I turned my horse toward the sound of that bell, knowing it must come from the town’s center. Along the way there, I saw—besides my energetically working warriors and their victims—many houses and merchants’ shops and artisans’ workshops that had formerly been well-built and perhaps even handsome structures, but were now mere ruins, irreparably shattered or totally leveled, clearly the doing of our women’s granadas. There were yet more corpses visible within the rubble of those places, but they were so dismembered and shredded that they could hardly provide even intact scalps for the Yaki. I was eyeing one particularly fine house just ahead of me—certainly the abode of some high Spanish dignitary—and wondering why it had not been demolished, when I heard an urgent cautionary cry in the Poré tongue: “Take care, my lord!” and I yanked my horse to a halt.
Next instant, that house before me bulged—like the cheeks of a musician playing one of those jug flutes called “the warbling waters”—but it made no such sweet sound. The noise it uttered was more like that of the drum called “the drum that tears out the heart” I gave a violent start and my horse shied in fright, and the two of us nearly parted company. The house was enveloped in a thundercloud of smoke, and though it was too solidly constructed to fly asunder, its doors and shutters and bits of furniture and unidentifiable other contents came darting in shards like lightning out of that thundercloud. As chance would have it, I and my horse were struck by only a single fragment apiece, and those did us no harm, being only gobbets of some person’s flesh. When things stopped falling roundabout, the woman emerged from the nearby alley where she had taken cover. It was Butterfly, and she came carrying a floppy leather bag and smoking a poquíetl.
“You do excellent work,” I said. “I thank you for the warning.”
“Those were my last two granadas,” she said, shaking the bag to show me. Only a handful of thin reed-rolled poquíetin fell out. She gave me one, I took a light from hers, and we smoked companionably as she fell in beside my horse and we went leisurely on together.
She said, “We did as you ordered, Tenamáxtzin. Employed our granadas only on buildings, and we tried to choose the most imposing ones to destroy. Only twice did we have to squander the weapons just to slay individuals. Two mounted soldiers. There was not much left of them.”
“That is a pity,” I said. “I want to collect all the horses we can.”
“Then I am sorry, Tenamáxtzin. But it was unavoidable. They came upon us suddenly, just as two of my warriors were about to toss their lighted granadas through a house window, and the soldiers were waving swords and shouting—for us to surrender, I suppose. Of course we did no such thing.”
“Of course,” I said. “I was not chiding you, Butterfly.”
The church bell continued its useless pealing until she and I reached the open square fronting that church and the adjoining palace—and just then the ringing ceased abruptly. My arcabuz men had followed the rest of us into the town, to pick off any runaways that might outdistance our foot warriors, and one of those men very neatly put a ball into the bell-ringer up in the little tower that sat atop the church. The Spaniard, a black-clad priest or friar, pitched out of the bell tower, bounced off the slanted roof and was dead when he thumped onto the cobblestones of the square.
“As well as I can tell,” said Knight Nochéztli, bringing his blood-spattered horse alongside mine, “there very soon will be only three white men still alive in Tonald. They are in the church yonder—three men, unarmed. I glanced inside and saw them, but left them for you, my lord, as you commanded.”
His knights and officers began grouping about us, waiting for further orders, and the square was rapidly filling with other people, as well. Every warrior not otherwise and elsewhere occupied was herding the captive white women and girls into that open space, and hurrying to claim the favor that is the common soldier’s traditional celebration of a victory. That is to say, the men were violently raping the females. Since there were considerably more men than women and girls, and since many of the men were disinclined to wait their turn, in some cases two or three warriors would be simultaneously using the various orifices of a single female.
Needless to say, those women and girls capable of screaming or pleading or protesting were doing so, and vociferously. But I am sure that these victims were making a noise even more horrified and horrible than has ever been heard at any other such scene of celebration. That was because the white females, all having abundant and long and lustrous hair, made the Yaki warriors more lustful of having their scalps than of possessing any other part of them. Each of those Yaki who had dragged hither a Spanish female threw her down and tore off the top of her head before he threw himself on top of her bare body. Several other Yaki, who had brought no captives of their own, were scurrying about the square and sawing the scalps off supine women and girls while they were being violated by another man—or two or three.
