A Signal Victory (22 page)

And then, when at last an advance party did get through to them, because the Spanish were drawn up in a clearing, the Indians seemed uncertain and would not fight. Davila had prepared an ambush of his own. Riders on the two remaining horses rushed out of cover and broke up the Indians. They were still afraid of horses.

Exasperated, Guerrero drew a bow, and shot the treacherous cacique. But that was all he could do. He was forced to flee himself. Getting well ahead, he drew up a blockade across the route he thought Davila would take. Davila avoided it, and marched on the Chable. There he had a stroke of luck. He came up from the wrong side, and stumbled on the hiding-place of the women and children. Once he had taken them hostage, there was nothing the inhabitants of Chable would do to halt him.

Davila was in no position to fight. All his men were wounded, and most of them hungry. Somehow he evaded any contact, and reached Lake Bacalar.

There he was safe, for he could seize canoes and float back to Villa Real de Chetumal. There was nothing Guerrero could do about it.

It turned out there was nothing he had to do.

As soon as he had returned, Davila held a solemn mass in the church he had improvised, but he had only to look round that room, to see what his position was. The country was in arms against him. It was only a matter of time before the Indians marched against Villa Real. And he could not defend it. Eleven of the fifty soldiers with whom he had left Campeche were dead. So were eight of the thirteen horses. There was no food, and none of them knew how to grow any. They made plantings inside the town, but nothing would grow fast enough, and very little would grow at all. Of the forty men left to him, eleven were maimed.

And something else had happened, so unbelievable that at first he did not even notice it. The Maya were not afraid of him any more. That he was, after all, Spanish, seemed to mean nothing to them.

It made him almost afraid himself.

For two months he temporized. He had no way of knowing what had happened to Montejo. He could not go inland, and he could not expect a ship, unless he sent for one. Again he tried to get a message through.

It would take a month to get any answer, given there were
anyone on the west coast left to answer. It was not a pleasant month.

Guerrero had arrived in the region. He kept well out of sight, advised, and watched. It was easy enough to intercept the messenger, who had never intended to go in the first place. He was the cacique of Tapaen, and though Davila held his son as hostage, he had no intention of complying. He merely went home. The month went on. Davila must be almost demented by now. He seized the cacique and his nobles and tortured all of them, stringing them up over a beam and burning their feet and armpits. Then it came out. No messenger had been sent. It was something it was a pleasure to confess to.

Davila tried again, and again had to wait a month.

Guerrero had all the canoes around Chetumal, whether belonging to Davila or the Indians, burnt. He was well content to wait.

Davila was starving. He had to send out a foraging party. The Indians managed to kill two of them, before Davila could make a covering sortie from Villa Real.

That reduced their numbers to thirty-eight, which was not many. Two of those developed scurvy, and the eleven wounded found their wounds were slow to heal.

There was no word from Montejo, perhaps there was no Montejo to send word, and the Indians were closing in. There was nothing else to do but flee. Davila sent out small parties to seize all the canoes they could find.

Guerrero was away in the interior, but the Indians now that they were almost free of their tormentors, began to smart, particularly the nobles, under the impertinence they had suffered. It was a word Europe had not yet invented, for it is a sin that occurs only when barbarians manage to make their way into an ancient and established society, so rich in accepted answers, that it does not take kindly to the questions of the misinformed. As yet Europe had no such society. But that they had been forced to grovel before such a pigmy conqueror, now that they had the strength to straighten up,
filled the caciques with an almost Byzantine rage, now that there were few enough of the enemy for them to punish.

They planned to annihilate Villa Real with their full host. That night the signal fires leaped up on every available hillock or pile of masonry, along the shore and far inland.

Davila knew what that meant. It was too late now to get any message to Montejo. He had the scorched but living bodies of the hostage caciques to show for that, and nothing more. He and the able men worked frantically through the night. The last thing they did was to dismantle their crosses and the church.

