The Seven Serpents Trilogy (27 page)

It was time for me to speak. But as a god with supernatural powers, who was supposed to know both the means and the end, I need not speak at all. It was my privilege to remain quiet. My one duty was to act.

The road weasels reached the ship within an hour. Carrying straw bundles, gnarled of hand and stooped, two of them looked like farmers on their way home after a long day in the fields.

The third spy had a small gray monkey sitting on one shoulder and a green parrot on the other. He was posing as a
pplom
, a merchant, and was the leader of the three weasels.

“No one goes into Tikan or out of Tikan,” he an nounced. “The gates are closed to travelers.”

The monkey clapped its hands.

The
nacom
told the spy to take the monkey outside and leave it. When he came back he was asked about the closed gates.

“Do they know that we lie here at the headland of Xe ah Xel?” the
nacom
said.

The spy nodded. “I think so.”

“Why?”

“Because of the closed gates.”

“The gates are closed during the day sometimes. You have reported this before. Only last week.”

“It is the first time that no one goes in or comes out.”

“The gates are heavily guarded?”

“Heavily!”

“What do the guards say?”

“
Tuux cahanech?
”

“When they asked this, asked where you lived, what did you say?”

“I said I lived on the road.”

“Returning,” said the
nacom
, “when you reached the headland, as you looked down on the shore, did you see our canoes? Were there any signs that we lay here in the darkness?”

“No,” said the weasel.

The green parrot ruffled its feathers and repeated the word.

“Did you hear sounds or see lights that would disclose the presence of our big canoe?”

“Nothing,” the road weasel said.

The parrot repeated the word.

“But you think that the enemy knows we are here?”

“Yes,” the road weasel said, “they know.”

The parrot's green feathers shone like metal in the torchlight. Again it repeated the weasel's words, this time three times over.

“Then we should sail,” the
nacom
said, striking the air with his fist. “We should sail at dawn.”

“At dawn,” the parrot echoed.

The
nacom
reached up and with one quick jerk wrung its neck.

The dwarf was for sailing at once, which was impractical, considering the untried crew and my own small knowledge of seamanship. But the
nacom
ordered half of the warriors, some five hundred men, to beach their canoes and set off toward Tikan, using a jungle trail that ran parallel to the coast.

They were to reach the walls of the city at dawn. When the
Santa Margarita
fired her first cannon, they were to attack the gates.

I cleared the cabin and lay down but did not sleep. I tried to remember the details of Caesar's expedition against Britain. There were two of these campaigns, but they had gotten mixed up in my mind.

I remembered that on the second expedition he commanded five legions of foot soldiers and two thousand cavalry. On the first expedition his men were weighed down with a mass of armor and had to wade ashore in a heavy surf, then stand firm and fight at the same time.

Julius Caesar commanded some thirty-two thousand men. I had less than one thousand. He had two thou sand horses and I had one. But his army was equipped only with swords, slings, and arrows, while I had mus kets and gunpowder and cannon.

One thing I did remember clearly. It was his dictum:
celeritas
, swiftness and surprise, always!

 

W
E SAILED SHORTLY BEFORE DAWN
.

Wind and tide were against us, but we dared not wait, since our warriors would now be approaching the walls. With the help of our canoes we clawed our way off the shore and around the headland of Xe ah Xel.

The wind shifted and caught us astern, sending the caravel along at a goodly rate, somewhat faster than the canoes. I stood at the oak tiller with Tunac-Eel, our tat tooed navigator, at my side.

Three hours after leaving the headland, we entered a broad estuary that soon narrowed and, in a series of bends and near loops, brought us into a small bay fringed by a stretch of yellow beach. Beyond the beach, on the crest of a shallow hill, rose the walls of Tikan. Enclosed by the walls were two temples facing each other, glittering red in the early sun.

The fleet of canoes caught up with us and we nosed into the bay, silent and scarcely moving. The city had just begun to stir. The plaza between the temples was deserted, but along the edge of the jungle smoke curled up from breakfast fires.

