Aztec Blood

by Gary Jennings

  "We will never get past the guards at the causeway. They're not that stupid."

  "We're not going over the causeway." Mateo glared at Jaime.

  The boy had his hand out.

  "What do you want?"

  "More dinero."

  With the sound of the hooves of the soldado's horses in our ears, Mateo cursed the boy and threw him a coin. "Bandito!"

  We climbed into the cart and covered ourselves as the boy guided the donkey away.

  We went to the house of Don Silvestre's widowed daughter.

  "She stays all the time now with her father, only coming here to bring me food and comfort," Mateo said. "I came back into the city and holed up until I made contact with Eléna and, through her, Don Eduardo."

  For the next two days, Jaime came each afternoon for a few minutes with news of the day—and for an additional payment. I had the distinct feeling that he would have sold us to the highest bidder if in this case the highest bidder hadn't been us. As a street boy, I would have admired his thieving spirit. As a victim of his avarice, ¡ay de mí! We paid.

  "I should cut your thieving little throat," Mateo growled at the boy.

  The first news we had was that Cristo the Bandit and his accomplice had escaped from the city on an indio boat. Since there were hundreds of such boats plying the city each day, it was impossible to determine which boat we had left in and where we took to land.

  With that news also came bad tidings. Don Eduardo had died of his wound; the death was attributed to me. It made me both sad and angry. Once again I had lost a father to a dagger. And again I was blamed for spilling the blood.

  Reports about the hunt for Cristo became a daily fare. He was spotted fleeing in the direction of the four winds. He was already back up to his old tricks, robbing silver trains and ravishing women. Eh, if I had just committed half the deeds and loved half the women the rumors spoke about.

  The other news was about Eléna. The tale being told in the marketplace was that the viceroy's niece had taken food to a sick guard and had been at the guard station when the bomb exploded. I had to give the Spanish bureaucracy some credit. They had taught Don Diego well. After all my years on the streets, lying about everything, including my very existence, I could not have come up with a more clever lie.

  The other news about her was less heartening. Her betrothal to Luis was announced, and the marriage was being rushed so that they could journey to Spain on the next treasure fleet. Luis, whose own mother had returned to Spain to give him birth, thus ensuring that he was a Spain-born gachupin rather than a colony-born criollo, was to present himself at the Royal Court in Madrid for an appointment of some substance.

  While I sulked in the house, not daring to leave it, Mateo journeyed out and came back with other news.

  "The mood on the streets is mean. The price of maize is rising each day."

  "They've started the squeeze," I said.

  "Exactly. Hired rumormongers go into the marketplace and tell stories of droughts and floods that have destroyed the maize crops, but no one believes them. Travelers, who have come from the areas, shake their heads and repudiate the rumors out of hand. And in the meantime, Miguel de Soto refuses to release maize from the government's warehouses, claiming that they are almost empty and what little is in them is needed for emergencies."

  "How are they keeping maize from individual farmers out of the city?"

  "The Recontonería. They are buying it and hauling it away instead of into the city. They burn it."

  "Burn it?"

  "To keep it from increasing the supply and lowering the price for the maize they keep in the warehouse. The people hurt most are the poor, mestizos and indios who work as laborers. They cannot afford to buy enough maize to feed their families. Your lépero brothers and the poorest of the poor are also starving. They all blame the viceroy."

  "Why the viceroy? Do you think he is really involved?"

  Mateo shrugged. "Do I think he is directly involved, no. But he paid a great price to the king for his office. Men who pay the great amount required for the position usually go into debt to buy the office until they have collected back enough to pay off the loans. And who would he borrow from?"

  "His old majordomo and business partner, Ramon de Alva."

  "And Luis, the Soto's. The huge profits these bandits reap have to be connected to the viceroy's loans."

  "So is Luis' marriage to Eléna," I said with bitterness. Though I had to admit that Luis, with my marqués title, was a plausible candidate.

  "Is there anything being done?"