I myself found those females, however comely and shapely and desirable in other respects, almost impossible even to look at, with their heads peeled nakedly round and red and pulpy. I could not have brought myself to couple with one—not even with my eyes shut, because there would have been no way to shut out the equally repellent stench of them. The smell of their torn heads’ blood was rank enough, but many of the creatures also were voiding their bladders and bowels from sheer terror, and others were vomiting because of what had been put down their throats.
“I thank the war god Cuticéuri,” said Butterfly, at my stirrup, “that we Purémpecha do not let our hair grow.”
“I wish you did,” growled Nochéztli, “so I could snatch all you stupid bitches bald of head!”
“What is this?” I asked, surprised, because he was ordinarily so amiable of nature. “Why do you revile our meritorious warrior women?”
“That one has not told you, Tenamáxtzin? Of the two they so incompetently killed?”
Butterfly and I regarded him with puzzlement, and I said, “Two white soldiers, yes, who surprised them while they were very capably doing their duty.”
“Our two white soldiers, Tenamáxtzin. The men you called Señor Uno and Señor Dos.”
“Yya ayya,” I murmured, really sadly.
“They were our allies?” asked Butterfly. “How should we have known? They were mounted. They were armored and bearded. They waved swords. They shouted.”
“They would have been shouting encouragement, you blundering woman!” said Nochéztli. “Could you not see that their horses were without saddles?”
Butterfly looked chagrined, but shrugged. “Ours was a dawn attack. Not many people were dressed.”
To me, Nochéztli said ruefully, “They had been riding before me, so I came upon their remains right after they were blown to pieces. I could not even tell which man was which. Indeed, it would have been hard to tell their fragments from those of their horses.”
“Be easy, Nochéztli,” I said with a sigh. “We shall miss them, but there are bound to be such casualties in any war. Let us just hope that Uno and Dos are now in their Christian heaven, if that is where they would wish to be, with their Harry and George. Now, back to the business of our war. Give orders that the men, as soon as each has had his satisfaction with the captured women, are to fan out through the town and loot it Salvage everything that might be of use to us—weapons, pólvora, lead, armor, horses, clothes, blankets, any portable provisions. When every ruin and every surviving building has been emptied, it is to be set afire. Nothing is to be left of Tonalá except the church and palace here.”
Nochéztli dismounted and went among his under-officers, passing along those orders, then returned to me and asked:
“Why, my lord, are you sparing these two buildings?”
“For one thing, they will not easily burn,” I said, dismounting also. “And we could not possibly make enough granadas to tear them down. But chiefly I am leaving those for a certain Spanish friend—a truly good Christian white man. If he outlives this war, he will have something arou
nd which to build anew. He has already told me that this place will have a new name. Now, come, let us have a look inside the palace.”
The lower floor of that stone building had been the soldiers’ barracks, and it was expectably in disorder, since its inhabitants had so wildly scrambled out a little while before. We climbed the stairs and found ourselves in a warren of small rooms, all furnished with chairs and tables, some rooms full of books, others full of shelved maps or stacked documents. In one was a table on which lay a thick sheaf of fine Spanish paper, an inkhorn, a penknife and a jar full of goose quills. Beside them lay an ink-stained quill and a paper only half written over, by whatever scribe had been at work there the day before. I stood looking at those things for a moment, then said to Nochéztli:
“I was told that there is, among our slave contingent, a certain girl who can read and write the Spanish language. A Moro or a mongrel, I forget. Ride back to our encampment, right now, at a gallop, find that girl and bring her here, as quickly as you can. Also send in some of our men to scavenge whatever is useful from the soldiers’ quarters downstairs. I will wait here for you and the girl, after I have visited the church next door.”
The Tonalá church was as modest in size and appointments as was the church Bishop Quiroga currently occupied in Compostela. One of the three men in there was a priest, decently dressed in the usual black, the other two were pudgy, merchant-looking men, ridiculously clad in nightwear and whatever other clothes they had had time to fling over them. They both quailed back from me, against the altar rail, but the priest boldly came forward, thrusting a carved wooden cross at me and babbling in that Church language that I had heard at the few Masses I had once attended.
