I was musing over how to bring my clever notion into play when I heard excited people on the street spreading shocking news.
A plot by criollos to seize power over the colony was discovered and arrests were being made.
El Mestizo had been arrested.
EIGHTY-ONE
A DARK PALL covered the city like a cover over a coffin. I didn’t see this in the sky, but in the fear and darkness on people’s faces and in their eyes. One report of arrest, quick torture, and confessions quickly followed another. Only days passed before the first arrest and the executioner’s block was bloodied. And it remained bloody.
Rumors spread like wildfire, but I was able to gauge that talk of insurrection by brothers named Avila had been going on for months and that the royal visitador had had a secret mission of finding out whether the rumors were true. Convinced that they were, he set into motion Crown officers who had been prepared to round up the suspects. The tongues of those arrested flapped as the screws were tightened on the rack and more arrests were made.
Some of those arrested were among the largest encomienda holders in the colony. However, the Marquis del Valle was not arrested. He was briefly questioned, but not kept in custody.
I dropped by the government center to ask the viceroy’s aide that my inheritance be released and to get information about El Mestizo. His retort on my money was quick and ruthless.
“All large transactions in gold, silver, and anything else of value have been forbidden by the visitador to keep rebels and their families from hiding money. However, I will get to work on getting your money released mañana.”
Mañana meant tomorrow morning … or some indefinite time whenever he got around to it. In other words, it would be a cold day in hell before I saw my fortune.
Riego was reluctant and nervous about discussing the arrests, but that made him an even better source of information, because things flew off his tongue that no one else but the royal visitador, the viceroy, and God in the heavens knew.
“The marquis is not cleared yet,” the aide whispered. “They are torturing El Mestizo to get him to confess that his brother was involved in the plot.”
“None of the plotters have named the marquis?”
“So many names have rolled off the tongues of rebels on the rack that half the city would have to be arrested. His name is too honored to be listed as a plotter unless—”
He stopped, and I finished his remark. “Unless someone with the same name states his guilt.”
I already knew that El Mestizo was not involved in the plot and that he feared the stupidity of his brother and his amigos who staged the marquis being “crowned” as ruler of the colony in front of the royal visitador.
My gut twisted at the thought of him being tortured. Ultimately, he would confess, of course; not even the strongest or the bravest could resist long the hot pinchers that a torturer used to rip off flesh bit by bit.
“Such foolishness,” the aide said, shaking his head. “No action was ever actually taken by any of the schemers to carry off the plot. It reminds me of schoolboys plotting against the headmaster. Personally I believe the rebellion was nothing but talk, but one must not state such an opinion. It was time to sweep some dirt out of the colony.”
Riego told me that an administrator, Alonzo Muñoz, had been named special representative of the king to handle the conspiracy.
“Muñoz has been given absolute power to deal with the conspirators.”
The aide spoke with an edge of apprehension in his voice, as if he might be the next one dragged out of his house in the middle of the night to find his next bed a torturer’s rack. And he had good cause to worry, because no one was safe from Muñoz’s tentacles, perhaps not even the viceroy.
I pretended to have heard about Munoz for the first time, but his name was spoken many times in taverns, almost always in a whisper and with fear.
I could have told the aide that if he wanted more information about what was happening in the city, he should spend a night visiting taverns and inns.
Munoz had quickly gotten a reputation for capricious cruelty as he began a reign of terror against anyone even remotely connected to the plot.
A person of little importance one moment, Muñoz was suddenly flush with power when the investigation was turned over to him, and he proved himself to be arrogant, haughty, and cruel. Surrounding himself with toadies, and parading through the streets with his coach surrounded by heavily armed shield bearers, he acted as if he were a prince of the realm instead of an administrator.
Muñoz treated those under him with contempt and considered even the highest-ranking peninsulares in the colony beneath him—which no doubt was the source of the aide’s apprehension when he spoke about the man.
People knew Muñoz’s mission was not to get to the truth but to break the spirit of any possible criollo sympathy or rebellious spirit, to ensure that no criollo would ever again think of plotting against the Crown.
Even after arresting and punishing conspirators, Muñoz continued a witch hunt, filling the jails and dungeons with men who knew nothing about the plot but who might have been sympathizers or merely at some time have complained about the way the colony was administered from Madrid.
Someone had informed on the conspirators, but no one in the city was safe—innocent people were being arrested and tortured, property was seized, and word spread that most arrests were made because the Crown officers earned a percentage of everything they seized rather than the strength of the evidence against the accused.
The Avila brothers, Alonso and Gil, were arrested along with others, Riego told me. They were quickly tortured and beheaded, and their property seized.
“But for the grace of God our land would have ended up in the hands of these worthless dogs,” I told the aide. “The man who revealed the treason deserves all of our gratitude. May I have his name so I might light a candle in church and ask God to reward him?”
“The name is a state secret,” the aide said.
EIGHTY-TWO
“CARLOS INFORMED ON the marquis and the rest of them,” Mercedes told me.
