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

With that news also came bad tidings. Don Eduardo had died of his wound; the death was attributed to me. It made me both sad and angry. Once again I had lost a father to a dagger. And again I was blamed for spilling the blood.

Reports about the hunt for Cristo became a daily fare. He was spotted fleeing in the direction of the four winds. He was already back up to his old tricks, robbing silver trains and ravishing women. Eh, if I had just committed half the deeds and loved half the women the rumors spoke about.

The other news was about Elena. The tale being told in the marketplace was that the viceroy's niece had taken food to a sick guard and had been at the guard station when the bomb exploded. I had to give the Spanish bureaucracy some credit. They had taught Don Diego well. After all my years on the streets, lying about everything, including my very existence, I could not have come up with a more clever lie.

The other news about her was less heartening. Her betrothal to Luis was announced, and the marriage was being rushed so that they could journey to Spain on the next treasure fleet. Luis, whose own mother had returned to Spain to give him birth, thus ensuring that he was a Spain-born gachupin rather than a colony-born criollo, was to present himself at the Royal Court in Madrid for an appointment of some substance.

While I sulked in the house, not daring to leave it, Mateo journeyed out and came back with other news.

"The mood on the streets is mean. The price of maize is rising each day."

"They've started the squeeze," I said.

"Exactly. Hired rumormongers go into the marketplace and tell stories of droughts and floods that have destroyed the maize crops, but no one believes them. Travelers, who have come from the areas, shake their heads and repudiate the rumors out of hand. And in the meantime, Miguel de Soto refuses to release maize from the government's warehouses, claiming that they are almost empty and what little is in them is needed for emergencies."

"How are they keeping maize from individual farmers out of the city?"

"The Recontoneria. They are buying it and hauling it away instead of into the city. They burn it."

"Burn it?"

"To keep it from increasing the supply and lowering the price for the maize they keep in the warehouse. The people hurt most are the poor, mestizos and indios who work as laborers. They cannot afford to buy enough maize to feed their families. Your lepero brothers and the poorest of the poor are also starving. They all blame the viceroy."

"Why the viceroy? Do you think he is really involved?"

Mateo shrugged. "Do I think he is directly involved, no. But he paid a great price to the king for his office. Men who pay the great amount required for the position usually go into debt to buy the office until they have collected back enough to pay off the loans. And who would he borrow from?"

"His old majordomo and business partner, Ramon de Alva."

"And Luis, the Soto's. The huge profits these bandits reap have to be connected to the viceroy's loans."

"So is Luis' marriage to Elena," I said with bitterness. Though I had to admit that Luis, with my marques title, was a plausible candidate.

"Is there anything being done?"

"Hunger makes even calm people angry and mean. When the grumbling gets too loud and people take to the streets, the cabal suddenly—miraculously—finds more maize in the warehouse and distributes a little at a fair price. As soon as that is eaten, they cut the supply and raise the price again. The warehouse is well-guarded, but Jaime has spoken to a warehouse worker who claims it is almost bursting from the maize packed into it."

"I can understand the greed of my beggar brothers," I told Mateo. "When a bone was thrown into the gutter, we all ran for it because it may have been the only food we would see that day. But how can the greed of Ramon and the others be explained?"

"They are pigs, who will eat at the trough even when their bellies swell and threaten to burst. They are never full. There is always a need for more."

"Amigo, I have been cooped up in this casa for an eternity. If I do not get out of it soon, I will die from boredom."

"Eh, I understand. Your senorita is marrying a pig in a few days. You want to hang him by his feet and cut his throat so you can watch him bleed, no?"

"Something like that. I also want to hang Ramon beside him."

"So let's do it."

"Tell me your idea," I said.

"What idea?"

"The one you always have. The tragic-comedia of revenge that you have concocted and that is no doubt beyond our ability to perform."

"Have you not cheated death because of my dramatic skill?"

"Cheated, yes. But I am still in the city, surrounded by hundreds of soldados, and will be back in captivity as soon as Jaime the lepero finds someone who will pay for our heads more than you are paying."

"Bastardo—"

"Eh, I'm not a bastard anymore."

"You will always be a bastard to me. But excuse me, Senor Marques." Mateo stood and bowed. "I forgot I am speaking to the head of one of the great houses of Spain."

"You are forgiven. This time. Now tell me your plan."

"Listen closely, compadre, and you will discover why on the peninsula princes and dukes speak of my comedias with the same reverence they reserve for the Holy Bible. Because of your rashness in saving la bella Elena from pirates, you have been exposed as the liar and thief that you are. Now that we are hunted criminals, we no longer have the freedom to swindle the cabal into financial ruin."

"Is your plan to talk me to death?"

"Sorry, Senor Marques, I must keep aware of the fact that you wearers of spurs are very impatient."

As I listened to Mateo's jest about the noble title I "inherited" when my father died, I remembered Ana's comment that Mateo was an outlaw nobleman. I had never mentioned it to him. There are some things too private to probe. Had Mateo wanted me to know, he would have told me. He was a man who boasted of many things. His disgraced nobility was not something he bragged about.

Mateo tapped his head. "Think, Bastardo, other than cutting off their heads with a fine sword stroke, what would most hurt these pigs the worst?"

"Emptying their money chests."

"And who is protecting them?"

"The viceroy."

"Eh, Bastardo, I taught you well. So to make these devils vulnerable, we must rid them of their gold and the viceroy's protection." He took a deep swig of what I had learned long ago was his brain food. "Now tell me, where is all their dinero?"

"Uh, buying up maize to control the market."

"Si, their pesos have all turned into maize. They control maize."

I began to see his plan. "We will take control of the maize. Buy everything that comes into the city. Pay the Recontoneria more for it. Distribute it to the people. We break the stranglehold on their monopoly of maize, drive down the price, their maize, their pesos, rot in the warehouse."

Mateo shook his head in mock disappointment. "Bastardo, Bastardo, I thought I taught you better than this. That is a wonderful scheme, but there is one big flaw to it."

"What?"

"It would take too long. It would take weeks for us to gather enough maize from what is brought to the Recondoneria by small farmers. By that time they will have doubled and tripled their money and your amor will be on her way to Spain with her new husband. No, we must strike boldly and quickly. We will do that by burning the maize warehouse and making the supply of maize scarce."