Feathered Serpent, Dark Heart of Sky

by David Bowles

  Still, Nanuma made every attempt.

  “Erendira, how can you be so cruel to the man who loves you most?”

  “Well you know, Nanuma,” the young women replied, her features slack, “that I love no man. I think I may be incapable of ever loving anyone.”

  “A thousand times you have said that you refuse to become a priestess of the lunar goddess, Xaratanga. So a day will come that you must accept a husband.”

  “Never. I refuse to have a master. The idea disgusts me.”

  “Master? I shall be nothing more than your slave if you will only accept me as your companion for life. My love for you has no limits. I worship you.”

  Erendira gave him that arrogant sneer. “For a warrior like you, there is something more worthy of worship than a woman.”

  “I do not understand you, Erendira.”

  “No, I did not imagine you would.”

  How could she belong to anyone more than she belonged to the wind and the trees? Why swear eternal love to someone when she had already sworn her life to her motherland? How could she forget about the vastness of nature just to center her existence on one man?

  The health of King Ziguangua failed at last. His son Timzincha succeeded him. Beyond this change, much in the government continued as always—Timas gave wise counsel to the new ruler and Nanuma led the young Purepecha Warriors.

  Yet on the horizon, despite this peaceful existence, worrisome rumors began to spread about invading barbarians, sent by bloodthirsty and vengeful gods. They used tongues of fire to burst apart the very homes of the ancestors.

  One day news came, born by messengers from Tenochtitlan—soldiers from beyond human ken had broken the greatest empire on the sea-ringed earth, spilling the blood of a majestic civilization into the immensity of Lake Texcoco.

  Sad songs drifted over the waters of Patzcuaro. Warriors girded their souls in silence for battle, inspired by pride in their unconquered nation. These young Purepecha were willing to fight till the end to defend that soil, the country that belonged to them, where men were free and eagles flew.

  But of what use was an army ready to die for the motherland if its king trembled before the enemy? Tzimtzicha was a weak and cowardly monarch. His indecision brought chaos to Michoacan. Would he repeat Motecuhzoma’s error and surrender before the invaders? Would he follow Cuauhtemoc’s example and fight?

  Erendira’s heart ached at the thought that the clear, fresh water that she cupped in her hands might run red with the blood of her people, that the joyous wind that whistled through the trees might become the laments and screams of women and children, burning in the strange fires of distant, alien gods.

  The news filled the hearts of warriors with grief. The moon rose fearful and its reflection in the lake found the steady gaze of Erendira, full of desire to recreate in the clouds and sky the freedom of the land of her birth.

  The invaders drew nearer and their unwanted presence clung to the petals of flowers, loomed in the gloomy shadows of forests, muddied the crystal clear streams.

  Behind the smile of the haughty princess lurked a grimace of hate, taunting the words she addressed to the venerable Timas.

  “My father, root of my blood, do not let weakness and fear stop the warrior spirit of our eagles from flying. Our men cannot abandon their desire to defend these lands so our children may live in the eternal garden of happiness that our gods promised. May the hand that will stop the enemy not be weak and never desire to press in friendship those hands that have been washed with the blood of our brothers.”

  Timas looked at his daughter, feeling pride rise in his chest. When he finally spoke, he sought words that would calm the fears that everyone now felt.

  “We must be patient, dear child. Let us await news from the messengers we have sent to the edges of the empire. We will pray the invaders curb their hunger for destruction. Now we must protect our young ones and beg the gods to allow flower songs of peace and hope to endure.”

  Erendira, echoing her father’s words, spoke to the women and children, teaching them how to best protect themselves from the possible aggression and danger they all might be facing, how to best help each other at the most critical moments of the struggle.

  Word came—the conquistadores had crossed the border and were heading toward Taximaroa, where the Purepecha had defeated the Aztecs long ago. At the head of the Spanish army came Cristóbal de Olid, one of the greatest soldiers of Cortés, astride a strange beast like some unnaturally massive deer.

