Aztec Autumn - Jennings Gary (книга бесплатный формат .TXT) 📗

Still taking care that the soldiers should not lose us in those mazes, we baited them through one very narrow notch where I had already posted arcabuz men on either side. Just as Knight Pixqui had predicted, the first discharges of those arcabuces brought down enough soldiers and their horses to block the passage for all the others behind. And those, milling about in confusion, were in a very short time destroyed by spears, arrows and boulders propelled by other warriors I had posted on the heights above. My Sobaipuri of course were pleased to confiscate the weapons and the surviving horses of all those dead Spaniards. But I was mainly pleased to have proven that our hideaway was indeed invulnerable. We could hold out here forever, if need be, against any force sent to assail us.

There came a day when several of my scouts came to tell me, really gleefully, that they had discovered a new and major target for us to attack.

"About three days east of here, Tenamaxtzin, a town almost as big as a city, but we might never have known it existed, except that we espied a mounted Spanish soldier and followed him. One of us who understands a little Spanish crept into the town behind him, and learned that it is a rich town, well built, called by the white man Aguascalientes."

"Hot Springs," I said.

"Yes, my lord. It is evidently a place to which the Spanish men and women resort for curative baths and recreations of other sorts. Rich Spanish men and women. So you can imagine the plunder we can take from it. Not to mention clean white women, for a change. I must report, though, that the town is heavily fortified, manned and armed. We cannot possibly take it without using our entire complement of warriors, both foot and mounted."

I called for Nocheztli and repeated the report. "Prepare our forces. We will march two days from now. This time I want everyone to participate, including—we will doubtless have need of them—all our ticiltin, Swaddlers and Swallowers. This will be the most ambitious, audacious assault of all we have yet made, hence perfect practice for our eventual assault on the City of Mexico."

Fortuitously, the very next day, Pozonali and Veronica returned to us, safely and together, and, though much fatigued from their long, hard ride, came immediately to report to me. So excited were they that they began speaking simultaneously in their separate languages of Nahuatl and Spanish.

"The goldsmith thanks you for your warning, Tenamaxtzin, and sends you his warm regards in return..."

"You are already famous in the City of Mexico, my lord. I should say famous and feared..."

"Wait, wait," I said, laughing. "Veronica first."

"What I bring is the good news, my lord. To begin with, I did deliver your message to the Cathedral and, as you supposed, when your friend Alonso received it, whole troops of soldiers began combing the city to find the messenger who had brought it. But they could not, of course, I being indistinguishable from so many other girls like myself. And, as you commanded, I listened to many conversations. The Spaniards, by what means I do not know, are already aware that our whole army is encamped here in the Mixtoapan. So they are calling our insurrection 'the Mixton War,' and—I rejoice to report—it has much of New Spain in a panic. Whole families from the City of Mexico and from everywhere else are crowding into the seaports—Vera Cruz and Tampico and Campeche and every other—demanding passages back to Old Spain, on any kind of vessel sailing there—galleons, caravels, victualler ships, anything. Many are saying fearfully that this is the re-conquest of The One World. It appears, my lord, that you are achieving your aim of chasing the interlopers—at least the white ones—entirely out of our lands."

"But not all of them," said Iyac Pozonali, frowning. "Despite Coronado's having taken so many of New Spain's soldiers on his northward expedition, the Viceroy Mendoza has still a considerable force in the City of Mexico, some hundreds of mounted and foot soldiers, and Mendoza has taken personal command of them. Furthermore, as you expected, Tenamaxtzin, many of his tame Mexica have enlisted to fight alongside him. So have many of these other treacherous peoples—the Totonaca, the Tezcalteca, the Acolhua—who long ago aided the Conquistador Cortes in his overthrow of Motecuzoma. For the first time ever, Mendoza is allowing those indios to ride horses and carry thunder-sticks, and he is right now busily engaged in the training of them."

"Our own people," I said sadly, "arrayed against us."

"The city will maintain a sufficient defensive force," Pozonali went on. "Thunder-tubes and such. But I would reckon, from what I learned, that the Viceroy Mendoza plans an offensive march to rout us out of here and destroy us before we ever get near the City of Mexico."

"Well, good luck to Mendoza," I said offhandedly. "However many his men, however well armed, they will be annihilated before they ever get to us here. I have experimented, and the Knight Pixqui was right when he said that these mountains are impregnable. In the meantime, I will be giving the viceroy further evidence of our might and our determination. Tomorrow we march east—every warrior, every horseman, every arcabuz man, every Purempe granada-thrower, every last one of us who can wield a weapon. We are marching against a city called Hot Springs, and after we have taken that, the Viceroy Mendoza may decide to try to hide the City of Mexico. Now, you two go and get some food and rest. I know you, Iyac, will want to be in the thick of the fight. And I shall want you near me, Veronica, to do the chronicling of this most epic of all our battles so far."

XXXII

Of the final battle of the "Mixton War"—of our defeat and the end of the Mixton War—I will speak only briefly, because it happened through my own grievous fault, and I am ashamed of that. Again, as I had done with other enemies, and even with some of the women in my life, I underestimated the cunning of my opponent. And I am paying for my mistake by lying here slowly dying—or slowly healing, I know not which, and do not much care.

My army could still be here in the Miztoapan, entire and secure and healthy and strong and ready to do battle again, had I not taken them out of this valley. Just as we had earlier baited the Spanish trading post's soldiers into ambush here, so we were baited out of our safe haven. It was the doing of the Viceroy Mendoza. He, knowing that we were invincible in these mountains, almost untouchable, contrived to lure us out of them by, in a sense, offering us Aguascalientes. I do not blame my scouts who found that town—they are dead now, like so many others—but I have no doubt that the Spanish horseman they followed to that town was playing a part in Mendoza's plan.

I took my whole army, leaving in the valley only the slaves and those males too old or too young to do battle. It was a three-day march to Hot Springs, and even before we got within sight of it, I began to suspect that something was not quite right. There were army outpost shacks, but no soldiers in them. When we approached the town, no thunder-tubes boomed out at us. When I sent my forward scouts sneaking warily into the town itself, there was no rattle of arcabuces, and the scouts came out, shrugging in puzzlement, to report that there seemed to be not a single person in the town.

It was a trap. I turned in my saddle to shout "Retreat!" But it was already too late. Arcabuces now did rattle, and from all around us. We were surrounded by Mendoza's soldiers and their indio allies.