The moles tramp past, too pre-occupied with their own misery to worry about some lord's camarada. I wait for the pain to subside. Finally I attempt to stand but my leg will not support me and I fall back on my haunches.
"Are you all right, my lady?"
A deep, rich voice. It is him. The sun is behind him, putting a golden aura around his head. I have to shield my eyes to look at him. He his beast of war and walks over to me.
"You are hurt?"
I do not understand the words but I recognise the tone of gentle concern. I point to my left ankle. He bends down to examine it. His touch is gentle. He looks into my face. The grey eyes are penetrating.
I squeeze out a small tear for his benefit, although the pain is not so bad. I move my leg, allow my tunic to rise a little higher. But just then one of the other lords rides up and spoils the moment.
Chapter 19
Alvarado reined in beside Cortés. "What's happening?"
"The Lady Marina has injured her ankle."
"By the sacred balls of all the Popes...”
"Order a stop. We will have the bearers make her a litter from tree saplings. They will have to carry her."
Alvarado shook his head in disbelief. "All this fuss for one puta? Leave her here, we can send the bearers back for her tomorrow."
"She is not a puta, she is a Christian gentlewoman. She is also our eyes and ears with the naturales. How we will communicate with the Totonacs or the Mexica without her? Would you rather have Brother Aguilar draw pictures for us in the sand? At this moment she is worth more to us than the cannon, even more valuable than my second in command, perhaps. Should I leave you here, and send her on ahead on your horse? I can have the bearers come back for you tomorrow."
Alvarado nodded, chastened by this harangue. "I will order a halt."
"I would be obliged."
Cortés turned back to the girl. She was smiling at him. An exquisite face framed by hair as black as a raven. And a delightful ankle, even when injured. Skin like velvet. Her tunic had ridden up allowing him an uninterrupted view of the silky softness inside her thighs.
Well.
A native princess with a command for language and, I do believe, a flair for politics. Too much of a woman for the likes of Puertocarrero.
In time I must find a remedy for that.
✽ ✽ ✽
The next morning, they forded a shallow river and turned inland; abruptly they left the barren sand behind and tracked through bright green fields of maize. They plunged into a forest, a riot of orchids and tangled, tendon-like vines. Huge zapote trees, their trunks sticky and shining with chicle gum, rose into a dense green canopy, alive with the brilliant flashes of scarlet-breasted macaws and blue-plumed tanagers. Occasionally there were ragged villages, aswarm with flies. The people, though, had fled in their wake.
And then, just after noon, they reached Cempoallan.
✽ ✽ ✽
Cortés was not sure what he had expected; not this. A small town rose from the heart of the jungle; thousands of thatched adobe houses clustered around a sprawl of palaces and temples glistening with polished white limestone and stucco. It was wondrous, not the rundown shamble of filthy huts he had dreaded.
God had rewarded his faith.
"By the sacred balls of all the Popes," Alvarado shouted.
One of their guides announced their arrival with a long blast on a conch shell, which was answered by the beat of drums from inside the town.
As they rode through the streets they were feted like returning heroes. The Totonacs crowded in, throwing garlands of flowers about their necks, tossing pineapples and plums to the foot soldiers, bouquets of roses to the jinetas.
Cortés worked his mount through the press of brown bodies and white mantles. He found Malinali on her litter, Aguilar and Norte following behind her, as he had instructed.
"Ask her why we are honoured with such a welcome," he shouted to Aguilar.
It is not easy for Malinali and Aguilar to make themselves heard over the noise of the drums and clay flutes. But finally: "She says we are liberators, my lord!"
"Liberators?"
"I do not understand all of it. She says something about the return of a serpent god. Somehow these people know that we have come to save them from barbarity and lead them to salvation!"
A Totonac woman, braver than her fellows, ran towards Cortés and threw a garland of flowers at him, even had the temerity to touch his horse before she rushed away, giggling.
"Liberators," Cortés murmured. Liberators!
Yet something else Aguilar said troubled him. The return of a serpent god. The words nagged at him.
There was more here than he had at first supposed.
✽ ✽ ✽
His name was Chicomacatl, but Alvarado immediately nicknamed him Gordo - Fatso. His standard bearers came first, carrying long bamboo poles supporting fans of intricate feather work; then Gordo himself approached, leaning on stout canes, young boys supporting the great scallops of his flesh from behind. Other princes followed, their presence rendered insignificant by the great mountain of lard that preceded them.
"If they are all as fat as this," Alvarado said, "no wonder these people are cannibals."
Jaramillo grinned. "The whole of Salamanca could feed off his haunches for a month."
Cortés dismounted and looked around. Like the great towns of Spain, Cempoallan had its own plaza, surrounded on three sides by the courtyard walls of the temples, on the fourth by Gordo's own palace. Smoke curled from the summit of one of the pyramids, doubtless to signify the completion of some barbaric ceremony. Cortés reminded himself that although the Totonacs had so far displayed friendship, at heart they were heathen.
