War God: Nights of the Witch Read online

  The cabin’s single porthole was open to admit the stink of the harbour as well as a splash of sunlight and a cooling late afternoon breeze.

  To the right of the porthole, fixed to the wall and somewhat in shadow, was a large wooden crucifix on which a pale-skinned Christ, one-third life size, writhed in pain, the crown of thorns lacerating his bloody brow, iron nails transfixing his bloody palms and feet.

  Positioned directly beneath the porthole, where the light was best, stood a heavy oak table. Those parts of its surface that were visible were scuffed and deeply scored with knife cuts, burnt in places and smeared with dried candlewax, but mostly it was covered with maps and nautical charts pinned down under navigational instruments – a compass, a mariner’s astrolabe, a quadrant, a nocturnal and a glittering armillary sphere.

  The sphere was Cortés’s pride and joy, a gift from his father Martin who had won it during the conquest of Granada in ’92. Save the ring defining the equinoctial colure, which was broken, the costly device was in perfect working order.

  Slap!

  For the third time in as many minutes Cortés heard the sound of flesh striking flesh followed by the suppressed whimper of a child in pain.

  The sounds were coming from the far side of the partition that divided the flagship’s original capacious stateroom into two equal halves, one half of which Cortés now found himself uncomfortably crammed into. The other half, on urgent orders received from Velázquez only yesterday, had been assigned to the abominable Father Muñoz. Through the thin pine partition, the best the ship’s carpenter had been able to rig at such short notice, it was impossible not to hear Muñoz trampling about, or the harsh words he barked at his young page, or the intensifying sounds of blows and cries.

  Cortés sighed. He’d intervened on the harbour road because the Inquisitor’s bizarre and bullying behaviour was unseemly in public and unhelpful for the good name of the expedition. But if Muñoz wanted to beat his page in the privacy of his own cabin, there was really nothing to be done about it.

  Even if he beat the boy to death?

  Even so, Cortés admitted. Even so.

  Because it was a sad fact of life in today’s Cuba that a Dominican Inquisitor with the favour and support of the governor could get away with literally anything, even murder, if it pleased him to do so.

  Indeed, there were rumours about the page who’d accompanied Muñoz on the ill-fated Córdoba expedition. His relationship with his master had been strange – everyone had noticed – and, one night, the boy had disappeared at sea, presumed lost overboard. Perhaps his death had been an accident? Perhaps suicide? Or perhaps, as some of the survivors whispered, Muñoz was a violent sodomite with a taste for adolescent boys who’d killed the page to silence him?

  Cortés had scorned the whispers, refusing to believe a man of God could ever commit such crimes; but what he’d witnessed this afternoon had changed his mind. Rarely had he taken so instant or so extreme a dislike to anyone as he had to Muñoz! It was bad enough that the Dominican had been foisted on him at the last moment by Velázquez – undoubtedly as much to spy on him and confound him as to attend to the spiritual wellbeing of the expedition. But what added insult to injury was the foul unnatural air of this Inquisitor! Recalling the scene on the harbour road, it was the perverted pleasure Muñoz had taken from inflicting pain on his little page that stood out.

  Cortés swung down off the hammock, padded barefoot over to the table below the porthole, and retrieved his well-thumbed Bible from beneath a heap of maps and charts. It was one of the new mass-produced editions, printed on paper by the Gutenberg press, and as he opened its leather covers he felt again, as he always did, the magic and the mystery of the word of God.

  He turned to the New Testament, the Book of Matthew, and after some searching found the passage he was looking for in Chapter Seven. ‘Beware of false prophets,’ he read, ‘which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.’

  A false prophet! It was amazing how often you could find the exact thought you wanted in the Good Book – and this was a thought that seemed to fit Muñoz very well. Outwardly the respectable sheep’s clothing of the Dominican habit, inwardly a ravening wolf …

  There came another slap from beyond the partition, another cry, a tremendous, incoherent yell from Muñoz, a loud crash as of a body thrown against a wall, and then silence.

  Cortés started upright in his hammock – Jesu in Heaven, surely the boy was not already dead? Then he heard that thin pitiful whimper again and a surge of fierce anger and revulsion shook him.

  His powerful impulse was to find any excuse to have Muñoz removed from the expedition. But if he did that it would draw unwelcome attention from Velázquez at just the time when he most wanted the governor to stay away.

