Aztec Rage (5 page)

“Would you kill one of God's children for a smudge on your silver?” he asked.

I sneered down at him. “Of course not. I would have merely cut off the offending hand.”

“God is listening, young caballero.”

“Then tell Him not to let street trash touch my horse.” I could have told the priest that I would not have inflicted serious injury on the street trash—the code I lived by did not permit me to harm someone who could not fight back—but I was in no mood to be lectured.

As I maneuvered Tempest around the priest, I noticed for the first time that a young woman was in the carriage.

“Buenos días, Don Juan.”

I nudged Tempest with my spurs to hurry him along even as I replied, “Buenos días, señorita.”

I trotted away as quickly as the far reaches of politeness permitted.

¡Ay!
My gloomy premonitions on awakening this morning were all coming too true. She was none other than Raquel Montez, a young woman I tried my best to avoid. The priest who loved léperos probably thought I had no conscience, but in truth I rushed away from Raquel because I am a very sentimental hombre.

Well . . . not exactly sentimental, but I am not devoid of compassion, at least toward women. Perhaps because I was given a succession of wet nurses rather than my mother, I found it more difficult to deal with women than men. While I would be the first to draw my sword if an armed man insulted me, I didn't know how to treat women, except to please them with the tool only a man possesses.

In the case of Raquel, I rushed away because I cringed under her wounded-doe eyes. What sins did I commit against her? Did I despoil her? Abandon her to a cruel fate after stealing her virginity?
¡Ay!
Her grievances
are many and all true, but the fault was not mine, at least not entirely so. Marriages in the colony, among people of quality—like those in Spain herself—are financial arrangements, taking into account the bride's proffered dowry and the groom's prospects for a family inheritance. The relative social position of the bride and groom are also critical.

Raquel was once my betrothed, in fact, the only woman to whom I have ever been set to wed. As shocking as it may sound, I was promised to her despite the fact she was a mestiza.

Raquel's father was Spanish born, of a good family that long hailed from Toledo, a town on the Tagus River, not far from Madrid. Toledo is an ancient city with a worldwide reputation for producing fine swords and daggers, a profession that had thrived there since the time of Julius Caesar. The younger son of swordsmiths, he came to the colony to seek his fortune. He soon shocked his family by marrying an attractive young Aztec girl.

The poor soul. He not only wed outside his bloodline, but the young woman did not even bring a dowry to the marriage bed. One can imagine the consternation of his family: The fool married for love when he could have wed a gachupine or wealthy criolla widow and kept the pretty india as his lover.

He became a merchant of daggers and swords, selling blades shipped to him by his family. Only moderately successful at that trade, I am told he lacked the ruthless rapacity and relentless greed to garner truly great wealth. However, Señora Fortuna smiled upon him and rewarded him with an interest in a small but profitable silver mine, which he had grubstaked for the prospectors. The sudden wealth and a marriage connection made by his family in Spain opened the door to an even more profitable venture: the quicksilver license.

Sí,
the same royal license that was the basis of my own fortune. The king held a monopoly on the right to sell quicksilver. In turn, the right was granted by royal license to a merchant in each mining area to supply the mines with the substance. For over two decades, Bruto had kept control of the license in Guanajuato. Now we were threatened with its loss.

“Just as bad,” Bruto explained, “the king's quicksilver agents can pit us against each other in a bidding war and bleed us both dry.”

By “bidding war” my uncle meant paying bribes, of course, a war of the ubiquitous mordida, “the bite” that bureaucrats expected for doing their duty. Bruto obviated the threat by arranging a marriage between the Montez and Zavala families. The betrothal sent a shock through the city's highborn: a gachupine marrying a mestiza . . . only loco passion or financial desperation could impel such a marriage arrangement!

It was a shock to me, too. Isabella had not moved to Guanajuato at this time—she came the following year—so my love for Isabella did not play a role in my reaction. My first response was fury. I asked my uncle how long
he expected to live once I had shoved my dagger into his throat. Not only was Raquel a mestiza, but she also wasn't a great beauty in my eyes. It was true that the men of the colony held a common belief that the mixture of Spanish and Aztec blood produced women of exceptional grace and beauty, but that did not make her acceptable as my wife.

