Feathered Serpent, Dark Heart of Sky

by David Bowles

  “When should I return for your answer?”

  “Come back tomorrow.”

  “And what of the guards? Can Your Imperial Majesty provide me with some sort of surety that will keep the guards from killing the messenger?”

  “The intact nature of your person will be surety enough,” Maxtla responded.

  Tlacaelel departed with a bow. Coming upon the guards again, he saluted them. “Brothers, I have just come from speaking to your sovereign. As you can see, he has allowed me to keep my life for a time, so that I may take his message back to my king. If you would be so kind as to let me pass, I would be much obliged. I am suing for peace and have no dark designs. I will return in the morning to see this business concluded. Whether you kill me now or tomorrow, I will be just as dead. I give you my word that in the end I will put myself in your hands.”

  They let him go and he returned to Tenochtitlan to relate what had occurred. The king prayed and meditated for most of the night. In the morning, he summoned Tlacaelel.

  “My dearest nephew, I am grateful to you for the care and diligence with which you have managed this affair, putting your life at risk in the process. Here is what you will say to Maxtla. Tell him that I insist he clearly express whether the Empire is determined to let us slip from its hand and leave us without protection or whether they desire to admit us again into their friendship. If he responds that there is no hope for us, that they plan to destroy us, take this chalky unguent with which we anoint the dead and smear his flesh with it. Then take up these plumes and feather his head as if he were dead. Give him this shield and these golden arrows, lordly insignias, and tell him on my behalf that he should beware, for we will do all in our power to destroy him.”

  Tlacaelel returned to Azcapotzalco. The guards let him through once more, but they murmured together their plans to attack him in the city and slay him. In the palace of Maxtla, Tlacaelel delivered Itzcoatl’s ultimatum.

  “Ah, nephew, what would you have me say? Sadly, though I rule the Tepanecan lands, it is the will of my people that we wage war against you. What can I do? If I move to stop them, I put my life and that of my children at risk. My brothers and councilors are furious with you, and they beg that you be destroyed.”

  Tlacaelel nodded. “Very well, sire. In that case, your vassal the Mexica king sends word that you should gather strength and spirit, that you should arm and prepare yourself, for from this moment he defies you and your people and declares himself your mortal enemy. Either he and his people will fall dead on the battlefield and be enslaved forever, or you and yours will. You will soon feel the heavy weight of having started a war from which you cannot escape. I have brought the chalk and feathers, the shield and arrows. Permit me to prepare you for your certain death.”

  Maxtla’s honor forced him to allow his nephew to go through the ritual. Once it was concluded, he bid Tlacaelel to convey his thanks to Itzcoatl for observing the old forms. He had his servants sneak the Mexica general through the back of the palace.

  “Nephew, do not travel through the city on your accustomed route. Understand that our guards are waiting to kill you. My servants will show you out, but first accept these gifts, with which you can protect yourself. You have been courteous and valiant, and you deserve no less.”

  Tlacaelel took the proffered weapons and slipped from the city by clandestine means. When he stood beyond its gates, he could not help but turn and address the sentinels.

  “Ah, Tepaneca! Ah, Azcapotzalca! How very badly you carry out your charge of guarding this city! Gird yourselves well, brothers. Soon Azcapotzalco will be wiped from the face of the earth, for not one stone atop another will remain of it! Every man and woman will be bled and burned. So prepare yourselves, fools. On behalf of Itzcoatl, Mexica king, and the entire city of Tenochtitlan, I defy you all!”

  Furious and confused, the guards rushed to kill him, but he faced them bravely. Before they understood what was happening, he had killed several of their number. A crowd gathered and Tlacaelel used the confusion to make his retreat. When he arrived in Tenochtitlan, Itzcoatl publically recognized his valor and wisdom by making him a member of the war council with the rank of tlacochcalcatl, General of the Armories. There, alongside his brother Motecuhzoma and other military leaders, Tlacaelel began to plan for the destruction of the Empire.

  But the people of their city were overcome with fear: they begged the king to let them abandon the city.

  “Be not afraid, my children,” Itzcoatl consoled them. “We will obtain your freedom without harm befalling a single one of you.”

