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

There was dead silence in the room.

"Then does the Speaking Council agree to support my proposed campaign?" Several of the members heaved a sigh, but they all nodded assent. "Good," I said.

I turned to that merchant who had informed me that there was no longer a Rememberer of History on the Council. "Canautli no doubt left many books of word-pictures telling what occurred in all the sheaves of sheaves of years up to his own time. Study and memorize them. And I bid you do this, too. Commence a new book—with these words: 'On this day of Nine-Flower, in the month of the Sweeping of the Road, in the year Seven-House, the Uey-Tecutli Tenamaxtzin of Aztlan declared The One World's independence of Old Spain and began preparations for an insurrection against the unwelcome white overlords, in both New Spain and New Galicia, this plan having the consent and endorsement of his Speaking Council in assembly agreed.' "

The man promised, "Your every word, Tenamaxtzin," and he and the other councillors went their way.

Nocheztli, still in the room, said, "Excuse me, my lord, but what shall be done with those warriors imprisoned in the goddess's temple? They are so crowded in there that they must take turns sitting down, and cannot lie down at all. They are also getting very hungry and thirsty."

"They deserve worse than discomfort," I said. "But tell the guards to feed them—only atoli and water—and only a minimum of each. I want those men, when I am ready to put them to use, hungry for battle and thirsty for blood. Meanwhile, Nocheztli, I believe you said you have visited Compostela in Yeyac's company?"

"Yes, Tenamaxtzin."

"Then I want you to visit there again, this time being a quimichi for me." That word properly means "mouse," but we use it also to mean what the Spanish call an espion. "Can I trust you to do that? To go there, secretly get information, and return here with it?"

"You can, my lord. I am alive only because of your sufferance, therefore my life is yours to command."

"Then that is my command. The Spanish cannot yet have heard that they have lost their ally Yeyac. And since they already know you by sight, they will suppose you to be Yeyac's emissary, come on some errand."

"I will carry gourds of our fermented coconut milk to sell. All the white men, high and low, are fond of getting drunk on it. That will be sufficient excuse for my visit. And what information would you wish me to gather?"

"Anything. Keep your eyes and ears open, and linger there as long as necessary. Find out for me, if you can, what the new Governor Coronado is like, and how many troops he now has stationed there, and how many other people—both Spanish and indio—now inhabit Compostela. Also be alert for any news or rumor or gossip of what is happening elsewhere in the Spanish lands. I will await your return before I send Yeyac's pack of disloyal warriors on their suicidal mission, and the outcome of that mission will largely depend on what information you bring back to me."

"I go at once, my lord," he said, and he did.

Next, I gave quick and desultory approval to all the would-be servants that G'nda Ke had gathered in the hall. I recognized a number of them from the old days, and I was sure that if any of the others had ever been in league with Yeyac, they would not now have dared to apply for service under my eye. From then on, we pipiltin of the palace—Ameyatl, Pakapeti, G'nda Ke and myself—were most assiduously attended and most sumptuously fed, and we never had to lift a finger to do anything that could be done for us. Though Ameyatzin now had a bevy of women to wait upon her, she and I both were pleased that Tiptoe insisted on continuing to be her closest personal handmaiden.

What time Tiptoe was not attending Ameyatl, she gladly passed in accompanying the warriors I sent to arrest and execute the Aztlan townsmen whose names had been on Nocheztli's bark papers. I gave no orders except "execute them!" and I never bothered to find out what means the warriors employed—whether the flower-garland garrote or the sword or arrows or the knife that tears out the heart—or whether Tiptoe personally dispatched some of those men with one or another of the horrid methods she had mentioned to me. I simply did not care. Sufficient for me that all the property and possessions and wealth of those who died came to Aztlan's treasury. I may seem callous in having said that, but I could have been even more callous. By ancient tradition, I could have slain those traitors' wives, children, grandchildren, relatives of even more remote degree, and from that I refrained. I did not wish to depopulate Aztlan entirely.

I had never been a Uey-Tecutli before, and the only other one I had ever observed in the exercise of that office had been my Uncle Mixtli. It had seemed to me—then—that to accomplish anything whatsoever that required accomplishing, all Mixtzin had to do was smile or scowl or wave a hand or put his name-sign to some document. I soon learned—now—that being a Revered Governor was no easy occupation. I was being continually petitioned—I could say pestered—for decisions, judgments, pronouncements, intercessions, advice, verdicts, consents or denials, acceptances or rejections...

The other officials of my court, charged with various governing responsibilities, regularly came to see me with their various problems. A dike restraining the swamp waters needed crucial repairs, or the swamp would soon be in our streets; would the Uey-Tecutli authorize the cost of materials and the rounding-up of workmen? The fishers of our ocean fleet were complaining that the long-ago draining of that same swamp had resulted in the gradual silting up of their accustomed seaside harbors; would the Uey-Tecutli authorize the dredging of those harbors deep again? Our warehouses were bulging with sea-otter pelts, sponges, shark skins and other unsold goods, because, for years now, Aztlan had been trading only with lands to the north of us, none to the south; could the Uey-Tecutli devise a plan to get rid of that glut, and at a profit?...

I had to contend with not just my court officials and major matters of policy, but also with the most trivial doings of the common folk. Here a quarrel between two neighbors over the boundary between their plots of land; there a family squabbling over the division of their recently dead father's meager estate; here a debtor asking relief from an usurious and harassing moneylender; there a creditor asking permission to oust a widow and her orphans from their home, to satisfy some obligation her late husband had failed to meet...

It was exceedingly difficult for me to find time to attend to matters that were—to me—of much more urgency. But somehow I managed. I instructed all the loyal knights and cuachictin of my army to put their forces (and every available conscript) to intensified training, and to make place in their ranks for the additional warriors levied and daily arriving from the other communities subordinate to Aztlan.

I even found time to take out of hiding the three arcabuces Pakapeti and I had brought, and to give personal training in the use of them. Needless to remark, every warrior was, at first, timorous of handling these alien weapons. But I selected only those who could overcome their trepidation, and who showed an aptitude for using the thunder-stick efficiently. Those eventually numbered about twenty, and when one of them asked, diffidently, "My lord, when we go to war, are we to take turns employing the thunder-sticks?" I told him, "No, young iyac. I expect you to wrest from the white men their arcabuces with which to arm yourselves. Furthermore, we will also be confiscating the white men's horses. When we do, you will be trained in the handling of them, as well."