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

I could recall no place where I might break away, no accessible window through which I might lunge. And once in the governor's presence, I would be quite surrounded. Afterward, if I was not summarily executed right in front of him, there was every probability that I would not be led back to this cell, but to some kind of torture chamber or even the burning stake. Well, I thought dolefully, I would have to be burned outdoors. Conceivably, on the way there...

But that thought provided wan hope, indeed. I was trying to fend off black despair, and reconcile myself to the worst, when suddenly I heard: "Oye."

It was Esteban's murmur again at my tiny window. I bounded to my feet and peered again at darkness that was again split by a white-toothed grin, as he said, softly but jauntily, "I have an idea, Juan Britanico."

When he told it to me, I realized that he had been thinking much as I had been, only—I must say—with a great deal more optimism. What he proposed was so reckless as to verge on madness, but he had had an idea, and I had not.

The guards bound my arms before they escorted me to my next confrontation with the governor, the following morning, but at his dismissive gesture, they untied me and stood aside. Besides several other soldiers, G'nda Ke and Fray Marcos and his guide Esteban were also in the room, and they ambled about it as freely as if they were Coronado's equals.

To me, the governor said, "I have excused Yeyac from attendance at this conference because, frankly, I detest the duplicitous hijoputa. However, from our previous interview, Juan Britanico, I take you to be an honorable and forthright man. Therefore, I here and now offer you the same pact that my predecessor, Governor Guzman, made with that Yeyac. You will be set free, as will also the other horseman captured alive with you."

He gestured again, and a soldier brought in from some other room Ualiztli the ticitl, looking grumpy and disheveled, but not impaired in any way. This put a small complication into the projected plan of escape, but not, I thought, an insuperable one, and I was pleased that I might be able to take Ualiztli with me. I motioned for him to come and stand beside me, and I waited to hear the rest of the governor's so-called offer.

He said, "You will be allowed to return to that place called Aztlan, and resume your rule there. I guarantee that not Yeyac nor any of his cohort will contest your supremacy—if I have to kill the damned maricon to make sure of it. You and your people will retain your traditional domains and live there in peace, untroubled by invasion or conquest by mine. In time, you Aztecs and we Spaniards may find it profitable to engage in trade and other intercourse, but nothing of that sort will be forced upon you."

He paused and waited, but I stood silent, so he went on:

"In reciprocation, you will guarantee not to lead or incite any further rebellion against New Galicia, New Spain or any other of His Majesty's lands and subjects here in the New World. You will send word to those insurgent bands in the south to cease their depredations. And you will swear to ward off, as Yeyac did, any incursions of those pestiferous indios to the north, in the Tierra de Guerra. So, what say you, Juan Britanico? Agreed?"

I said, "I thank you, Senor Gobernador, for your flattering estimate of my character and for your trust that I would keep my given word. I take you, too, to be an honorable man. For that reason, I would not disrespect you and disgrace myself by giving my word and then breaking it. You must be fully aware that what you offer me and my people is nothing but what we have always had, and will fight to keep. We Aztecs have declared war against you and every other white man. Strike me dead this moment, senor, and some other Aztec will arise to lead our warriors in that war. I respectfully decline the pact you offer."

Coronado's face had been darkening during my speech, and I am sure he was about to reply in wrath and malediction. But just then, Esteban, who had all this while been sauntering idly about the room, came within my reach.

I flung an arm around his neck, hauled him tight against me and, with my free hand, plucked from his waist belt the steel knife sheathed there. Esteban made an apparently strenuous effort to struggle loose, but desisted when I laid the knife blade across his bare throat. Ualiztli, at my side, regarded me with astonishment.

"Soldiers!" screeched G'nda Ke from across the room. "Take aim! Slay that man!" She was ranting in Nahuatl, but no one could have mistaken what she meant. "Slay them both!"

"No!" cried Fray Marcos and "Hold!" bellowed Coronado, exactly as Esteban had predicted they would. The soldiers, already having raised their arcabuces or drawn their swords, stood perplexed, making no other move.

"No?" bawled G'nda Ke in disbelief. "Not kill them? What kind of timid women are you white fools?" She would have gone on with her incomprehensible tirade, but the friar desperately outshouted her:

"Please, Your Excellency! The guards must not take the risk of—"

"I know it, you imbecile! Shut your mouth! And strangle that howling bitch!"

I was slowly backing toward the door, seemingly dragging the helpless black man, and Ualiztli was right with us. Esteban was turning his head from side to side, as if looking for help, his eyes fearfully bulging so that they showed white all around. The movement of his head was deliberate, to cause my blade to cut his throat skin slightly, so that everyone could see a trickle of blood run down his neck.

"Ground your arms, men!" Coronado commanded the soldiers, who were alternately gaping at him and at our slow, wary progress. "Stand as you are. No firing, no swordplay. I had rather lose both the prisoners than that single miserable Moro."

I called to him, "Tell one of them, senor, to run outside before us, and loudly to inform every soldier in the vicinity. We are not to be molested or impeded. When we are safely gone beyond the town, I will release your precious Moro unharmed. You do have my word on that."

"Yes," said Coronado, through gritted teeth. He motioned to a soldier near the door. "Go, Sargento. Do as he says."

Circling well clear of us, the soldier scuttled out the door. Ualiztli and I and the limp, goggle-eyed Esteban were not far behind. No one pursued us as we followed that soldier along a short hall I had not been in before, and down a flight of stairs, and out through the palace's street door. The soldier was already shouting as we three emerged. And there, at a hitching rack, as Esteban had arranged, a saddled horse was waiting for us.

I said, "Ticitl Ualiztli, you will have to run alongside. I am sorry, but I had not counted on your company. I will hold the horse to a walk."

"No, by Huitztli, go at a gallop!" the physician exclaimed. "Old and stout though I am, I am eager enough to be out of here that I will move like the wind!"

"In the name of God," growled Esteban, under his breath. "Cease your gibbering and move! Fling me across the saddle and leap up behind and go!"

As I heaved him atop the horse—actually, he bounded and I only seemed to impel him—our herald-soldier was crying commands to everyone within hearing, "Make way! Safe passage!" All the other people in the street, soldiers and citizens alike, were gawking numbly at this remarkable spectacle. Not until I was seated behind the saddle's cantle, now holding Esteban's knife ostentatiously pointed at his kidneys, did I realize that I had neglected to unhitch the horse from the rail. So Ualiztli had to do that, and handed the reins up to me. Then, true to his word, the ticitl waddled off at a speed commendable in one of his age and girth, enabling me to put the horse to a trot beside him.