His knights and officers began grouping about us, waiting for further orders, and the square was rapidly filling with other people, as well. Every warrior not otherwise and elsewhere occupied was herding the captive white women and girls into that open space, and hurrying to claim the favor that is the common soldier's traditional celebration of a victory. That is to say, the men were violently raping the females. Since there were considerably more men than women and girls, and since many of the men were disinclined to wait their turn, in some cases two or three warriors would be simultaneously using the various orifices of a single female.
Needless to say, those women and girls capable of screaming or pleading or protesting were doing so, and vociferously. But I am sure that these victims were making a noise even more horrified and horrible than has ever been heard at any other such scene of celebration. That was because the white females, all having abundant and long and lustrous hair, made the Yaki warriors more lustful of having their scalps than of possessing any other part of them. Each of those Yaki who had dragged hither a Spanish female threw her down and tore off the top of her head before he threw himself on top of her bare body. Several other Yaki, who had brought no captives of their own, were scurrying about the square and sawing the scalps off supine women and girls whilethey were being violated by another man—or two or three.
I myself found those females, however comely and shapely and desirable in other respects, almost impossible even to look at, with their heads peeled nakedly round and red and pulpy. I could not have brought myself to couple with one—not even with my eyes shut, because there would have been no way to shut out the equally repellent stench of them. The smell of their torn heads' blood was rank enough, but many of the creatures also were voiding their bladders and bowels from sheer terror, and others were vomiting because of what had been put down their throats.
"I thank the war god Cuticáuri," said Butterfly, at my stirrup, "that we Purémpecha do not let our hair grow."
"I wish you did," growled Nochéztli, "so I could snatch all youstupid bitches bald of head!"
"What is this?" I asked, surprised, because he was ordinarily so amiable of nature. "Why do you revile our meritorious warrior women?"
"That one has not told you, Tenamáxtzin? Of the two they so incompetently killed?"
Butterfly and I regarded him with puzzlement, and I said, "Two white soldiers, yes, who surprised them while they were very capably doing their duty."
"Ourtwo white soldiers, Tenamáxtzin. The men you called Señor Uno and Señor Dos."
"Yya ayya," I murmured, really sadly.
"They were our allies?" asked Butterfly. "How should we have known? They were mounted. They were armored and bearded. They waved swords. They shouted."
"They would have been shouting encouragement,you blundering woman!" said Nochéztli. "Could you not see that their horses were without saddles?"
Butterfly looked chagrined, but shrugged. "Ours was a dawn attack. Not many peoplewere dressed."
To me, Nochéztli said ruefully, "They had been riding before me, so I came upon their remains right after they were blown to pieces. I could not even tell which man was which. Indeed, it would have been hard to tell their fragments from those of their horses."
"Be easy, Nochéztli," I said with a sigh. "We shall miss them, but there are bound to be such casualties in any war. Let us just hope that Uno and Dos are now in their Christian heaven, if that is where they would wish to be, with their Harry and George. Now, back to the business of our war. Give orders that the men, as soon as each has had his satisfaction with the captured women, are to fan out through the town and loot it. Salvage everything that might be of use to us—weapons, pólvora, lead, armor, horses, clothes, blankets, any portable provisions. When every ruin and every surviving building has been emptied, it is to be set afire. Nothing is to be left of Tonalá except the church and palace here."
Nochéztli dismounted and went among his under-officers, passing along those orders, then returned to me and asked:
"Why, my lord, are you sparing these two buildings?"
"For one thing, they will not easily burn," I said, dismounting also. "And we could not possibly make enough granadas to tear them down. But chiefly I am leaving those for a certain Spanish friend—a truly goodChristian white man. If heoutlives this war, he will have something around which to build anew. He has already told me that this place will have a new name. Now, come, let us have a look inside the palace."
The lower floor of that stone building had been the soldiers' barracks, and it was expectably in disorder, since its inhabitants had so wildly scrambled out a little while before. We climbed the stairs and found ourselves in a warren of small rooms, all furnished with chairs and tables, some rooms full of books, others full of shelved maps or stacked documents. In one was a table on which lay a thick sheaf of fine Spanish paper, an inkhorn, a penknife and a jar full of goose quills. Beside them lay an ink-stained quill and a paper only half written over, by whatever scribe had been at work there the day before. I stood looking at those things for a moment, then said to Nochéztli:
"I was told that there is, among our slave contingent, a certain girl who can read and write the Spanish language. A Moro or a mongrel, I forget. Ride back to our encampment, right now, at a gallop, find that girl and bring her here, as quickly as you can. Also send in some of our men to scavenge whatever is useful from the soldiers' quarters downstairs. I will wait here for you and the girl, after I have visited the church next door."
The Tonalá church was as modest in size and appointments as was the church Bishop Quiroga currently occupied in Compostela. One of the three men in there was a priest, decently dressed in the usual black, the other two were pudgy, merchant-looking men, ridiculously clad in nightwear and whatever other clothes they had had time to fling over them. They both quailed back from me, against the altar rail, but the priest boldly came forward, thrusting a carved wooden cross at me and babbling in that Church language that I had heard at the few Masses I had once attended.
"Not even other Spaniards can understand that nonsensical guirígay,padre," I said sharply. "Speak to me in some sensible tongue."
"Very well, you heathen renegade!" he snapped. "I was adjuring you, in the name and language of the Lord, to depart from these sacred precincts."
"Renegade?" I repeated. "You seem to assume that I am some white man's runaway slave. I am not. And these precincts are mine,built on the land of my people. I am here to reclaim them."
"This is the property of Holy Mother Church! Who do you think you are?"
"I knowwho I am. But your Holy Mother Church gave me the name of Juan Británico."
"Dear God!" he exclaimed, appalled. "Then you are apostate! A heretic! Worsethan a heathen!"
"Far worse," I said pleasantly. "Who are those two men?"
"The alcaldeof Tonalá, Don José Osado Algarve de Sierra. And the corregidor,Don Manuel Adolfo del Monte."
"The town's two foremost citizens, then. What are they doing here?"
"God's house is sanctuary. Holy refuge. Inviolable. It would be sacrilege were they to be harmed here."