Sunday 28 March was not a day of rest for Cortés. After an early mass he left Potonchan two hours before dawn with two hundred men, proceeded at a forced march and reached Cintla by sunrise to pay a surprise visit to Ah Kinchil. Both the paramount chief and Muluc were detained under armed guard and the royal palace was ransacked. Other than a few small items of little value, however, no gold was found.
It was the same story in every other town and village searched during the days that followed – lean pickings or nothing at all. Gradually, after Cortés had given Alvarado a free hand to use torture (Muluc had been blinded in one eye with a hot iron, and Ah Kinchil had died, foaming at the mouth on an improvised rack), it became clear, even to Alvarado, that the Maya must either be extremely brave, stubborn and good at hiding their treasure, or – more likely – they were telling the truth and had none. This, anyway, was what Aguilar, who grew increasingly distressed at his role as interpreter during the interrogations, had been saying all along. The Maya were, in his view, a fallen people, whose once great and prosperous kingdoms had lapsed into obscurity, poverty and barbarism hundreds of years before. Nothing now remained of their former glory, except the mighty pyramids and temples, many already in ruins, they had inherited from their ancestors.
With the Velázquez faction complaining bitterly that the whole story of the rival Pedrarias expedition had been a trick to procure a hasty departure from Santiago, and demanding to know why they were wasting their time in this godforsaken, gold-bereft land, Cortés began to feel the lure of the fabled, indeed almost legendary, empire of the Mexica ever more strongly. Why, it was rumoured to possess so much gold that even its children’s toys were made of the precious metal! Moreover, although the mysterious city of Tenochtitlan, standing in its lake beyond snow-capped mountains, was always spoken of as far away, repeated questioning of traders made it clear that it could in fact be reached by forced march within as little as thirty days.
And there was something much more important, much more significant, much more meaningful to be considered.
From the moment under the silk-cotton tree when Muluc had first spoken of it, Cortés had known it was Tenochtitlan that Saint Peter had revealed to him in his dreams. The mountains wreathed in snow that must be crossed to reach it, and its distinctive location in the midst of a great lake at the heart of an immense green valley, left no room for doubt. This was the jewelled and shining city that was to be his reward.
Even while Alvarado rampaged far and wide across the lands of the Chontal Maya in the fruitless quest for gold, therefore, Cortés sent his friend Juan de Escalante out in his carrack to conduct reconnaissance. Although Tenochtitlan lay deep inland, it was said to possess certain vassal states and tributary towns along the coast – one of which, Cuetlaxtlan, had been settled by the Mexica and was ruled by a governor who, the Maya said, had been appointed directly by the great Emperor Moctezuma himself. Several Potonchan merchants knew Cuetlaxtlan well and Escalante took two of these with him, who claimed they would be able to identify the town from the sea.
While he was gone, Cortés redoubled efforts he had already begun to fulfil God’s will by converting the Chontal Maya to Christianity. To this end, speaking through Aguilar, he preached several lengthy sermons to the assembled populations of Potonchan and Cintla, urging them to destroy their idols, which were not gods but evil things and images of Satan. From now on, he said, they must worship the Lord Jesus Christ and believe only in him. Soon afterwards, perhaps expedited by Alvarado’s activities, which had spread great fear throughout the region, there was a general destruction of idols, with those of stone being rolled down pyramid steps and smashed while those of wood were heaped up into fires and burnt. Several hundred people, many leading nobles amongst them, also came forward for baptism at the hands of Father Olmedo, who conducted the ceremonies but nonetheless confided in Cortés that he did not think their conversion would last. ‘We’re moving too fast,’ he said. ‘They act out of fear of us, not because the faith has taken root in their hearts.’
‘What then would you have me do, Father?’
‘Teach them by example. Show them the meaning of Christian love.’
Cortés cast a glance at the crowd of converts. ‘What we have achieved here will have to serve for the present, Olmedo. These New Lands are vast, time presses, and this is but the beginning of our conquests. Praise be to God, all things will prosper for us, and wherever we go we will spread the word.’
