A Signal Victory (18 page)

Guerrero looked at his son with exasperated disbelief.
And yet even he could see the irony of it. He had wanted his sons part of this world, and they were, so like that world that they would go down with it. But not, they said, until 1697.

1697 seemed far away.

Still, he could not sit there and fold his hands. He thought of a way out.

Surely, at some time in their history, some priest had forged the katun records?

His son was shocked.

Nachancan’s attitude had more dignity. Yes, of course they would fight. One always fought against fate. But only because it was the thing to do. Even he did not believe you could replace the inner cogs of time.

To forgery he would not agree, but only on the grounds that it would not work. It did not matter what one said. The records were true.

Their only hope lay in the fact that not every Maya state was doomed on the same day, not, that is, until 1697. If they sent emissaries to various states, they might to that degree play with time. But to which state was the question. No-one could tell until the katun bundles had been opened at their appointed times. And history, too, was kept not by months or years, but by the twenty-year periods. The new period was still several years away.

Guerrero could do nothing.

In Mexico, Montejo counted time much faster, he had to, for he could see it running out. Unless he established himself in Yucatan rapidly, there were many who would want to take even that place away from him.

So one morning there appeared before Acalan, not Montejo, who would have been bad enough, but Davila, who was worse.

It took the whole peninsula by surprise. The way to Acalan lay across quagmires and swamps which, in this rainy season, were treacherous lakes. In Acalan they knew they were safe. Until now they had never doubted it. And
now here was Davila, assuring them that no harm would come to them.

The Maya were not reassured. Cortés had been there, and taken away their cacique and six hundred porters, none of whom had ever returned.

In two hours the city was deserted. The food still bubbled in its cooking pots, incense still rose on the altars, but the people sat in the jungle, watching.

Davila was undisturbed. Since it was the rainy season, five thousand people could not sit in the rain for ever. The next morning the cacique decided to become an ally.

When he appeared before Davila, he brought with him the usual gifts of bright birds and bales of food. But Davila was now sure that he would conquer, therefore such efforts to temporize were nothing more than disobedience, a little before the event, but all the worse for that, in so far as disobedience before the event sometimes prevents it from happening.

He put the cacique and his nobles in chains. The Maya had not seen chains before. It had been Davila’s inspiration to bring them. Not even Montejo had thought of that, except for discipline among his own men.

At first the Chontal of Acalan thought it was some sacrifice. They saw the red-hot iron welded on. The nobles did not flinch. At a sacrifice no noble would flinch.

But it was not a sacrifice. It was something far worse. It was an indignity.

The inhabitants returned to the town. It was anything to get rid of those chains, and in a few days Davila did have them struck off. They fell to the floor with a clink. The nobles rubbed their wrists and ankles, which the hammer on chisel had jarred, and said nothing. But they did not forget that sound. The Spanish would go. Unless they could find gold they always went. The indignity was another matter. That could not be forgotten.

At last they were roused. At last they knew what would happen to them, if the Spanish won. At night they sent
messengers throughout the area, and one of these at last reached Chetumal. Acalan on the west, was much like Chetumal on the east, coast. It had seemed as impregnable, and had fallen as easily.

They wanted help. They wanted Guerrero. This time, even though Davila did march off, they knew he would be back; that the Spanish would never rest until the peninsula were stripped of everything that made life worth living, and those of the natives who survived, survived in chains, which this time, would not be struck off.

Guerrero left at once. Before he arrived at Acalan, Davila ran into a trap at Mazatlan, and narrowly escaped it. He too, had not forgotten Guerrero. He blamed the trap on him. For he thought the natives soft, they would not have dared to think of such a thing. There he was wrong. The natives were soft, but it was a softness made of wire. They refused to help him.

Davila was forced to torture them. He did not wish to do so. It was bad policy. He particularly did not want to do so in so far as he found torture enjoyable. It was enjoyable to see a body writhe. There was a special madness in that which made you feel competent. But it was useless. They would not give anything away. They had stiffened.

It drove the Spanish wild. They hated such stubbornness and malice. All they had done was to come to conquer the country. Why would the natives not co-operate?

Even when the soles of their feet were burned, the Maya only writhed and said nothing. They had made a special study of death, since that was what they feared most. They knew how to die.

When they did die, Davila allotted their lands to his followers. When they saw that, some of the local lords came over. As far as they were concerned, loyalty was a border they could cross at any time, and they did want to keep their land. There is more than one way of defeating the enemy.

Davila was not entirely taken in, but he was surrounded. He decided to march to Champoton.

It was a march he made alone. No Indian would accompany him.

Davila was a choleric man. Resistance only made him angry, and anger, competent. As for his men, since they could not have gold, they would have land. They were nervous and quarrelsome, there was something about the green jungle which sapped their nerve, but they did not rebel.

By the time Guerrero reached Acalan, Davila was already safe in Champoton.

It made him despair, to try to organize a campaign in this country. Acalan and Chetumal might now be allies, but the Couohes of Champoton co-operated with no one. They made the same mistake the Xiu had made, three hundred years ago, about their hired Mexican mercenaries. They believed that they could use the invader to conquer the country, then put him down, and rule the country in his stead.

Davila baptized them.

The Couohes were puzzled, but did not greatly object. It was a rite which meant nothing, and it did seem to please the mercenaries. True, the Spaniards were a brutal, uncivilized people. But if it pleased them to tumble a few idols down the steep temple stairs, one could always make new idols. It did not take much to please the invader, after all.

Then Montejo arrived. He entered the town in triumph. The natives could not do enough for him. And as they had foreseen, he moved on. It was time to found another Salamanca, which he did, at Campeche, a few miles farther up the coast. The natives did not think it would last long.

