Aztec Blood a-3
Page 29
Mateo spent some time stuffing something into the hole. After he was finished, the mestizos piled wood and blankets against the hole. I watched all this in ignorance of what they were doing. Mateo poured a trail of something on the ground. It looked like the black powder I have seen soldados stuff into the barrels of their muskets.
He knelt and lighted the end of the trail. Smoke rose from the powder as the fire moved to the wall. The smoke seemed to go out the moment it hit the stuffed hole. Than an explosion erupted, muffled by the wood and blankets. When the smoke cleared, a small hole in the wall became visible.
Mateo cursed. "These damn indios knew how to build so that bad hombres like us can't get in. I put enough black powder in to sink a galleon, and it barely damaged the stone."
After the two mestizos cleared the rubble, they dug again with their iron poles. Periodically Mateo used more black powder to lessen the resistance. By midday they had made a small tunnel several feet long through a block of solid rock. It was just wide enough for a slender contortionist to snake into. From the discussions between Sancho and Mateo, I learned that it had taken days and a large number of indios to work loose a great block enough for their previous helper to squeeze in. The activity had drawn the interest of authorities from Oaxaco. With Mateo's black powder, they had made an opening in a few hours.
I had heard many stories of tomb robbers from the fray and on the streets of Veracruz. Everybody knew someone else who had an acquaintance possessing a secret map to where Montezuma hid his treasures from Cortes. Or a similar tale about the tomb of a king of Texcoco, whose incredible riches were discovered by robbers who were turned to stone by the ghosts and spirits guarding the tomb.
It was well known that it was bad luck to break into the burial places of the notables of the past. It raised the wrath of gods. People who defiled the ancient holy places were cursed and came to a bad end, if the Spanish didn't punish them first. When I was seven years old, two men were hanged in the valley where I was born, thieves who'd broken into an ancient tomb in search of treasure.
¡Ay de mí! what had I become involved in? If we were caught by the authorities, I would be hanged along with the rest of them, or worse, sent to the northern mines. If I found the treasure, my reward would be to have my throat cut. If I failed to find the treasure, I would pray for a quick death on the gibbet.
After the noon meal, Sancho and Mateo untied me and took me to the opening.
"After a few feet, this hole leads to a passage down to the tomb," Sancho said. "Your task is a simple one. You crawl down the passageway, get the breastplate, and crawl back. Comprende?"
"If it is so simple, why didn't your helper bring it to you?"
"I told you, we had to suddenly seal the opening."
"You couldn't have waited a moment for him to crawl out with the treasure?"
Sancho hit me. I stumbled backward and hit the ground hard. He threw his hands into the air. "Chico, Chico, see what you make me do? You ask too many questions. When I hear too many questions, my head hurts."
He led me to the opening. "When you are down there, fill your pockets with gems. I will let you keep all you find."
Eh, this hombre is generous, no? He would cut off his mother's nose if he could find a buyer.
He hung a sack with four candles and a small torch around my neck. He handed me a lighted candle. "Don't use the torch until you reach the tomb itself."
He tied part of a long coil of rope around my waist. The purpose of the rope was to guide me back if the passageway became a maze.
Before I stuck my head into the opening he grabbed me and gave me a powerful hug. "Amigo, if you don't find the treasure, don't come out," he whispered.
I crawled into the dark hole with grave misgivings. It was not midnight in the hole; it was as black as Mictlan, the underworld, as dark and silent as a grave. The air was as chill and unstirred as the breath of the dead. It smelled like the breath of the dead, a putrid, stagnant odor, like the bodies rotting in the Veracruz river where africanos and mestizos were thrown to save on burial effort.
The fray was right, I was raised badly. Trouble was waiting for me everywhere I went. While other mestizos are keeping warm and dry as household servants or at least mercifully dying at an early age, clutching a cup of pulque in the gutter, I am always tempting fate by taking a jaguar by the ear.
What would I find in this grave of ancient kings?
What would find me?
I had nothing with which to defend myself against the spirits of the temple but my ignorance.
