Aztec Autumn

with lethal flying lead balls.

'Do not move!' I said to the ticitl.

But he objected, 'There will be wounded to attend!' and started to rein his horse around.

Well, it would eventually turn out that I had miscalculated regarding more things than just the ingenuity of the defenders of Compostela. But I had been right about one thing: The people of my own race could move as soundlessly as shadows and as invisibly as wind. The next moment, a terrific blow to my ribs knocked me clear off my saddle. As I thudded to the ground, I barely glimpsed a man in Azteca armor, wielding a maquahuitl, before he struck me again—using the wooden flat of the sword, not the obsidian edge—in the head, this time, and all the world around me went black.

When I came awake, I was seated on the ground, my back propped against a tree. My head was throbbing abominably and my vision was fogged. I blinked to clear it, and when I saw the man standing before me—leaning on his maquahuitl, waiting patiently for me to regain consciousness—I involuntarily moaned:

'By all the gods! I have died and gone to Mictlan!'

'Not yet, cousin,' said Yeyac. 'But be assured that you will.'

XXI

When I tried to move, I discovered that I was securely roped to the tree, and so was Ualiztli, beside me. Evidently he had not been so emphatically unhorsed, for he was well awake and cursing under his breath. Still dazed, slurring my words, I asked him:

'Ticitl, tell me. Is it possible that this man, once killed, could have come back to life?'

'In this case, clearly, yes,' the physician said morosely. 'The possibility had earlier occurred to me, when you told me that you had kept him lying facedown, so his blood would the more copiously drain out of him. What that in fact accomplished was to allow the blood to clot at the entry site of the wound. If no vital organs had been mangled, and if the seeming corpse was whisked away by his friends, quickly enough, any competent ticitl could have healed him. Believe me, Tenamaxtzin, it was not I who did it. But, yya ayya ouiya, you should have kept him face up.'

Yeyac, who had listened to this exchange with wry amusement, now said, 'I was worried, cousin, that you might have caught one of those lead balls from the ambuscade that my good Spanish allies so craftily arranged. When one of my iyactin came to tell me that he had taken you alive, I was so very pleased that I knighted the man on the spot.'

As my addled wits began to clear somewhat, I growled, 'You have no authority to knight anyone at all.'

'Have I not? Why, cousin, you even brought me the quetzal-feather headdress. I am again the Uey-Tecutli of Aztlan.'

'Then why would you want me alive, able to contest that gross assumption?'

'I am merely obliging my confederate, the Governor Coronado. It is he who wants you alive. For a short time, at least, so he can ask you certain questions. After that... well... he has promised you to me. I leave the rest to your imagination.'

Not being overeager to dwell on that, I asked, 'How many of my men are dead?'

'I have no idea. I do not care. All those who survived certainly scattered in a hurry. They are no longer a fighting force. Now, apart and in the darkness, they are doubtless wandering far and wide—lost, unnerved, disconsolate—like the Weeping Woman Chicociuatl and the other aimless ghosts of the night. Come daylight, the Spanish soldiers should have little difficulty subduing them, one by one. Coronado will be pleased to have such strong men to slave in his silver mines. And, ayyo, here comes a squad to escort you to the governor's palace.'

The soldiers loosed me from the tree, but kept my arms tightly bound as they led me out of the woods and down the trail to Compostela. Yeyac followed, with Ualiztli, and where they went I did not see. I was penned overnight in a cell room of the palace, unfed and unwatered but well guarded, and not brought before the governor until sometime the next morning.

Francisco Vasquez de Coronado was, as I had been told, a man no older than myself, and he was—for a white man—of goodly appearance, neatly bearded, even clean-looking. My guards untied me, but stayed in the room. And there was another soldier present, who, it became apparent, spoke Nahuatl and was to serve as interpreter.

Coronado addressed him at length—of course I understood every word—and the soldier repeated to me, in my native tongue:

'His Excellency says that you and another warrior were carrying thunder-sticks when you were captured and the other was killed. One of the weapons was obviously the property of the Royal Spanish Army. The other was obviously a handmade imitation. His Excellency wants to know who made that copy, and where, and how many have been made and how many are being made. Tell also whence came the polvora for them.'

I said, 'Nino ixnentla yanquic in tlaui pocuiahuime. Ayquic.'

'The indio says, Your Excellency, that he knows nothing about arcabuces. And never has.'

Coronado drew the sword sheathed at his waist, and said calmly, 'Tell him that you will ask again. Each time he pleads ignorance, he will lose a finger. Ask him how many fingers he can spare before he gives a satisfactory answer.'

The interpreter repeated that in Nahuatl, and asked the same questions again.

I tried to look properly intimidated, and spoke haltingly, 'Ce nechca...' but I was temporizing, of course. 'One time... I was traveling in the Disputed Lands... and I came upon a guard post. The sentinel was fast asleep. I stole his thunder-stick. I have saved it ever since.'

The interpreter sneered. 'Did that sleeping soldier teach you how to use it?'

Now I tried to look stupid. 'No, he did not. He could not. Because he was sleeping, you see. I know one squeezes the little thing called a gatillo. But I never had the chance. I was captured before—'

'Did that sleeping soldier also show you all the inner parts and workings of his thunder-stick, so that even you primitive savages could make a replica of it?'

I insisted, 'Of that I know nothing. The replica you speak of—you must ask the warrior who carried it.'

The interpreter snapped, 'You have already been told! That man was killed. Struck by one of the balls of the trip-string trap. But he must have thought he was facing actual soldiers. As he fell, he discharged his own thunder- stick at them. He knew well enough how to use one!'

What I had said, and what he had said, the interpreter again relayed in Spanish to the governor. I was thinking: Good man, Comitl, a true Mexicatl 'old eagle' to the last. You are by now enjoying the bliss of Tonatiucan. But then I had to start thinking about my own predicament, for Coronado was glaring at me and saying:

'If his comrade was so dexterous with an arcabuz, so must he be. Tell the damned redskin this. If he does not instantly confess to me everything he—'

But the governor was interrupted. Three other people had just entered the room, and one of them said, in some astonishment:

'Your Excellency, why do you bother employing an interpreter? That indio is as fluent in Castilian as I am myself.'

'What?' said Coronado, confounded. 'How do you know that? How could you possibly know?'

Fray Marcos de Niza simpered smugly. 'We white men like to say that we cannot tell the damned redskins apart. But that one—I noticed when I first saw him—is exceptionally tall for his race. Also, at that time, he was wearing Spanish attire and riding an army horse, so I had further reason to remember him. It happened while I was accompanying Cabeza de Vaca to the City of Mexico. The teniente in charge of the escort let this man pass the night in our camp, because—'

Now it was Coronado who interrupted. 'This is all exceedingly puzzling, but save your explanation for later, Fray Marcos. Right now, there is more urgent information I require. And by the time I have whittled it out of this prisoner, I think he will no longer be so tall.'

The interpreter was again required, because now spoke up the other man who had entered with the Lying Monk, my loathsome cousin Yeyac. He had few words of Spanish, but evidently he had caught the tenor of