may have come with representatives of the viceroy and the Inquisition.
Needing someone to collect the admission money from the patrons, I choose an indio who worked for a shopkeeper near the print shop. After worrying about using a priest or other Spaniard to trust with the money, I chose the indio. I hid myself in the curtains beside the stage.
Eh, amigos, did you really think that I would risk my sweetheart's play being ruined by vulgar mosqueteros shouting down the hack actors and pelting them with tomatoes? And run the risk that the play would close almost as quickly as it opened? I sent Juan the lepero into the streets with free admissions slips for anyone who would come to the play. Giving a group of street people instructions on how to cheer the play as it went along, I passed coins among them with promises of more for those who showed the most enthusiasm.
When I saw Elena come into the theater, I had to restrain myself from breaking from my hiding place and running to her. As usual, my fervor was dampened by the presence of Luis, who escorted her everywhere. I now knew it was common knowledge that they would marry, a circumstance that was a blade twisting in my heart.
When I saw the familiar sent to monitor the play walk by with his eyes watering and a great grin on his face, I knew it was safe to proceed. As usual, frays showed up, walking past the admission taker as if they were invisible.
During the play, my eyes were on Elena rather than the actors. I could see that she was as thrilled about it as Luis was bored. She sat on the edge of her seat and stared at the action on the stage, her lips often moving, silently voicing the lines as the actors spoke them. She was radiant and beautiful and I felt privileged to have had the opportunity to repay the great debt—and pleasure—she gave me.
Halfway through the play the frays rushed out, no doubt offended by the words spoken by the actress. It was a long way to Puebla, I gloated to myself.
As the final scene unfolded, with the heroine lying on the floor, dying, revealing that she was the author of the poem, a group of frays and familiars suddenly entered. From my hiding place, I gawked as the bishop of the Holy Office of the Inquisition came in behind his priests and familiars.
'This comedia is canceled,' the bishop announced. 'The autor is to present himself to me.'
The bishop had not gone to Puebla after all.
I fled with great haste.
Mateo was waiting for me in my room. 'The Inquisition closed our play,' he told me.
'Our play?' What was he talking about? He knew about the play I put on for Elena! 'How did you know? When did you find out?'
He threw up his hands in a plea for God to recognize the injustice. 'The greatest performances of my life, and the bishop himself closed us. He took the admission money, too.'
'He closed
'Because of the love scene with Dona Marina.'
'Love scene? There's no love scene with Dona Marina.'
'A small rewrite,' Mateo said.
'You added a love scene in the battle for Tenochtitlan? Are you insane?'
He tried to look remorseful. 'At the conclusion of battle, a man needs a women in his arms to lick his wounds.'
'At the conclusion? Your love scene took place on top of the temple? What happened to the sword and cross you were supposed to be holding?'
'I kept them in hand. Dona Marina, uh, assisted by getting down on her knees as I—'
'Dios mio. And I thought I had been foolish with my play.'
Once while traveling with the Healer I had stepped on a snake, and I looked down and saw that my foot was holding it down just behind the head. I had nothing in my hand to strike it and was terrified and perplexed—if I moved my foot it would bite me, yet I could not keep the pressure on it forever.
I had just stepped on another snake.
Pretending I hadn't heard Mateo, I started for the door. He grabbed me by the back of my doublet and pulled me back.
'You have been acting very strange, Bastardo. Please sit down and tell me what you have been doing while I was making us rich conquering the Aztecs.' His voice was soft, almost mellow, like the purring of a tiger—just before it eats you. He never said 'please' unless he was ready to rip out my throat.
Weary of intrigues, I sat down and told him everything—starting with Elena in the carriage so many years ago, to discovering she was the erotic poet and putting on her play as a tribute to her.
'How much is left of our money?' he asked.
'I spent all that I had. The Inquisition took the rest. How much do you—'
He shrugged. It was a foolish question. What I did not steal and lose, he no doubt lost to cards and women.
I expected, no, I deserved, to be beaten for my treachery. But he seemed to take it all with the air of a philosopher as opposed to the mal hombre loco that I knew him to be.
He lit a stinking, rolled tobacco leaf. 'If you had stolen it from me to buy a horse, I would kill you. But to buy a jewel for a woman, which is what you did, that is different. I cannot kill a man for loving a woman so much he would steal or kill for her.' He blew foul smoke in my face. 'I do it frequently.'
The next morning I found that the Inquisition had seized the print shop and arrested Juan the lepero. He was ignorant of my identity and would be unable to put the inquisitorial hounds on my trail and too ignorant himself to be burned for blasphemy.
Overnight Mateo and I found ourselves out of the comedia business, out of the book business, out of money, and no longer the printers for the Inquisition.
The gloom worsened as rains fell heavily and Lake Texcoco began to rise. Our concern turned to Don Julio at a time when he suddenly needed our help.
NINETY-THREE
Don Julio, busy with the tunnel project, knew little of our activity except that Mateo had obtained a role in a play. Isabella refused to see the play, saying that it would be belittling for her to attend a play in which one of her 'servants' appeared.
The don's lack of interest in our activities was out of character. He was usually concerned with our staying out of trouble. His preoccupation with the tunnel worried us because it meant things were not going well. We heard stories on the street that the tunnel continued to suffer problems.
The don called the swordsman and me into his library at the city house.
'You are to be a lepero again,' Don Julio told me, 'and once again be my eyes and ears and those of the king's.'
This time it was silver train robberies. The silver area was centered about a hundred leagues north in Zacatecas. I knew something about the mining business despite having never seen one. Mateo claimed that I was like Don Julio in that I lusted for knowledge more than women, and there was much truth in his accusation. The don's library contained several books on mining techniques and included short histories of mining in New Spain; I read all that there was to know about silver mining, even though I was after a silver thief not a prospector, and I cajoled the don into sitting down with me and telling me more.
In 1546, Juan de Tolosa found a fantastic mountain of silver, La Bufa, at Zacatecas in the Chichimeca indio region. The discovery, and the many dozens that followed, turned New Spain into the richest silver-bearing place on earth.
Tolosa, the commander of a detachment of soldiers, established camp at the foot of a mountain called La Bufa by the indios. Tolosa gave gifts to the indios, trinkets and blankets, and in turn they took him to a place where they said the rocks were 'living.' The glowing spirit in the rocks was silver, and Tolosa went on to become one of the richest men in New Spain.
Soon a new type of conquistador arose in New Spain, prospectors who ventured north into dangerous indio country, where the savage Chichimeca were unconquered. The men braved bloodthirsty indios, who ate their captives, and fellow prospectors, who would have put a knife in their back for a silver lode. Often they worked in pairs, and when a find was made they constructed a small tower over the claim where one man stood with a