They did not even dare to wait for dawn, but set out at once. Some of the canoes they lashed together, to carry the horses. They had with them some Indian prisoners to act as guides, and these they shackled to the gunwales, for the sake of security, and forced them to paddle. In all there were thirty-two canoes.

As they shoved off from the jetty, the Indians were already streaming into the town, to find nothing but the smarting and hobbled caciques, and ruins everywhere.

Then, with a whoop, the canoes were sighted. The Indians piled into their own boats, and paddled after them down the bay. But by some miracle, and Davila was in such extremity that he believed it to be one, the pursuers did not catch up, and when night fell, were forced to turn back.

The Maya were cheated of revenge, but otherwise not displeased. Their countryside was in ruins, but at least the Spanish were at last gone. And they knew that coast and that ocean. Davila would die out there, somewhere, under the sun, with cracked lips, at sea. It was appropriate that he should, for death there was a protracted agony.

They had got rid of one enemy. But this time they meant to fight to the end. It was time now to uproot the others from Chichen Itza. Uproot them they did.

Guerrero was everywhere. He wanted to exult. But something
had gone wrong with him. Perhaps he was too old to feel the passions any more. He could not exult. He could only feel a determined relief.

Though he arrived there too late to see Montejo driven out, he had complete reports of what had happened, and hoped that it had been a shock to Montejo.

For in 1533 Montejo the Elder felt he had every reason to be pleased with himself. He was quite sure that he held all northern Yucatan. Ceh Pech, Ah Kin Chel, Ecab, Chikinchel, the Xiu at Mani, Sotuta, the Taxes, Chakan and Hocba-Homun had all sworn loyalty.

He could safely turn his attention now to securing that of his own men, by one means or another. There being no gold for them in Yucatan, the means were chiefly other. He divided out the Maya lands, saddled the clergy on everyone, and sent for imported Negroes, since the Indians could not be induced to work.

The Indians were impressed. They had never seen black men before. The Negroes were also impressed. When they could they deserted to the native side. It suited them better.

He pleased no one but the clergy, who baptized thousands, desecrated a few more temples every day, and made enemies everywhere. Yet they were not bad men. They were not even bigots. It was just that they were Christians, and so did not understand.

The natives were quite willing to be baptized. They were not willing to see their temples destroyed. All the good things of this world they bribed from the gods, and now these strangers were cutting them off from the source of supply. Food was becoming more sparse. Baptism was all very well, it pleased the foreigner and seemed harmless, but these new priests could not tell them when to plant their crops.

Their own priests moved quietly everywhere.

The Christians explained everything. The gods had gone into hiding. They were now something called saints.

Try as they could, the Maya had not yet been forced to
see the resemblance. Their own priests told them differently.

One by one, the provinces rose, and now it seemed only Mani was loyal. But Montejo did not trust the Xiu. Nobody in all their history ever had, and with excellent reason, for they were not to be trusted. Yet there was an irony in that. For in that peninsula only the Xiu saw the Spanish could not be beaten, even though they might seem beaten for a time. The Xiu remained loyal.

Montejo took heart. But as soon as he did so, he had another problem on his hands. Lerma, the merchant who financed his expeditions, wanted to be paid back, while there was still time. He would take his payment in slaves.

That was the one thing Montejo did not dare to give him. Not that he either disapproved or approved of slavery itself. Slavery was a fact, and one never questioned facts. But unfortunately Charles V had forbidden the taking of slaves. If Montejo gave Lerma the permission, or the assistance he wanted, or even permission to act for himself, that transgression would give his enemies in New Spain the fulcrum they needed to swing him out of office. Yucatan was a poor province, but they could not help but suspect he wanted it for some reason, and besides, he was a rich man. Once he was a private citizen back in Mexico, they could soon devise some means to strip him of his wealth.

On the other hand, he owed Lerma a great deal, and might need, moreover, his continued support. He had made him Treasurer of Yucatan, but since there was no Treasury but the funds he put into it, that could scarcely satisfy Lerma.