  The king, nervous, agreed to let his army face the invaders. Before the warriors set forth, Erendira found Nanuma alone and spoke to him with tears in her eyes.

  “Listen, Commander. Long have you courted me, hoping to win my love. Though I cannot give you what now belongs to the empire, I promise you my body and mind if you can protect the immaculate clarity of the imperial lakes, if you can keep the enemy from destroying our homes and slaying our people. My thoughts and my flesh will be yours forever, here in Michoacan. Together we shall gaze upon the many-hued flowers in our gardens, in the countryside, along the banks of rivers and lakes. As the seed of liberty grows, we shall watch our children grow into men and women, and we shall proudly say that no one could break us, no one could enslave these lands. Do you hear me, Nanuma? Go and fight for what is ours!”

  Her words echoed in his heart as he galloped at the head of his army, rushing toward Taximaroa there at the edge of the empire. They arrived before the Spanish host, which was supported by native warriors of other nearby kingdoms, and Nanuma learned the truth of the rumors. The invaders wielded unbreakable weapons that spat fire and death, sat upon gigantic beasts with glittering armor that trampled warriors beneath their weighty hooves at the barbarians’ slightest touch.

  The battle was a whirlwind of destruction. The Purepecha stood no chance.

  Sentinels on the horizon bore word of the defeat back to the capital city of Tzintzuntzan. King Tzimtzincha sought counsel from his advisors. Ignoring those like Timas who urged better strategy and another battle, the king fled to take refuge in the mountain stronghold of Uruapan. There he received an embassy from the encroaching army. Hernán Cortés had learned of the riches in Michoacan. He persuaded the monarch through intermediaries to surrender and swear fealty to Carlos V, the king of Spain.

  In Tzintzuntzan and throughout Michoacan, depair and doubt haunted every face. Young men burned with patriotic pride. Old men had resigned themselves to defeat, knowing that a king like Tzimtzicha, without ambition, would lead their nation to as humiliating a defeat as the Aztecs had suffered.

  Erendira led women and children to refuges in the hills and island, far from dangers. She encouraged young men to trust in the divine strength that would give them victory over the invaders.

  Nanuma watched his beloved’s actions from afar, not daring to come close or look her in the eye. His fighting spirit had been mutilated by the crushing defeat and by his own self-doubt. Should he return to face these alien conquerors or hand himself over to those inscrutable gods of theirs, becoming a hated slave?

  The forces of Cristóbal de Olid marched closer and closer to the capital, scouts reported. The host moved without haste, confident in their victory.

  When the Spanish were a day away from Tzintzuntzan, an envoy came to the city gates with heavy cargo. Presents for King Tzimtzicha, they explained, who had given his friendship and obedience to Cortés. Along with the chests of riches, the messengers brought an enormous sighthound, property of one Francisco Montaño, to reward the Purepecha sovereign for his loyalty to Carlos V.

  “Captain de Olid will enter the city tomorrow,” the messengers concluded before taking their leave, “to visit the crown jewel of Michoacan and report its beauty to its new lord in Spain.”

  The city was horrified at the cowardice of the king. Its leaders came together to debate a course of action. Nanuma, impassive, listened from afar as counselors and generals argued whether to commit treason and ignore the king’s wishes,
taking up arms against the Spanish as best they could.

  As they expressed with passion their feeble hopes, Nanuma felt the desire to surrender grow stronger and stronger within him. Erendira’s voice had begun to fade.

  It was Timas who sided with the priests at last—they would call upon Xaratanga, the vengeful and inexorable goddess of the moon, in the Great Temple. She would guide them true.

  At the hour the Purepecha call inchantiro, when the sun has dropped below the horizon and the moon rises like a silver disc until all bask in her glory, conches and copper cymbals struck up a plaintive melody. The people of Tzintzuntzan gathered ‘round in wordless communion as the councilors and priests took their appointed seats.