They were quite wrong. It was too late. The Spanish had come to stay. They were ready for conquest farther inland. But first they baptized everyone. They read the
requeri
miento
to large groups. The natives must be loyal Christians. If they were, they would be forgiven their resistance to their conquerors.

The natives of Campeche had not seen those welded chains on their own nobles. They complied and waited. It was only a matter of waiting.

Both the Spanish and Guerrero forgot the priests who wandered ritually at the proper hours about those temple stairs and platforms. From the platforms they had an excellent view of what was happening. They did not interfere, but when they saw their own gods going down and that primitive little device of two crossed sticks going up, it made them thoughtful.

They were a small group, intermarried and interrelated with the nobility. Through the calendar, they ran the country. They ran it with a mixture of superstition and astronomy, but they knew what they were doing. Whether they believed in their gods or not, and most of them did, they meant to go right on running the country. The Spanish, being ignorant themselves, thought themselves up against superstition. It never occurred to them that they were also up against efficiency and a vast learning.

So Guerrero was to have an ally after all.

He badly needed one. He was back in Chetumal. The Spanish seemed to be succeeding everywhere. Even his own second son, the priest, said there was nothing to be done. The calendar ordained defeat. It made Guerrero furious. He had wanted his sons part of this society and they were. His younger son believed in the whole pantheon. The gods would save them. The gods would give a sign.

The older priests, however, began to treat Guerrero with more deference than they had done before. They wished to make certain plans.

Guerrero was tired of plans. He was forty-three. It seemed impossible to believe. It made the world more precious to have used up so much of it. He spent more time now with his wife. Now every hour seemed to count. But he was tired of waiting. As usual, he wanted to fight, and have the battle out in the open.

He did not have to wait any longer. News came that Montejo had founded his fifth and last Salamanca, at Campeche, his soldiers were discontented and disloyal, but he had four or five hundred of them. He was now ready to take
over the peninsula, and there was even worse news than that.

This time the Spanish were determined to win.

Davila was marching across country towards Chetumal.

From Campeche to Chetumal is a distance of three hundred kilometres, across variable but nowhere easy country. There seemed plenty of time.

Guerrero knew better. There was now never to be time enough. And he knew what sort of man Davila was. Davila, like himself, would never give up, because he could always think of something else to do. Davila was wily.

As the messengers began to come in, Guerrero felt now hope, now panic, and again the stubborn will to survive. Nachancan was now very old. Guerrero directed everything, and that meant jealousies and suspicions to be dealt with. He dealt with them, but more and more he found his eyes turning east, as he despised one and worried about the other son.

The elder was out there, somewhere, with a raiding party.

He sent out envoys, but what good did that do? These men had the habit of quarrelling with each other. They could not trust anyone well enough to accept help.

He had never met Davila. He had never met Montejo, But he knew what kind of man the Adelantando was, and thought little of him. But men like Davila were another matter. He had seen a few such, among the raggle taggle of his Spanish years in Panama. When they win, such men are called great. But they are not great. They are merely lucky and dangerous, so avid for action they never ask the why of what they are doing, and therefore can only be stopped by force, or deflected by some trick.

He had no effective force. That left him trickery.

But what trick? He had had a plan, to defend in depth, but the Indians would never do that. And though Nachancan was a great lord, his vassals were not overawed by him. They wanted to be great lords too. It was useless to tell the old man that, for he knew it already. What Nachancan wanted
to hear was something reassuring. He was sixty-seven now. He was unflinching, but what he wanted was his world put back where it was. He had not yet had a stroke, but he moved ponderously, and had developed a new mannerism, a rapid blinking of the eyes, whether the sun was bright or the sky overcast, the only indication that his self control was that and not ease.

Guerrero did not like to see him like that. No man should have had to be seen like that, and what made it the more heart-rending, was that there was nothing, except that nictitating eyelid, to see. Outwardly life went on as it always had.

But though life is best maintained by keeping up appearances, it can seldom be saved by the same means.

Everyone in that city came and went as they always had, but they came and went now a little nervously. It was a long time since they had had any enemy, and though that enemy was far away and unseen, they could remember the boat in the bay last year, the assault on the town, and under the surface things were not the same.

There was a diminution of trade. At first only the merchants noticed it, for at first it was very slight, and of course made-up luxury goods had stopped coming through from Mexico years before. Only the upper classes missed them, so though a few grumbled, none was alarmed. Then the supply of incense balls began to decrease, and the priests had to have incense. It came from the hill country of Honduras, where there were no Spaniards. The Spaniards therefore must be somewhere in between, though almost no-one knew exactly where.

They were in the state of Chuauca, marching towards Mani. There had been no resistance in Chuauca. Davila’s strategy was hard to understand, from this distance, but his reception in Mani might not be so peaceful. Mani was ruled by the Xiu. Guerrero consulted with Nachancan, who had no direct heirs, and sent off envoys laden with gifts and promises.

He had never met the Xiu, but he knew their history. They
were an ancient and rancorous people, cold, harsh, and hard, whose sole desire was to burst back into their former glories, they did not care at what cost, or to whom.

To them their past and their present were the same thing, and of that past there had been a good deal, so they thought they loomed larger than they did.

They called themselves Toltecs from Tula, that real capital which had been legendary for hundreds of years. They had ruled all northern Yucatan, until taken prisoners by their own mercenaries. That yoke they had thrown off sixty years ago, but they had yet to slip their own back on. Like all dynasties who had once ruled, they wanted the old order back again, and would recognize no other.

It might be well to feed that vanity. Guerrero offered them inheritance of the province of Chetumal if they would destroy the Spanish. It was a secret offer, but Nachancan endorsed it. It demeaned him, but what else was there to do?