  "Hunger makes even calm people angry and mean. When the grumbling gets too loud and people take to the streets, the cabal suddenly—miraculously—finds more maize in the warehouse and distributes a little at a fair price. As soon as that is eaten, they cut the supply and raise the price again. The warehouse is well-guarded, but Jaime has spoken to a warehouse worker who claims it is almost bursting from the maize packed into it."

  "I can understand the greed of my beggar brothers," I told Mateo. "When a bone was thrown into the gutter, we all ran for it because it may have been the only food we would see that day. But how can the greed of Ramon and the others be explained?"

  "They are pigs, who will eat at the trough even when their bellies swell and threaten to burst. They are never full. There is always a need for more."

  "Amigo, I have been cooped up in this casa for an eternity. If I do not get out of it soon, I will die from boredom."

  "Eh, I understand. Your señorita is marrying a pig in a few days. You want to hang him by his feet and cut his throat so you can watch him bleed, no?"

  "Something like that. I also want to hang Ramon beside him."

  "So let's do it."

  "Tell me your idea," I said.

  "What idea?"

  "The one you always have. The tragic-comedia of revenge that you have concocted and that is no doubt beyond our ability to perform."

  "Have you not cheated death because of my dramatic skill?"

  "Cheated, yes. But I am still in the city, surrounded by hundreds of soldados, and will be back in captivity as soon as Jaime the lépero finds someone who will pay for our heads more than you are paying."

  "Bastardo—"

  "Eh, I'm not a bastard anymore."

  "You will always be a bastard to me. But excuse me, Señor Marqués." Mateo stood and bowed. "I forgot I am speaking to the head of one of the great houses of Spain."

  "You are forgiven. This time. Now tell me your plan."

  "Listen closely, compadre, and you will discover why on the peninsula princes and dukes speak of my comedias with the same reverence they reserve for the Holy Bible. Because of your rashness in saving la bella Eléna from pirates, you have been exposed as the liar and thief that you are. Now that we are hunted criminals, we no longer have the freedom to swindle the cabal into financial ruin."

  "Is your plan to talk me to death?"

  "Sorry, Señor Marqués, I must keep aware of the fact that you wearers of spurs are very impatient."

  As I listened to Mateo's jest about the noble title I "inherited" when my father died, I remembered Ana's comment that Mateo was an outlaw nobleman. I had never mentioned it to him. There are some things too private to probe. Had Mateo wanted me to know, he would have told me. He was a man who boasted of many things. His disgraced nobility was not something he bragged about.

  Mateo tapped his head. "Think, Bastardo, other than cutting off their heads with a fine sword stroke, what would most hurt these pigs the worst?"

  "Emptying their money chests."

  "And who is protecting them?"

  "The viceroy."

  "Eh, Bastardo, I taught you well. So to make these devils vulnerable, we must rid them of their gold and the viceroy's protection." He took a deep swig of what I had learned long ago was his brain food. "Now tell me, where is all their dinero?"

  "Uh, buying up maize to control the market."

  "Sí, their pesos have all tur
ned into maize. They control maize."

  I began to see his plan. "We will take control of the maize. Buy everything that comes into the city. Pay the Recontonería more for it. Distribute it to the people. We break the stranglehold on their monopoly of maize, drive down the price, their maize, their pesos, rot in the warehouse."

  Mateo shook his head in mock disappointment. "Bastardo, Bastardo, I thought I taught you better than this. That is a wonderful scheme, but there is one big flaw to it."

  "What?"

  "It would take too long. It would take weeks for us to gather enough maize from what is brought to the Recondonería by small farmers. By that time they will have doubled and tripled their money and your amor will be on her way to Spain with her new husband. No, we must strike boldly and quickly. We will do that by burning the maize warehouse and making the supply of maize scarce."

  I gaped at him in astonishment. "You have lost your mind. That would play right into their hands. The less maize, the more it will raise the price. They will bring in maize from other areas and make a fortune."