  Then a scream like none they had ever heard burst the silence of the night, filling the hearts of all present with terror, the discordant cries echoing with erratic rhythm. Into the temple came four warriors, leading between them the horrible beast given to their king in payment for his treachery. Many of the citizens panicked as they contemplated its mad, spiraling eyes and long, narrow muzzle, from which that horrific voice came squealing.

  It was Montaño’s sighthound, raging and growling, snapping and barking in fury as it struggled to get free.

  The warriors lifted the beast to the sacrificial stone, its belly and snout facing the sky. The hound’s crazed eyes fell on the bright moon that hung just above the horizon. It ceased its frantic barking then. Sad howls came from the depths of its chest.

  Blanching, the priest took up his obsidian knife and plunged it into the beast’s breast, extracting its steaming heart.

  The echoes of the hound were slow to fade.

  Nanuma shuddered at the scene, but then an even more terrible voice whispered at his ear.

  “Today this monster, tomorrow the Spanish must die as well, in just this way!”

  The commander turned to face Erendira, whose face was cracked by that uncanny sneer.

  “You do not know what you ask,” he began.

  “Yes, I do. You are the one who will defeat that army, Nanuma. Did I not swear this to you? When you return, victorious, I shall be your reward.”

  “And if I fail?”

  “Then I shall go cry upon your tomb. I shall plant upon your funeral mound the most beautiful flowers of our fields.”

  The idea made Nanuma shudder.

  “Do not worry, my love.” His voice grated between clenched teeth. “I shall fight to the death if I must.”

  Erendira looked at him curiously as if trying to see into his soul.

  “We cannot surrender, Commander. We are greater, stronger. Have the gods not always protected us? Did we not defeat the Aztecs with clever stratagems both times they attempted to conquer this nation? Is it not true, perhaps, that Curicaueri, God of Fire, made man from clay? And when we broke apart in the water, did he not attempt again with ash? And so that we would be harder still, did he not remake mankind of metal? Are your soldiers not made of metal, Nanuma? Or will they turn into simpering women on the battlefield once they face these barbarians? Have no mercy, then, Commander Nanuma, when you are out on the battlefield. I know you are the most valiant of our warriors. You and only you can guide our army to triumph over the invaders and protect our empire.”

  Words failing him before her unyielding national faith, Nanuma bowed his head and left to ready the troops.

  When the Spanish approached the gates the following morning, the Purepecha fell on them like birds of prey. The war cry of Michoacan echoed across the lakes and throughout the small isles. Spears and arrows darkened the skies, obsidian blades hacked and stabbed, large stones were lobbed against the barbarian horde.

  But these efforts were in vain. The superior arms and horses of the Spanish outmatched the Purepecha army. The sun itself was tinged red with young blood. The smell of death and gunpowder filled the air along with dust and smoke. The neighing of horses drowned out the native battle cries.

  Nanuma sounded the call for retreat. Decimated, the army drew back inside the city.

  Erendira stood furious, glaring at the commander. His heart breaking, Nanuma strode to her side, seized her shoulders with his bloody hands.

  “We are outmatched, damn you!” he cried. “Tell me, then—what would you have me do?”

  “Die!” she spat. “Like a warrior! You disgust me, Nanuma. But soon enough the Spanish will teach you the way of men who refuse to die for their motherland.”

  Watching her haughty back recede, the commander’s spirit finally broke. He decided to immediately send word to his king and Captain de Olid. He and his army would lay down their weapons and submit to Cortés.

  As soon as Timas learned of the military’s impending surrender, he went to Erendira. “We must flee the city, taking as many able-bodied men with us as possible if we are to mount a resistance.”

  Livid and trembling at the commander’s betrayal, she agreed at once. As night fell, they led a group out into the hills. There, far from the cowardice of the man she had admired, away from the people that revered her, Erendira wept hot tears of rage and bereavement. Her nation now hung in the balance. Its champion had abdicated. She would have to find another way.

