War God: Nights of the Witch
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‘I understand,’ said Malinal, ‘and it’s OK. You take care of your death and I’ll take care of mine.’
With groans of fear, whispered prayers, and the slack, dull faces of Iztli intoxication, the prisoners continued to shuffle upwards, pausing for long moments, then climbing again. Only those near the very top could see the altar and the sacrificial stone, but the butchered torsos of women who’d climbed the steps moments before continued to be thrown down by the priests, a constant reminder of what was to come.
Up a step. Stop.
Up two steps. Stop.
Though the moon was again behind cloud, the whole summit was brightly lit by torches and braziers, and Malinal began to see first the heads, then the shoulders, then the upper bodies of the team of sacrificers on the summit platform.
Ahuizotl was there!
How could he not be, since he’d want to gloat over her death?
Her fingers curled into claws.
Beside the high priest was Cuitláhuac who had also shared her bed.
And there, nude, bathed from head to toe in blood, working with furious efficiency, his face fixed in an ecstatic grin, was the coward Moctezuma, who she’d seen shit himself with fear.
Whack! Crack! In went the obsidian knife again, saturating the white paper garments of the next victim with bright red blood in an instant. Arteries were severed, more blood fountained into the air, and with a horrible, rending squelch, the heart was out.
Malinal distinctly heard Moctezuma say, apparently to thin air: ‘Welcome, Lord. All this is for you.’ Then at once another victim was stretched over the sacrificial stone and the Totonac woman climbed the final step to the summit platform and stood waiting, watching the killing team busy with their tasks. As the knife rose and fell she turned with a sad smile on her face, stretched her arms out beside her like wings and stood poised over the plunging stairway.
Cuitláhuac saw the danger first and barked an order for her to be held, but as the guards closed in she grappled with one of them, somehow unbalanced him, and tumbled with him over and over down the steep stairs, rolling and bouncing, their bodies pounded and broken into bloody shards long before they reached the bottom.
Malinal knew Moctezuma to be a superstitious man.
An ignominious suicide, carried out in his presence, snatching a beating human heart from Hummingbird’s grasp, could never be anything other than a very bad omen indeed – one for which Ahuizotl as high priest must surely be held responsible. The snakeskin drum, the conches, the trumpets all instantly ceased their din and in the ghastly silence that followed the only sound to be heard came from Tozi. It was that same soft, insistent whisper she’d used when she’d faded them in the pen – and in the same way it now rose in intensity, seeming to deepen and roughen, becoming almost a snarl or a growl.
Ahuizotl took a step forward. His eyes found Malinal but drifted past her. He seemed shocked and disoriented.
Was he imagining the terrible ways Moctezuma would punish him?
Or was Tozi getting inside his head?
Malinal was beginning to hope her friend really had got her powers back when she felt Moctezuma’s blood-rimmed glare drill into her skull as his four helpers grasped her by the arms and legs and threw her down on her back over the sacrificial stone.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Tenochtitlan, small hours of Friday 19 February 1519
It was truly a night of the gods, torn by winds and storm. Thunder rolled and huge black clouds harried the fleeing moon, sometimes reducing her to a flicker of balefire, sometimes allowing her furious and jaundiced face to peer through, sometimes shutting off her light entirely as though a door in heaven had closed.
Moctezuma had been killing since morning but now, in the depths of the night, his work illuminated by flickering torches and glowing braziers, he felt no fatigue. He had consumed two more massive doses of teonanácatl and the god-power of the mushrooms coursed through his veins, making him ferocious, vigorous and invulnerable. Far from tiring him, each new blow he struck with the obsidian knife seemed to animate him further. Should the priests find him five thousand more victims, he would kill them all. Ten thousand? Bring them on! There was nothing he would not do for his god.
Moctezuma felt preternaturally aware of everything.
Everything.
Of this world of blood and bone, and of that other shadow world where he had met and talked with Hummingbird.
The god had been absent for many hours while the new batch of sacrifices offered themselves to the knife, but now he returned, with so little fanfare it seemed he’d always been there. He stood between Cuitláhuac and Ahuizotl unnoticed by them, his face sly and amused.