  “And what if you fail?” cried the commoners.

  Tlacaelel replied on behalf of the nobility. “If we fail, we will put ourselves in your hands. Our bodies will be your sustenance. Thus will you have your revenge, devouring us on broken and dirty plates so that our flesh is defamed. However, should we be successful in this endeavor, you must swear to serve and render tribute to us, laboring and building our mansions, in serfdom to us as your true lords. You must swear to give us your daughters and sisters and nieces to do with as we will, and when we leave to war, you must carry our supplies and weapons wherever we go. Finally, you must dedicate and subject yourselves and your property to eternal vassalage.”

  The commoners and nobility agreed to these terms, swearing by their life’s blood. The king and his generals then executed their plan: they promised to support Nezahualcoyotl as king of Texcoco and made a treaty with the dissident Tepanecan city of Tlacopan. The three Nahua kingdoms formed what was called Excan Tlahtoloyan: the Triple Alliance, remembered now as the Aztec Empire.

  Nezahualcoyotl led a force of Huexotinca and Texcoca warriors across the lake in canoes, landing and marching toward Azcapotzalco from the north. Tlacopan and the Tenochca army, led by General Tlacaelel, stormed the city from the south. The forces of the Alliance converged on the enemy kingdom to the beat of war drums and began to slay its inhabitants left and right.

  “Every man, woman and child!” commanded King Itzcoatl. “Leave no one alive! Take all you can and burn the rest!”

  Some few nobles escaped and were pursued by General Tlacaelel into the foothills nearby. They threw down their weapons and begged quarter, promising to give the Mexica land and riches, to be their eternal tributary. Tlacaelel accepted their vow.

  Meanwhile, in the city, Nezahualcoyotl dragged Emperor Maxtla from the sweat lodge where he was hiding and sacrificed him publically.

  Azcapotzalco had fallen.

  Itzcoatl appointed his nephew Tlacaelel cihuacoatl, minister of state, the first in almost a century. Together they engineered an even greater victory over the next months and years. The Alliance landed blow after blow against the Tepaneca. After each victory, land was given to the victorious warriors, the traditional elders, and each of the Great Houses, creating Mexica colonies throughout the highlands and expanding the noble class considerably. After the Tepaneca, the Alliance turned its sights on Xochimilco and Coyoacan and swiftly emerged triumphant.

  Tlacaelel urged his uncle to gather up the books of history spread throughout the region and burn them, replacing them with an official version. “It is important that our people have a heroic past, a destiny we are striving toward with roots in the glorious civilizations of bygone eras. If we are to recreate the majesty of Tollan, we cannot allow people to even think about the lowly and ignoble parts of our history.”

  The king agreed. Soon a single narrative of the Mexica’s rise was promoted throughout the highlands, an illustrious myth that would one day be known as Chronicle X.

  By the time Itzcoatl succumbed to a debilitating disease, Tenochtitlan had gone from a mere vassal state to the most powerful kingdom in the basin region. The king’s extravagant funeral rites, which lasted a full eighty days, demonstrated how utterly he had transformed his people in just a decade and a half.

  Transforming the Mexica

  Motecuhzoma succeeded his uncle on the day 3-Serpent of the year 13-Flint: May 22, 1440. The ne
w king, dubbed Ilhuicamina or Heaven’s Archer, kept Tlacaelel on as cihuacoatl. The two halted military activities for a dozen years while they solidified their administrative hold over their new territories. Working with Texcoco and Tlacopan, they engineered a web of tribute relationships and a bureaucracy to manage them. As the goods and wealth began to flow, Motecuhzoma Ilhuicamina undertook the construction of a fourth Great Temple, a large and ornately decorated pyramid that enclosed the previous iteration built under Itzcoatl.

  As this massive structure went up, Tlacaelel set about persuading his people that Huitzilopochtli, the tribal god of the Mexica, was much more than they had imagined. Years among the highlanders had expanded the pantheon of the former nomads. Like most other nahuas, they adored and feared Tezcatlipoca, Xipe Totec, Quetzalcoatl, Tlaloc, and a host of other gods. But Tlacaelel insisted that Huitzilopochtli was actually the supreme divinity, responsible for keeping the sun in motion, deserving of much praise and insistent on the spilling of sufficient blood to fuel the essential fire.

