Casca 10: The Conquistador (9 page)

In the morning, Tazcamili was furious with the escape of the two prisoners but didn't have the nerve to question the Spaniard about it. He blamed it on traitors among his own people who somehow had managed to spirit them out of his city. Now the Aztecs were sure to come and so they might as well put the rest of the Mexicas to death and have some fun before they themselves were taken to the altars of Huitzilopochtli.

Casca had to admire the shrewdness of Cortes, who now offered to take full responsibility for the remaining prisoners if Tazcamili would give them to him. Furthermore, he promised the Totonacs the full support of the Spanish arms if the Aztecs sought reprisals.

Tazcamili agreed, turning the rest of the tax men over to Cortes, who had them taken out, to his ships for safekeeping.

The people of Cempola and Quiahuixtlan, along with their chieftains, cried out for Cortes to become their leader and honor his promise of full support in the event of war with the Aztecs. They would no longer serve the Mexicas but would offer themselves and their lands as willing vassals to the king of Spain.

This was too good an opportunity to pass up. It had gone better than Cortes had imagined. In one stroke he had two tribes at his feet.

Before accepting, however, he spoke to them. "Think carefully about what you are doing. Moctezuma is a very powerful king, but if you so desire and swear to be faithful to me, then I will accept command of your tribes and protect you even though the entire army of the Aztecs comes forth. They cannot stand against the valor of Spain and the true God, who is now your sovereign lord as he is mine."

When he asked how many warriors they could muster between them, he was astounded when they said that they could field a hundred thousand men if all the cities and villages rallied to them. One hundred thousand warriors, and the Aztecs ruled over them as if they were dogs. Well, with enough dogs, who knew? He ordered them to send runners to all the cities they knew of that were of a like mind and wished to throw off the yoke of Aztec oppression and join with the forces of Cortes to bring a new day to this land and its peoples.

Throughout the region spread the word of the demigods who had offered them protection. Before ten days had passed, there was not a single Aztec tax collector or official left. They either had left or had been taken captive. In several cases, they had been killed and eaten.

Casca had to admire the deftness with which Cortes made himself indispensable to the rebellious tribes. They didn't trust each other, and none would give command to any who was not of their tribe; therefore, they could never unite with enough strength to overthrow the Aztecs. But Cortes was another matter. He didn't belong to any tribe; therefore, he was acceptable to all as a leader. Also, most believed that the Spaniards had supernatural powers of some sort.

While waiting for the next turn of events, Cortes marked out a permanent site near his ships, bringing a thousand workers in from Cempola and neighboring tribes to aid him in the founding of his new city, to which he gave the name of Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz, or Rich City of the True Cross.

As construction of permanent buildings was in progress, two nephews of Moctezuma, richly dressed in fine mantles and wearing armbands of beaten gold and necklaces of silver set with rubies and emeralds, presented themselves. They were accompanied by four wise elders who acted as advisers. They offered Cortes gifts of cotton mantles and a helmet full of gold grains valued at two thousand Castellanos. They said, "Our lord Moctezuma has sent to you this token as you requested. He is hoping that it might help to cure the sickness you spoke of and asked that it also be accepted as a token of his appreciation for your saving the lives of two of his servants and preventing the others in his service from being killed by the barbarians.

"Our master further wishes us to assure you of his high regard and affection. He asks that you release the others who are held on board your ships." The ambassadors went to extremes to make certain that Cortes understood that Moctezuma held him in no way responsible for the evil done by the Cempolans and their allies. As for when Cortes might expect to meet their master, they could not yet give a time. At the moment, their lord was occupied with matters of state, and several small wars on his borders had to be attended to. But Cortes was to rest assured that all would be as he wished if he was patient.

Cortes, however, had no intention of being patient. He had things moving the way he wanted them and needed to keep the pressure on to see that they continued in his favor. He gave the nephews of Moctezuma some small gifts of glass, iron, and clothing and then told them that they would have to return to Tenochtitlan when they had rested for a day and night.

During this time, Casca and Marina spent many more hours together. With the arrival of the kinsmen of Moctezuma, he had the feeling that time was running short and that there was much he still needed to know. Several times he thought he saw a strange look in Marina's eyes as they talked. She'd look at him wonderingly and then turn her gaze elsewhere. Juan noticed the looks she gave his friend but simply put it down to feminine curiosity about Casca's merits as a lover. As to his learning their barbaric tongue, he thought it much more practical for the savages to learn Spanish. When he told Casca of his thinking concerning Marina, Casca merely looked at him as if he were a bit simple-minded. Marina had never even touched him, not once had she even laid a hand on him, even in the most casual manner. If there was anything to wonder about, perhaps it was that.

