Aztec Autumn - Jennings Gary (версия книг .txt) 📗

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 poquietl.

"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 poquietin 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, Tenamaxtzin. 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, Tenamaxtzin. 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 Nocheztli, bringing his blood-spattered horse alongside mine, "there very soon will be only three white men still alive in Tonala. 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 Cuticauri," said Butterfly, at my stirrup, "that we Purempecha do not let our hair grow."

"I wish you did," growled Nocheztli, "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, Tenamaxtzin? 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, Tenamaxtzin. The men you called Senor Uno and Senor 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 Nocheztli. "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, Nocheztli 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, Nocheztli," 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, polvora, 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 Tonala except the church and palace here."

Nocheztli 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 around 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."