  So instead Cortés closed his eyes and forced his tensed muscles to relax. The key to health in these climes, he had discovered, was to take a siesta of at least one hour’s duration in the afternoon. It wasn’t always possible; he completely understood that. But when it was possible he gave it as much priority as prayers or alms.

  Sleep embraced him.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Tenochtitlan, Thursday 18 February 1519

  The two girls who’d attacked Tozi this morning were mischief-makers, not leaders, and the other Tlascalans snooping around also seemed to be waiting for someone to tell them what to do. So it was the big woman with the black teeth and the rubber lip who was the main danger. Deal with her and the others would fall into line.

  Maybe …

  Malinal had been sheltered from violence by noble birth. When she was sixteen her fortunes fell but, even in the five strange and terrible years she’d spent as a slave since then, she’d been protected by the high value placed on her beauty by powerful men. The result, in her twenty-one years, was that she’d never once had to fight for her life. Her strengths were sensuality, flattery, dissimulation and subtle influence; she was not well equipped to use force.

  Black Teeth had been stopped in her tracks by Tozi’s nightmarish scream, and stood gazing at her with fear, but also with something unexpectedly like pity as she thrashed and snapped her teeth on the floor, while Coyotl fought desperately to keep her from harm. With a flash of intuition, Malinal stepped to the big Tlascalan woman’s side, laid a long slim hand gently on her shoulder and said in a hushed tone: ‘She’s no witch. She’s just a poor sick child. Aren’t you a mother yourself? Can’t you see that?’

  Black Teeth’s massive body twitched. ‘I am a mother.’

  ‘And your children? Where are they now?’

  ‘The gods only know. The Mexica raided my village. I was captured, my two children were snatched away from me, I haven’t seen them since.’

  ‘Would you tell me their names?’

  The Tlascalan woman’s brutal manner suddenly dissolved and to Malinal’s surprise she sobbed. ‘Huemac,’ she said, ‘he’s five. And then there’s Zeltzin. She’ll be fourteen this summer.’

  ‘Zeltzin … Beautiful.’ The name meant ‘delicate’ in the Nahuatl tongue. ‘She and Tozi are almost the same age …’

  ‘Tozi?’

  ‘This child –’ Malinal looked down at Tozi, still thrashing on the ground – ‘whom you believe is a witch but who really is just sick and in need of help and love.’

  Black Teeth grunted and wiped away a tear. ‘Why should I care what she needs?’

  ‘Because in this world of pain the gods see to it that what we give out is what we get back. Wherever they may be today, perhaps in another fattening pen, perhaps slaved by some merchant, don’t you hope someone will care for your own children’s needs – if they’re sick, if they need help like poor little Tozi?’

  Black Teeth looked round at the girls whose provocations had sparked this trouble. ‘It’s them as told me she’s a witch,’ she said.

  ‘And they attacked her this morning, and got the worst of it, and now they’re trying to use you to get revenge.’
/>   On the floor Tozi was quieter, her struggles less desperate, her features calmer. The two Tlascalan girls began to edge towards her but Black Teeth called out ‘Wait!’ and they hesitated, scowling at Malinal.

  ‘You have children yourself?’ Black Teeth asked.

  ‘No. I’ve not been blessed. The Mexica slaved me, used me for sex. I fell pregnant twice but they forced me to drink epazote and I miscarried.’

  The woman spat. ‘Brutes. How they use us!’

  Malinal pressed home her advantage. ‘We’re all their victims. Why do we fight and kill each other when the Mexica persecute us all? They’re the real witches and sorcerers – not innocent children like poor Tozi.’

  Black Teeth looked doubtful. ‘If she’s not a witch, then what is she? How is it that she’s never selected for sacrifice?’

  Malinal had her answer ready. ‘Yollomimiquiliztli,’ she said gravely, invoking the Nahuatl word for epilepsy. ‘Perhaps she who cursed her also protects her.’

  Everyone knew that the terrible affliction of epilepsy, which caused fits exactly like the one that Tozi had just suffered, was the work of the fickle goddess Cihuapipiltin. And everyone also knew that in return for the suffering she caused Cihuapipiltin sometimes gave magical gifts to her victims.