“Not even other Spaniards can understand that nonsensical guirigay, padre,” I said sharply. “Speak to me in some sensible tongue.”
“Very well, you heathen renegade!” he snapped. “I was adjuring you, in the name and language of the Lord, to depart from these sacred precincts.”
“Renegade?” I repeated. “You seem to assume that I am some white man’s runaway slave. I am not. And these precincts are mine, built on the land of my people. I am here to reclaim them.”
“This is the property of Holy Mother Church! Who do you think you are?”
“I know who I am. But your Holy Mother Church gave me the name of Juan Británico.”
“Dear God!” he exclaimed, appalled. “Then you are apostate! A heretic! Worse than a heathen!”
“Far worse,” I said pleasantly. “Who are those two men?”
“The alcalde of Tonalá, Don José Osado Algarve de Sierra. And the corregidor, Don Manuel Adolfo del Monte.”
“The town’s two foremost citizens, then. What are they doing here?”
“God’s house is sanctuary. Holy refuge. Inviolable. It would be sacrilege were they to be harmed here.”
“So they cringe cowardly behind your skirts, padre, and abandon their people to the storm and the strangers? Including their own loved ones, perhaps? Anyway, I do not share your superstitions.”
I stepped around him and, with my sword, stabbed each of the men to the heart
The priest cried, “Those señores were high and valued functionaries of His Majesty King Carlos!”
“I do not believe that. Anyone of any majesty could hardly have been proud of them.”
“I adjure you again, you monster! Begone from this church of God! Remove all your savages from this parish of God!”
“I will,” I said equably, turning to look out the door. “As soon as they tire of it.”
The priest joined me at the door and said, beseechingly now, “In God’s name, man, some of those poor females yonder are children. Many were virgins. Some of them are virgin nuns. The brides of Christ.”
“They will shortly be with their husband, then. I hope he proves tolerant of his wives’ impairments. Come with me, padre. I wish you to see something, probably less distressing than this sight.”
I ushered him out of the church, and there I found, among others of my men not busy at the moment, the trustworthy lyac Pozonéli, to whom I said, “I am putting this white priest in your charge, Iyac. I do not think you need expect him to make mischief. Only stay by him to keep him from harm by any of our people.”
Then I led them both into the palace and upstairs to that writing room, and pointed to the partly done document, and told the priest, “Read that to me, if you can.”
“Of course I can. It is merely a respectful salutation. It says, “To the very illustrious Señor Don Antonio de Mendoza, viceroy and governor for His Majesty in this New Spain, president of the Audiencia and the Royal Chancellery …’ That is all. Evidently the alcalde was about to dictate to the scribe some report or request to be sent to the viceroy.”
“Thank you. That will do.”
“Now you kill me, too?”
“No. And for that, be thankful to another padre whom I once knew. I have already instructed this warrior to be your companion and protector.”
“Then may I take my leave? There are last rites to be bestowed on my many, many unfortunate parishioners, and short shrift it is that I can give them.”
“Vaya con Dios, padre,” I said, meaning no irony, and gestured for Pozonéli to go with him. Then I simply stood and looked out the window of that room, at what was still going on in the square below, and at the fires beginning to spring up at more distant places in the town, and I waited for Nochéztli to return with the reading-and-writing girl slave.
She was a mere child, and certainly not a Moro, for her complexion was only a slightly darker copper color than my own, and she was too pretty to have had much black blood in her. But she obviously was some kind of mongrel female, for those have bodies maturely developed at a very young age, and so did she. I supposed she must be one of the more complex breeds that Alonso de Molina had once told me about—pardo, cuarterón, whatever—and that fact might account for her having been given some education. My first test of that was to speak to her in Spanish:
“I am told that you can read the writing of the Spaniards.”
She understood, and said respectfully, “Yes, my lord.”
“Read this to me, then.” I pointed to the document on the table.