A woman was carrying a jar balanced on her head down a flight of stairs that led to the plaza. Four men were about to cast a net from the shore, swinging it be tween them, and singing in low voices.

At the moment our anchors struck the water, the fish ermen cast their net, and it went out in a wide circle and settled. They did not pull it in. At sight of the caravel they raised their hands and began to run. The woman dropped her jar and disappeared.

“We have surprised the lordly Tikans,” the
nacom
shouted.

He stood beside me on the afterdeck, in a fresh coat of black soot and a hawk mask instead of the jaguar mask he had worn the night before. A vain young man, he wore a different nose plug, a different set of earrings, and gold anklets instead of silver.

“The city sleeps,” he said.

Cantú the dwarf laughed. “He, he, he. Shall we roust them out?” “Now,” said the
nacom.
“Without delay!”

We were moored broadside to the city, anchored fore and aft, headed north the way we had come in, and at tended by canoes that were ready to move us should the wind fail. The
nacom
raised his hand. On the deck below the gunners caught the sign.

Six cannon boomed, one after the other, each spaced at the slow count often, exactly as planned. There was a short silence. From afar I heard the screech of conch-shell horns.

“Our warriors are at the gates,” the
nacom
said.

Through the swirling smoke I had followed the paths of the six cannonballs. All had landed in the plaza be tween the two temples, which were our targets.

As far as I could see they had done no damage, but this was of small importance. In the hearts of those who had heard nothing louder than the whine of arrows, the sudden, horrendous crash must have struck the utmost fear. I had once seen this fear, among the Indians of Isla del Oro when Don Luis had used his cannon, these very cannon, against them.

Across the water in Tikan, Don Luis by this time must have come awake and scrambled to his feet. He would have jumped into his clothes and buckled on his sword. Yes, his sword, because he would not have left it behind when he swam away from the wreck. It was a part of him, like an arm. He slept with it.

He would hurry into the street. At this moment, from some vantage point, he might be staring down at the
Santa Margarita
.

Was she, he would wonder, a phantom ship that had sailed out of a nightmare he had dreamed? Knuckling his eyes, he would stare at her until certain at last that she was not an apparition, but a real ship, a weathered, storm-beaten Spanish caravel.

I spoke to the
nacom,
who signaled the gunners. Six explosions rent the quiet. Six more cannonballs leaped over the bay into the city. One ball toppled the god house from one of the temples. Another bounced off its blood red walls.

On the wind, from beyond the glittering temples came the throb of many drums, the sounds of horns and musket fire, and above all the roar of voices rising and fall ing as our warriors fought at the city gates.

At the second round from our cannon, as shot struck and spun crazily away, a lone figure appeared in the plaza. He must have come from one of the temples, per haps out of a secret door that opened from some under ground passage.

He shaded his eyes against the sun. For a moment he gazed down at the caravel. Then he removed his head dress, tossed it on the stones, and started down a flight of stairs that led to the beach.

Since the man was some distance from me, I could not make out his features. But from his arrogant walk, which looked as if he were marching to a drum, I thought he must be Don Luis de Arroyo. I was certain of it when the sun flashed on the blade of a sword buckled at his waist.

He came to a terrace near the top of the stairs, a para pet guarded on each side by two stone figures, which I took to be crouching alligators.

Here he paused. Again he shaded his eyes against the sun and gazed down upon the caravel. He would miss the great Spanish crosses that once had covered the sails, for we had not had time to paint new ones. Yet he could not help but see, in Mayan red across her bow, the name
Santa Margarita
.

Don Luis was still too far away for me to make out his features, but I imagined with what consternation and disbelief he now looked down upon the ship he once had owned.

He stood high above us, erect and unmoving, as if he were not the least disturbed by our presence, as if smoke from the cannon were not hanging in the air and there were no sounds of armies fighting, as if it were a peace ful morning and he had come out to look at the sea.

