At that moment, Cit Bolon Tun, the cross-eyed former captive of the Spaniards, was brought in by the palace guards. The man’s nose had been broken by some brutal blow and was still bleeding freely.
‘There you are!’ said Ah Kinchil. ‘You knew they’d beat us and you told us to fight them anyway. I call you a traitor! A traitor, do you hear? It was you who misled us and brought this disaster down on our heads. Without your advice I would never have gone to war.’
‘I’m no traitor, sire,’ said Cit Bolon Tun, falling to his knees and sobbing pitifully, drops of blood from his nose spattering around him on the polished floor. ‘The Spaniards are very dangerous. I made no secret of that! But I gave you my best, most honest, most truthful advice when I urged you to fight them, while they are still few in number. Wait a few more months and there will be many more of them. Wait a year and there will be thousands. Our only chance was a swift, decisive victory now …’
‘Liar!’ roared Ah Kinchil, spraying spittle. ‘We had no chance at all! I say you knew that all along.’
‘No, sire. I swear it …’
Ah Kinchil gave a curt nod to one of the guards who pulled a long dagger from his belt, walked up behind Cit Bolon Tun, wrenched the wretched man’s head back by his long hair, and sawed the blade back and forth across his throat as one might slaughter a deer. Blood spurted freely as the major vessels were severed, the victim’s horrible screams and gurgles were abruptly silenced as his vocal cords were cut, and the guard didn’t stop until he’d decapitated the poor man. The whole procedure took about a minute. When it was over, Ah Kinchil turned to Malinal and the other serving girls. ‘Well?’ he said. ‘What are you waiting for? Clear this mess up at once.’
Not surprisingly, Muluc’s plans for a further battle with the white men evaporated like mist after that and he readily agreed to Ah Kinchil’s suggestion that he should go to Potonchan at once at the head of a peace delegation, seek out the Spanish leader Cortés and present him with the abject and total surrender of the Chontal Maya.
‘He will require gifts,’ said Muluc.
‘Take him gifts,’ said Ah Kinchil with a lofty wave of his hand. ‘You may empty the palace treasury.’
‘The gods only know why,’ said Muluc, ‘but these white men have a particular lust for gold.’
‘Then take them all we have,’ Ah Kinchil replied with a sniff. The smell of Cit Bolon Tun’s blood was thick in the air. ‘Not that it amounts to much.’ Another sniff: ‘Why would they want gold anyway?’
‘They say it’s the specific remedy for a certain disease of the heart they suffer from. Silver also seems to help it.’
‘I hope they will not be angered that we have so little of both.’ Ah Kinchil turned thoughtfully and directed his ancient rheumy gaze at Malinal, busy scrubbing the floor. ‘This women is quite fetching,’ he said. ‘I suggest you take her as well. In fact, take twenty women, the most beautiful you can find, and present them all to the Spaniards. All men, and even gods, suffer from a certain need –’ a lecherous, toothless grin – ‘and women are the specific remedy for it.’
‘You said you returned to us to meet the white men,’ Muluc told Malinal gleefully, ‘so now you’re going to get your wish – and good riddance to you; I hope you’re as much trouble to them as you’ve been to me.’
Malinal found it hard to conceal her joy. She had walked all the way from Tenochtitlan to find these white ‘gods’, only to be diverted from her quest by Muluc – yet fate had now conspired to make him the very instrument that would put her into their hands!
The peace delegation, with the twenty women in its midst, and bearers carrying fifty heaped bundles of jaguar skins, two hundred bundles of embroidered textiles and three large treasure chests, was ready to depart by midday and reached Potonchan, seven miles to the north, three hours later. The route, following the sacbe, led directly across the battlefield between the Xaman hills and Potonchan itself, and Malinal was now able to see close up the effects of the devastation she’d witnessed from afar the day before.