Without having to study it or laboriously puzzle it out, she immediately and fluently read, “Al muy ilustrisimo Señor Don Antonio de Mendoza, visorrey é gobernador por Su Majestad en esta Nueva Espana, presidente de la Audiencia y la Chancelleria Real… It stops there, my lord. If I might say so, the scribe is not highly accomplished in his spelling.”
“I am told that you also can write in that language.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“I wish you to write something for me. Use a different piece of paper.”
“Certainly, my lord. Only give me a moment to prepare. The materials are dry.”
“While we wait, Nochéztli,” I said to him, “go and find that church’s priest He is somewhere in the crowd outside, in company with our Iyac Pozonéli. Fetch the priest here to me.”
In the meantime, the girl had laid the scribe’s stained quill to one side, plucked a fresh one from the jar, expertly used the penknife to whittle a point to it, spat delicately into the inkhorn, stirred it with the new quill and finally said, “I am ready, my lord. What shall I write?”
I looked out the window, briefly meditating. The day was darkening now, the fires were more numerous and blazing higher; the whole of Tonalá would soon be aflame. I turned back to the girl and spoke just a few words, slowly enough that she had finished her scribbling almost as soon as I stopped speaking. I went and reached over her shoulder, laying the scribe’s paper and hers side by side. Of course, I could make nothing of either of them, but I could tell that the girl’s writing was, to the eye, more bold and forthright than the spidery lines of the scribe.
She asked timidly, “Shall I read it back to you, my lord?”
“No. Here is the priest Let him do it” I pointed. “Padre, can you read that
writing, too?”
“Of course I can,” he said again, this time impatiently. “But it makes little sense. All it says is, ‘I can still see him burning.’ ”
“Thank you, padre. That is what I meant it to say. Very good, girl. Now take that unfinished document and append these words to it. / have only just begun. Then write my name, Juan Británico. Then add my real name. Can you also make the word-pictures of Náhuatl?”
“I am sorry, no, my lord.”
“Then put it in that Spanish writing, as best you can. Téotl-Tenamáxtzin.”
That she did, though not so swiftly, being very careful to make it as correct and comprehensible as she could. When she was done, she blew on the paper to dry it before she gave it to me. I handed it to the priest and asked, “Can you still read it?”
The paper shook in his fingers and his voice was quavery. “To the very illustrious … et cetera, et cetera. I have only just begun. Signed Juan Británico. Then that fearsome other name. I can make it out, yes, but I cannot well pronounce it.”
He started to give it back to me, but I said, “Keep the paper, padre. It was intended for the viceroy. It still is. If and when you can find a living white man, who can serve as your messenger, have him deliver that to the very illustrious Mendoza in the City of Mexíco. Until then, simply show it to every other Spaniard who comes this way.”
He went out, the paper still shaking in his hand, and Pozonéli went with him. To Nochéztli I said:
“Help the girl gather and bundle together all this paper and the writing materials, for safekeeping. I shall have other use for them. And for you, child. You are bright and obedient and you did exceedingly well here today. What is your name?”
“Verónica,” you said.
XXX
WE LEFT TONALÁ a smoldering, smoking desert of a town, unpeopled except for the priest and what few slaves had elected to stay, only the two stone buildings still upright and entire. We left it, too, with our warriors looking rather flamboyant, not to say ridiculous. The Yaki were so heavily festooned with skirts of scalps that every man seemed to be walking waist-deep through a hillock of bloody human hair. The Purémpe women had appropriated the finest gowns of the late Spanish ladies—silks and velvets and brocades—so (although some had ignorantly donned the dresses backward) they made a gaudily colorful throng. Many of the arcabuz men and Aztéca warriors now wore steel breastplates over their quilted cotton armor. They disdained to avail themselves of the enemies’ high boots or steel helmets, but they had pillaged from the Spanish women’s wardrobes also, and now wore on their heads fancy feathered bonnets and ornate lace mantillas. All our men and women were carrying bales and bundles of plunder besides—every sort of thing from hams and cheeses and bags of coins to those weapons that Uno had called halberds, which combine spear, hook, and ax. Our Swaddlers and Swallowers followed, supporting our less severely wounded men, and twelve or fourteen led the captured horses, bridled and saddled, on which rode or were draped the wounded who could not walk.