  Black Teeth thought about it for what seemed like a long time as Tozi’s shaking and foaming at the mouth gradually ceased and she lay still. Finally the big Tlascalan woman nodded to Malinal. ‘What you’ve told me makes sense,’ she said. She turned to the other Tlascalans and spoke up: ‘This child is not a witch. Poor one! She has been touched by Cihuapipiltin. We should leave her alone.’

  One of the troublemakers clenched her fists and gave a little scream of frustration, but Black Teeth silenced her with a glare.

  Within a few moments all the Tlascalans withdrew, leaving Malinal alone with Tozi and Coyotl.

  Perhaps an hour later Tozi opened her eyes. Linking arms with Coyotl, Malinal helped her sit up. ‘You OK?’ she asked. It seemed such an ordinary question after all the extraordinary things that had happened, but it was what she wanted to know.

  ‘I’m OK,’ said Tozi.

  ‘Me too,’ said Coyotl. ‘Malinal saved us from the bad girls.’

  Tozi was looking at the nearby group of Tlascalans. ‘We had trouble?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s over. Everything’s going to be fine.’

  ‘Good,’ said Tozi, ‘because I’m all used up.’ Her eyes were bright but the whites were jaundiced, her skin was grey with fatigue and there was a sheen of sweat on her brow.

  ‘What happened to you?’ Malinal asked.

  ‘I’m trying to remember … For how long did I fade us when Ahuizotl came?’

  Malinal thought about it. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Maybe a two hundred count, maybe a three hundred count?’

  Tozi gave a low whistle. ‘I didn’t even know I could do that.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘When I fade for more than a ten count I get sick. Really sick. Something breaks inside my head. If I faded us for a two hundred count, I’m lucky to be alive.’

  ‘You were in a bad way.’

  ‘I’m still in a bad way.’

  Malinal reached out and brushed her fingers down Tozi’s pale, exhausted face. ‘You’ll get better,’ she said, but it was more a hope than a statement of fact.

  ‘I’ll get better,’ Tozi echoed dully, ‘but I won’t be able to fade us again. Not today. Not tomorrow. It always takes me a long time to get my strength back.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Malinal. ‘Don’t worry about anything. I’ll take care of you.’ She ruffled Coyotl’s hair. ‘And you too, little one.’

  She knew it was a hollow promise, even as she made it.

  Thanks to Black Teeth they were, for the moment, probably safe from further accusations of witchcraft, but the threat of sacrifice had not receded and, beyond the bars of the prison, Ahuizotl still lurked. He would not forget or forgive how badly he’d been embarrassed by Tozi’s magic.

  Realising anew the endless horror of their predicament, Malinal felt all her strength and resolve ebb away.

  Then Coyotl tugged at her hand, gazing up at her with his big serious eyes.

  ‘Do you know how to fade us?’ he said.

  Chapter Twenty

  Cuba, Thursday 18 February 1519

  When Alvarado dipped his wrist, Zemudio predictably followed the flow of force, and thrust down hard, sliding the falchion along the blade of the rapier, grinding out the keening song of steel, sending sparks of hot metal flying. Alvarado had invited this savage cut with the heavier weapon. It was a standard move in the Talhoffer system of messer combat – engage, slide the blade, pivot to misdirect your opponent’s force, hack off his arm at the elbow. But the blow was ill matched against the Nuñez rapier with its guard of steel rings spun round the hilt. The falchion skidded over the guard and, as Zemudio whirled into the pivot, Alvarado trapped the thick blade between two of the rings, deftly twisted the weapon from his grip and cast it to the ground.

  It all happened so fast – like disarming a child! – that Zemudio was taken completely by surprise. He made a clumsy grab for the fallen weapon but Alvarado got his boot under it and kicked it out of reach. Zemudio put his head down and charged, hands outstretched, and Alvarado reacted instinctively with a clean, straight, powerful lunge, rapier and right arm extended, right leg sliding ahead, left leg and left arm stretched out behind, propelling his body forward. The needle point of the rapier pierced the padded outer fabric of Zemudio’s vest where it covered his belly, glanced off the overlapping steel tiles sewn into the lining, slid a span, found a tiny gap and – ooof! – punched deep into the champion’s body. Alvarado was unstoppable, all his power and weight behind the lunge, and as he went to full extension he felt the point ripple through Zemudio’s guts and burst out of his lower back. There was slight resistance as it hit the armour at the rear of the vest but again, like a worm, the flexible blade found a way through, and the champion was spitted.