The night before the ambassadors were to leave, Casca lay on his bunk in the small adobe room he shared with Juan. Tonight his small friend was on guard duty. The heaviness of the night had made him remove his shirt so that he could sleep. He used a thin Indian blanket for a coverlet. When he turned in his sleep, the blanket slipped down to his waist. A glow from the moon outside the single window brought a glow to the scars on his chest and arms. A shadow moved aside the ragged blanket serving as a door to his bare quarters. Marina stood three feet away from the sleeping soldier, her eyes taking in every mark on the muscled body. She shivered, but not with the chill of the evening, for there was none. With trembling fingers, she undid the single knot at her shoulder, letting her dress fall to the bare earth of the hut's floor. Moving a bit closer to the sleeping man, she resisted the compulsion to touch the scar running from his eye to the corner of his mouth. She removed the tortoiseshell comb which held up her thick hair, letting it fall to the small of her back in thick, dark waves. She passed in front of the light of the moon, her shadow moving across Casca's closed eyes.

His eyes jerked open as the shadow passed over them, his hand reaching for the knife by his side. The touch of a warm, soft hand kept him from striking. Marina moved the cover away from him, laying her body close to his. She still shivered from head to toe. She gave herself to the scar-faced man that night, never speaking a word until an hour before dawn, when she rose to dress. For Casca it had been a strange experience. He was certainly no stranger to women, but this had been something different. The manner of her treatment and lovemaking had a texture to it that he couldn't find words to express. She was putting the tortoise shell comb back into her hair when he asked, "Why?"

Marina smiled down at him. "Do you have to ask?"

Casca nodded his head in the affirmative. Marina sat back down on the side of his cot. "I have made an offering to you, and you have accepted it. Therefore, I am blessed. I know who you are, for I have been to Tenochtitlan, and the old city of the gods, where I have seen your face on the mask of the god. You are he who was foretold, and I am the first to make a sacrifice to you. Therefore, I am blessed among women."

Marina rose to leave, stopping at the blanket covering the door. She made one more statement. "I was not completely certain until I saw your body and the mark of the sacrificial dagger upon it. You are the god! There could be no one else. As to why you choose to let Cortes act as the leader, that is your business and not mine to question. I leave you now, Tectli Quetza." She was half out the door before he heard her whisper, with a tiny laugh so soft that he wasn't certain he heard her correctly, "If you ever feel the need for another offering, do not hesitate to call."

Casca watched the departing backs of the nephews of Moctezuma. The events of the last weeks were giving him an uneasy feeling that Cortes was going to rip the country apart and in the process its people too. He knew that the Aztecs were barbarous in their customs, even to the eating of human flesh, but other cultures had gone through the same evolutionary process. The question in his mind concerned what to do. He had no real desire for the gold of Moctezuma or for power. He knew full well that both of those things would be temporary at best.

For a time this land had been home to him, and he had liked the people. They had a greatness to them that if allowed to grow could make them one of the great peoples of the world. But should they be allowed to grow if in the process they put thousands upon thousands of more innocent people on their altars?

The Spaniards were not a great deal better; witness their Inquisition and the cheerful slaughtering of anyone who wasn't a Catholic. But the Spaniards would, if history was any gauge, grow out of their insanity faster than the isolated cultures of the Indians.

Impulse had directed his feet more than once over the centuries. He left his horse behind, telling the stablers to take care of him; he was going to scout around a bit. As he left the camp, a hail stopped his steps. Juan was running up to him. "Where are you going?"

Casca didn't feel like going into the story of his life, and so he just told him, "I have something to do that can't be stopped. You stay here until I get back. If you go on the march before I return, take my horse."

Juan knew that there was nothing he could do to change his compadre's mind. He only asked, "Does this have something to do with your learning their tongue?"

Casca nodded. "That and other things I don't have time to tell you of. So just go back and let me do that which I have to.” He left Juan standing on the trail as he double-timed it after the nephews of Moctezuma. Juan watched the broad back disappear where the trail curved by a grove of tall maguey plants. He wondered if he'd ever see Casca again. He just didn't understand.

It took him only a few minutes to catch up to the ambassador's party, where they had rejoined their escort of two thousand warriors from the Coyote Clan. The members of the clan were brilliantly costumed men armed with macamas, spears, and bows, their faces painted with black and red bands. On their heads were headdresses of bright feathers, and on their shields the likeness of the coyote. When the ambassadors had neared the camp of the Spaniards, they had ordered the escort to remain behind so that they would not make a threatening image to the gods from the sea. Now they waited to return the nephews of the king back to him, acting as a bodyguard for them through the now not so secure lands between them and Tenochtitlan.

He hailed them as soon as he was out of sight and earshot of the Spanish camp.