The passageway was too small for me to continue crawling on my hands and knees. I lay flat on my stomach and pushed along, using my arms and elbows. My arms and legs were immediately cut and scraped as I crawled over the stone block that the hole had been blown through.
I prayed there was nothing in the tomb that became excited by the scent of fresh blood.
After a few feet of the rough hole that felt like I was crawling over obsidian spear heads, I was in another passageway. I could see only a few feet in front and was glad for the rope I was tethered to. No bigger than the blasted hole, it had been hewed an eon ago and was much smoother. I left one candle along the way and used it to light another. The candles barely broke the darkness.
Despite my youth and vigor, it was hard work dragging my body along on elbows and legs. Soon I was breathing hard not only from the exertion but an overwhelming sense of dread. The cold, rank, almost unbreatheable air and the dead blackness of the coffin-tight tunnel spooked me. Either the narrow passage was designed to discourage tomb robbers, or the early Zapotecs were as thin and lithe as snakes. The passageway twisted and turned nonsensically. If I encountered any danger and had to crawl backward, a feat ever more difficult than my excruciatingly painful forward progress, I would make the temple my tomb, just as my processor—
Ay! I came to a pair of feet.
I hoped the dirty feet belonged to the decayed body of the man Sancho had sealed in the passage and not some ancient specter waiting for an intruder to happen along.
The dim candlelight exposed dirty feet that appeared more likely to belong to the recently departed than someone entombed an eon ago.
I was faced with a dilemma. I could crawl backward all the way out, and have Sancho cut my throat, or I could attempt to crawl over the body.
I would have crawled over the points of spears to avoid mounting this body. Cursing my own bad acts that brought me to this moment, and imploring all the gods that I would spend the rest of my life in devotion to them, I began to crawl over the body.
I pushed myself atop the body like I was a man making ahuilnéma to a man. The body was decayed and had lost its fluids. There was no room to maneuver. Gathering all of my strength, I pushed forward with a groan. My back hit the top of the passage and wedged in. I could go no farther. I tried to crawl back. I was stuck.
Santa Maria! Those past deeds in the past life Gull had warned me about were once more stepping on my heels. I was stuck atop the dried flesh and bones. ¡Ayya ouiya! The indios believe that men who use each other as lovers will go to the underworld with one's pene stuck in the rear of the other one. What would some future tomb robber think if he found me mounted atop this other man?
I offered amends to the gods for whatever evil deeds I had done in past lives—and the present one. Then I pushed and pumped and groaned and moaned atop the dead man more than I did with the live woman I met in the cemetery on the Day of the Dead. My back scrapped the ceiling, my belly the body. When I felt the man's head against my stomach, I knew I was near victory. The head slipped down between my legs and I was free!
Ayyo, making ahuilnéma to a dead man was much work.
The passage slopped downward, and my progress improved. I came to the end of the tethered rope and had to untie it from my waist. The space around me widened and I could no longer see the walls with the candle. I got onto my feet and lit the pitch torch with the candle. As it flared, I knew I had reached the
tomb.
White walls and ceiling reflected the torch light, revealing a long, narrow chamber. Along the walls a foot below the ceiling, picture writing described the heroic accomplishments of the ruler occupying the tomb. Food, weapons, and cocoa beans for the trip to the underworld were contained in open clay pots.
Along two walls stood statues of full-sized, battle-dressed warriors. As I peered closer, I realized they were not stone statues, but actual men who had been embalmed in a way that turned the person into a rigid monument.
At the end of the line of warriors were four seated women, ranging in age from a teenage girl to an old woman. Like the warriors, none of them looked particularly happy that they had been turned into statues. I took these to be the wives of the ruler. The ruler himself was seated in a chair on a flat space five steps up from the floor. He wore the golden mask-breastplate. The ornamental armor covered the face and extended about halfway down the chest.
A yellow dog was at the ruler's feet. So were a nest of the largest scorpions I had ever seen. They were the size of a man's foot. One sting and I would join the ruler in Mictlan. They made my flesh crawl as I stepped around them.