The Spaniards’ ‘guns’ had torn men limb from limb, smashed them, crushed them, turned them inside out. Those grim glittering spheres launched from the top of the pyramid had cut long lanes of carnage through the Mayan ranks – here ten, twenty, even thirty warriors in a row had been mowed down; then there was a gap where the ball had bounced into the air, then another lane of demolished corpses, all rotting already in the hot afternoon sun. Closer to where the Spanish squares had stood there were countless sword and axe and spear wounds. And everywhere there were men who’d been ripped to bloody ribbons, their guts dragged out of their bellies in stinking, slimy, flyblown piles, by the Spanish war animals. Some species of dog, Cit Bolon Tun had hazarded? Some species of demon or dragon more like, Malinal thought, judging from the dreadful butchery of the wounds.
And what of the animals, like deer, called ‘horses’? The huge beasts on which Malinal had seen the Spanish war leader and his troop thunder past the foot of the Xaman hills on their way to battle? The hoofprints of these creatures were everywhere, in the churned-up soil and imprinted on the bodies and faces of fallen men, and where they had charged into the thickest press of the Mayan ranks, crowds of corpses lay hunched and heaped one upon the other, as many killed as they’d fled in blind panic as had been struck down by the weapons of the Spaniards.
The trail of bodies led all the way into Potonchan, through the narrow streets and up towards the plaza, where the ancient pyramid overlooked the sacred silk-cotton tree. Long before this, the Mayan delegation had been shadowed and flanked by Spanish scouts, hard-faced, bearded, pale-eyed men wearing metal armour, carrying metal swords and spears – some of the terrifying ‘guns’, too, Malinal noted – but Muluc had shown by signs that his intentions were peaceful and the caravan had been allowed to proceed.
Now at last, in the mid-afternoon, they came into the square and, up ahead, in the shade of the silk-cotton tree, seated regally on a throne, looking relaxed, confident, handsome – gods he was handsome! – the Spanish leader awaited them. Malinal recognised him at once and felt again the special connection she’d felt with him yesterday as she’d watched him ride into battle. The way he had turned his bearded white face towards her then, the way his eyes had seemed to fix on her and root her to the spot, had filled her with hope and a strange yearning, and she now had a sense, as she’d had so often in the past month, that she was swept up in some divine scheme and that her fate was about to be fulfilled.
But how to talk to him? This was the problem. How to communicate to him her special purpose? How to let him know that she was the one who had been chosen by the gods, and spared from death, to bring him to Tenochtitlan and end forever the cruel and gluttonous reign of Moctezuma?
Strangely – a blow to Malinal’s conviction that a divine plan was about to unfold – this man, if he was a man, or god if he was a god, this Cortés, did not even acknowledge her existence as she stood roasting in the sun with the other twenty women, amongst the bearers of the treasures and jaguar skins and textiles, while Muluc alone entered the shade of the silk-cotton tree. Through the intermediary of the black-bearded interpreter Aguilar, whom Cit Bolon Tun had spoken of, and who sat on a stool at Cortés’s right hand, a long conversation then ensued. Very long. Malinal was only able to grasp snatches of what was said, as her hated stepfather was made to grovel and squirm. At one point another Spaniard even more beautiful than Cortés himself, a man who it seemed was called Alvarado, but who resembled the sun brought down to earth with his yellow beard and hair, stepped forward and beat Muluc about the buttocks with the flat of his huge metal sword.
All this was very enjoyable and diverting, but it still brought Malinal no closer to Cortés, the avatar, she yet had reason to hope, of the god Quetzalcoatl, whom she had travelled all this way and risked so many dangers to see.
The solution, of course, was the interpreter Aguilar. Malinal must simply speak to him in the Mayan language, which he app
eared to have complete mastery of, tell him of her mission, and he would immediately translate what she had said into the language of the Spaniards and Cortés would understand.
She leapt forward. A Spanish guard got in her way but she bowled him aside, swords were drawn all around her – swish, swish, swish – and she found herself on her knees at the very feet of Cortés, strong hands holding her, forcing her head down.
‘How dare you, woman?’ Muluc shrieked, reaching out to strike her, but his hand was kicked aside by the Spaniard Alvarado, who stood over him, hand on the hilt of his sword, his pale eyes glittering, saying incomprehensible words in his strange language. ‘You’re to leave her alone, Muluc,’ snapped the translator Aguilar. ‘Back off! My masters want to hear her.’
Snarling and snapping, Muluc backed away.
‘What’s your name?’ said Aguilar in faultless Mayan.
‘Who, me?’ asked Malinal.
