Aztec - Jennings Gary - Страница 231

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But his Snake Woman, Tlacotzin, addressed the man who had just spoken: "Do you believe what that white stranger told you?"

"Lord Snake Woman, I can recount only what I know. We were imprisoned by Totonaca guards and we were freed by the man Cortes."

Tlacotzin turned again to Motecuzoma. "We were told by Patzinca's own messengers that he laid hands on these officials only after being commanded to do so by that same chief of the white men."

Motecuzoma said uncertainly, "Patzinca could have lied, for some devious reason."

"I know the Totonaca," Tlacotzin said contemptuously. "None of them, including Patzinca, has the courage to rebel or the wit to dissemble. Not without assistance."

"If I may speak, Lord Brother," said Cuitlahuac. "You had not yet finished reading the account prepared by the Knight Mixtli and myself. The words repeated therein are the actual words spoken between the Lord Patzinca and the man Cortes. They do not at all accord with the message just received from that Cortes. There can be no doubt that he has artfully tricked Patzinca into treason, and that he has shamelessly lied to these registrars."

"It does not make sense," Motecuzoma objected. "Why should he incite Patzinca to the treachery of seizing these men, and then negate that by setting them loose himself?"

"He hoped to make sure that we blamed the Totonaca for the treason," resumed the Snake Woman. "Now that the officials have returned to us, Patzinca must be in a frenzy of fear, and mustering his army against our reprisal. When that army is gathered to mount a defense, the man Cortes may just as easily incite Patzinca to use them for attack instead."

Cuitlahuac added, "And that does accord with our conclusions, Mixtli. Does it not?"

"Yes, my lords," I said, addressing them all. "The white chief Cortes clearly wants something from us Mexica, and he will use force to get it, if necessary. The threat is implicit in the message brought by these registrars he so cunningly freed. His price for keeping the Totonaca in check is that he be invited here. If the invitation is withheld, he will use the Totonaca—and perhaps others—to help him fight his way here."

"Then we can easily forestall that," said Motecuzoma, "by extending the invitation he requests. After all, he says he merely wishes to pay his respects, and it is proper that he should. If he comes with no armies, with just an escort of his ranking subordinates, he can certainly work no harm here. My belief is that he wishes to ask our permission to settle a colony of his people on the coast. We already know that these strangers are by nature island dwellers and seafarers. If they wish only an allotment of some seaside land..."

"I hesitate to contradict my Revered Speaker," said a hoarse voice. "But the white men want more than a foothold on the beach." The speaker was another of the returned registrars. "Before we were freed from Tzempoalan, we saw the glow of great fires in the direction of the ocean, and a messenger came running from the bay where the white men had moored their eleven ships, and eventually we heard what had happened. At the order of the man Cortes, his soldiers stripped and gutted every useful item from ten of those ships, and the ten were burned to ashes. Only one ship is left, apparently to serve as a courier craft between here and wherever the white men come from."

Motecuzoma said irritably, "This makes less and less sense. Why should they deliberately destroy their only means of transport? Are you trying to tell me that the outlanders are all madmen?"

"I do not know, Lord Speaker," said the hoarse-voiced man. "I know only this. The hundreds of white warriors are now aground on that coast, with no means of returning whence they came. The chief Cortes will not now be persuaded or forced to go away, because, by his own action, he cannot. His back is to the sea, and I do not believe he will simply stand there. His only alternative is to march forward, inland from the ocean. I believe the Eagle Knight Mixtli has predicted correctly: that he will march this way. Toward Tenochtitlan."

Seeming as troubled and unsure of himself as the unhappy Patzinca of Tzempoalan, our Revered Speaker refused to make any immediate decision or to order any immediate action. He commanded that the throne room be cleared and that he be left alone. "I must give these matters deep thought," he said, "and closely study this account compiled by my brother and the Knight Mixtli. I will commune with the gods. When I have determined what should be done next, I will communicate my decisions. For now, I require solitude."

So the five bedraggled registrars went away to refresh themselves, and the Speaking Council dispersed, and I went home. Although Waiting Moon and I seldom exchanged many words, and then only regarding trivial household matters, on that occasion I felt the need of someone to talk to. I related to her all the things that had been happening on the coast and at the court, and the troublous apprehensions they were causing.

She said softly, "Motecuzoma fears that it is the end of our world. Do you, Zaa?"

I shook my head noncommittally. "I am no far-seer. Quite the contrary. But the end of The One World has been often predicted. So has the return of Quetzalcoatl, with or without his Tolteca attendants. If this Cortes is only a new and different sort of marauder, we can fight him and probably vanquish him. But if his coming is somehow a fulfillment of all those old prophecies... well, it will be like the coming of the great flood twenty years ago, against which none of us could stand. I could not, and I was then in my prime of manhood. Even the strong and fearless Speaker Ahuitzotl could not. Now I am old, and I have little confidence in the Speaker Motecuzoma."

Beu regarded me pensively, then said, "Are you thinking that perhaps we should take our belongings and flee to some safer haven? Even if there is calamity here in the north, my old home city of Tecuantepec should be out of danger."

"I had thought of that," I said. "But I have for so long been involved in the fortunes of the Mexica that I should feel like a deserter if I departed at this juncture. And it may be perverse of me, but if this is some kind of ending, I should like to be able to say, when I get to Mictlan, that I saw it all."

Motecuzoma might have gone on vacillating and temporizing for a long time, except for what occurred that very night. It was yet another omen, and a sufficiently alarming one that he bestirred himself at least to send for me. A palace page came, himself much perturbed, and roused me from my bed to accompany him at once to the palace.

As I dressed, I could hear a subdued hubbub from the street outside, and I grumbled, "What has happened now?"

"I will show you, Knight Mixtli," said the young messenger, "as soon as we are outdoors."

When we were, he pointed to the sky and said in a hushed voice, "Look there." Late though it was, well after midnight, we were not the only ones watching the apparition. The street was full of people from the neighboring houses, scantily clad in whatever garments they had snatched up, all of them with their faces upturned, all of them murmuring uneasily except when they were calling for other neighbors to wake up. I raised my crystal and looked at the sky, at first as wonderingly as everyone else. But then a memory came to my mind from long ago, and it somewhat diminished the dreadfulness of the spectacle, at least for me. The page glanced sideways at me, perhaps waiting for me to utter some exclamation of dismay, but I only sighed and said:

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