  Mateo shook his head. "I told you, they are squeezing the supply in the city. They hold it back to drive up the price. When it appears, the poor are going to riot, as they have done in the past, they release enough to take off the pressure. But if we destroy their supply, they will not only have none to sell, but none to take the pressure off. It would take a week or more to get maize here from the nearest warehouses, the ones in Texcoco. By that time people will be very hungry."

  "I don't know..."

  "Listen, it is a masterful play. We beat them at their own game. To drive up the price, they use the maize in their warehouse like a bucket of water to put out a fire. They make those on fire pay dearly for the water and only splash a little extra when it looks like the fire will spread. We will take away their bucket. When that happens, they will have nothing to keep the fire from spreading. Starving people are not passive. The evils of men or gods will not make the people of this city rebel—but empty bellies will."

  "They have rioted before," I said.

  "And will do it again. We destroy the supply of maize. Our hired rumormongers go into the streets, saying the viceroy himself has burned the maize. Eh, soldados of the palace guard will be seen firing the building."

  I broke out laughing. "Mateo, you are the greatest autor of plays in the civilized world."

  "You underestimate my talents," he said in a tone of false modesty.

  ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHT

  "We will use the mascarada as cover for our plan," Mateo told me.

  Eh, amigos, did I not tell you that there was always an excuse for a celebration in the colony? We took to the streets to celebrate the dead, the arrival of the treasure fleet, good news of victories in the wars in Europe, the birth dates of saints, investitures of bishops and viceroys... and any other momentous events we could use as an excuse.

  Of all the celebrations, the colorful atmosphere of the mascarada carnival was my favorite. The excuse for this mascarada, Mateo said, was the queen's delivery of a healthy baby prince. Don Silvestre's widowed daughter told him about the celebration during one of her visits.

  "She says the reason for the mascarada is to take the people's minds off their empty stomachs. The viceroy knows the temper of the street. Every time he levies a special tax for the king's wars, he throws a carnival. So he called the city notables together last week and told them they were going to put on a mascarada to celebrate the royal birth. It will permit us to go out onto the streets dressed in costume. She is purchasing costumes for us."

  When her servants brought our costumes, Mateo looked at them in shock and then flew into a rage.

  "I refuse to wear such rubbish!"

  "Of course," I agreed, barely able to keep from laughing.

  He kicked the bundle of costumes. "The Fates are laughing at me."

  Don Silvestre's daughter had actually chosen the most popular mascarada costumes for our disguises: Don Quixote and his companion-servant, the rotund Sancho. Eh, how was she to know about Mateo's anger toward the doleful knight's creator.

  The genius of the selection was not apparent to Mateo but came instantly to me: There would be a great number of Quixotes and Sanchos at the mascarada. We would blend in.

  With no other alternative, he grudgingly agreed. Naturally he selected the main role, that of the knight, and left me with the fat, little peasant Sancho. "But do not mention the name of that blackguard who stole my soul," Mateo warned me.

  We left the house dressed in our costumes.

  "We will go to the main square. It will be packed, so when the parade moves, no one will notice when we veer off toward the warehouse."

  The square was mobbed with people, some in costumes, most just there to watch the show others put on with their costumes and antics. At the head of the parade were trumpeters. Behind them came a long procession of carts that had been turned into scenes from the pages of history, literature, and the Bible, along with hundreds of costumed figures.

  The scenery carts were elaborately designed, the gaudiest drawing the most attention from the on-lookers. Those on the street tended to be the small merchants, laborers, and the poor, while the people of quality watched from decorated balconies or rooftops.

  The first exhibition parading past was indio. Men and women in the costumes of the various indio nations marched by, the warriors in battle garb, the women in traditionally festive attire. One group, wearing only enough clothes to avoid arrest, had smeared brightly hued clay paints on their bodies and marched down the street swinging clubs. From the crowd's comments, I took them to be votaries of the vicious Dog People.

