XXXI
Our army's progress across the countryside was even slower now than before, because of our having to herd along the stupid, stubborn, shambling, recalcitrant cattle. Because my warriors were becoming understandably restive—I having turned them from warriors into mere escorts and herdsmen—I halted the army once along the way to give them an opportunity for bloodshed, raping and looting.
That was at what had formerly been the Otomí people's chief village, named N't Tahí, but was now a town of estimable size, populated almost entirely by Spaniards and their usual retinues of servants and slaves, and renamed by them Zelalla. We left it as scorched and ruined and leveled as Tonalá, most of the leveling having been done by the Purémpe women's granadas. And we left it unpopulated, except by corpses—hairless corpses, courtesy of the Yaki.
I am gratified to report that my warriors departed from Zelalla with much more dignity and much less flamboyance than when they had departed from Tonalá—that is, not bedecked and bedizened in Spanish skirts and bonnets and mantillas and such. Indeed, for some while now, they had been getting ashamed—even the women and the most ignorant Moros—of all those gauds and baubles and steel breastplates. Besides their increasing embarrassment at wearing such unwarriorlike garb, they found the clothes dangerously constrictive in battle, and uncomfortably heavy even to march in, especially when sodden by rain. So all had been shedding those white men's garments and ornaments, piece by piece, along the way—everything except the warm woolens usable as blankets and mantles—and we again looked like the true indio army that we were.
In time, an excruciatingly long time, we did reach those Mountains Where the Cuguars Lurk, and they were exactly as Knight Pixqui had described them. With him in the lead, we wove our tortuous way through a maze of those narrow ravines, some only wide enough for a single horseman (or cow) to pass through, one after another. And eventually we did emerge into a not broad but lengthy valley, well watered, spacious enough for us all to camp comfortably, and even sufficiently green to provide grazing for our animals.
When we had settled down and gratefully rested for two or three days, I summoned to me the Iyac Pozonáli and my darling scribe Verónica, and told them:
"I have a mission for you two. I think it will not be a hazardous mission, though it will entail arduous travel. However"—I smiled—"I think also that you will not mind a long journey in close company with one another." You blushed, Verónica, and so did Pozonáli.
I went on, "It is certain that everyone in the City of Mexíco, from the Viceroy Mendoza down to the least market slave, knows of our insurrection and our depredations. But I should like to know how much they know of us, and what measures they may be taking to defend the city against us or to sally out and find and fight us in the open. What I want you to do is this. Go on horseback as fast and as far southeastward as you can, stopping only when you decide you are getting perilously close to any possible Spanish outposts. By my reckoning, that will probably be somewhere in the eastern part of Michihuácan, where it borders on the Mexíca lands. Leave the horses with any hospitable native who can tend them. From there, go on foot and dressed in the roughest of peasant garb. Take with you bags of some kind of marketable goods—fruits, vegetables, whatever you can procure. You may find the city solidly ringed about with sharp steel, but it must let supplies and commodities in and out. And I think the guards will hardly be suspicious of a young peasant farmer and—shall we say?—his little cousin, headed for the market."
You both blushed again. I continued:
"Just do not, Verónica, speak your Spanish. Do not speak at all. You, Pozonáli, I trust can talk your way past any guard or other challenger by mumbling Náhuatl and the few Spanish words you know, and gesticulating like some clumsy rustic."
"We will get into the city, Tenamáxtzin, I kiss the earth to that," he said. "Have you specific orders for us, once we are there?"
"I want both of you mainly to look and to listen. You, Iyac, have proven yourself a competent military man. You should have no trouble in recognizing whatever defenses the city is preparing for itself, or whatever preparations it is making in the way of an offensive against us. Meanwhile, go about the streets and the markets and engage the common folk in conversation. I wish to know their mood, their temper and their opinion of our insurrection, because I know from experience that some, perhaps many, will side with the Spaniards on whom they have come to depend. Meanwhile, also, there is one Aztécatl man—a goldsmith, elderly by now—you are to visit personally." I gave him directions. "He was my very first ally in this campaign, so I want him warned that we will be coming. He may wish to hide his gold or even leave the city with it. And, of course, pass on to him my fond regards."
"All will be done as you say, Tenamáxtzin. And Verónica? Am I to stay protectively close by her?"
"No need, I think. Verónica, you are an exceedingly resourceful girl. I want you merely to get within hearing distance of any two or more Spaniards conversing on the streets, in the markets, wherever, and eavesdrop—especially if they are in uniform or otherwise look like important persons. They will scarcely suspect that you can understand their talk, and it may be that you will learn even more than Iyac Pozonáli about the Spaniards' intended responses to our intended assault."
"Yes, my lord."
"I have also one specific instruction for you. In all that city, there is but a single white man to whom I owe the same warning that Pozonáli will give to the goldsmith. His name is Alonso de Molina—remember it—and he is a high official at the Cathedral."
"I know where it is, my lord."
"Do not go and speak that warning to him directly. He is, after all, a Spaniard. He might well seize you and hold you hostage. He most certainly would, if he should remotely suspect that you are my—my personal scribe. So write the warning on a piece of paper, fold it, put Alonso's name on the outside and—without speaking, just with gestures—give it to any lowly churchman you find loitering about the Cathedral. Then get away from there as fast as you can. And stay away."
"Yes, my lord. Anything else?"
"Just this. The most important order I can give you both. When you feel you have learned all you can, get safely out of the city, get safely back to your horses and get safely back here. Both of you. If, Iyac, you should dare to return here without Verónica... well..."
"We shall safely return, Tenamáxtzin, I kiss the earth to that. If some unforeseen evil befalls, and only one of us returns, it will be Verónica. To that, I kiss the earth four hundred times!"
When they were gone, the rest of us rather luxuriated in our new surroundings. We certainly lived well. There was more than enough cow meat to eat, of course, but our hunters ranged about the valley anyway, just to provide variety—deer and rabbits and quail and ducks and other game. They even slew two or three of the cuguars for which the mountains were named, though cuguar meat is tough to chew and not very tasty. Our fishers found the mountain streams abounding in a fish—I do not know what it is called—that made a delectable change from our mostly meat meals. Our foragers found all sorts of fruits, vegetables, roots and such. The plundered jugs of octli, chápari and Spanish wines were reserved to myself and my knights, but we now drank only sparingly of them. All we lacked was something really sweet, like the coconuts of my homeland. I do believe that many of our people—particularly the numerous slave families we had freed and brought along—would have been content to live in that valley for the rest of their lives. And they probably could have done so, unmolested by the white men, even unknown to the white men, to the end of time.