  That morning, the captain entered Tzintzuntzan as promised, greeted by Nanuma, who bent his knee before the foreign warlord. The conquerors celebrated their triumph there in the heart of the Purepecha Empire, destroying the symbols that tied its peoples to their beliefs, to the mistaken vision of themselves as invincible in a world that stretched only as far as their gods allowed them to see.

  The city became a specter of desolation, devouring the past with every step of the invaders, covering the remaining inhabitants with expressions of pain.

  A great cross, symbol of the alien religion, was lifted in the temple after the gods had been shattered.

  Nanuma nodded, unable to feel regret or despair. It was fitting. What chance did he have against these barbarians if their one god could so handily defeat an entire pantheon?

  Smoke curled in the distance above the capital. Erendira’s tears of powerlessness left a bitter taste on her lips. As she and the rest of the former residents sought refuge in the city of Patzcuaro, she stoked the fires of her anguish.

  With her father, Erendira began to organize volunteers from the refugees and the local population at the edge of the lake. A resistance was formed that took over an entire borough of the city, positions fortified in preparation for the worst.

  Thus began a series of skirmishes against the Spanish, probing attacks to determine their weaknesses. Nanuma knew who was behind the rebellion. When King Tzimtzincha returned—to kneel before de Olid in public and be baptized with the Spanish name Francisco—the commander expressed his will to quell the uprising himself. His numb heart wanted nothing more than to find Erendira, to make her kneel before him, not so that she would look up with the admiring and loving gaze that he had long coveted, but so that he could break her once and for all, wipe that haughty trace of a smile from her pretty face.

  As Purepecha turned against Purepecha, Erendira cringed and screamed to see what had been a mighty empire slowly disappearing as when the rain is whipped about at the mercy of the wind and drowns out the song of the mockingbird.

  Then something miraculous occurred.

  During a raid, a group of rebels managed to overcome their fears and trap one of the Spaniards’ great beasts, those steeds that merged with rider to become a single harbinger of devastation and terror. Without its barbarian master, the creature came with them calmly, offering no struggle.

  The warriors presented the white stallion to Erendira as a sign of hope. The people of that great land could—somehow, in some way—repay the Spanish usurpation in kind.

  Erendira was fascinated by the horse. She spent several days in the woods with the steed, learning to bond with it in ways that surpassed its owner, drawing on her deep respect for nature.

  By the end of the week, she galloped from the forest on its back to the amazement of th
e resistance. Their respect for the young woman deepened into awe. Her black hair streamed out behind her as the horse dashed around their camp, a study in contrasts and harmony. Barely seventeen summers old, Erendira had wrested the secrets of the enemy from them by dint of her own courage and will.

  She began to accompany the warriors on raids and skirmishes. The sight of that teen astride her white horse helped turn the tide against their enemies again and again, filling her faithful soldiers with valor and her traitorous countrymen with fear.

  Old Timas, seeing his daughter so regal and vicious upon that beast, realized that these monsters could be the key to retaking the capital. His idea was to steal as many more of the horses as possible so that Erendira could train others to ride them.

  Steeds became the objects of raids. Within weeks the rebels had a dozen or so of the creatures in their power. Timas selected the most robust and agile young men to serve as mounted warriors. Erendira taught them all she knew, helping them to bond with their horses. After several successful skirmishes in which the horsemen proved their mettle, Timas decided it was time to invade Tzintzuntzan and wrest it from enemy hands.

  With the mounted warriors at the vanguard, ten thousand Purepecha flooded their capital, ready to fight until the death for the motherland, armed with slings and arrows, spears and macanas. Timas had begged Erendira to remain behind with the civilians, but she, undaunted, brought up the rear.

  The fighting was fierce, lasting well into the night. Many died on either side. But Cristóbal de Olid had Tlaxcallan and Mexica allies with him, as well as Nanuma and all his men. Timas was pushed back into the Great Temple, where the insurrection made its last stand.

  They fought well, but in the end they lost.

  In the aftermath, de Olid walked in the darkness, checking corpses, searching for his fellow countrymen. Dawn lit up the sky—the extent of the ruin was made clear.