  In addition to elevating Huitzilopochtli to King of Heaven, Tlacaelel promulgated a host of sumptuary laws that widened the divide between the growing nobility and the commoners. The cihuacoatl prohibited the use of cotton cloth, sandals, lip plugs, or gold by the working class. Only nobles could have homes of two stories or more. Public drunkenness and other such plebeian offenses were punishable by slavery or sacrifice.

  Tlacaelel also formally organized the rankings of military orders such as the Shorn Ones, the Eagle Warriors, the Jaguar Knights and the Otomies. He created compulsory military education for all males, adding the telpochcalli schools in every borough so that boys of all the Great Houses were trained for warfare.

  By 1452, construction on the Great Temple had ground to a halt because Mexica territory simply did not contain stone or labor sufficient for the massive sculptures. When Motecuhzoma Ilhuicamina requested assistance from Chalco, that nation refused, sparking a bloody war. In the midst of the conflict, the highlands were stricken by a severe drought that lasted three years. Dust storms and famine ravaged the basin region. Hunger grew so severe that people began to eat their children and each other to survive.

  The Tenochca finally captured hundreds of Chalcans and sacrificed them to Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc, desperate to placate the gods they had offended by twelve years of limited bloodshed. It was not enough. King Motecuhzoma told Tlacaelel to reassemble his troops, which the cihuacoatl immediately did. He put at the army’s head their younger brother Tlacahuepan, who served on the military council as ezhuahuacatl, along with two other siblings, Quetzalcuauh and Cihauhuaque.

  The host departed toward Chalco by the accustomed road. Near Amecamecan, the Tenochca army was ambushed. Every Chalcan male had taken up shield and macana. They swept down on their enemy with such fury that the Mexica soon wished they had not put themselves in such straits. Seeing themselves forced to kill or be killed, they formed a ring and fought, some wishing only not to die, others hoping for victory. The fray was intense and fast, warriors falling on both sides until the battlefield was covered with the dead, fighters intermixed in a chaotic clash without strategy or order, slaying each other left and right with blazing wrath, until finally they broke apart in sheer exhaustion, dragging away what prisoners they could.

  Among the dead lay the three brothers of Motecuhzoma and Tlacaelel. Other generals had their corpses brought before these two rulers, and the king began to weep and lament.

  “O precious brothers of mine! Fortunate are you to have died showing your courage. Go now, festooned with lovely stones and priceless feathers, bundled and borne aloft by your deeds, having obtained the glory of our nation and the honor and defense of your brother the king.”

  Then, turning to Tlacaelel, who stood impassively at his side, he asked, “And what do you think, Tlacaelel, of these your brothers, lying here dead?”

  The minister of state responded, “Your Imperial Majesty, I am neither frightened nor moved by their passing, as that is the purpose of war. Remember our lordly father Huitzilhuitl, who died in Colhuacan before you and I rose to power. He will never be forgotten, having acted with such valor. Why should our brothers do no less? The Mexica nation has need of such valiant dead! You and I rule in Mexico, but our betters will one day rise to replace us. Why, then, should we weep? For how long should we mourn? We have no time for sadness. There is much still to accomplish!”

  The two raised an even greater army and besieged Amecamecan. Strange owls emerged from Mictlan to announce the impending doom of Chalco all through the darkness of night. With daybreak, Mexico struck, and their enemies were obliterated. Thousands were sacrificed. The rains came at last, and the Alliance slowly recovered.

  Tlacaelel learned a valuable lesson. As the city continued to grow and Nezahualcoyotl lent his considerable engineering skills to create a massive dike across Lake Texcoco to dam the fresher water, the minister of state worked with priests to craft an elaborate system of monthly rituals that would require regular blood sacrifice. The Tenochca were told again and again that without the deaths of these victims, the sun might not rise and the Fifth Age might come to an end.

  Motecuhzoma became concerned about a source for so many victims, especially as the date for inaugurating the Great Temple approached, a ritual that would require great spilling of blood. His brother told him not to worry.

