Aztec Rage (30 page)

I flashed another silver piece, this time a full reale, and lowered my voice. “My patrón is an important man with a jealous wife. He will want to make a discreet visit himself.”

“Up the back stairway. Her room is at the corner of the building, the room with a balcony, there,” he pointed. “But the countess will be out this evening. Her coach is returning after dark to take her to the viceroy's ball.”

I gave him the coin. “If my patrón finds the backdoor unlocked when he comes tonight, another silver piece will join his brother in your pocket.”

Thinking about the French countess, I slowly made my way through the crowd pressing into the main square. From Bruto's occasional dinner table political discussions and the many discussions I'd overheard among the expedition members, I now knew for certain that Carlos played a dangerous game.

Many in New Spain feared the French or British would invade the colony. Combined with Napoleon's boasts that he would liberate the Spanish masses, people in the colony saw foreign spies under every rug.

That I should involve myself in the scholar's intrigues was madness, but I could not get the woman's scent out of my head. I have heard of aphrodisiacs that drive men mad and turn their minds to jelly—the very effect the countess's scent had on me. But her presence also stirred an emotion as old and vital as lust—my survival instinct. For better or worse, I had cast my lot with Carlos. In hopes of escaping New Spain, I now considered accompanying him on the entire expedition. It would take me as far south as the Yucatán and perhaps ship me to Havana, where they would dock en route back to Spain. I still had my eye upon the Cuban capital as a refuge from the colony. And I couldn't afford to have the machinations of this French countess spoiling my plans.

Carlos's intrigues with the countess had placed him in extreme jeopardy. If the viceroy even suspected Carlos of scheming against the crown, he would end up on the wrong end of a rope . . . after the viceroy's jailors had loosened his lips with persuasions only the devil himself would employ.

And if Carlos's tongue was loosened sufficiently, his faithful retainer—namely, me—would join him rack by rack, noose by noose, stake by stake. To protect myself I had to probe the countess's plot and keep my friend from harm—a difficult task, considering how the scent of her petticoats aroused memories of things past . . . stirring my garrancha as well.

The rest of the afternoon I wandered the festival. In celebrating the Fête of Pascua—what the British call Whitsunday—St. Agustín commemorated the Holy Spirit's sanctification of the disciples, after Christ's death, resurrection, and ascension. The church called that day the Pentecost and celebrated it on the Sunday that falls on the fiftieth day after Easter. In St. Agustín, however, the holiday gained an added dimension. This event, holy among the most Catholic of peoples, existed in St. Agustín almost solely as an excuse for intemperate gambling, most notably cockfights and monte, a popular card game.

The city fathers emptied the main square—the Plaza de Gallos (Plaza of Cocks)—and set up seating so that the viceroy and notables could watch cockfights. Standing in the rear, lowly peons like myself could watch, too. By midafternoon, the plaza was packed with people, wagering frantically on various games of chance but most frantically on the cockfights.

I don't consider cockfighting a sport, a contest in which men fasten
sharp steel spurs to the chickens' feet for the purpose of murdering their feathered opponents amid shrieking explosions of feathers and guts, blood and balls. Yet its popularity among all classes of people cannot be denied. Even women crowded around the roosters, many of them smoking cigarillos and cigarros. The wealthier women were lavishly attired in extortionately expensive gowns, gaudy gold rings, and glittering jewels.

I understand our love of el toro. A man entering a bullring wagers he can keep his
own
belly from being ripped open by several thousand pounds of horned fury spawned in hell. But where is the sport watching chickens slice each other to ribbons?

I spent a few minutes, pretending to be interested in the cockfights, then, working my way through the throng, I drifted back to the inn.

I waited near the inn until the countess's coach took her to an evening ball. Having changed from black silk into a fawn-colored satin dress with a beige-black mantilla—the light scarf women in the colony and Spain wore over their heads and shoulders—she was now adorned with diamond earrings that almost touched her shoulders and a necklace of pear-shaped pearls. New Spain was a place where women and diamonds were inseparable, where no man, down to the lowest mercantile clerk, entered into marriage without giving his wife diamonds. Even the beauty of rubies and sapphires were not judged to be as exquisite as that of diamonds.

As I feigned interest in the gambling, I watched the countess's balcony window. She would have a maid, of course, and I waited until I saw the lamp go out in the countess's room, calculating that the maid would return to her room or, more likely, come out onto the streets to enjoy the festival.

After a couple of hours of losing at cards, I saw the lamp light go out. I casually strolled to the back of the inn, intending to enter the countess's room and wait for her return.

As promised, the back door was unlocked, and, as one would expect, the room door was also unlocked, except for a sliding-door bolt that one could throw before going to sleep. No one would ever have considered leaving jewels or money in an inn room, so no one needed locks while they were away.

The room was dark. The countess, however, had lit a small, long-burning oil lamp, which provided enough illumination for her to light the other lamps and candles when she returned. The room smelled sweet, like the countess. Sí, as weak as I am when it comes to petticoats, the smell warmed my blood more than the cockfights heated the blood of the aficionados below.

I discovered the prize almost immediately: the pouch Carlos had insisted on carrying to his friend's house earlier. Inside was a paper drawing. In the dim light I could not discern much detail, but it was clearly the layout of a fortification. I shook my head. “Carlos, you are a fool,” I said aloud.

What I held in my hands was more deadly than a hangman's rope. Hanging was considered too gentle a punishment for treason—and spying on your own country was an even more heinous crime than being a foreign spy. Before they put the noose around your neck, they made sure every part of your body had suffered the tortures of the damned.