  Following the indios was Cortes astride his horse and surrounded by indio kings, some of whom he had killed or vanquished: Netzahualcóyotl, the poet-king of Texcoco who died before the conquest, Montezuma, who died at the hands of his own angry people, the ill-fated Chimalpopoca, who died from torture at the hands of the conquistadors, and the war god Huitzilopochtli, who took a heavy toll in lives before his temple finally fell to the Spanish.

  After the scenes and characters from history, came vivid recreations of great scenes from literature. Following tradition, the first was a cart that showed mio Cid coming to the rescue of the fighting Bishop Jerónimo, who had charged the Moors singlehandedly. The scenery cart showed the bishop striking down an Infidel with a cross, rather than the lance mentioned in the poem, while Cid came charging up on horseback.

  Then came Amadis de Gaul, the seminal chivalry character. The scene showed Amadis in the magic archway on Firm Island that no knight except the most valorous on earth could enter. Amadis was fighting invisible warriors, their ghostly nature shown by sheer, spider weblike cloth covering their uniforms.

  "Do you hear the poor people around you," Mateo said. "They know the meaning of each scene and can even repeat words from the books—yet they have never read a book. They have heard of these characters and scenes from others. The mascarada brings them alive, making them real for people who cannot even read their own name."

  Eh, it was bringing them alive for me, too, and I had read most of them.

  Bernaldo de Carpio came along, slaying the Frankish champion Roland at the Battle of Roncesvalles, and a bittersweet scene came to my own mind: When I first saw Eléna at the plaza in Veracruz, I had pretended I was Bernaldo.

  Along came Explandian, the hero of the Fifth Book of Amadis. This was one of the books Don Quixote read. The chivalric nonsense led the knight-errant's mind astray and was among the romances his friend, the curator, burned. The scenery cart showed an enchantress conveying the sleeping Esplandian to a mysterious vessel called the Ship of the Great Serpent. The ship was a dragon.

  "Palmerin de Oliva," someone said as the next cart came by. The heroic Palmerin de Oliva had gone on an adventure to find a magic fountain guarded by a giant serpent. The waters of the fountain would cure the king of Macedonia from a deadly illness. Along the way he met beautiful fairy princesse
s who cast a spell to protect him from the enchantments of monsters and magicians.

  The Palmerin cart was the most cleverly done and awes and shouts of approval followed it. It showed Palmerin standing by the fountain and surrounded by the scantily clad fairies. Wrapped around the entire cart was a giant, coiled serpent, the monster that protected the fountain. The monster's head had risen behind Palmerin as if it were about to attack the young knight.

  And, of course, there was our friend from La Mancha bringing up the rear, following in the footsteps of the literary characters that had twisted his mind. The adventures of the knight-errant was the newest of the characters on parade but had already gained legendary stature. And everyone there, few of whom had ever read a book, knew the story.

  Don Quixote was Alonso Quixano, a middle-aged hidalgo, a man who spent his life idle and not at all wealthy, living in the dry, almost infertile region of La Mancha. He became consumed with a passion for reading books of chivalry. These books of knights and princesses in distress and dragons to slay were so farfetched and irrational the poor gentlemen lost control of his mind reading them. Soon he was burnishing his grandfather's ancient armor and preparing his trusty knight's "steed," Rosinante, a poor, skinny old stable horse, to carry him into battle. Needing a princess to rescue and love, a necessity for any knight-errant, even ones who confuse windmills for giant monsters, he dubs a simple country lass, Aldonza Lorenza, a duchess. For a page and servant, he induced a peasant, the gullible Sancho, to accompany him.

  On his first outing, the don came to a country inn, which, in his fanciful world, he imagined to be a great castle with a moat and lofty towers. There he is waited on by two prostitutes, whom he fantasizes are great ladies from noble families. That night the two "ladies" help him undress.

  The float shows the good don in night clothes but wearing his knight's helmet. Two women are next to him. The women, the inn's prostitutes, had helped him get off his rusty armor but were unable to get off his helmet, which he must sleep in.

  The women are costumed so that the side of their clothing facing Don Quixote is that of great ladies and their backside, the side he does not see, are the cheap, gaudy clothes of prostitutes.