When I started to list my objections to Uncle Bruto, he cut me off. “Do you enjoy your fine horses?” my uncle asked. “Thoroughbreds that a duke would envy? The wardrobe of a prince? Your card games, expensive wines, imported cigarros, and whores every night with your amigos? Tell me, muchacho, would you rather get a job as a muleteer? Because you will be working with your feet in manure if Raquel's father is granted the license.”

¡Ay de mí!
Such a fall from grace was unthinkable. I agreed to the match. And decided I would also get to know the señorita, though with an arranged marriage knowing your bride-to-be well before the wedding night was not considered prudent.

While not possessing attributes that I prized, Raquel was a woman of many talents. Educated not only in the ways of running a household and serving her husband, she had studied art, literature, science, mathematics, music, history, even philosophy—all the things I despised.

“I read and write poetry,” she told me, as we walked in her family's garden during my first visit. “I've read Sor Juana, Calderón, Moratin, and Dante. I've studied Juvenal and Tacitus, play the piano, corresponded with Madame de Stael in Paris, read Mary Wollstonecraft's
A Vindication of the Rights of Women
, in which she proved that the education system deliberately trains women to be frivolous and incapable. I've—”

“¡Ay María!”
I crossed myself.

She stared at me openmouthed. “Why did you do that?”

“What?”

“You made the sign of the cross and spoke the name of the Holy Mother.”

“For certain, I always seek the protection of heaven when I am in the presence of the devil.”

“Is that what you think of me? A devil?”

“Not you. The devil's servant is the person who permitted you to delve into such nonsense.” I'd heard that her father was permissive toward his children. I was stunned by the damage his permissiveness had done to the poor girl's mind.

“Do you think because a woman has a brain and uses it for something besides household chores and babies that she's a demon?”

“Not a demon, señorita, but a woman who is damaging her mind.” I shook my finger at her. “That is not my opinion alone; all men share the view. Music, philosophy, poetry—those are the interests of priests and scholars. Women have no business contemplating such matters.”

Everyone knows that a woman's mind is not capable of dealing with matters outside the family and household. Like peons, women are of limited intellect, not estúpido, of course, but mentally incapable of comprehending politics, commerce, and fine horses—the things most important to society.

“Women should read books and study the world,” she said.

“A woman's place is in the kitchen and in a man's bed.”

She shot me a look of angry determination. “I'm sorry, señor, that you find I will be an unsuitable wife.”

She left in a huff. I went after her and used my best charms to soothe things over, the grim specter of laboring in a stable still snapping at my heels.

We rode out the crisis, and soon I courted her in the proper way. After I presented her with a gold and pearl necklace, I stood under her balcony on Saturday nights to serenade her with love songs and a guitar.

We avoided talk of her book learning. Secretly, I feared the harm done to her tender mind by those mountains of words and ideas was already beyond repair. Could I undo the damage? Could she still perform her duties as a wife?

I discussed my fears with my drinking compañeros, and we all concluded that the problem was her father: He was a weak-willed fool, filled with too much book learning himself. His library of over a hundred volumes had clearly muddled both their minds.

Some dandies at the paseo struck another blow at my composure when they derided Raquel for sometimes riding horses. Now, mind you, women have been known to ride caballos. Revoltingly mounted on a ridiculous contraption known as a sidesaddle, some headstrong women have humiliated themselves on the paseo. One sometimes glimpsed women of the lower classes, the wives of vaqueros and rancheros, seated on a horse or mule in front of their husbands, while he holds her waist with one hand and the reins with the other. But Raquel had
ridden a horse like a man,
wearing split skirts and petticoats.
¡Dios mío!
Now the whole city was mocking me.

The dandies shut up and moved away when I spurred Tempest toward them. They knew if they did not leave they would face me on the field of honor—and I was not one of them, a soft, silken caballero. I earned my big spurs not simply through an accident of birth but in the saddle, outriding, outshooting, and outroping the best vaqueros on my hacienda. On horseback, I chased a bull out on the range until I came up behind it and sent it to the ground by grabbing its tail. These paseo peacocks knew my abilities. They disliked me for them but dared not call me out.

Raquel scandalizing herself was so serious, however, I again brought the matter up with the compañeros I drink and whore with. They concurred
that she needed a strong hand to know that I was her lord and master, even before marriage.

