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

"You'll tell me because I'm going to start slicing off pieces of your body, starting with your nose."

He charged me, his sword lashing at me, and sliced my chest.

"I'm going to slice one piece after another from you until you answer me."

I dodged around him and ran into Mateo.

He grabbed me. Sancho lashed out at me again, and Mateo blocked the blow with his own sword. "Stop! Killing him will get us nothing."

"It'll give me satisfaction." Sancho swung at me again and Mateo's sword flashed again. Mateo held onto me with one hand and crossed swords repeatedly with Sancho, driving Sancho back.

"Kill him!" Sancho shouted at the two mestizos.

The two mestizos charged Mateo. He slashed his sword at them, cutting the face of one of them. They both retreated.

Men came on horseback into the temple area.

"Soldados!" one of the mestizos yelled. The two mestizos ran. I saw Sancho disappearing down the other side of the temple. He must have seen the horsemen coming before the rest of us. Mateo kept his hold on me but made no attempt to run.

"We have to run!" I exclaimed. The penalty for tomb robbing was hanging.

He hung onto me but said nothing until the horsemen came up to us. Releasing his grip on me, he took off his hat and saluted the lead rider with a sweep of his hat and a bow. Other riders went in pursuit of the banditos.

"Don Julio, you are late. Our friend Sancho left a moment ago. From her speed, I suspect she is in the next town by now."

It was the man from the fair who'd pulled an arrow from a wounded indio, and to whom I had exposed my knowledge.

"Go after her," Don Julio told an officer in the uniform of a viceroy's soldado.

Her? Why did they call Sancho a woman? I wondered. I did not need the Healer to tell my fate from the songs of birds. I had fallen into the hands of the king's men. If they discovered I was wanted for murder, I would be tortured before they killed me.

"Our friend Sancho nearly killed me and this young devil," Mateo said. "The boy came out of the temple without the treasure piece."

Aha! Mateo had conspired to cheat the others with this don. The soldados must be in league, too. A very clever scheme.

"Where's the mask?" Don Julio asked me.

"I don't know, senor," I whined, in my best lepero voice. "I swear upon all the saints I could not find it." Eh, I could come back later and get the treasure myself.

"He's lying," Mateo said.

"Of course he is. He's even managed to forget how to speak good Spanish and speaks like a street person." Don Julio gave me a dark look. "You are a thief who has defiled an ancient tomb. The penalty is most severe. If you are lucky, you will be hanged before your head is removed to post as a warning to others."

"He made me do it!" I pointed at Mateo.

"Nonsense," Don Julio said. "Senor Rosas is an agent of the king, just as I am. He joined Sancho to trap her in the act of violating a tomb."

"Why do you keep calling Sancho a woman?" I asked.

"Answer my question, Chico. Where did you hide the treasure?"

"I found no treasure."

"Hang him!" Don Julio snapped.

"The passageway, it's in the passageway. I'll get it for you."

They shackled my ankle, securing it with a length of chain. I was sent into the tunnel like a fish that could be jerked back at any time. The two mestizos were chained at the same time I was. They were on their way to the jail in Oaxaca, as I entered the passageway.

With the mask-breastplate in hand, I crawled backward out of the passageway. My heart beat in my throat. I was crawling back into a hangman's noose. Don Julio, Mateo, and the soldados gathered around to view the treasure piece.

"Magnifica. It is a fine piece," Don Julio said. "It will be sent to the viceroy. He will send it to Madrid for the king the next time the treasure fleet sails."

On instructions from Don Julio, Mateo looped a rope around my neck with a wooden device where the knot should be. "If you try to run, the rope tightens it around your throat and strangles you. It's a trick I learned when I was a prisoner of the bey of Algiers."

"Why do you save my life just to get me hanged? You must tell the don the truth. I am innocent."

"Innocent? Perhaps not completely guilty this time, but innocent?"

There was still no word between us that Mateo had cut off a man's head for me. It was not something I could reveal to my advantage, or I would have done so.

"You betrayed Sancho," I said to him.

He shrugged. "One does not betray her. You merely take action to avoid her treachery. Were either of us to expect any reward from her but a dagger in the back? Eh, amigo. Don Julio has one of these ropes around my neck, too; you just can't see it. But he is a man of honor and of his word. If I am faithful to him, it will not strangle me."

"Who is he? I thought he was a doctor."

"He is many things. He knows of surgery and medicines, but that is just a small part of his knowledge. He knows how these monuments came to be built and why the sun comes up in the morning and goes down at night. But the main concern for you is that he is the king's agent who investigates plots to steal the king's treasures and other intrigues. And he can have a man hanged."

"What is he going to do with me?"

Mateo shrugged. "What do you deserve?"

Ay, that was the last thing I wanted the don to pass judgment on.

FIFTY-EIGHT

I spent the night tied to the tree, a blanket thrown over me to ward off the cold. My anxiety and restrained posture made the night one of agony and worry. I knew how to deal with the Sanchos of this world. But this mysterious leader of the soldados was no one I wanted to tangle with. The next day before the noon meal, men from Oaxaca came to repair the temple.

Don Julio's angry curses drifted over me as I sat like a dog tied to a tree, the fiendish collar around my neck. His venom was directed at the absent Sancho for damaging the ancient monument. He ignored the fact that it was his own man Mateo who had blown the hole in the wall. He instructed the indios on making repairs with a mortar made from straw and dirt similar to the adobe used to build houses with. He did not like defacing a great stone monument with mock adobe, and cursed that the art of building stone temples was dead. The temporary sealing would have to suffice until indios skilled in working with stone could be brought from the City of Mexico.

Don Julio and Mateo sat down under the tree with me and took their midday meal.

"Take the rope off of him," Don Julio said. "If he runs, kill him."

I ate salted beef and tortillas in the shade of the tree and listened to Don Julio. I had come out second best when I tried to fool him at the fair because I said too much. This time I would select my lies carefully.

"What's your name, your real name?" he asked.

"Cristo."

"And your family name?"

"I have none."

"Where were you born?"

I made up a name for a village. "It's near Teotihuacan."

He went on to ask me about my parents and my education.

"Ay de mi, my father and mother both died from the peste when I was young. I was raised in the house of my uncle. He was a very learned man. He taught me how to read and write before he died. I am all alone in the world."

"What about that fake healer. You told Mateo and Sancho he was your father."