‘Welcome, lord,’ Moctezuma said, holding up a palpitating heart. ‘All this is for you.’ He threw the streaming organ on the brazier, where it steamed and smoked, and immediately turned to the next victim, tore her body open and plucked her heart out too.
Everything was going wonderfully well, Moctezuma thought. He couldn’t stop himself grinning and cackling. And why should he? The god was with him again, the down payment on his price was being made in hearts and blood, and now he could expect divine help against the powerful strangers. No matter if they possessed fire serpents that could kill from afar! No matter if wild animals fought beside them in battle! With Hummingbird leading the way the Mexica were certain of victory, and even if the strangers were the companions of Quetzalcoatl himself they would be vanquished! There was no other conceivable outcome.
The dream was sweet until Moctezuma heard Cuitláhuac shout, ‘Grab her!’ and the scuff of bare feet behind him. He whirled round as the bloody corpse on the sacrificial stone was dragged aside to be butchered and witnessed something extraordinary and unbelievable. Instead of submissively waiting to take her place under his knife, the next victim was standing at the edge of the summit platform, her paper garments flapping in the wind, her arms stretched out beside her like wings, poised to throw herself down the northern stairway. This must not under any circumstances be allowed to happen, for it would bring the displeasure of the god. Moctezuma’s heart pounded against his ribs and anger surged through him. He would have Ahuizotl’s skin if the woman went through with it. Time seemed to race as guards moved towards her. One reached her. They wrestled on the edge of the abyss and then slowly, with the impossibility of a thing never seen before, both figures tumbled from view …
An awful sound broke the shocked silence that followed – an eerie, rough, whispering snarl that had the rhythms of magic. Moctezuma saw at once that its source was a dirty little female with wild hair. She was waiting second in the line of prisoners near the top of the stairway and staring straight at him.
Nobody looked the Great Speaker of the Mexica in the eye!
Yet this filthy child, whose heart he would soon cut out, showed no fear as she calmly met his gaze.
And she wasn’t alone! One step above her stood another defiant figure. Tall, plastered chalk-white, hair roughly shorn, in the paper clothes of her humiliation, this woman looked nothing like a victim and stared him down with the same predatory anticipation as the child, throwing him further into turmoil.
Panic seized him as he sensed everything falling apart. The terrible omen of the suicide followed at once by the bizarre behaviour of these two females threatened to unman him completely. He sought out Hummingbird, fearing his anger, yet filled with a hopeless yearning for absolution, but the god who had been so present only moments before had vanished again, as silently and as mysteriously as he had appeared.
‘Aaaah! Aaaah!’ Moctezuma’s bowels cramped and loosened, cramped and loosened, an ancient curse returning to haunt him, but he could not evacuate here at the top of the pyramid in full public view. It was simply unthinkable.
He clenched, tried to bring his emotions under control, and a renewed surge of the god-power of the mushrooms pulsed through him, shoving a fist of vomit into his mouth, forcing him to swallow and gulp like a frog. The tall wo
man smiled.
Smiled!
How dare she?
Anger triumphed over fear and he began to think clearly again. The suicide was the worst form of sacrilege, yet amends could be made. The god had deserted him again, but he had done so before and there was still hope that the harvest of victims would lure him back. The only answer was to put all distractions aside and continue with the sacrifices as if nothing had happened.
Moctezuma signalled to the musicians to resume play as his four helpers seized the tall woman by the arms and legs, spun her round with practised economy of effort, and cast her down on her back on the sacrificial stone. He raised the obsidian knife, gripping its hilt in both hands, and muttered the ritual prayer – ‘Oh lord, Hummingbird, at the left hand of the Sun, accept this my offering.’
He was about to plunge the knife down when the voice of the god, loud and unexpected, boomed inside his head: ‘No! I do not want this offering. You must not kill this woman.’
Moctezuma froze in place, the knife poised. ‘But, lord, you told me to bring you hearts.’
‘You must still bring me hearts, Moctezuma, but not this heart. I have chosen this woman and she must not be harmed. I have work for her to do.’
‘You have … chosen her, lord?’
‘Just as I chose you.’