It was with some surprise that Xocomilco and Tletzin found one of the strangers speaking to them in their tongue and demanding to be taken to Tenochtitlan to see the king. This presented them with a problem. Their orders were to keep the Spaniards away from Tenochtitlan. Now this lone scar-faced stranger wished to go with them. The elders conferred among themselves before arriving at a decision. The man would have to stay behind. Moctezuma had made it clear that he did not wish to have the Spaniards in his city.

That would have been it, except that Casca had made up his mind that he was going to go whether they liked it or not. When they left, he followed behind, keeping their pace. They marched all that day until nightfall, when the ambassadors and their escort took shelter in a village where food and beds were provided for them. Again they held conference over what to do about the man on their trail. They could not just let him follow them all the way home. He had to be stopped.
But how?

Maxtcli, a captain of the Coyotes and a noble warrior with the emblems of honor on his shield and a tunic for taking many prisoners, decided to end the wise men's arguments through direct action. He had watched the Spaniard and saw nothing different about him other than the pale, reddish color of his skin and his light hair. He ate as did other men and relieved his body of its wastes as did normal men.
Then why all this talk from the elders about what to do? He would stop this intruder from following them and do so in a manner that all would notice and bear witness to. Perhaps that would put a stop to the fears about these ugly, pale men being gods.

He had prepared himself, painting his face with red and black stripes from eyes to ears and mouth to jawbone. He dressed carefully in a jacket of padded cotton over which he wore a tunic of green parrot feathers. Holding his hide shield with the four nose moons on it and the macama lined with razor-sharp pieces of obsidian, he was ready to prove the humanity of the so-called god from the sea.

His preparations did not go unnoticed by the elders and their charges. One started to voice his protest at what the warrior obviously had in mind, but then he realized that here was a possible solution to their problem. Maxtcli was acting on his own without their knowledge or consent. If he killed the stranger, Moctezuma's anger would not be at them, for they had nothing to do with it. If the stranger killed the warrior, they would still be innocent of wrongdoing, for Maxtcli would have brought it on himself.

Taking his apprentice with him to carry his extra weapons, Maxtcli went to where the stranger had made his small camp outside the village. His passage attracted the attention of others of his clan, and they silently followed him. They knew from the look on his face and his paint that someone was going to die. Maxtcli was a handsome man, proud of his strength and race, strong and fearless in battle. Now he was going to challenge one who was said to be a god or at least a demigod.

Maxtcli said nothing as he strode proudly forward, the feathers of his battle dress waving proudly. By the time he reached the campfire of the stranger, there was a full audience ready for the show, including many of the villagers and the nephews of Moctezuma, who chose to stay in the background and out of sight.

The tread of many feet brought Casca's head around. He was going to have company. Resigned to what he knew was coming, he rose to his feet, standing in the glow of the fire, where a hare was roasting on a spit. With regret he knew that it was more than likely that he was not going to be able to have it for his supper.

Maxtcli walked straight up to Casca, standing face to face with him, his eyes steady on the pale one's.

"Go back or die."

Casca knew from the look on the warrior's face that he was not going to listen to any other suggestions. His mind was locked up.

The crowd moved around them, forming a loose circle of semi-naked painted and feathered bodies. In the glow of the campfire they could have been mistaken for some kind of strange exotic birds of prey, hesitant, expectant, waiting. Casca nodded his head in acceptance of the inevitable. Stepping back a pace, he drew his sword, regretting that he had taken off his breastplate while waiting to eat. He knew the effect that the razor-edged piece of obsidian had on human flesh.

Twisting his tongue around the still uncomfortable words, he spoke to his opponent. "I am sorry that this has come to pass. Have you prepared yourself to meet your gods?"

Maxtcli expanded his chest. Raising the macama above his head, he laughed. "I have no need of that. An Aztec is always ready to meet his destiny, for we are the children of Huitzilopochtli. To him I have sworn to offer a sacrifice this night."

Casca had no desire to kill the man, but this was not the first time pride and vanity had brought a man his death; it would not be the last. Maxtcli started to move forward but was stopped as Casca raised his hand. "Not yet." Removing his tunic, he stood bare-chested and armed. In the glow of the fire, the red embers turned his scars into streaks of quivering blood marks.

For the first time Maxtcli looked a bit uneasy. He couldn't remove his eyes from the scars that crisscrossed Casca's chest and body. Deep trenches ran along the stranger's arms, and the deep ragged-edged scar in the center of the chest leaped out at him. The beginnings of doubt set into his mind. This man should have been dead a dozen times over.

Casca loosened his arms and chest. Sucking in air, he flexed, knowing the impression his mangled body was having on the superstitious Indians. He still hoped he would be able to avoid the fight. As the muscles under his skin moved, the scars rippled like serpents with a life of their own. They twisted and turned under his skin.