My torch was burning out. I quickly separated the golden treasure from the man and hurried back to the opening of the passage. I paused to take off my shirt and use it to capture a scorpion. It was more impulse than plan. Holding the mask-breastplate and shirt out in front of me, I crawled back, fighting my way back over the corpse.
As I neared the opening to where the robbers were waiting, I decided on my strategy. If I came to the opening with the treasure in my hand, Sancho would take it and cut my throat. If I did not have it, he would cut my throat. Ay, but if I did not have the treasure in my hands, I also might be able to make a run for it. It depended on where everyone was. I had been in the passageway for a couple of hours. If the gods decided to accept my offers of appeasement, they would not be waiting next to the opening.
As I neared the end I crawled slowly and quietly, pausing to listen for sounds of the robbers. A strange noise, something I could not identify, funneled down the passageway. Every couple of feet I paused to listen. The noise grew louder as I neared the entrance.
When I was still in the dark tunnel a dozen feet from the opening to the passageway, I saw Mateo and Sancho playing cards. They were under the shade of a tree about a hundred paces away. That left the two mestizos.
I inched closer to the end of the passageway. One of the mestizos came into sight. He was farther away than the two Spaniards, cooking. My heart started beating faster. With luck I would be able to get out and onto my feet to run before they spotted me.
I inched up to the opening. And saw a pair of legs.
The other mestizo was sitting near the opening. He had fallen asleep, sitting up, snoring, his head bobbling, his legs stretched out.
I had to slip out of the hole and get across the pile of rubble that the black powder explosions created. And run, before the mestizo could shout the alarm and grab me.
It couldn't be done, so I did the next best thing. I flung the shirt and scorpion onto his lap. Scrambling out of the hole, I grabbed a piece of the stone rubble bigger than my fist. The mestizo woke up immediately, nearly jumping out of his skin at the sight of the huge scorpion. He was still reacting in surprise when I hit him in the face with the stone.
I ran, with shouts from both Sancho and Mateo behind me. There was no heavy foliage for me to disappear into; I was forced onto the pyramid. I scrambled around the side, running for my life. The four in pursuit divided up to trap me. They slowly closed in, cutting off one way of escape, then another.
They squeezed my area of maneuvering until I was a dozen feet from Sancho.
"Where's my treasure?" he snarled. His temperament was murderous.
"I've hidden it. Let me go and I'll tell you."
"You'll tell me because I'm going to start slicing off pieces of your body, starting with your nose."
He charged me, his sword lashing at me, and sliced my chest.
"I'm going to slice one piece after another from you until you answer me."
I dodged around him and ran into Mateo.
He grabbed me. Sancho lashed out at me again, and Mateo blocked the blow with his own sword. "Stop! Killing him will get us nothing."
"It'll give me satisfaction." Sancho swung at me again and Mateo's sword flashed again. Mateo held onto me with one hand and crossed swords repeatedly with Sancho, driving Sancho back.
"Kill him!" Sancho shouted at the two mestizos.
The two mestizos charged Mateo. He slashed his sword at them, cutting the face of one of them. They both retreated.
Men came on horseback into the temple area.
"Soldados!" one of the mestizos yelled. The two mestizos ran. I saw Sancho disappearing down the other side of the temple. He must have seen the horsemen coming before the rest of us. Mateo kept his hold on me but made no attempt to run.
"We have to run!" I exclaimed. The penalty for tomb robbing was hanging.
He hung onto me but said nothing until the horsemen came up to us. Releasing his grip on me, he took off his hat and saluted the lead rider with a sweep of his hat and a bow. Other riders went in pursuit of the banditos.
"Don Julio, you are late. Our friend Sancho left a moment ago. From her speed, I suspect she is in the next town by now."
It was the man from the fair who'd pulled an arrow from a wounded indio, and to whom I had exposed my knowledge.
"Go after her," Don Julio told an officer in the uniform of a viceroy's soldado.