‘Yes, you. Who else?’
‘I am Malinal.’
‘Very well, Malinal, state your business here.’
‘I must speak with the Lord Cortés,’ she said. ‘I have been seeking him out these last thirty days. I have walked all the way from Tenochtitlan to find him. I … we … my friend and I, we believe he is the Lord Quetzalcoatl, returned to claim his kingdom. I have come to guide him to his home.’
‘His home? His home is in Spain.’
‘No, lord. We believe him to be the human manifestation of the great god Quetzalcoatl, whose rightful home is Tenochtitlan, capital city of the Mexica. I am here to guide him thither. I am here to help him to overthrow the usurper Moctezuma and claim back his throne.’
‘Nonsense, woman. You are talking complete and utter nonsense!’
‘I have heard,’ Malinal said, desperate now for anything that would sway this dog-faced translator on whose good graces she depended utterly to speak to Cortés, ‘that you Spaniards have a great need for gold. Well, you will find precious little here amongst my people the Maya, for whom gold holds no meaning. If you want gold, whole rooms full of gold, a city of gold, then only allow me to lead you to Tenochtitlan and I will place in your hands all the gold you want. Please, I beg you, Lord Aguilar, convey what I have said to the Lord Cortés.’
Aguilar seemed to think about it. A muscle twitched in his bearded cheek. His upper teeth appeared and nibbled his lower lip. ‘Do you,’ he asked, ‘speak the language of the Mexica?’
‘I speak it fluently,’ Malinal replied, ‘like my mother tongue. And through me, and through you, Lord Aguilar, the Lord Cortés also may speak to the Mexica, and convey to them his commands. You will put what he says into the Mayan tongue and I will put it into the language of the Mexica. I will put what they say in reply into the Mayan tongue and you will put my words into Spanish. It is a good plan, is it not?’
‘No,’ said Aguilar cruelly, ‘it’s a terrible plan, it’s a stupid plan and I’ll have nothing to do with it.’ Abruptly he turned to Cortés and spoke to him at length in Spanish, and the next moment guards took rough hold of Malinal and dragged her out into the sun again, and threw her down, sprawling amongst the other women, while from the shade of the silk-cotton tree Muluc leered at her in triumph.
What followed was, if anything, worse. Despite the connection she felt certain they enjoyed, that special connection that had drawn him to her and her to him as he rode into battle, the Lord Cortés continued to ignore Malinal – completely, as though she did not even exist – for the rest of the afternoon.
His primary interest was the treasure, and truly he did not even seem greatly interested in that. The bales of embroidered cloth and jaguar skins meant nothing to him. He looked at them as though they were excrement.
Only the three wooden chests attracted his attention, and when they were opened he rifled through their contents before giving a great sigh and turning away in disgust. Behind him followed the Spaniard Alvarado who, if anything, seemed even more angered and frustrated by Muluc’s gifts.
That was when the pair of them noticed the women again. They walked over, fingered the girls, squeezed their breasts, slapped a buttock here or there, all the while speaking to one another harshly and cruelly in their mysterious foreign tongue. Then other Spaniards gathered round, lean men, hungry men, who looked on the women as vultures might look on carrion, and there was much laughter and nudging and lewd gestures, all of them perfectly comprehensible to Malinal.
This was about sex now, that eternal obsession of men.
Finally the women were divided up, this one to that man, this one to another. Cortés still showed not the slightest interest in Malinal and gave her finally to a vulgar beast with a bushy red beard.
She learned soon enough that his name was Alonso Hernández Puertocarrero.
Melchior had died during the night, as Cortés had known he must the moment he’d seen his injuries, and was buried just hours later on the morning of Friday 26 March. Four good Spaniards who’d also lost their lives on the plains of Potonchan were buried alongside him in a moving ceremony, at which Cortés gave a reading, attended by all who were fit to walk. The death toll was small, all things considered, but more than a hundred of the men had been wounded in Thursday’s great battle, a few so severely that even the best efforts of Dr La Peña would not save them. Still, there was much to be thankful for, Cortés decided. He’d faced down and defeated a giant army while his own small force was still almost entirely intact.