There was one way out. Charles V might be a Christian gentleman of the best intentions, but he was also a realist, and to a realist no law could be considered useful unless it had a loophole. It had a loophole. Though his subjects might not take slaves, they were permitted, if they had to, to resell such slaves as the Indians had taken for themselves, and in the confusion of a raid, who could tell which was which? Though Montejo could neither spare the men nor run the risk of participating in such raids himself, he could at least
suggest, though of course not openly, that if Lerma wished to make such raids, he would not interfere.

It left him with a bad conscience, but Negroes were expensive and Indians cheap. No one need ever know.

Before he had time to feel relief, news came both that Chichen Itza was in revolt, and that his nephew was cut off there.

If his nephew were murdered, then what was the use of turning Yucatan into a private holding company? There would be nobody to leave it to.

Not, exactly, that Montejo the Younger was taken by surprise, but he, too, had felt secure, and the Maya had been subtle. In the beginning they had told him only that supplies were difficult to get. The region, they said, had been disturbed. There was nothing they could do.

Then they smiled. They smiled so very agreeably that it was eight weeks before he learned that anything was wrong.

But one cannot hide hatred for ever, even in the interests of revenge. Nacon Cupul, the chief of the Cupul, could take insolence only for so long. He was a man of immense dignity. Montejo, he could see for himself, was not. He was common, coarse, and arrogant. In Yucatan he could never have been anything but a merchant. Here he thought he could buy and sell anyone.

One evening it became too much. Montejo, who had given him one order too many, turned his back. His sword rested against the wall. Nacon grabbed it and swung.

There were soldiers in the room, as always, and a cutlass is a heavy instrument. Nacon felt nothing, but staggered. Then he had time to see his right arm on the floor, bleeding, while the sword rattled away, and put his hand to the stump of his shoulder, before the soldiers moved in to kill him. Montejo merely watched.

On hearing that, the Cupul throughout the province rose at once. They knew they could not defeat him in an open stand, but they did not have to. They let him put them down. Then they cut his communications, refused either labour or supplies, and began to starve him out.

Montejo could get nothing to eat. He had to send out foraging parties. The Indians picked them off, and the more heavily they went armed, the less food they could bring back. The Cupul poured in from everywhere. Guerrero had arrived at Saci, their religious centre, and the revolt had turned into a religious crusade. They moved their men closer and closer to Chichen Itza.

Montejo tried to parley. He said he was willing to compromise with the Cupul demands. That pleased the Cupul. It meant he must be growing weak in there, in the sacred city. But there could be no compromise. They moved closer still.

Then they attacked, swarming towards the city, and killing ten Spaniards before warning could be given. There was no room in the defences for Montejo’s Indian slaves. They could only hide. The Cupul ferreted them out and killed all of them, while the Spaniards watched.

It was all they could do. They lived in a state of siege, while the Maya taunted them from barricades and breastworks thrown up around the city.

The siege lasted five months. There was no reason to attack. The Maya knew the Spanish were starving. There was no need to risk their own men. Hunger would win for them.

There was nothing for Montejo to do but counter-attack. This he did, even if it meant his men would die in front of him. He tried to choose a favourable time. But no time was favourable, for Guerrero was watching on the other side, and there were too many natives. Reinforcements had come from Sotuta and the other neighbouring provinces. The Spanish came out of their barricade into a sea of obsidian and blue-green battle plumes. No matter how many they cut down, there were always more arrows, more Indians, and more plumes. It was as futile as to try to fight the jungle itself, and this jungle had sharp edges.

They were forced to fall back as swiftly as they could into the Ball Court which was their stronghold. Out of two
hundred, they had lost one hundred and fifty men. Nor did all of those fall on the field.

Chichen Itza is a vast city, but the Ball Court is in the great court which leads to the Well of Sacrifice. In front of it is a skull rack, on its right, the Castillo, a considerable pyramid, but two hundred metres in front of it, on the other side of the square, is the Temple of the Warriors.