No wonder Tula cowered before him now. Everything she had ever been taught to believe had been destroyed today by men like him.
Benicio unbuttoned his doublet and draped it over her shoulders, but she pushed it off of her as if it might harm her. ‘I am sorry,’ he said, though he might as well have been consoling himself.
He did not agree with what Cortés had done. The practice of human sacrifice was horrific, but so was hanging, beheading and burning—things that happened regularly in Spain, though Benicio had long ago learned to keep such ideas to himself.
Still, it made no sense that Cortés would do such a thing to his only allies. Then again, many of Cortés’s actions made little sense. When Benicio had awoken that morning, for example, he had made his way down the hill to behold sinking masts amidst an empty harbour. In the night, Cortés had sunk all the Spanish ships.
Now his conscripts had no choice but to follow Cortés on his mission, for there was no longer any easy way home. What was worse, Cortés had placed a bounty on the head of any mutineer. Any man found to be leaving Cortés’s ‘holy company’, as he called it, had been ordered captured or killed, with a guaranteed reward.
Benicio unbuckled his sword belt and lay down his scabbard on the hard earth. In a sense, he was as trapped as Tula was now. Benicio pulled two rations of dried fish from his bag. He held out a piece before Tula’s folded arms, but she did not move to accept it. Instead she kept her eyes fixed upon the ground.
‘You must eat,’ he said, putting a piece into his own mouth, though in truth he had little appetite himself. Benicio saw a tear bulge, then break upon her cheek. She refused to look at him.
It occurred to Benicio that Tula probably could not stand the sight of him.
Benicio pulled his dagger from its hilt and studied it. He had an idea, and quickly jumped to his feet. In moments he was squatting by a nearby stream, dipping the well-honed blade in the water and dragging it over his chin. He was amazed at how quickly a decade’s worth of beard growth could go falling to the ground. The other men would surely chide him tomorrow when they saw his clean cheeks. They would call him pretty and muse about the effects of too many hours in the sun.
Benicio did not care. He could endure far worse chiding if it meant winning back this woman’s trust. He needed her on his side and he needed her to know that he was on hers.
He scraped the last of his long whiskers from his cheeks and splashed his face with water. When she saw him now, she would see a man very different from those who had desecrated her temple. She would see a man who was not a killer, or a warrior, or a thief. God willing, she would see a good man, a man she could trust.
He pictured her peering up at him with that shy, curious smile—the one she had flashed him that night in his hut. He hoped she would laugh at his new appearance, or even tease him about it. She seemed possessed of such a large spirit and he wished that she would share it with him again.
He touched his bare cheeks. He wondered briefly if it was really her trust that he so craved, or something else.
He marched back to the kapok tree and greeted her, but he might just as well have painted his body blue, because she kept her eyes fixed upon the ground. He sat down between the tree roots and faced her, hoping to force her gaze to meet his own. He needed her to see that he was no longer one of the men who had ruined her temple and destroyed her gods. He was Benicio, her partner.
Benicio, her friend.
He stayed facing her as the light of day waned. She was as obstinate as the roots themselves and seemed to bury herself in her own misery. Finally, Benicio stood. He needed to prepare their beds while there was still light. He hailed the nearest porter and retrieved two bed mats from the man. Then he set about creating two separate beds between the adjacent roots of the tree.
When he returned to where she sat, he saw the stains of tears upon her cheeks. She continued to stare at the ground. He placed himself before her once again, trying to think of how he might reach her.
He had another idea. He unclasped the small metal crucifix he wore around his neck and held it in his hand. He looked at it for a long while. It was a simple cross, fashioned in copper. When the authorities of the Inquisition would come to the university in search of Muslims and Jews, Benicio would always demonstrate his cross to them, careful to conceal the letters from Copernicus that he studied.
He stared hard at the tiny cross. It seemed odd that such a simple symbol could provide such magical protection, especially in light of all the killing that took place in its name.
He thrust the shiny object into her view, then crushed it in his hand. He might have been condemning himself to eternal damnation, though he doubted that his God would protest an attempt to win the trust of a brave, worthy woman.
Finally, she lifted her gaze and stared at the bent cross in his palm.
‘You lost your gods today, so I shall lose mine,’ he said, though he knew she did not understand his words. He threw the cross out into the jungle.
She shook her head in protest and stood to retrieve the object, but he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back down. Look at me, he thought. See me.
Finally, her eyes met his and Benicio froze. It was the first time she had looked at him directly in many days and he found himself fighting to slow his breaths. Her fierce loveliness seemed to bubble up from some deep well within her, inviting him to drink. And drink, he did, for he had never beheld a woman so magnificently beautiful.
Finally, she released him, peering uncertainly at the small patch of sky above them, as if any moment it might come crashing down.
