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and though many of us received wounds, our losses were slight. The naturales employ some manner of brittle glass for their swords and lances and it breaks easily against a steel buckler or breastplate. Their shields are made of leather or wood, which is no hindrance to good Toledo steel. Furthermore, I have been questioning Brother Aguilar and the renegade, Norte, at length, about the Indian ways. It appears that their greatest honour in battle is not to kill but to capture, so the prisoner may be used in their infernal sacrifices.” He glanced at Benitez. “Such a tactic works to our great benefit, does it not?”
    Benitez had turned pale. He nodded. “Indeed, my lord.”
    “This appears to be the reason why so many of them were eager to throw themselves on the point of our swords.” He looked around the table. “It seems to me that as long as we do not grow fatigued from killing them, our eventual victory is assured.”
    “Even so,” Ordaz objected, “there must come a point when the odds are so great that we cannot kill them as quickly as need demands. The naturales must at this very moment be gathering a much greater army.”
    “Perhaps. But if two falconet s fired into a swamp can make them scatter, imagine their reaction when we employ a full battery of cannon against their ranks. And,” he paused and smiled, a gambler laying his final trump card, “they have yet to witness a warhorse in full charge.”
      ———————
    After his officers had left Cortés leaned back in his chair and stared at his flagship, now framed by the temple entrance against the glittering waters of the bay. One day they will write ballads of me, he thought. I will be remembered in the same breath as Alexander, or the Cid. In Cuba he was just another poor planter, a satellite of Velàsquez the governor, but here he would become that other man, the man he dreamed himself to be.
     
    Ceutla
     
    Ordaz advanced the infantry through the fields of maize, his progress hampered by the network of irrigation channels and drainage ditches. On the other side of the valley were several thousand naturales , the plumes of their head-dresses dancing in the wind like ears of corn. Benitez watched from their hiding place in the trees. The tumult of their whistles and drums carried to him on the wind.
    Dear God, let me live to see the sunset.
    Cortés turned in the saddle to address them. They were just sixteen, all the cavalry Cortés had. Yet he rode his horse, one hand on the reins, the other on his hip, like a duke at the head of thousands. Does nothing frighten this man?
    “This day belongs to us, gentlemen,” he shouted. “We shall wait for the moment before we charge.” His chestnut mare tossed its plumed head, nostrils flared against the scents in the air, dust and fear. “Remember to aim your lances high, at their eyes, so they cannot easily pull you from your mount. And fear for nothing, for today we do God’s work!”
    On the plain the naturales had launched themselves at Ordaz’s infantry. Benitez saw the sun flashing on steel armour, then a rolling cloud of flame and smoke as the culverin s fired their first volley.
    It was as if the Indians' front ranks had been swept away by an invisible scythe. The naturales hesitated only a moment, the survivors throwing great clouds of grass and red dust into the air in an attempt to cover their losses. A second squadron charged. Then a third. Still they came on. Some of them reached the Spanish lines, hundreds upon hundreds of brown bodies swarming forward over the piles of their dead.
    Benitez fidgeted in the saddle, his nose wrinkled against the rank sweat of his horse and the grease from his armour. His mouth was dry. It was he had always suspected; at heart he was a coward.
    Ordaz and his men began to retreat, stumbling back through the ditches and bogs.
    Cortés rose in the stirrups. “¡Santiago y cierre España! For Saint James and for Spain!”
    They started to gallop