Thinking about their advice, I decided to seduce Raquel, to learn whether her education had damaged her beyond the point of being able to perform her most important matrimonial duties. The plan, however, was not without risk. If I impregnated her, there would be scandal, and we would both lose face. But a smart caballero knew the art of coitus interruptus, the sin for which God condemned Onan. If I left my seed in a whore or a servant girl, pregnancy was of no consequence. The law ignored offspring from such casual liaisons, affording them no privileges or rights. To deflower a woman of quality, however, would bring down the wrath of God to say nothing of her male relatives: pistols at dawn and financial retribution.

While Raquel was a mestiza, her father was a gachupine, a man of wealth and substance. To such a family, virtue and virginity not only were synonymous, they also were prized because the loss could bar a woman from a financially advantageous marriage.

That a man was free to conjugate beyond the marriage bed was understood. God in his indubitable wisdom had designed, ordained, and predetermined man's peripatetic lust, thus making it divinely destined, the way of the world.

¡Ay!
It was extremely imprudent to debauch one's intended esposa, but my mind and body have not always obeyed society's dictates.

One evening after dinner I persuaded her to stroll with me in her family garden. I was in a jovial mood, my stomach full with rare beef and rarer wine. The evening was mild, even a little warm, and the air was fragrant with roses. The only damper on my plan was the elderly aunt who accompanied us on our walk. A young lady required a chaperone even in her own garden. She followed behind us, a little unsteady. At last, she sat wearily on a rock bench and closed her eyes.

“Poor dear, she's old and tired,” Raquel said in a loving tone.

The old woman's chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm.

“She drank too much wine.”

I pulled her roughly to me and put my arms around her, ready to kiss her.

“Someone might see us.”

“No one is around but your aunt, and, look, the old woman is fast asleep,” I whispered. “Come with me. I want to show you something,” I told her, my voice thick with desire. Grabbing her hand, I pulled her behind a row of bushes.

“Juan, what has gotten into you? The wine has made you crazy.”

We tumbled to the ground together, myself on top. “I saw the way you looked at me this evening,” I said.

“You are a striking figure of a man.”

She didn't stop me when I kissed her on the mouth. In fact, she returned my kiss with surprising ardor, and the wine spurred me on.

“I see longing in your eyes,” I told her.

“I want my husband to be pleased.”

I looked at her, bewildered.

“But—” she said, almost with a pained looked on her face.

“What is wrong?”

“I have so much to learn,” she said hesitantly, lowering her eyes, “about pleasing . . . you . . .”

I couldn't help but laugh. “
Ay,
I will teach you. Give me your hand.”

I already felt the heat rising in my body as I guided her hand to my loins. “Now touch it.”

She looked around and hesitated for a moment.

“It's getting hard . . . and big . . . and growing bigger!” she said, confused.

My pride swelled as did my garrancha from the pressure of her grip.

I spun for her the fables men have spun for women since the beginning of time: promises of love eternal, faith and fealty, inviolable discretion . . . now . . . forever . . . I promised to cherish her until the sun died blind, blackened to the heart; until man, Earth, the stars themselves were blotted out. I swore the deity Himself would bless our consummation . . . and that after all I was her husband in all things but the ring. We were to be married, were we not?

Desire rode me like a ram in rut. I pulled her cotton blouse down and sucked her breast. Discarding my boots and pants, I frantically fumbled through her mounds and mountains of petticoats. Removing her undergarments, I gingerly spread her legs apart. As I pushed my throbbing organ against her pristine loins, into her immaculate yet magically sensuous opening, she let out a soft strangled cry—half pain, half pleasure—and a sigh, another sigh, the word
yes
, faintly audible above her sighs, and again
yes
. At the same time she enveloped my hips with her legs, squeezing me, holding me, then hanging on for dear life. She had to, for I was bucking now—as if I were an outlaw llano stallion and El Diablo himself was mounting my back and roweling my ribs, as if I were possessed by wind and rain and fire, by a sword of fire. Deeper, harder, I bucked, riding us both into a whirlwind of rain and fire, but the latter, a hurricane of fire, a chaos of fire, a fire of fires, straight on through to the hell-hot core of the sun.