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forward.
      ———————
     
    The naturales had not heard them over the din of cannon fire and the din of their own drums and whistles. They had their backs to them; they would be taken completely by surprise. But then Benitez realised what Cortés had not; their approach would take them directly towards a gridwork of irrigation ditches. His horse stumbled in one of the drains and he saw other mounts around him rear up, their riders thrown from the saddle.
    Benitez spurred on his own piebald mare. If their attack failed now, they would all die.
    He remembered the bones in the temple at Potonchan.
    Now he was on hard ground again, galloping fast. A cry went up from the Indians, echoed around the valley in one ululating shriek of terror. The naturales in front of him dropped their clubs and spears and ran. Benitez charged his horse among them.
    At the finish of his charge he turned, expecting to see the rest of the cavalry beside him. But there was no one. He was quite alone. The others were still mired in the mud.
    Benitez had no choice. He spurred his horse around to charge again. First a dozen, then a hundred, then thousands, they ran from him, like a ripple spreading from a stone dropped in the still surface of a lake. A cheer went up from Ordaz’s beleaguered infantrymen.
    He wheeled and charged again, his blood drumming in his ears. He pursued the great army of the Indians like a dog after sheep.
    Finally the rest of the jinetas arrived, and the retreat turned into rout. Benitez reined in, the whirlwind of dust in his mouth. He threw back his head to shout defiance at the blue sky. He could not believe that he had dared so much and survived.
      ———————
     
    Norte wandered the battlefield, sickened to his soul. Such a wreckage of limbs; heaving and bloody mounds of meat moaned with pain, some still trying to crawl away. The Spaniards stood among them, in their armour, grinning and shouting and clapping each other on the back. Thanks to Cortés they had achieved the impossible.
    Norte had secretly hoped the Indians would prevail, even though it would have meant his own certain death. He was sure that he could endure it, no matter what they did to him; it was the humiliation and despair of living that was unendurable.
    “Everything was lost,” he heard one of the soldiers, Guzman, saying. “Then I saw him. He came out of the dust on a white horse. When the naturales saw him, they fled!”
    “Who?” Cristobal Flores asked him.
    “Santiago! Saint James! I saw him there on the field for just a moment and then he vanished, into the dust. Disappeared!”
    Stupid, Norte thought. The Spaniards were as stupid and as superstitious as the naturales . “It was Benitez,” he said.
    Guzman and Flores stared at him.
    “What you saw was not Santiago. It was Benitez!”
    “Do you smell something?” Guzman said to Flores.
    Flores turned his head to the wind. “Savages. I thought we killed them all.”
    Guzman leaned over one of the dead Indians and cut off an ear. He tossed it at Norte’s feet. “Breakfast,” he said.
     
     
Chapter Five
     
    Potonchan
     
    There were four war canoes, garlanded with flowers and sitting low in the water. As they drew up to the bank the Spaniards crowded around, shouting and nudging each other with their elbows, behaving like schoolboys.
    Cortés came down to the riverbank to greet the deputation, accompanied by Aguilar in his brown Franciscan habit. The naturales had finally sued for peace and he had demanded a token of their goodwill. The spoils of his victory were in the canoes.
    The cacique greeted Cortés in the traditional way, first dropping to his knees, then putting his fingers to the ground and touching them to his lips.
    “He asks you to accept these small tokens of their friendship,” Aguilar said, translating from the chief’s Chontal Maya. “He also begs your indulgence for their foolishness in attacking you.”
    Cortés regally inclined his head.