"So they cringe cowardly behind your skirts, padre, and abandon their people to the storm and the strangers? Including their own loved ones, perhaps? Anyway, I do not share your superstitions."
I stepped around him and, with my sword, stabbed each of the men to the heart.
The priest cried, "Those señores were high and valued functionaries of His Majesty King Carlos!"
"I do not believe that. Anyone of any majesty could hardly have been proud of them."
"I adjure you again, you monster! Begone from this church of God! Remove allyour savages from this parish of God!"
"I will," I said equably, turning to look out the door. "As soon as they tire of it."
The priest joined me at the door and said, beseechingly now, "In God's name, man, some of those poor females yonder are children.Many were virgins. Some of them are virgin nuns.The brides of Christ."
"They will shortly be with their husband, then. I hope he proves tolerant of his wives' impairments. Come with me, padre. I wish you to see something, probably less distressing than this sight."
I ushered him out of the church, and there I found, among others of my men not busy at the moment, the trustworthy Iyac Pozonáli, to whom I said, "I am putting this white priest in your charge, Iyac. I do not think you need expect him to make mischief. Only stay by him to keep himfrom harm by any of our people."
Then I led them both into the palace and upstairs to that writing room, and pointed to the partly done document, and told the priest, "Read that to me, if you can."
"Of course I can. It is merely a respectful salutation. It says, To the very illustrious Señor Don Antonio de Mendoza, viceroy and governor for His Majesty in this New Spain, president of the Audiencia and the Royal Chancellery...' That is all. Evidently the alcalde was about to dictate to the scribe some report or request to be sent to the viceroy."
"Thank you. That will do."
"Now you kill me, too?"
"No. And for that, be thankful to another padre whom I once knew. I have already instructed this warrior to be your companion and protector."
"Then may I take my leave? There are last rites to be bestowed on my many, many unfortunate parishioners, and short shrift it is that I can give them."
"Vaya con Dios, padre," I said, meaning no irony, and gestured for Pozonáli to go with him. Then I simply stood and looked out the window of that room, at what was still going on in the square below, and at the fires beginning to spring up at more distant places in the town, and I waited for Nochéztli to return with the reading-and-writing girl slave.
She was a mere child, and certainly not a Moro, for her complexion was only a slightly darker copper color than my own, and she was too pretty to have had much black blood in her. But she obviously was somekind of mongrel female, for those have bodies maturely developed at a very young age, and so did she. I supposed she must be one of the more complex breeds that Alonso de Molina had once told me about—pardo, cuarterón, whatever—and that fact might account for her having been given some education. My first test of that was to speak to her in Spanish:
"I am told that you can read the writing of the Spaniards."
She understood, and said respectfully, "Yes, my lord."
"Read this to me, then." I pointed to the document on the table.
Without having to study it or laboriously puzzle it out, she immediately and fluently read, "Al muy ilustrísimo Señor Don Antonio de Mendoza, visorrey é gobernador por Su Majestad en esta Nueva España, presidente de la Audiencia y la Chancellería Real...It stops there, my lord. If I might say so, the scribe is not highly accomplished in his spelling."
"I am told that you also can write in that language."
"Yes, my lord."
"I wish you to write something for me. Use a different piece of paper."
"Certainly, my lord. Only give me a moment to prepare. The materials are dry."
"While we wait, Nochéztli," I said to him, "go and find that church's priest. He is somewhere in the crowd outside, in company with our Iyac Pozonáli. Fetch the priest here to me."
In the meantime, the girl had laid the scribe's stained quill to one side, plucked a fresh one from the jar, expertly used the penknife to whittle a point to it, spat delicately into the inkhorn, stirred it with the new quill and finally said, "I am ready, my lord. What shall I write?"
I looked out the window, briefly meditating. The day was darkening now, the fires were more numerous and blazing higher; the whole of Tonalá would soon be aflame. I turned back to the girl and spoke just a few words, slowly enough that she had finished her scribbling almost as soon as I stopped speaking. I went and reached over her shoulder, laying the scribe's paper and hers side by side. Of course, I could make nothing of either of them, but I could tell that the girl's writing was, to the eye, more bold and forthright than the spidery lines of the scribe.
She asked timidly, "Shall I read it back to you, my lord?"
"No. Here is the priest. Let him do it." I pointed. "Padre, can you read that writing, too?"
"Of course I can," he said again, this time impatiently. "But it makes little sense. All it says is, 'I can still see him burning.' "
"Thank you, padre. That is what I meant it to say. Very good, girl. Now take that unfinished document and append these words to it. I have only just begun.Then write my name, Juan Británico. Then add my real name. Can you also make the word-pictures of Náhuatl?"
"I am sorry, no, my lord."
"Then put it in that Spanish writing, as best you can. Téotl-Tenamáxtzin."
That she did, though not so swiftly, being very careful to make it as correct and comprehensible as she could. When she was done, she blew on the paper to dry it before she gave it to me. I handed it to the priest and asked, "Can you still read it?"
The paper shook in his fingers and his voice was quavery. "To the very illustrious... et cetera, et cetera. I have only just begun. Signed Juan Británico. Then that fearsome other name. I can make it out, yes, but I cannot well pronounce it."
He started to give it back to me, but I said, "Keep the paper, padre. It was intended for the viceroy. It still is. If and when you can find a living white men, who can serve as your messenger, have him deliver that to the very illustrious Mendoza in the City of Mexíco. Until then, simply show it to every other Spaniard who comes this way."
He went out, the paper still shaking in his hand, and Pozonáli went with him. To Nochéztli I said:
"Help the girl gather and bundle together all this paper and the writing materials, for safekeeping. I shall have other use for them. And for you, child. You are bright and obedient and you did exceedingly well here today. What is your name?"
"Verónica," you said.
XXX
We left Tonalá a smoldering, smoking desert of a town, unpeopled except for the priest and what few slaves had elected to stay, only the two stone buildings still upright and entire. We left it, too, with our warriors looking rather flamboyant, not to say ridiculous. The Yaki were so heavily festooned with skirts of scalps that every man seemed to be walking waist-deep through a hillock of bloody human hair. The Purémpe women had appropriated the finest gowns of the late Spanish ladies—silks and velvets and brocades—so (although some had ignorantly donned the dresses backward) they made a gaudily colorful throng. Many of the arcabuz men and Aztéca warriors now wore steel breastplates over their quilted cotton armor. They disdained to avail themselves of the enemies' high boots or steel helmets, but they had pillaged from the Spanish women's wardrobes also, and now wore on their heads fancy feathered bonnets and ornate lace mantillas.All our men and women were carrying bales and bundles of plunder besides—every sort of thing from hams and cheeses and bags of coins to those weapons that Uno had called halberds, which combine spear, hook and ax. Our Swaddlers and Swallowers followed, supporting our less severely wounded men, and twelve or fourteen led the captured horses, bridled and saddled, on which rode or were draped the wounded who could not walk.