‘No,’ he said, recovering his wits. He took her face in his hands. ‘Do not rely on the gods.’ He stared into her eyes. ‘Rely on me.’
And in that moment he realised that it was not her trust he sought, but her affection. He wanted her to want him, to need him, even. It was entirely improper, but he wanted to wrap his large body around hers and protect her from everything that could do her harm.
He released her face. ‘It is all right,’ he whispered lamely. ‘Everything is going to be all right.’
To his surprise, she did not turn away. Instead, she blinked at him and offered him a half-smile.
He smiled back at her, hearing a nearby woodpecker beat a trunk like a lonely drum.
Benicio watched her place her hands atop the wide fig leaf that stretched across the roots in the adjacent root well. She traced her fingers across the leaf’s deep veins, then nodded in approval. Whatever crime Captain Cortés had committed against the Totonacs on this terrible day, it appeared she would not hold it against Benicio.
On impulse, Benicio picked a purple flower he had spied growing on the ground. He stood and held it out to her and she accepted it graciously, taking a lusty whiff into her nose. She peered at him with those bottomless eyes, then let her gaze slide down to his chin.
‘No more beard,’ Benicio said. ‘Do you like it?’
She reached out her hand and swept it across his cheek.
It seemed that she did.
A chill shivered down his neck and travelled to his limbs. He wished to catch her hand and keep it there where it rested upon his cheek, but he knew that her touch did dangerous things to his gentlemanly restraint. She brushed her fingers across his other cheek, this time a little slower, and Benicio felt his desire rising quickly. What in Hell was she doing to him now?
He closed his eyes. Think, Benicio. Use your wits.
He needed a distraction—something that would divert her from her dangerous path. A puzzle! He unwrapped his cotton armour and pulled his book from beneath his chemise. He unfolded the map before them, pointing to its middle. Tula sighed, then nodded. ‘Tenochtitlan,’ she intoned.
She had taken her hand off his cheek, thank God.
‘Taak’in,’ he said. ‘Gold.’ He pointed to the circle at the top of the diamond and she nodded again. But did she really understand? He needed her to know that he was not like Cortés. He did not wish to steal her gods. He only wished to steal her enemy’s gold.
Tula tilted her head suddenly, seeming to strike upon an idea. She pointed to him. ‘Gold,’ she repeated. She pointed to herself. ‘Sister.’
Benicio could hardly believe his ears. She had learned a Spanish word, but how?
‘Malinali,’ Tula said, seeming to read his mind. Cortés’s translator had marched with the Totonac maidens for much of the day. Benicio had guessed that she had been trying to console the Totonac women over the loss of their gods. Apparently instead she had been giving them lessons in the Castilian tongue.
‘Sister,’ Tula repeated, then pointed west. ‘Tenochtitlan.’
Was she trying to tell him that her sister was in the Mexica capital of Tenochtitlan? She crossed her arms at the wrists and raised them in the air. ‘Sister,’ she said. ‘Tenochtitlan.’
‘Your sister was taken to Tenochtitlan?’ Benicio asked. He knew of the mass abduction at the Totonac tlachtli court. It had occurred the same evening that he and Tula had fallen into the cenote. ‘Your sister was abducted?’ he asked. She could not possibly understand him.
Or perhaps she could. The eyes that only moments ago were in tears now shone with an inner light. She pointed at him again. ‘Tenochtitlan. Gold.’
‘Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘I wish to find gold in Tenochtitlan.’
Instead of pointing at herself, however, she continued to point at Benicio. ‘Tenochtitlan. Sister,’ she said, then she pointed at herself. ‘Tenochtitlan. Gold.’
Slowly he absorbed her meaning. She repeated the command. ‘Benicio. Tenochtitlan. Sister.’ She pointed again at herself. ‘Tula. Tenochtitlan. Gold.’
He nodded, studying the fierce, radiant woman with whom he had apparently just struck a deal: If he would help her save her sister, she would help him find his gold. He held out his hand. In response, she held her finger in the air.
One last thing, she seemed to say, and she pointed at his nose.
His nose? He touched it curiously, then winced. It was still tender from the break and still very much bent.
She nodded her head hypnotically and he found himself nodding his head in return. But what exactly was he was agreeing to?
She took a deep breath. Then she placed both hands on the side of his face and quickly and violently snapped the broken bones back into their places.
‘Ah!’ Benicio hollered, and an unbearable pain radiated through his body. ‘Bruja!’
But she would not indulge his cries. Coolly, soberly, she held out her hand and spoke. ‘Benicio. Tenochtitlan. Sister. Tula. Tenochtitlan. Gold.’ Their agreement was still valid. She had merely put him in his place.
Reeling in pain and a strange kind of awe, Benicio took her hand in his.
And he shook it.