After a voyage of just eight days, Escalante returned. Although the Maya said twenty days were required to reach Cuetlaxtlan on foot, through the dense jungles of the Yucatán, the journey by sea proved much shorter. Escalante did not land, but observed the well-ordered streets and grand buildings of the Mexica town from the deck of his carrack, and judged it to be rich, far more prosperous than Potonchan and Cintla, and linked by good roads to several other equally impressive settlements further along the coast.
Cortés embraced his friend. ‘Well done, Juan,’ he said. ‘This is welcome news!’
‘So, shall we go there?’ Escalante asked.
Cortés nodded. ‘By God, yes! And from Cuetlaxtlan we march on those good roads you saw to the golden city of Tenochtitlan!’
Indeed the news had come just in time. During Escalante’s absence, the Velazquistas never stopped bellyaching and spreading dissent and the men had grown mutinous with inaction, complaining that Cortés had brought them across the sea to fight battles with savages for no pay. Now, at last, he had a target to distract them and the gold of the Mexica to dangle before their eyes.
It was Thursday 15 April. ‘We sail on Sunday,’ Cortés said.
It would be Palm Sunday. An auspicious day.
Puertocarrero rolled over in his sleep, flung out a hairy leg, mumbled incoherently and let rip another colossal fart, filling the bedroom that Malinal was obliged to share with him in the palace at Potonchan with a hideous, miasmic stink. When she’d first been given to him, part of her had still been open to the possibility that he and his fellow Spaniards might be gods, but she’d since learned better. Indeed, even if it were not for Puertocarrero’s uncouth manners and his constant demands for sex, she would have known from the smell of his farts alone that he was a man, as they all were, with every weakness, folly and stupidity to which the male sex was prone. To be sure, they looked very different from the Maya or the Mexica, and their language – which Malinal had already begun to learn – was quite unlike any other she had ever heard. Admittedly, also, their customs and behaviour were strange, they were unusually disciplined and determined, and their weapons and trained animals were extraordinary. Nevertheless, when all was said and done, they were men and nothing more than men and, as such, no matter how fearsome and alien they might seem, they could be understood, manipulated and managed.
All of them, that is, except their great war leader Hernán Cortés, who spent much of his time out of Potonchan, often in the company of his cruel but handsome second-in-command Pedro de Alvarado. Malinal soon learned – from servants Muluc had sent to work for them in the palace – that they were ransacking all the towns of the region for gold, which seemed to obsess them as much as it obsessed the Mexica. It was even said that Ah Kinchil and Muluc had been tortured to surrender stores of gold the white men believed they had hidden – but of course they had none to give. Malinal neither knew nor cared if these reports were true; the two chiefs had conspired to ruin her life and, in her opinion, deserved whatever bad things came to them.
When not hunting for gold, Cortés’s other favourite activity – to which he showed great dedication – was destroying the idols of the gods in the temples and preaching to the people of Cintla and Potonchan about his own strange and incomprehensible religion. Since everyone was terrified of him, he won many converts.
On the occasions when he was not preoccupied with these activities, Malinal several times asked Aguilar’s help to approach Cortés and speak to him. As he had done on the very first day, however,
the Spanish interpreter continued to rebuff her.
This evening, for the first time, she’d understood why.
Cortés had made an announcement to the assembled army, which Aguilar had been required to translate for the benefit of all twenty of the female slaves who would be accompanying them, that the Spaniards had concluded their business with the Chontal Maya and would soon be moving on to the lands of the Mexica. They would go first by ship to the coastal town of Cuetlaxtlan – everyone must be ready to embark in just three days’ time – and from there they would strike inland to Tenochtitlan, the Mexica capital. This they would seize by force, take its Emperor Moctezuma ‘dead or alive’, and help themselves to the vast hoard of gold his empire was reputed to have amassed.
Reputed? Malinal thought. Reputed! If she’d been allowed to talk to Cortés, she could have told him weeks before that it was not just a matter of ‘reputed’. The Mexica were the richest people in the entire world, Tenochtitlan overflowed with gold and Moctezuma’s treasuries were stuffed to bursting point with it.