Suddenly the tenor of the divine voice changed and Moctezuma found himself once more in the presence of Hummingbird. It was as though they were both looking down on the victim from a great height. The war god’s skin glowed white hot. ‘Set her free,’ he commanded.
Moctezuma hesitated. Was he understanding correctly? Could there be some mistake? ‘Set her free?’ he babbled.
The god sighed. ‘Yes. Free. Must you repeat every word I say?’
And at the same instant, in the world of blood and bone, Moctezuma felt Ahuizotl at his elbow, whispering alarm in his ear. ‘You must not free her, Magnificence! This woman must die! She must die! The god will not forgive us if she walks from the stone.’
Moctezuma remembered that he alone conversed with Hummingbird, while for Ahuizotl and others it must seem he was talking to himself. ‘Be silent!’ he roared.
‘But lord …’
‘You know nothing, Ahuizotl! I will have your skin for failing me this night.’
The high priest cowered and trembled, stammering apologies and then, unbelievably, the woman on the stone spoke. Her voice was rich and throaty, somehow familiar, and she seemed to look deep into Moctezuma’s eyes: ‘Your priest is corrupt,’ she told him. ‘He broke his vow of chastity and took me to his bed …’
‘Lies!’ Ahuizotl screamed. ‘Lies! Lies!’
But Cuitláhuac had stepped close now and was examining the woman’s face, rubbing at her chalk-white mask, revealing ever more of her skin. ‘Malinal!’ he suddenly exclaimed. ‘This is Malinal, Lord Speaker! She was your interpreter when the messenger from the Chontal Maya brought tidings of the gods to you. You ordered her execution.’
‘Ahuizotl disobeyed the Lord Speaker,’ the woman said. ‘He keeps a secret house in the district of Tlatelolco. He took me there from your palace four months ago. He used my body …’
‘Lies!’ Ahuizotl shrieked again. ‘All lies!’
‘There’s more here than meets the eye,’ Cuitláhuac said. He was known to be a stickler for rules and regulations, an enemy of Ahuizotl and a strong advocate of priestly celibacy. ‘The charge is grave. We must question the woman further and discover the truth.’
‘No!’ snarled Ahuizotl. ‘Kill her!’
Moctezuma’s eyes darted back and forth between the two men and down to the prone, spread body of the woman.
Yes, he remembered her. His stomach cramped and his bowels rumbled. She had witnessed his shame and he had ordered her death; yet here she was, four months later, still alive.
How could that be if her story was not true?
As another devastating cramp gripped his stomach and a bubble of sour air burst from his mouth, he made his decision. No questions could be asked. He would deal with Ahuizotl later, but the woman knew his secret and she must die with it now.
Her eyes, huge and dark, gazed up at him, catching and magnifying the flickering flames of the torches and the fiery glow of the braziers, seeming to burn into his soul. Resisting a powerful urge to recoil, even to run from her, Moctezuma jerked the dripping knife above his head, felt a thrill of pleasure as her pupils dilated with fear, and put all his force into a killing blow.
That never landed.
That never even began.
‘You pathetic grubby little human,’ boomed the voice of Hummingbird. Unseen and unheard by all the others, the god was still at his side, radiant as a volcano. ‘You will free this woman at once. You will send her from this city unharmed. I have spoken.’
Moctezuma struggled, tried to move his knife hand and discovered that it was paralysed in place above his head. ‘Release her, or die,’ said the god. ‘In fact, why don’t you just die anyway? I think I prefer Cuitláhuac for your role.’
‘Bu … bu … bu …’ Moctezuma tried to speak, but could not, tried to breathe but could not.
‘Interesting, isn’t it,’ said the god, ‘this business of dying? Fun when you’re dishing it out, not so nice when you’re at the receiving end.’
Moctezuma gaped, his chest heaved, and yet no breath would come. It was as though a huge hand covered his nose and mouth.
‘You are desperate to breathe,’ the god continued. ‘It gets worse. Very soon fear will overwhelm you, you will lose all control of your body and you will void your bowels. Tut tut! Where will your secret be then?’
‘Gahhh, ahhh, gaargh …’
Moctezuma felt it coming now, felt death all over him like a swarm of bees, was shaken by another terrifying cramp and tried desperately to signal his surrender.
