Aztec Autumn - Jennings Gary. Страница 31

There are two Nahuatl words meaning "deranged." Tlahuele refers to a person who is violently and dangerously insane. Xolopitli refers to one who is witless in only a moony and harmless degree.

I said, "But could you build one if I show you pictures of the parts that make it work?"

"How can you possibly do that? None of us is allowed anywhere near the white men's arms or armor."

"I have done that. Here, look." I showed him the paper of drawings I had made, and, right there, with a bit of charcoal, I completed a couple of the pictures that had been left unfinished when Alonso interrupted me. I told Pochotl what the drawings represented and how the various pieces performed to make an arcabuz do its death-dealing.

Pochotl mumbled, "Well, it would not be impossible to forge and shape the pieces, and to fit them together as you have described. But this is work for a common smith, not for an artificer of delicate jewelry. All of it, anyway, except for these strange things you call springs."

"Except the springs, exactly," I said. "That is why I come to you."

"Even assuming I can lay hands on the iron and steel required, why should I waste my time fooling with such a complicated contraption?"

"Waste what time?" I asked sardonically. "What are you spending your time on, beyond eating and sleeping?"

"Be that as it may, I told you I want nothing to do with your ludicrous idea of revolution! Making an unlawful weapon for you would involve me in your tlahuele delirium, and I would stand yoked beside you at the burning stake!"

"I shall absolve you and go to the stake alone," I said. "Meanwhile, suppose I offer you a reward irresistible in payment for the arcabuz?"

He said nothing, only glared darkly at me.

"The Christians are looking for an artist to sculpture for their Cathedral numerous items of gold and silver and gems." Pochotl's eyes went from dark to brightly glowing. "Dishes and cups and other vessels, also articles that I cannot describe to you, all to be most ornately worked. Splendiferous things. The man who makes those will leave a heritage to posterity. An outlandish posterity, of course, but—"

"But artistry is artistry!" Pochotl exclaimed. "Even in the service of an alien people and an alien religion!"

"Indubitably," I said, complacent. "And, as you yourself have remarked, I am something of a darling of the Christian clergy. Were I to put in a word on behalf of a certain incomparable artificer..."

"Would you? Yyo ayyo, Cuatl Tenamaxtli, would you?"

"Should I do so, I believe that artist would be assured of the commission to do the work. And all I would ask in return would be that he waste his free time in the construction of my arcabuz."

Pochotl snatched up the paper of my drawings. "Let me take and study this." He started away, muttering, "...Have to contrive some way to procure the metals..." But then he turned back, frowning, and said, "When you explained the workings of the arcabuz, Tenamaxtli, you made it plain that the secret powder called polvora is the one vital component. What is the use of my building this weapon if you have no polvora?"

"I have a pinch of it," I said, "and I think I may be able to divine the separate constituents. By the time you have made the weapon, Pochotl, I hope to have the polvora in abundance. That young soldier was indiscreet enough to give me a hint that may help."

"The hint," I said to Netzlin and Citlali, "was that women make some contribution to this powdery mixture. An intimate contribution, he called it."

Citlali widened her eyes at that, as she and her husband and I, squatting on the earthen floor of their little house, regarded the pinch of polvora I had carefully put onto a piece of bark paper.

"As you can see," I went on, "the powder appears gray in color. But, working very meticulously with the tip of a tiny feather, I have succeeded in separating the almost impalpable grains of it. As best I can determine, there are only three different sorts mixed together. One kind is black, one is yellow and one is white."

Netzlin grunted skeptically. "So much painstaking and ticklish labor, and what do you learn from that? The specks could be pollens from any number of different flowers."

"But they are not," I said. "I have already identified two of them, simply by touching a few grains of each to my tongue. The black specks are nothing but common charcoal. The yellow ones are the dust of that crusty excretion found around the vents of any volcano. The Spaniards use that for several other purposes as well—for preserving fruits, for making dyes, for caulking their wine casks—and they call it azufre."

"So those two would be easy for you to procure," said Netzlin. "But the white grains defy your so-clever investigation?"

"Yes. All I can tell about those is that they taste something like salt, only more sharp and bitter. That is why I brought the polvora here"—I turned to Citlali—"because that soldier spoke of women."

She smiled with good humor but shrugged helplessly. "I can discern the white grains in that little pile, but I certainly do not recognize them. Why should a woman's eyes see more to them than yours do, Tenamaxtli?"

"Perhaps not the eyes," I said. "A woman's other senses and intuitions are known to be much more acute than a man's. Here, I will separate out a number of those specks." I had brought the little feather, and delicately employed it, so that I teased a minute quantity of the white grains apart from the rest. "Now, taste them, Citlali."

"Must I?" she asked, eyeing them askance. Then she leaned forward—with considerable effort, because her protuberant belly was in the way—lowered her head to the paper and sniffed. "Must I really taste them?" she asked again, sitting back on her heels. "They smell exactly like xitli."

"Xitli?" said both Netzlin and myself, blinking at her, because that word means "urine."

Citlali blushed with embarrassment and said, "Well, like my xitli, anyway. You see, Tenamaxtli, we have only a single public retiring-closet here on this street, and only immodest women go there to urinate. Most of us use axixcaltin pots and, when they are full, go and empty them in that closet's pit."

"But nobody—not even a Spanish woman, I am sure—urinates powder," I said. "Unless, Citlali, you are one uncommon human being."

"I am no such thing, you simpleton!" she said, in mock anger, but blushing again. "However, I have noticed that while the xitli sits undisturbed between emptyings, at the bottom of the axixcali there come into being some little whitish crystals."

I stared at her, cogitating.

"The way a moss or a scale sometimes develops at the bottom of a water jar," she elaborated, as if she thought me so dense that I needed a simple illustration.

I continued staring at her, making her blush redder yet.

"Those crystals I speak of," she said, "if they were ground very fine on a metlatl stone, they would be a powder just like those white grains you have there."

Almost breathlessly, I said, "You may have hit on it, Citlali."

"What?!" her husband exclaimed. "You think that is why the soldier mentioned women in connection with the secret powder?"