Clearly Aguilar had acted so strangely because he knew Malinal was fluent in Nahuatl – which he spoke not a word of – and could see she was clever enough to learn Castilian and learn it quickly. The foolish man must fear, since it was inevitable that the Spaniards’ lust for gold would sooner or later lead to the Mexica, that she would then usurp his privileged place at Cortés’s side. While not actually lying to Cortés about the fabulous wealth of Tenochtitlan, the interpreter had therefore done all he could – notably by keeping Malinal away from him – to divert and delay this important intelligence and prevent him from discovering how indispensable she might prove to the Spanish cause.
Perhaps Aguilar had even hoped the slaves would be left behind when the Spaniards continued their journey, but this evening’s announcement had put paid to that! There was no way Puertocarrero or any of the other officers who’d been given women were going to do without their all-purpose cooks, cleaners and bedroom companions, and Cortés had made a point of confirming they would accompany the army in its advance on Tenochtitlan.
So once again Malinal realised that she had been reunited with her fate. Very soon Cortés would meet the lords of the Mexica and find he was unable to talk to them. When he did, no matter how Aguilar might try to block her, she would be there to take her rightful place in history.
It was Palm Sunday, 18 April 1519, and Pepillo stood with Cortés and the pilot Alaminos on the navigation deck of the Santa María de la Concepción as the great flagship raised sail under scudding clouds and led the fleet north out of the bay at Potonchan.
It was exactly two months to the day, Pepillo realised, since he’d left Cuba on a night of storm to begin the journey that had brought him to this place and this time.
He remembered how he’d imagined the journey would be – a noble quest through faraway lands in the company of gallant warriors to achieve a sacred purpose. Yet in reality he’d taken part in the murder of a wicked friar, seen chivalry thrown to the winds in the lust for gold, and found a true friend only to have him snatched away again so cruelly he thought his heart must never mend.
That journey had ended at Potonchan. The quest had never been noble, chivalry was dust and Melchior lay cold and dead in the ground, but the slap of the waves against the keel, the whistle of the wind through the rigging, and the crack and whip of the sails spoke through Pepillo’s sorrow to an adventure that had only just begun.
‘Well, lad,’ said Cortés. ‘What do you think? This great Emperor Moctezuma we’re going to see commands an army of two hundred thousand men. Can we beat them?’
Pepillo fondled the ears of his new Melchior. Part wolfhound part greyhound, the pup had thrived on goat’s milk, was already eating flesh with his new sharp teeth and had grown beyond all recognition in the past three weeks. He was proving to be a fine companion – strong, brave, endlessly inquisitive and loyal – and Pepillo was determined he would never be put to war with the rest of the pack.
He was thinking about the question. Glimpses of the Cortés he’d met on the road to Santiago harbour could still be seen from time to time, but the caudillo had grown harsh and cruel since then, with sudden dark moods and dangerous rages. It was not always wise to speak the truth to him but rather to divine what he wished to hear and say that instead.
‘Let there be two hundred thousand men, sir,’ Pepillo answered finally, ‘or twice that number. It makes no difference. You lead the army of God and even the greatest empire of these lands will not stand against it.’
For a moment Cortés seemed lost in thought. But then he nodded his head. ‘I may have to deal with Moctezuma severely,’ he said quietly, almost to himself, ‘but when we do God’s work I’m told there is no sin in it. Would you say that’s true, Pepillo?’
‘I’m certain it must be true, sir,’ Pepillo replied. ‘For if God is good then surely no evil can be done by those who serve him?’
It was the right thing to say.
Time Frame, Principal Settings and Cast of Characters
Time Frame and Subject Matter
War God: Nights of the Witch unfolds in the two-month period between 18 February 1519 and 18 April 1519. The book deals with the opening events of the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Five hundred Spanish adventurers led by Hernando Cortés pit themselves against the might of the Mexica (Aztec) empire. The empire is ruled with an iron hand by the feared Moctezuma, who has two hundred thousand brutal and experienced warriors at his command.