That same afternoon of Friday 26th, a delegation of Indians appeared, led by the creature Muluc, whom Cortés now knew to be the chief of Potonchan – though he’d pretended otherwise. He came bearing the seal of Ah Kinchil, the paramount chief of all the Chontal Maya, to offer a complete, abject and unconditional surrender, which Cortés was happy to accept. His men had taken a hammering over the past few days and badly needed time to rest and recuperate.
As a token of the peace, Muluc brought twenty fine, clean women to serve the Spaniards as slaves or, he said with a lewd grimace, ‘for any other purpose you wish’. Amongst them, Cortés noted, was the same striking, graceful beauty whom he’d seen the previous afternoon, watching the battle from the hills south of Potonchan. He’d been strongly drawn to her then, her magnetism reaching out to him as he’d thundered by on Molinero, and he felt her spell again now, but resisted it even when she rather dramatically threw herself at his feet and yammered away at Aguilar in her exotic tongue for some minutes.
She was, the interpreter assured him, completely mad. It seemed she was convinced he was some pagan god! In Aguilar’s opinion she was best ignored if he did not want trouble. Cortés was tempted to take the matter further, but ultimately decided against it. With rebellion brewing amongst the Velazquistas it was important to keep his friends sweet, and a sex slave as decorative as this was an easy way to satisfy Puertocarrero, who loved women at least as much as he loved gold.
On the matter of gold, the peace offerings presented by Muluc were less satisfactory. Other than the heaped skins of some unknown animals, and two hundred bundles of embroidered textiles, costly but inferior to silk, he brought only three chests, admittedly large, packed in the main with little statues, face masks, pectorals, belts, ear and lip decorations, ornamental weapons, plates and serving vessels, all made of the curious, somewhat translucent green stone that had been offered before at the riverside in Potonchan. There were in addition a good number of pearls, various gemstones resembling rubies, cornelians, emeralds, agates, topazes and the like, but pitifully little gold – four diadems, some ornaments shaped like lizards, two shaped like fish with finely worked individual scales, five resembling ducks, a handful of earrings and necklaces, two gold soles for sandals and a few items of silver, pretty to look at but of small value. Alvarado thought the gold, silver, pearls and gems worth less than fifteen thousand pesos, a sum – he declared with a sour face – that was by no means worth the battle fought to obtain it. He suggested they put Muluc to torture and burn the town of Cintla where Ah Kinchil had
his seat. ‘It’s the only way we’re going to part these swine from their treasure.’
But Aguilar disagreed. ‘The Maya don’t share our idea of treasure,’ he said. ‘They place little value on gold.’ He pulled a carved green stone from the chest. It was similar to the piece, shaped like an axe head, that Alvarado had thrown in the river some days before. ‘This is the stuff that matters to them. ‘They call it ik’, and they regard it as precious beyond any jewel or metal. It speaks to them of breath, fertility, the maize crop, vitality. It’s their ultimate symbol of wealth.’
‘Looks like shit to me,’ said Alvarado. ‘Let’s burn some towns. They’ll show us their gold soon enough.’
When questioned, Muluc protested that the chest contained all the gold of Cintla and Potonchan. There was no more to be had in either place, and while other towns and villages in the region might be able to offer some pieces, they would be of poor quality and the quantity would not be great.
‘We’ll see about that,’ Alvarado growled.
Muluc then launched into a lengthy account of another people, a people called the Mexica who were ruled by a great emperor named Moctezuma and whose capital city, Tenochtitlan, stood on an island in a lake at the heart of an immense green valley hundreds of miles to the northwest, protected by ranges of huge, snow-capped mountains.
Cortés was at once entranced; he sat forward, listening intently as evening drew in and the first stars appeared in the darkening sky.
Mexica traders, Muluc continued, frequently visited the Maya, and some of the Maya had made the journey to Tenochtitlan. Indeed Muluc claimed to have made a visit to it himself. It was, he said, a city of fabulous wealth and power. If the Spanish wanted gold, that was where they should go, for its temples and treasuries were stuffed with gold and every other precious item they desired. Indeed, all the gold ornaments he had brought as gifts today had been acquired by the Maya – who had no gold mines of their own – through trade with the Mexica.
War God: Nights of the Witch Page 57
