Aztec Autumn

because they are of course vigilantly guarded against discovery. He had to turn back when that poor loyal slave guide was slain by the guardian savages. But the staunch and valiant friar is now about to lead Coronado there, this time with an invincible host of armed soldiers.'

It was the first time I had ever heard any human being say a commendatory word for the Lying Monk. And I was willing to wager that Esteban was still alive, at liberty now, and that he would likely spend the rest of his life —when he was not enjoying the desert women—laughing at his greedily gullible former masters.

'If the friar saw the cities only from a distance,' I said, 'how can he be sure they are full of treasures?'

'Oh, he saw the house walls gleaming, sheathed in gold, studded with sparkling gems. And he was close enough to descry the inhabitants walking about, clad in silks and velvets. These things he swears to. And Fray Marcos is, after all, bound by the vows of his order never to tell an untruth. It seems certain that Don Francisco will return from Cibola in triumph, laden with riches, to be rewarded with fame and adulation and the favor of His Majesty. Still...'

'You would prefer that he brought souls instead,' I suggested. 'Converts to the Church.'

'Well, yes. But I am not a pragmatic man of the world.' He gave a little laugh of self-deprecation. 'I am only an ingenuous old cleric, piously and unfashionably believing that our true fortunes await us in another world altogether.'

I said, and sincerely, 'All of Spain's vaunted conquistadores combined would not equal the worth of one Vasco de Quiroga.'

He laughed again, and waved away the compliment. 'Still, I am not the only one who questions the wisdom of the governor's hastening headlong toward that Cibola. Many think it a rash and reckless venture—that it may work more harm than good to New Spain.'

'How so?' I asked.

'He is collecting every soldier he can muster from the farthest corners of the land. And he needs not to conscript them. Everywhere, officers and rankers alike are pleading to be detached from their customary duties, in order to join Coronado. Even nonsoldiers, city merchants and country planters, are mounting and arming themselves to join. Every would-be hero and fortune hunter sees this as the opportunity of a lifetime. Also, Coronado is collecting remount horses for his troopers, packhorses and mules, extra arms and ammunition, every other kind of supplies, indio and Moro slaves to be bearers and drovers, even herds of cattle to be provisions along the way. He is seriously weakening the defenses of New Spain, and the people are worried about this. The depredations of those Purempe Amazonas here in New Galicia are well known, and the frequent sallies of savages across our northern frontiers, and there have been distressingly bloody incidents of unrest even among the prisoners and slaves in our mines and mills and obrajes. The people fear, with good reason, that Coronado is leaving all of New Spain uncomfortably vulnerable to despoliation, both from without and within.'

'I can see that,' I said, trying not to sound pleased, though nothing could have pleased me more to hear. 'But the viceroy in the City of Mexico—that Senor Mendoza—does he also regard Coronado's project as folly?'

The bishop looked troubled. 'As I said, I am not a pragmatic man. But I can recognize expediency when I see it. Coronado and Don Antonio de Mendoza are old friends. Coronado is married to a cousin of King Carlos. Mendoza is also a friend of Bishop Zumarraga, and he, I fear, is ever too ready to endorse any venture calculated to please and enrich King Carlos—and endear himself to the king and the pope, may God forgive me for saying so. Marshal all those facts, Juan Britanico. Is it likely that anyone, high or low, will speak to Coronado a discouraging word?'

'Certainly not I,' I said lightly, 'and I am lowest of the low.' The worm in the coyacapuli fruit, I thought, long having eaten from within, now about to hurst the fruit asunder. 'I thank you for your graciousness in receiving me, Your Excellency, and for the refreshing cakes and wine, and I ask your leave to be on my way.'

Still being more decent to a lowly indio than any other white man I ever met, Padre Vasco cordially urged me to remain awhile—to reside under his roof, to attend services, to make confession, to take communion, to converse at greater length—but I lied some more, telling him that I had instructions to hurry and 'bear the message' to a still unregenerate pagan tribe some distance away.

Well, it was not entirely a lie. I did have a message to deliver, and at a considerable distance. I left Compostela, not having to sneak this time, no one paying any attention to me at all, and went briskly toward Chicomoztotl.

'Thanks be to Huitzilopochtli and every other god!' exclaimed Nocheztli. 'You have come at last, Tenamaxtzin, not a moment too soon. I have here the most numerous army ever assembled in The One World, every man of it impatiently stamping his feet to be on the march, and I have been barely able to hold them in check, awaiting your orders.'

'You have done well, faithful knight. I have just come through the Spanish lands, and clearly no one there has any inkling of this gathering storm.'

'That is good. But, among our own people, the word must have been passed from mouth to ear to mouth. We have acquired far more recruits than the many we enlisted from the lands hereabout, and the very many who came from the north, wave after wave of them, saying you had sent them. For example, all those women warriors from Michihuacan have made their way hither. They say they are tired of inflicting merely skirmish attacks on Spanish properties; they want to be with us when we march in force. Also there are countless runaway slaves—indios and Moros and mixtures of breeds—escaped from mines and plantations and obrajes, who have managed to find this place. They are even more avid than the rest of us to wreak havoc on their masters, but I have had to put them to special training, because few have ever even held a weapon before.'

'Every man counts,' I said, 'and every woman. Can you tell me how many we have, in total?'

'As best I can estimate, a hundred of hundreds. A formidable host, in truth. They long ago overflowed the seven caverns here and are camped all over these mountains. Since they hail from so many different nations and perhaps a hundred different tribes within those nations, I thought it best to assign and segregate their camping places according to their origins. Many of them, as you doubtless know, have been for ages inimical to one another—or to every other. I did not want an intestine war erupting here.'

'Very astute management, Knight Nocheztli.'

'However, the very variety of our forces makes the management of them most complicated. I have delegated my best fellow knights and under-officers, each to be responsible for one or another mass of warriors. But their orders, instructions, reprimands, whatever, given in the Nahuatl tongue, can be given only to those tribal chief warriors who can understand Nahuatl. Those, in turn, must relay the words to their men in their language. And then the words must be passed along to the next tribe, who may speak a different dialect of the same language, but can at least be made to understand. And then they somehow transmit the words to yet another tribe. Probably one man in every hundred of all these hundreds spends a good part of his time acting as interpreter. And of course the commands frequently get contorted down the course of that long process, which has made for some marvelous misunderstandings. It has not quite happened yet, but one of these days, when I form a contingent of our men into ranks and give the command to the first rank, 'Stand to arms!' and the command is passed along, the men in the last rank are going to hear it as 'Lie down and go to sleep!' As for those Yaki you sent, none of us can communicate with them. They would not understand if I did order them to go to sleep.'

I had to stifle a smile at Nocheztli's overflow of exasperation. But I was proud and admiring of the way he had handled the vast army under those difficult conditions, and told him so.

'Well, so far,' he said, 'I have been able to keep all the men from getting too restive, and from quarreling among themselves, by giving them orders that can be conveyed—even to the Yaki—with gestures and demonstrations instead of words, and thus keeping them all occupied with various labors. Appointing certain groups to do the hunting and fishing and gathering of food, for instance, others to do the burning of charcoal, the mixing of polvora, the casting of lead balls and so on. Those couriers you sent to Tzeboruko and to Aztlan did return with ample supplies of the yellow azufre and the bitter salitre. So we now have as much powder and as many balls as we can carry when we leave here. I am pleased to report, too, that we have many more of the thunder-sticks than before. The Purempe women brought many that they captured from the Spaniards in New Galicia, and so did