Principal settings
(1) Tenochtitlan, capital city of the Mexica (Aztec) empire of ancient Mexico, 1325 to 1521. Built on an island in the middle of a huge salt lake (Lake Texcoco) in the Valley of Mexico. The Valley of Mexico is ringed by distant snow-capped mountains. At the heart of the valley is Lake Texcoco. At the heart of Lake Texcoco is the island on which Tenochtitlan stands, accessed via three huge causeways (varying in length between two and six miles), extending to the southern, western and northern shores of the lake. At the heart of Tenochtitlan, surrounded by a vast walled enclosure (the grand plaza, or sacred precinct), is the Great Pyramid, which is surmounted by the temple of Huitzilopochtli (‘Hummingbird’), War God of the Mexica, to whom tens of thousands of human sacrifices are offered every year.
(2) Santiago, capital city and principal port of Cuba during the early period of Spanish colonisation of the New World. It is from here that the expedition to Mexico embarks.
(3) Mountain country within the borders of Tlascala, an independent principality at war with the Mexica. Tlascalans captured in raids and battles are a prime source of sacrificial victims for the Mexica.
(4) Cozumel, island off the northeast coast of the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico. First landing point of the Spaniards in their conquest of Mexico.
(5) Potonchan, town on the southwest coast of the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico. Second landing point of the Spaniards in their conquest of Mexico and site of their first major battles. Their opponents in these early (and brutal) pitched battles are not the Mexica but the Maya.
Point-of-View Characters
(1) Tozi. A witch. Age, fourteen. We meet her amongst the victims being fattened for sacrifice in the women’s fattening pen at the edge of the grand plaza in Tenochtitlan. Tozi never knew her father. Her mother was a witch but was cornered and beaten to death by a mob when Tozi was seven, at which age Tozi’s own training had just begun and her powers were not fully developed. She survived as a beggar on the streets of Tenochtitlan for the next six years until captured and placed in the fattening pen at the age of fourteen to await sacrifice. Tozi has certain magical talents, of which the most important is the ability to make herself invisible. However, at this point of the story she lacks skill and experience, and if she attempts to maintain invisibility for more than a few seconds she suffers catastrophic physical consequences. Tozi’s origins are mysterious. Her mother told her they came from Aztlán, the fabled homeland not only of the Mexica but also of the Tlascalans and other
related ‘Nahua’ peoples who speak the language called Nahuatl. But Aztlán is a mythical and legendary place, the home of the gods, where masters of wisdom and workers of magic are believed to dwell; although the Mexica say their forefathers came from Aztlán, no one knows where it is any more, or how to find it.
(2) Malinal. A beautiful courtesan and sex-slave of the Mexica. Age, twenty-one. Malinal is Maya in ethnic origin and is fluent both in Nahuatl, the language of the Mexica, and in the Mayan language. We meet her in the fattening pen in Tenochtitlan where she, like Tozi, has been imprisoned awaiting sacrifice. How and why she is there becomes clear to the reader as the story develops. When we understand the roots of her intense hatred for Moctezuma and the Mexica, we understand why, when she escapes the fattening pen, she travels to the Yucatán, where Cortés has landed, intending to use him as her instrument to destroy Moctezuma.
(3) Pepillo. Spanish, fourteen years of age. An orphan, he was given shelter, reared and taught numbers and letters by Dominican monks, who brought him from Spain to the New World, first to the island of Hispaniola and then to Cuba, where he worked as a junior bookkeeper and clerk in the Dominican monastery. When we meet him he has just been appointed page and assistant to the mysterious Father Gaspar Muñoz (POV character number 8) the Dominican Inquisitor who will travel with the expedition of Hernando Cortés (POV character number 9) to Mexico – referred to as the ‘New Lands’ – on a mission of conquest and evangelism.
(4) Moctezuma. Emperor – his official title is Great Speaker – of the Mexica. Age, fifty-three. We meet him performing human sacrifices on the summit platform of the Great Pyramid in front of the temple of the War God Huitzilopochtli (Hummingbird). These sacrifices take place in full view of the fattening pen, at the edge of the grand plaza, where Malinal and Tozi are imprisoned awaiting sacrifice. Moctezuma frequently enters a trance state induced by the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms in which he communicates directly with the War God – demon – Hummingbird. The demon, whose purpose is to maximise human misery and chaos on earth, urges Moctezuma on to ever crueller and more brutal mass sacrifices.
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