We were back at the convent, with the viceroy’s carriage outside by hers and his guards eating and playing dice. At the collection box I put a gold coin in without objection this time. Then I put in another. The way things were going in the colony, I might need some divine intervention just to stay alive.
“He told you that?”
“Not in so many words, but he gloated about the arrests and said that the money woes others were having had filled his coffers.”
“Filled them with blood money. I should have known; he was at the ball that night. I’ve heard that a group of them stayed behind and talked insurrection. He must have sat there calculating how much he could get for turning them in.”
She crossed herself. “I won’t go to the paseo with my friends because I don’t know which one of them will next tell me that their father or brother has been seized and they will lose everything.”
In truth, I had no sympathy for the criollos and didn’t care what their fate was, except for Mercedes and her family.
“I have more news from my lunch with Carlos and his sister,” she said. “El Mestizo has been turned over to the Inquisition because the viceroy’s torturer was unable to get him to implicate his brother in the conspiracy.”
She made the sign of the cross again and so did I. We both knew what it meant. I felt as if I had been kicked in the stomach.
“The Inquisitor torturers are seasoned brutes who are brought in from Spain,” I said. “They never fail to break a person. Even the few that do not confess are so broken in bone and spirit they don’t live long afterwards.”
She touched my face with her fingers. “You frighten me. You look hurt, yet there is a savageness, as if there is a smoldering murderous rage beneath the pain.”
“The pain is for El Mestizo. He saved my life—eh, he made my life bearable when he lifted me from the gutter. And the ra
ge is for Carlos. He won’t die quickly, I can assure you of that.”
“Punishment is for God to provide.”
“Exactly. I’ll have my sword wetted with holy water before I chop the bastardo’s nose, ears, and cojones off.”
“Besides torture and murder, do you have any other plan for bringing Carlos to justice? I think we should explain to Nina Alvarez exactly what Carlos has done.”
I shook my head. “She’s in love. You would never convince her that he was a murderer even if you had witnessed him kill. The only way to break the spell is to make her believe he has betrayed her love.”
“He’s going to marry me rather than her, isn’t that betrayal enough?”
“No, señorita, he’s doing it for money. That’s something she understands. She knows how far one falls when there’s no money. The way to turn her against him is jealousy, but it can’t be of you.” I grinned. “However, I know a woman who might be able to help us.”
“How well do you know this woman?”
“Not in the biblical sense, my love, but enough to know she is a better liar and actor than a practiced lépero like myself.”
Mercedes held her face in her hands. I thought for a moment she was going to cry.
“Insane, that’s what life in the city has become,” she said. “It’s as if the world was suddenly struck by a plague of madness. Murder of people I know by a man I might be forced to marry, acquaintances arrested and tortured as rebels when they knew nothing of the plot, even my own father could be arrested for no other reason than this Muñoz creature wants his money. It’s unbearable to even think about what is happening.”
“Eh, I, too, could be arrested for my money,” I boasted.
“No, you forget—you are a peninsulare.”
“I HAVE SPOKEN THE TRUTH.”
El Mestizo’s father had conquered the country for Spain, and the mother [Doña Marina] had been his most devoted friend and helper; and here now was the son, stretched on a bed of mortal agony, because to his grizzly judge at the trial he would divulge nothing of the secrets of his confederates, were any such secrets in his keeping.
Happy invention! that of water and cord, as administered at the hands of Pero Baca and Juan Navarro, by order of Muñoz. It does not add to the merits of the case to know that Martín was convalescing from serious illness.
“I have spoken the truth and have nothing further to add,” Martín said, as they stripped him and laid him on the rack. Being again urged to speak the truth, he replied, “It is spoken.”
The executioners then proceeded to bind with cords the fleshy parts of the arms, thighs, calves, and large toes, and gradually to tighten them all at once.
“Speak the truth,” they said.
“It is spoken,” was ever the reply.
Six times they poured a quart of water down his throat, demanding each time a truthful declaration.
—Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of Mexico, 1885
EIGHTY-THREE
“KILL ME IF you will; I can tell you nothing more. You already have the truth.”
The priest, Fray Dominic, stared in disbelief at El Mestizo. It was not just the words that the half-caste son of Cortés spoke, but the fact that he still had the strength to speak them. He had been ill when the torture started days ago, and it was amazing that he had the strength to keep talking.
The fray did not use his hands on El Mestizo or apply any of the torture himself. As a priest, he was not permitted to personally draw blood or elicit pain from a person. But that did not prevent him from assisting in other ways.
His first duty, as a servant of God and the Inquisition, was to guide the two lay torturers, Pero Baca and Juan Navarro, by instructing them on which persuasions to apply to the person being put to the question.
His second obligation was to listen to the person being put to the question and write down the confession. And when the subject was not going to survive the abuse, his final duty was to give the last rites, often hurriedly as the tortured man’s breathing became gasps, his eyes still bulging from the pain.
