Aztec Blood - Jennings Gary (книги онлайн бесплатно серия .txt) 📗

"And what did you do while my mother was sacrificing her life for your sins? Playing cards? Drinking wine? Wondering what india girl you could use to shock your mother with again?"

He stared at me in agony, a whipped dog. I could imagine the rest of the story. A hurried marriage to a suitable woman of Spanish blood. The birth of an heir.

"You've left one thing out of your story, haven't you? You have not told me all of the truth. You have not told me why my birth was different than the army of bastardos left behind by you Spanish who dug your spurs into india girls."

The coach came to a halt. I didn't notice it, but we had pulled through the entrance of a home. There was something familiar about the house. I realized it almost at the same moment the coach door opened.

It was the house where Isabella had her trysts with Ramon de Alva. The house that Mateo and I had entered disguised as women to beat the truth out of Ramon.

The other coach door opened.

Ramon was on one side. Luis on the other.

I looked to my father. Tears flowed down his cheeks.

"I'm sorry, Cristobal. I told you. I am not a strong man."

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-THREE

"Cristo the Bastardo, I salute you."

My admirer was Ramon de Alva. Sitting in the carriage, I had no opportunity to draw my sword. Not that it would have served me well. Besides Ramon and Luis, there were two tough-looking hombres I took to be Ramon's henchmen and the carriage driver to deal with.

They took me into the house and strung me up to the carriage wheel-sized candleholder that hung from a chain to the ceiling. They put a noose around my neck and a chair under my feet. The irony of being subjected to the same torture Mateo and I had put Ramon through was not lost on me.

Once I was tied, only Ramon and Luis stayed in the room. My father never got out of the carriage.

"I salute you," Ramon said, "because you have risen above all adversity. Except for now, of course. Who would have imagined that a lepero boy would become the colony's most notorious bandit? And the bandit would become it's most celebrated hero, a man of such courage that the viceroy gives a grand ball so the entire city can honor him for fighting off pirates."

"Chingo tu madre!" It was the most provocative insult I could think of as I stood on my tiptoes with a nose around my neck and my time on earth in short supply.

"As I told you, amigo, it was your mother who got fucked."

He kicked the chair out from under me. My body dropped for a split second, falling just a few inches. When it jerked to a stop, it felt as if my head was being wrenched from my shoulders. The jerking tightened the noose around my neck like an iron garrote. I could not breathe. I could not think. The rest of my body was electrified. My legs shook uncontrollably. Through the fog I heard my father yelling. The chair was put back under my feet. I swayed dizzily as I gasped for air and tried to maintain my balance on the chair.

"You said he would not be hurt!" Don Eduardo shouted.

"Get him out of here," Ramon told Luis.

Ramon walked around my chair, a jungle cat pacing around a staked-out lamb, calculating which part of the body it would rip apart first.

Luis joined him a moment later. "When we are through with this one, I'm going to send my father to his grave. My grandmother is not here to deal with him, and I have nothing but contempt for him."

Ramon took a gold coin from his pocket. He held it up to show it to me.

"Do you recognize this coin?" he asked me.

I sputtered an insult, something from my street days, but it came out as gibberish because the noose was still too tight. Why was he showing me the coin? Why didn't he just kill me?

"An interesting coin." Ramon examined the coin, turning it over. "A very special coin. Do you know why it's a special coin, Cristo?"

"Why are we delaying?" Luis asked. "Let's torture the truth out of him and then kill him."

Eh, this was my brother talking. I gibbered an incoherent insult to him.

"Patience, compadre," Ramon said to Luis, "remember that patience is a virtue. This is a tough hombre we are dealing with. Eh, Cristo, you are a tough hombre, no? You have survived everything thrown at you and come out stronger. Until now."

He kicked the chair out from under me. I strangled and kicked. Again, it felt as if my head was going to separate from my shoulders. After a moment the chair came back under my feet.

"You know what the worse part is of this dilemma you are in? Each time I kick the chair from your feet, your neck stretches a little more. After three or four times it will snap. But no, not with the big break your neck gets when you drop on a gallows. This fall will not kill you, not right away. Amigo, it will leave you crippled. You will not be able to move your arms and legs. You will be totally helpless. Not even able to feed yourself. You will die slowly, begging those around you to kill you because you can't do it yourself."

Ramon spoke slowly, enunciating each word carefully so I would not fail to understand completely what he was saying. Despite the noose around my neck, I was horrified at what he was saying. I had the courage to die, but I did not have the courage to be totally paralyzed and die slowly, like a piece of meat rotting.

Ramon showed me the coin again.

"I want to talk to you about this coin. As I told you, it is a very unusual coin."

I was completely mystified as to why he was so interested in the coin.

"Do you know where I got the coin? From my brother-in-law, Miguel. Do you know where he got it?"

He looked up at me. I stared back passively. His foot went to the chair, and I nodded frantically.

"Me," I gasped.

"Ah, you see, Luis, he has decided to cooperate with us." Ramon grinned sadly up at me with contrived regret. "Luis is so impatient, always in a hurry. He wanted to kill you immediately. You have me to thank for the moments your life has been extended."

He flipped the coin in the air and caught it. He examined it again, turning it over in his hand. "Si, a very unusual coin. Do know why it is unusual?"

I shook my head.

"You don't know? Eh, I believe you, I didn't think you knew. One reason it is unusual is that it is presently the only thing in the world keeping you alive." He tossed the coin and caught it again. "If it were not for this coin, I would have let Luis run his sword through you the moment the coach door opened."

He bounced the coin in his hand. "To you, it is just a gold coin. It appears to be exactly like so many other gold coins of the same size and weight. But, amigo, if you look at it carefully, examine it closely, you will see that there is a difference. Whose face is on the gold coins minted where the Spanish flag flies anywhere in the world?" His foot went back to the chair. "Tell me, amigo, whose face?"

"The king," I gagged.

"Si, our Most Catholic Majesty." He held up the coin to me. "But you see, if you look at the coin, the king's face is not on it. It is another face. Do you know whose face? No, I know you don't. It is the not very handsome features of one Roberto Baltazar, Count de Nuevo Leon. Not a caballero of one of the old houses of Spain, but what we call our silver nobility, a mule team driver who staked a prospector who found a vein of pure silver. Enough for a man with mule mierda on his boots to buy a grand title.

"Count Roberto, besides having the vanity of a purchased title, turned some of the silver he hoarded into gold coinage for his own private use, with his features on them. He delivered the silver bars to the mint and had the mint stamp out gold coins in exchange for the silver."