  “There is time for everything. If you wish, we can sacrifice our own children of the sun in the monthly rites. There will be no lack of men to dedicate the temple when it is ready, for I have thought upon what we must do from here on out. We can no longer wait until our god is angry and rush off to war. No, we need an easily available market where we can go with our god and purchase victims, flesh for his fire—something close at hand so that when the mood strikes Huitzilopochtli he need merely stretch forth his hand and seize. These markets will be our nearby vassal states. We will arrange regular battles with them, not to slaughter men on the field, but to capture enemy warriors to be offered to the gods here in Tenochtitlan like flowers, blossoming red upon the sacrificial stone.”

  So the flower wars began: blood flowed in Mexico like never before.

  Greater than a King

  After nearly thirty years in power, Motecuhzoma Ilhuicamina had expanded the Alliance’s territory all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. When he died, his people adored him and his enemies feared him. Tlacaelel guided the leaders of Tenochtitlan to select the son of Motecuhzoma, nineteen-year-old Axayacatl, as king. The youth ruled for thirteen years with his uncle continuing as cihuacoatl. His reign was successful in some respects: he put down the rebellion of Tlatelolco and made that sister city a permanent part of Tenochtitlan. But his campaign against the Purepecha was a failure, as were many other of his military endeavors. By the time of his death in 1481, the Alliance was rife with plots and striving factions.

  Tizoc, brother of Axayacatl, inherited a fractious empire fraying at the edges. His disastrous coronation war seemed to signal ominous times. His five-year reign was marked by failures and defeat. Tlacaelel, still minister of state, and Tizoc’s brother, General Ahuizotl, conspired together to have the king poisoned in order to preserve their people and stave off destruction.

  With Tizoc out of the way, the 88-year-old Tlacaelel prepared to submit Ahuizotl’s name to the city leadership. But he was first approached by Alliance leadership, including Nezahualpilli, son of Nezahualcoyotl. They begged Tlacaelel to assume the kingship himself.

  “My sons, I certainly thank you and the king of Texcoco for coming before me. But I want you to tell me… In the nearly ninety years that I have been on this earth, during all this time since the defeat of Azcapotzalco, what have I been? What position have I held? Have I been nothing, then? Do you wonder why I never placed a crown on my head or used the royal insignias that are the wont of kings? Come, do you not understand the value of all I have judged and ordained? Do you believe I unjustly put criminals to death and pardoned the innocent? Lord
s were made and unmade at my command! Do you believe I have broken the laws of this kingdom, wearing jewels and clothes and sandals only permitted to kings? I have dressed in the robes and masks of gods! With these hands I have lifted the sacrificial blade and spilled blood like Huitzilopochtli himself! And if I do these things and have done them for nearly a century, then king I am and king I have always been! What more of a king would you have me be?”

  The nobles bowed their heads and accepted his recommendation of Ahuizotl, whose reign would renew the Triple Alliance and vastly expand its borders.

  Yet, though Tlacaelel had refused the throne, his people crowned him with an unheard-of glory when he died a year after Ahuizotl’s coronation. They wept for months at his passing, crying out a new title, one never used before or since.

  They called him in cemanahuac tepehuani: Master of the Sea-Ringed World.

  Conquest and Courage

  Convocation

  How can we weave the tale of Tenochtitlan’s fall, sisters and brothers? How can we sing those anguished cries? Such an epic tragedy could fill book after book with sorrow.

  Let us sketch the shape of the Conquest with smoke and ash. Let the end of the Mexica be a silhouette against the burning boroughs, the funeral pyres, the bonfires fed with painted books.

  Do you tremble, friends? Do you weep here beside me?

  On this battleground, littered with indigenous dead, it appears that chaos has won. The Nahuas called Tezcatlipoca—known as Hurricane to the ancients—the Enemy of Both Sides. You may see that dark god’s hand at work in the destruction of Mesoamerica.

  The Spanish pit nation against nation. Old rivalries heighten the destructive power of firearms, foreign disease, Toledo steel. Death spreads, conquers, reigns.