El Mestizo had been asked repeatedly to confess that both he and his brother, the marquis, were involved in the conspiracy with the Avila brothers and others to seize control of the colony.
His refusal to admit to the crime led the fray to instruct his two assistants to begin the persuasion with the cord.
El Mestizo had been strapped down on a wood table that was slightly tilted so that his feet were a little higher than his head. Cords were put around his arms and legs and tied to pieces of wood. The wood pieces were twisted, slowly, tighter and tighter, until they worked their way through skin and flesh and then against bone.
The pain was unbearable to most, but for the few who suffered through it and refused to confess, as El Mestizo did—no doubt empowered by their master, el diablo—water was added.
A short, hollow piece of iron cut from a musket barrel was placed in El Mestizo’s mouth and stopped just short of gagging him. A little gauze was put in the pipe and water poured in. The thin fragment of cloth permitted the water to flow into El Mestizo’s throat slowly, drowning him a drop at a time.
When it appeared El Mestizo was close to the edge of passing out or even dying, the water was stopped.
The fray found it interesting that the man had endured the torture so well. He attributed El Mestizo’s ability to resist to the fact that the man had tainted blood, even though his father was the great conqueror. No doubt the indio blood gave him endurance and also brought el diablo to his aid.
Fray Dominic reflected on the fact that El Mestizo was the eldest son of the conqueror yet had been denied the title and inheritance because of his tainted blood. While that was just and right in the eyes of the Crown and the church, it obviously would not endear El Mestizo to his brother.
Based on his knowledge of human nature and the baser traits of men, he changed the question: “Confess that your brother Martín the Younger, Marquis del Valle de Oaxaca, inheritor of your father’s title and estates that should rightfully have gone to you as the eldest son, plotted against the grace and majesty of our beloved king.”
“You have the truth and nothing more,” was the reply.
Fray Dominic’s favorite torture device was the most subtle. It was an iron statue of the Virgin Mary that had arms extended and sharp spikes on a chest plate.
The victim was placed just inside the jointed arms, and a crank was turned that caused the arms to close, bringing the person closer and closer to the spikes. When a victim felt the sharp points against his chest, he was put to the question.
But the fray realized El Mestizo might welcome the escape into death provided by a blade through his heart.
Mulling it over, the fray decided it was time to increase the pain even though that carried a serious risk of death. Two other procedures were available to get the man to confess to his brother’s transgression: the Strappado would be applied by tying El Mestizo’s wrists together behind him with a rope while he was standing on the rack. The other end of the rope was tied to a rafter above him, without enough length to permit El Mestizo to reach the floor. Pushed off the rack, his shoulders would break before he hit the floor.
Then he would be laid back on the rack and his bones manipulated to create excruciating pain until he gave the answers the fray wanted.
The fray knew from experience that at this stage answers sometimes didn’t come because the pain would be so intense and mindless babble would escape from the person being tortured.
After the Strappado, it would be a while before the torturers would be able to apply the second extreme method—the Péndulo, a curved blade that swung like a pendulum at the victim. The blade was razor-sharp and would be lowered a tiny bit with every swing, slicing a little more, working its way slowly through flesh and bone over a period of hours until it reached the heart—or the question was answered to the satisfaction of the priest.
Fray Dominic did not have the authority to impleme
nt either the Strappado or the Péndulo without the express permission of the archbishop because both procedures brought death more inevitably than the cord and water methods.
Even with his tainted blood, El Mestizo was a person of importance in the colony.
That was unfortunate because Fray Dominic didn’t believe that a person’s position in life should interfere with God’s work.
EIGHTY-FOUR
DIEGO STOPPED AT an army outpost on the Vera Cruz road east of Xalapa. He had first stopped at every pulqueria and tavern on the road and in Xalapa, asking bartenders about a bandido with an exceptional horse. As a vaquero, Diego remembered as much about the masked man’s mount as the man himself. He recalled that the highwayman was lighter skinned than an indio, making him a mestizo or even Spanish.
Having no luck, he stopped at the military garrison that was the headquarters for the entire bandido-infested road from Vera Cruz to Xalapa.
He spoke to an officer as they walked down a line of eight thieves chained by the ankle to individual posts, waiting for their turn on the gallows that had been set up in back of the main building.
“Hanging ’em all today?”
“No, we do only a couple a day so we don’t have to dig so many graves at one time.”
“I’m looking for a mestizo or Spanish robber,” Diego said, “who rides a fine horse, one you’d never expect a bandido to have.”
“Never heard of him,” the officer said, walking away.
“I know him.”
The statement came from a prisoner boiling in the sun while waiting for the hangman.
Diego stared down at him. “You lie to me, you filthy swine, and you’ll go to the gallows with your cojones stuffed in your mouth. What’s your name?”
“They call me Cerdo the Lépero.”
Diego fanned air with his hand. “I can understand that. Why do you say you know this man?”
“He had a big horse, bigger than any horse I’d ever seen, a chestnut but more red than brown.”