of Mexíco, southeast of here, and the place I am thinking of lies just about midway between here and there. The mountains called Miztóapan, 'Where the Cuguars Lurk.' The few white men who have ever seen them call them in their tongue the Mixton Mountains. They are rugged and craggy mountains interlaced with narrow ravines. We can find a valley in there commodious enough to accommodate our whole vast army. Even when the Spaniards learn we are there—as doubtless they will—they would have a hard time getting at us, unless they learn to fly. Lookouts atop the crags around our valley could espy any approaching enemy force. And since any such force would have to thread its way through those narrow ravines almost in single file, just a handful of our arcabuz men could stop them there, while our other warriors would rain arrows and spears and boulders down onto them from above."

"Excellent," I said. "It sounds impregnable. I thank you, Knight Pixqui. Go, then, throughout the camp and spread the order for everyone to prepare to march. We will leave at dawn for the Miztóapan Mountains. And one of you find that slave girl Verónica, my scribe, and have her attend me."

It was the Iyac Pozonáli who fetched you to me that fateful day. I had long been aware that he was often in your company, and regarding you with yearning looks. I am not oblivious to such things, and I have frequently been in love myself. I knew the iyac to be an admirable young man and—even before the revelation that transpired between us that day, Verónica—I could hardly have been jealous if it turned out that Pozonáli found favor in your eyes, as well.

Anyway, you had already written your account of Nochéztli's assault on the estancias—since you had been present there—so now I dictated the account of my own much more difficult assault on the trading post, you writing down all the words foregoing here, concluding with the decision to move to the Miztóapan. When I had done, you murmured:

"I am happy, my lord, to hear that you intend soon to attack the City of Mexíco. I hope you obliterate it as you did Tonalá."

"So do I. But why do you?"

"Because that will also obliterate the nunnery where I lived after my mother died."

"That convent was in the City of Mexíco? You never mentioned its location before. I know of only one nunnery there. It was very near the Mesón de San José, where I myself once lived."

"That is the one, my lord."

A somewhat disturbing but not dismaying suspicion was already dawning on me.

"And you hold some grudge against those nuns, child? I have often meant to ask. Why did you flee that convent and become a homeless wanderer, finally to find refuge among our slave contingent?"