The god’s smile was malevolent. ‘What?’ he said. ‘What was that?’
‘Gnahh, aargh …’
‘Ah. You agree? Is that what you’re saying? You will release the woman?’
His head spinning, his knees rubber, Moctezuma nodded his assent.
‘Hmmm,’ said the god. ‘I rather thought you would. Well, I suppose I shall give you another chance. Grooming Cuitláhuac to play your part would be such a bore.’
At once the sense of a hand clamped to Moctezuma’s face was gone and he could breathe again. Gasping, heaving, his vision steadying, he turned on his four assistants. They held the woman stretched over the sacrificial stone, gripping her by her wrists and ankles, terror and confusion squirming on their faces. ‘Release her!’ he roared.
After she’d struggled to her feet, Moctezuma ordered the woman to be taken from the pyramid, given clothes and sent on her way out of Tenochtitlan. The god had said she was to leave the city. The god had said she was not to be harmed. The god must not be denied.
Yet she refused to go!
Instead, looking him straight in the eye as though she were his equal, this woman, this Malinal, as Cuitláhuac had named her, made a new demand.
‘I was brought here with my friend,’ she said, indicating the wild-haired girl at the top of the steps. ‘I won’t leave without her.’
Moctezuma turned to Hummingbird, but the god had again deserted him.
He looked for Ahuizotl. The high priest too had vanished.
He looked to Cuitláhuac, who knew Malinal, and to the other nobles. They stood in groups around the vacant sacrificial stone, whispering to one another.
Whispering sedition.
‘I remember our last meeting,’ Malinal said quietly. She looked pointedly at Moctezuma’s belly. ‘It seemed the royal person was unwell. Allow me to express the hope that you have fully recovered your health.’ As she spoke, Moctezuma felt the eyes of the woman’s little ragged friend on him, heard the whisper of magic still pouring from her lips and helplessly doubled over as another agonising cramp struck him.
‘Take her,’ he gasped. ‘Take her. I free you both.’
‘Wait!’ she said. ‘There’s one more thing.’
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Santiago, Cuba, small hours of Friday 19 February 1519
The man was whip-thin. Caught in the swaying lantern light, his clever, weather-beaten face was lined with worry. ‘You understand we can’t sail in this,’ he told Cortés, ‘it would be suicide …’
Melchior had gone about his master’s business soon after Alvarado’s arrival, but Pepillo remained hidden in the aftcastle, nursing his wounds. Then Alvarado and Cortés left the ship and clattered off along the pier on horseback. Time passed. Pepillo had some sense of it from the gradual westward track of the moon across the increasingly crowded and stormy heavens. He dozed for a while. When he awoke the wind had grown stronger, whistling and rattling through the rigging, and down below on the navigation deck he heard voices raised in anger.
With a feeling of dread he recognised one of them as Muñoz.
He heard Cortés and another voice he did not recognise. It was an argument about money. There was a sudden bustle of activity, heavy footsteps pounded on the deck and down the gangplank. More shouting – it seemed the fleet would sail tonight without the governor’s blessing! – then a thunder of hooves as a horse took off at a gallop.
Taking care not to make a sound, Pepillo crawled out from behind the piled ropes, snaked forward on his belly, wincing at his bruises, and found a spot where he could look down on the navigation deck without being seen.
Five men stood there – Cortés, Muñoz and three others he did not know. It was obvious at once from the tension in their bodies that the argument was far from over, and now Muñoz shouted, ‘You can’t do that to me!’
Cortés said strongly that he could do anything he wanted, then lowered his voice. Amidst gusts of wind, Pepillo heard only the words, ‘Córdoba expedition’, ‘terrible’ and ‘page’, before Cortés leaned closer and whispered in Muñoz’s ear. He must have said something frightening because the Dominican gasped, blanched and stumbled back. Then the impossible happened. In a tone of disgust, Cortés said, ‘Take him’, and two of the other men leapt forward. Pepillo’s breath caught in his throat and hope surged through him as they seized Muñoz by the arms and frogmarched him from the ship. The Inquisitor’s strident protests continued but were soon snatched by the wind and lost to hearing as he was led off along the pier.