The dwarf was uneasy. “It's a ruse,” he said. “A thou sand warriors are behind him somewhere waiting for a signal to fall upon us.”

“Twice a thousand,” the
nacom
said.

“It's an old trick,” said the dwarf. “As old as the Greeks.”

The six cannon that faced the temples were loaded and primed. The ship was surrounded by a swarm of canoes manned by warriors armed with spears and heavy bows. We were prepared for any surprise.

Don Luis did not move from the parapet. He stood with his feet thrust apart, a hand on the hilt of his sword, as if he had gone as far as his Spanish pride would allow—not quite halfway.

On an impulse, I went to the main deck, where I ordered the cannoneer to hold our fire. Hearing my order, the two men followed me.

The
nacom
shook his head. “If you go onshore,” he said gravely, “if you are captured, the battle is over. When the leader is taken prisoner and he no longer can command his warriors, this is the end. It is the custom in our land.”

“The Feathered Serpent,” Cantú said, turning on the
nacom
, “knows well that it's a Mayan custom. I need not remind you that it was he who gave birth to it.”

The
nacom
bowed and was silent at this rebuke.

The dwarf tried to press his sword into my hand. I re fused it.

“Gods are brave by nature,” he said, speaking in Spanish since the
nacom
was listening, “which is good, but they are also blessed with common sense. What do you gain by this foolish act?”

He was right, it
was
foolish to confront Don Luis in the midst of a battle that we had not yet won, to expose myself to an expert swordsman, to risk the chance of bringing defeat upon the army should I be killed. Or worse, to be captured by his cohorts, who were surely waiting only for his signal.

The dwarf was angry. “Is it pride that leads you into this trap?” he demanded. “Is it hatred of Don Luis de Arroyo? Is it a display of courage? Or is it something else? A wish, perhaps, to test a Christian truth?”

I did not answer, for it was all of these things and more.

The dwarf shook his head in disgust. “Then, Lord of the Northern Skies and Lord of Folly, may you go with God.”

I spoke to the cannoneer. “Watch for a signal,” I told him. “If I raise my hand, fire.” To the
nacom
I said, “Have your warriors ready to attack.”

Climbing down the ladder into the nearest canoe, I was rowed toward shore.

From the shadow of the canopy that stretched above my head I watched Don Luis. He did not move. He seemed to be enjoying the bright morning and his thoughts.

There were some twenty men at the paddles, all well armed. However, before we reached the shore, I in structed them not to follow me, yet to be ready should the need arise. Not waiting to be carried, I waded ashore and started up the winding stairs.

I greeted Don Luis in Maya.

He replied in the same language, in such a bad accent that I had much difficulty understanding him. I did un derstand that he had no idea that he was speaking to the god Kukulcán, for he addressed me as an enemy cap tain, curtly but with respect.

There was no reason why he should recognize me. According to our weasels, the people of Tikan knew nothing about the return of the god Kukulcán. If they did know, then being Mayan themselves they would never march against me. Nor did they know about the raising of the
Santa Margarita
our spies attested to this.

Don Luis had changed little in the months since I had seen him last. He squinted, raising an eyebrow, and smiled. He could smile and thrust a blade into your side, both at the same time, as I have noted before.

The sun was hot. He wiped his face with the back of a hand and turned toward the west, where the sounds of fighting now seemed closer.

“You are losing the battle,” I said, saying the words slowly, again in Maya.

He turned his back upon the sounds. He fixed his eyes upon my mask and headdress. We stood confronting each other in silence.

I heard musket fire. Then the warriors swarming around the ship set up an angry chant. There was still no sign that he knew who I was.

I repeated my words, holding out my hand to accept his sword.

His manner changed. His shoulders stiffened. His grip tightened on the sword. It was the same sword that his father had owned, the one I had often seen before. He would rather part with his life than with this weapon. I could see him swimming away from the wreck with it buckled to his side, floundering along because it was heavy, yet not giving it up to the waves. He would not give it up now or ever, not willingly.