I do not mean to say that we all simply lazed and vegetated there. Though I slept at night between silken Spanish sheets and under a fine woolen Spanish blanket—feeling as if I were a Spanish marqués or viceroy—I was busy all day long. I kept my scouts roaming the countryside beyond the mountains, and reporting back to me. I strode about the valley, as a sort of inspector-in-general, because I had ordered Nochéztli and our other knights to train many more of our warriors to ride the many new horses we had acquired and to employ properly the many new arcabuces we had acquired.
When one of my scouts came to report that not far to the west of our mountains was a crossroads Spanish trading post—similar to the one we had earlier vanquished—I decided to try an experiment. I took a medium-sized force of Sobáipuri warriors, because they had not yet had the pleasure of participating in any of our battles, and because they had become proficient both at riding and at using the arcabuz, and I asked Knight Pixqui to accompany me, and we rode westward to that trading post.
I intended not really a battle, but only a feint. We galloped, hooting and howling and discharging our arcabuces, out of the woods into the open ground before the palisaded post. And, as before, from the ports in that palisade, thunder-tubes spewed a spray of lethal scraps and fragments, but I was careful to keep us out of their range, and only one of our men suffered a minor shoulder wound. We remained out there, dancing our horses back and forth, making our threatening war cries and extravagantly threatening gestures, until the stockade gate opened and a troop of mounted soldiers came galloping out. Then, pretending to be intimidated, we all turned and galloped back the way we had come. The soldiers pursued us, and I made sure that we stayed ahead of them, but always in their sight. We led them all the way back to the ravine from which we had left our valley.
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 Sobáipuri 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, Tenamáxtzin, 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 Nochéztli 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 tíciltin, 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 Mexíco."
Fortuitously, the very next day, Pozonáli and Verónica 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 Náhuatl and Spanish.
"The goldsmith thanks you for your warning, Tenamáxtzin, and sends you his warm regards in return..."
"You are already famous in the City of Mexíco, my lord. I should say famous and feared..."
"Wait, wait," I said, laughing. "Verónica 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 Mixtóapan. 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 Mexíco 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 Pozonáli, 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 Mexíco, some hundreds of mounted and foot soldiers, and Mendoza has taken personal command of them. Furthermore, as you expected, Tenamáxtzin, many of his tame Mexíca have enlisted to fight alongside him. So have many of these other treacherous peoples—the Totonáca, the Tezcaltéca, the Acólhua—who long ago aided the Conquistador Cortés in his overthrow of Motecuzóma. 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," Pozonáli 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 Mexíco."
"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 Purémpe 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 Mexíco. 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, Verónica, to do the chronicling of this most epic of all our battles so far."