Casca spoke once more. "You are a brave man, but this fight does not have to be, for you cannot win. See the marks on my body! How can you offer the burning flower to the gods when I have already been under the knife of the priests?"

His voice rose in strength, the words coming easier.

"Has a man such as I ever been to your lands in your lifetime? No! Yet I know of the great city of Teotihuacan and the temples of the sun and moon. I know Tlaloc who brings the rains. It is his image which lies beside the symbol of the Serpent God on the stairs leading to the place of sacrifice. I know of the death masks of the kings and where they lie in the temple of the serpent. All this I know and have seen long before your father's father drew his first breath. I walked this land when your nation and people did not exist. Do not bring death upon yourself, for I have no desire to spill your blood. Leave your death to another and take me to Moctezuma."

Maxtcli's heart pounded in his chest. He was now truly frightened of what he had seen and heard. The stranger knew things that no one like him could have known. Was it possible? Maxtcli pushed the fear back, thinking, No! He is trying to trick me. Someone has told him of these things. He is only a man, no more, and as such, he will die.

Maxtcli whipped his courage into a flame and cried out to the gods as he swung the heavy macama, aiming for the head of the foreigner. Casca blocked it with ease and countered with a side stroke, opening up Maxtcli's face to the bone. Maxtcli came again, his hide shield covering him as he moved in to the attack. Casca's steel blade cut the shield to ribbons. Then he hacked the wooden haft of the macama to splinters. Neither the Aztec warrior nor his weapons were even close to being a match for the skills of one who had fought in the Circus Maximus and had been trained in the school of Gladiators under the tutelage of Corvu the Lanista. For Casca it was nearly like fighting one of the andabate, the condemned men who were blinded and then put into the arena to fight with knives. Still he tried to avoid killing the man, using his blade only to prick and tease, trying to wear Maxtcli down to where he wouldn't have to take his life.

It was too late for such thoughts. Maxtcli had been humiliated. He was bleeding from a dozen cuts, and his shield and weapon had been destroyed as if they were children's toys. And this pale ugly thing before him bobbed and weaved, teasing and toying with him. He would not be humiliated. He was a war captain who had been honored by Moctezuma himself and given his emblems of courage by the king's own hand. If he could not kill this thing before him, he would at least make sure that his own death song would be sung with honor throughout the lands of the Mexicas. He lunged at Casca, not trying to avoid the sword. He threw one arm around Casca's shoulder as the other hand grasped Casca's sword wrist.

The movement was a surprise. It caught Casca off guard. The weight of Maxtcli's body pressed him back a step. Then Maxtcli quit his forward pressure and stepped a full pace back to his rear. Before Casca could react, Maxtcli moved forward again. This time he jerked Casca's sword wrist up and over their center. Ramming his body on the point, he pushed hard. He clawed at Casca's shoulders as he pulled himself onto the steel of Castile. His mouth filled with blood as his lungs were ripped apart. Throwing his head back, neck muscles extended, mouth pouring out bright scarlet blood, he cried out to Huitzilopochtli to take his offering. He jerked his body to the side and twisted so that the sword slid sideways from his lungs to sever the great muscle of his heart. He had made his sacrifice to his god as he had sworn to do.

The manner in which Maxtcli died and the futility of his effort to kill Casca silenced the watchers, many of whom touched hidden totems to ward off evil. Casca walked slowly over to the nephews, Xocomilco and Tletzin. The sweat gleamed on his torso as he held his blood-dripping sword in his hand. The scar running along the side of his face seemed much paler than before. Pointing the blade at them, his voice dull and deadly, he said, "Now will you lead me to Tenochtitlan, or do others have to die this night? I am weary of your refusals. Do not try my patience further, for you are dealing with things you know nothing of. Only the lord Moctezuma can judge what I have to say and in turn be judged."

Xocomilco was not a brave man by nature. He was trained not as a warrior but as a politician. This man or thing before him was primal violence, and he knew that the wrong word would mean his death: The warriors of his escort didn't give him much comfort, and he wasn't certain that they could
have done any good. Perhaps this man had been speaking the truth about knowing things long past and having walked in the city of the gods. Those questions, augmented by superstitious fear, were too much for him to deal with. He knelt down before the scarred man.

"Lord, I must obey my king or give up my life. He has commanded that no one give any of your people any assistance or aid in reaching our capital. There is nothing I can do to help you, though you take my life. However, I have not received any instructions to do you harm. This act against you this night was not of our doing. It was completely the idea of Maxtcli, who has now sent his spirit to the gods of our fathers. If you choose to follow after us, there would be nothing I could do to hinder you."