Her? Why did they call Sancho a woman? I wondered. I did not need the Healer to tell my fate from the songs of birds. I had fallen into the hands of the king's men. If they discovered I was wanted for murder, I would be tortured before they killed me.
"Our friend Sancho nearly killed me and this young devil," Mateo said. "The boy came out of the temple without the treasure piece."
Aha! Mateo had conspired to cheat the others with this don. The soldados must be in league, too. A very clever scheme.
"Where's the mask?" Don Julio asked me.
"I don't know, señor," I whined, in my best lépero voice. "I swear upon all the saints I could not find it." Eh, I could come back later and get the treasure myself.
"He's lying," Mateo said.
"Of course he is. He's even managed to forget how to speak good Spanish and speaks like a street person." Don Julio gave me a dark look. "You are a thief who has defiled an ancient tomb. The penalty is most severe. If you are lucky, you will be hanged before your head is removed to post as a warning to others."
"He made me do it!" I pointed at Mateo.
"Nonsense," Don Julio said. "Señor Rosas is an agent of the king, just as I am. He joined Sancho to trap her in the act of violating a tomb."
"Why do you keep calling Sancho a woman?" I asked.
"Answer my question, Chico. Where did you hide the treasure?"
"I found no treasure."
"Hang him!" Don Julio snapped.
"The passageway, it's in the passageway. I'll get it for you."
They shackled my ankle, securing it with a length of chain. I was sent into the tunnel like a fish that could be jerked back at any time. The two mestizos were chained at the same time I was. They were on their way to the jail in Oaxaca, as I entered the passageway.
With the mask-breastplate in hand, I crawled backward out of the passageway. My heart beat in my throat. I was crawling back into a hangman's noose. Don Julio, Mateo, and the soldados gathered around to view the treasure piece.
"Magnífica. It is a fine piece," Don Julio said. "It will be sent to the viceroy. He will send it to Madrid for the king the next time the treasure fleet sails."
On instructions from Don Julio, Mateo looped a rope around my neck with a wooden device where the knot should be. "If you try to run, the rope tightens it around your throat and strangles you. It's a trick I learned when I was a prisoner of the bey of Algiers."
"Innocent? Perhaps not completely guilty this time, but innocent?"
There was still no word between us that Mateo had cut off a man's head for me. It was not something I could reveal to my advantage, or I would have done so.
"You betrayed Sancho," I said to him.
He shrugged. "One does not betray her. You merely take action to avoid her treachery. Were either of us to expect any reward from her but a dagger in the back? Eh, amigo. Don Julio has one of these ropes around my neck, too; you just can't see it. But he is a man of honor and of his word. If I am faithful to him, it will not strangle me."
"Who is he? I thought he was a doctor."
"He is many things. He knows of surgery and medicines, but that is just a small part of his knowledge. He knows how these monuments came to be built and why the sun comes up in the morning and goes down at night. But the main concern for you is that he is the king's agent who investigates plots to steal the king's treasures and other intrigues. And he can have a man hanged."
"What is he going to do with me?"
Mateo shrugged. "What do you deserve?"
Ay, that was the last thing I wanted the don to pass judgment on.
FIFTY-EIGHT
I spent the night tied to the tree, a blanket thrown over me to ward off the cold. My anxiety and restrained posture made the night one of agony and worry. I knew how to deal with the Sanchos of this world. But this mysterious leader of the soldados was no one I wanted to tangle with. The next day before the noon meal, men from Oaxaca came to repair the temple.
Don Julio's angry curses drifted over me as I sat like a dog tied to a tree, the fiendish collar around my neck. His venom was directed at the absent Sancho for damaging the ancient monument. He ignored the fact that it was his own man Mateo who had blown the hole in the wall. He instructed the indios on making repairs with a mortar made from straw and dirt similar to the adobe used to build houses with. He did not like defacing a great stone monument with mock adobe, and cursed that the art of building stone temples was dead. The temporary sealing would have to suffice until indios skilled in working with stone could be brought from the City of Mexico.