I lit the corner of the paper with the lamp and burned it in the fireplace. “Why, Carlos?” I asked. The fool risked both our necks by playing the spy, even if he was not aware of the risk to me. I knew from our conversations that he was an
afrancesado
, one of those Spaniards who was attracted to the ideals of the French Revolution: liberty, equality, and fraternity. But spying was different from intellectual discourse.

Was he playing this game of death for love of liberty or petticoats? The woman, this Countess Camille, was an attractive woman. Did she recruit him in bed? Of course, Carlos could be the leader in the scheme, but my common sense balked at the idea.

The countess's involvement was bad news, no? I have never fought, let alone killed, a woman. Could I frighten her away with a knife to her throat and a warning that I would cut off her head if she didn't leave Carlos alone? I thought for a moment about the woman who had nearly blown my face off with a pistol the last time we tangled and decided that a warning would not scare her away.

Maybe I would have to kill her.

I was hidden behind the balcony curtains just inside the open door when she returned to the room, sooner than I expected. Midnight had not tolled, yet as soon as she entered, she undressed. I realized she had returned to change so she could go to another ball in a different dress, which was the current vogue. She muttered aloud about her “stupid maid.” No doubt the maid was out enjoying herself.

As I watched her remove the dress and her layered petticoats, I could understand why Carlos would steal secrets for her. Eh, if I were less concerned about the Inquisition's red-hot pincers and the viceroy's dungeon, I would kill and steal for a woman like this.

The balcony door was open, creating a draft. I stood paralyzed behind the curtains as she suddenly came over to close it. She shut the door and with one jerk, moved the drapes to cover it, exposing me!

I flew at her before her hand had even left the drapes, getting my hand over her mouth. She bit my hand and kicked me in my most sensitive extremities.

¡Ay de mí!
What a devil this woman was! We fought across the room until I had her on the bed and was atop her.

“I know what you're up to,” I gasped. “Call for help, and you'll hang as a spy.”

Her teeth clenched down on my hand again. I yelped and let go. She stared at me, getting her breathing under control, and I continued to hold her down. Her scent filled my nostrils and clouded my reasoning. I felt my manhood rising and my eagerness to do battle fading. Once again my male part took command of my judgment.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“A friend of Carlos.”

One of her breasts had come loose from her inner garment, and I stared at it like a man stranded on a deserted island spying a fresh-water spring.

My eyes met hers. I wasn't proud. It had been a long time since I had lain with a woman. She read the desire in my eyes, the lust in my heart, the weakness in my soul.

My mouth eagerly found her breast. Her hands went to the back of my head.

“Suck harder,” she whispered.

Her nipples grew hard and firm as my tongue wrapped around them. Many times I enjoyed sticking my garrancha in a puta's mouth, then firing fusillade after fusillade. Now I had the sensation of this woman's large nipples growing against my tongue.

My hand found the moist treasure between her legs. I could feel the little garrancha burgeoning between her legs swell. I had never experienced a love button that was this long and hard—or this eager. I had to taste it. I moved down, sticking my head between her legs. I was sucking on heaven when I heard a pistol cock.

I rolled off the bed, pulling her with me, catching the wrist of the hand that clutched a pistol. I twisted the pistol out of her hand. “Bitch.”

“Take me.” Her mouth found mine.

¡Ay! What can I say in defense of myself? The woman despises me, tries to kill me, insults me, . . . and like a dog, I take the whipping and continue humping her leg.

While I contemplated my depraved debasement, she leaped on top of me and pulled my garrancha out of my pants. Straddling my manhood, she catapulted herself up, then, tightening her legs and squeezing my manhood like a vise, she allowed gravity to drop her down.

She rose and fell, rose and fell, my manly sword detonating in time, in perfect union, in harmonious concord with her rising and falling, over and over and over again, a symphonic cannonade from hell. My vision blurred, then exploded again, this time with a thousand crimson comets colliding with one another, bursting into fireballs, into flames . . . red . . . red . . . red . . . as . . .
blood
?

Blood was pouring down my forehead into my eyes. The puta had brained me with a brass urn she'd knocked off a nearby table.

Twisting her viselike treasure between her legs violently on my male
part, the pleasure in my crotch turned to blinding agony, and I feared she would rip my penis from my body even as she again picked up the pistol.

I hammered her across the side of the head with my fist. She went off me, rolling across the floor. I grabbed the pistol and pulled up my pants. She sat up rubbing her head, her eyes burning, her upper lip bleeding.

“¡Ay! Woman, you're a man-killer. Why can't you just lie back and enjoy it?”

“Enjoy it? You think I could enjoy coupling with Aztec trash? I've seen more manly members on squirrels.”

I was speechless. I considered hitting her again, but staring at her there, fire in her eyes and blood in her mouth, I wondered instead whether I might lure her back into bed for a second round. In short, my weakness for women defeated me.

“Puta!” was the best I could muster. It was an impotent remark, sí, but it was all I could think of.

I turned away from her, and for the first time in my life I had my tail between my legs. You can kill a man who insults you, but what can you do to a woman with a vile mouth?

I was at the window when I looked back and saw her fumbling with another pistol. This she-devil had more guns than Napoleon's Praetorian Guard.

I leaped out the window and went over the edge of the balcony, gripping the railing for a second to help break my fall to the alley below. I hit the ground and was running when I heard her shouting “Rapist! Thief!” and a shot sounded. Fortunately, the alley was deserted, and the celebration on the crowded streets would drown out cannon fire.

Twisting my foot in the fall, I limped back to camp, humiliated by the defeat I had suffered at the hands of this woman. But my shame faded when I remembered my pleasure pumping out of me over and over and over again. I always lacked basic moral fiber when it came to women.

FORTY