  Alvarado was close to him, very close, close as lovers. Wrapped in the rapier’s guard, his fist was right against the dying man’s belly and the tip of the blade stood out a cubit from his back. Ecstasy! A kind of ecstasy! Zemudio’s little pig eyes gazed into his own with more puzzlement than anger, his stupid oafish mouth gaped, and he groaned like a woman being pleasured.

  ‘Still think I’m all piss and farts, do you?’ yelled Alvarado. He sawed the blade of the rapier back and forth.

  Zemudio gasped.

  ‘Still think I’m a pretty boy?’

  ‘Aaaah …’

  The mist of death was clouding Zemudio’s eyes. Alvarado could always recognise it. With a yell of triumph and a vicious twist of his wrist, he hauled out the rapier, drenched with gore, and stepped back.

  He expected Zemudio to fall, but the great ox of a man just stood there blinking, blood oozing through the front of his vest, guttering out of the gaping wound in his leg and dropping pitter-patter, pitter-patter into the dust at his feet.

  ‘Very well,’ said Alvarado, ‘if that’s how you want it.’ The rapier still needed more trials with armour and now was as good a time as any. Throwing his right foot forward he slid into another lunge, easily found another weak point and ran the man through. He withdrew, lunged again, slight resistance from the armour, quick workaround, found a gap and – ooof! – another healthy dose of steel administered direct to Zemudio’s vitals.

  As Alvarado stood back to inspect his handiwork, Zemudio shouted something indistinct and collapsed to his knees.

  ‘What was that?’ said Alvarado, taking a step closer.

  Another incoherent yell.

  Alvarado frowned. ‘What?’

  Zemudio looked up at him in mute appeal, mouth gaping.

  ‘What?’ Alvarado took another step, put his ear to Zemudio’s lips.

  ‘Bastard,’ whispered Zemudio.

  ‘Biggest bastard this side of
the Ocean Sea,’ agreed Alvarado. He straightened, swept the rapier up over his right shoulder, swung it almost lazily down and hacked the razor edge of its clever Nuñez blade into the side of Zemudio’s thick, muscular neck. There was a smacking sound, almost like a slap, a spray of blood as the jugular was severed, some resistance and a grinding sensation as the blade cleaved vertebrae, then much more blood and a tremendous acceleration as the sword flashed out on the other side of his neck, taking his head clean off.

  It bounced when it hit the ground, rolled twice and came to rest upside down against a rotten tree stump, the surprised, reproachful eyes still glaring.

  ‘Yes!’ Alvarado shouted, because somebody had to praise that perfect coup de grâce.

  Such precision. Such elegance. Such economy of effort.

  He doubted if there were three other swordsmen in the world, maybe not even two, who could have matched the blow.

  Though headless, Zemudio was still on his knees and the satchel containing the Velázquez documents still hung by its strap around what was left of his neck. Blood was bubbling up, getting everywhere, already completely drenching the satchel, but Alvarado was a one-armed man now. He first wiped the blade of the rapier clean on Zemudio’s body, and sheathed it, before he stooped over the corpse and pulled the dripping satchel away.

  The buckles were slippery and proved near impossible to open with only one functioning hand, until Alvarado had a brilliant idea. He turned back to Zemudio’s kneeling corpse, kicked it over in the dust and used the cloth on the ample seat of the champion’s breeches to clean the satchel and his own fingers. When he was satisfied he’d done enough, he turned back to the buckles, opened them easily and peered inside.

  The document wallet was there, safe and dry, no blood yet staining its contents. Alvarado fished it out and opened it.

  Inside was the single page of vellum on which Velázquez had scrawled his orders for his loathsome favourite Pánfilo de Narváez – Captain-General Narváez, no less! – the despicable fool who was supposed to take Cortés’s place. As he read, Alvarado’s face darkened, but when he’d finished he put his head back and laughed for a long time. ‘Sweat of the Virgin,’ he said as he slid the page back into the wallet. All that trouble to kill a man and at the end of it he’d learned nothing more than Velázquez had already told him. Still, Cortés was going to be impressed to see the proof in writing.