May God protect them.
Malinali joined him, Aguilar beside her. The swelling on her ankle had diminished overnight, thanks to a herb poultice she herself had prepared. No bones were broken, and she was able to walk unaided, though with a pronounced limp. He smiled at her and saw a look of fury on Aguilar's face. Jealous of a woman! How unbecoming in a man of God.
Gordo waited while his surrogates fumigated Cortés and his officers with their copal censers and then he stepped forward to embrace him. Gordo, like the town luminaries Cortés had met the previous day, wore gold ornaments through his ears and lower lips and had a turquoise stone through the pierced septum of his nose.
Savages!
Gordo's slaves stepped forward and deposited at his feet a wicker basket containing bracelets, necklaces and earrings, all worked in gold. Gordo then made a brief speech.
Aguilar listened to Malinali's translation: "She says he apologises for these few paltry gifts. It is all they have to demonstrate their friendship. He says the Mexica tax collectors have robbed them for years and left them with almost nothing."
Cortés considered. "Tell him we receive these gifts very gratefully."
It was now deathly quiet in the plaza, both the Cempoallans and the Spanish soldiers straining to hear every word that was spoken.
After the next exchange Aguilar turned back to Cortés. "The woman..." Cortés noted the contempt in his voice, he could not bring himself to say Malinali's name. " ... the woman says he makes great complaint against Montezuma, that the Mexica have taken all their gold and feather work and jade in taxes, have stolen half their vanilla crop and taken many of their young men and women to feed their priests' demand for sacrifice at their temples. He asks for your help."
Cortés solemnly regarded the fat simpleton standing across from him on the dusty plaza. At last. "Aguilar, please ask Malinali to inform Chicomacatl that we ourselves are subjects of a very powerful king who has sent us here to free them from tyranny. If he agrees to become a vassal of King Charles the Fifth, he has paid the last of his taxes to the Mexica."
Another long harangue passed between Malinali and Aguilar and Gordo.
"I think he wishes our help," Aguilar said, finally, "but he is frightened because there is a garrison of Mexica not far
from here. He says if he were to renounce his vassalship to Montezuma they would come here and burn the town and drag all the young men off to Tenochtitlán to be slaughtered in the temples."
"Tell him that if he obeys me he need never fear Montezuma again."
He heard the sharp intake of breath behind him. Puertocarrero began to protest, but he silenced him with a glance.
He watched the fat Totonac lord. Was it possible for a man to look relieved, delighted and consumed by abject terror at once? Gordo did a fair imitation of it.
Alvarado spurred his horse forward and leaned from the saddle. "Are you out of your mind?" he whispered.
"Have you ever known me to be reckless?"
"More often than I can count. That time in Salamanca you climbed the wall to that doñetta's window, for instance."
"I still calculate the odds before I gamble. It will go well with us. You will see."
Alvarado pressed his lips together in a thin white line. "Whatever you say."
"Trust me. We have just been handed the key to Montezuma's house."
Malinali
A huge feast of turkey, fish, pineapples, plums and corn cakes has been prepared for us. Afterwards Feathered Serpent and the other lords are led to their quarters, a large palace belonging to a rich noblewoman.
It has a flat roof with a wide terrace that overlooks the plaza. The rooms are spacious, though there is little furniture, just some sleeping mats and a few low tables. Tapestries hang on the walls; others are strewn on the white stucco floors. Puertocarrero and myself have a room to ourselves, as do the other thunder lords and their camaradas; the soldiers and moles are billeted together in the audience hall.
I cannot stop thinking about Feathered Serpent. During the meeting in the plaza something angered him. Several times during that encounter I saw him stare at the smoke rising from the pyramid and I think I know what is troubling him.
It is the god stirring in him.
✽ ✽ ✽
The next morning I am summoned to the patio, along with Aguilar and several of the thunder lords. Feathered Serpent's expression is stern. He is dressed in his suit of black velvet, his sword is buckled to his hip, and he wears a silver medal around his neck bearing a picture of the goddess they call Virgin.
"Gentlemen, we are called to do God's work," he announces to us all and strides out of the gates and across the plaza, the others running to keep pace.
The temple here is very much like the one at Potonchan. There is a walled-off courtyard and a steep stone staircase that ascends a truncated pyramid to the ceremonial temple, a simple thatched hut of straw and bamboo. As we approach the air becomes dense with the smell of charred meat.
The bodies lie at the foot of the steps, where they have come to rest after the priests have finished with them. The arms and legs are gone, and blood has congealed in a black jelly around the open cavity of their chests. Flies buzz in thick black swarms.
"This one's just a child," Puertocarrero says.
Fray Olmedo begins to mumble words from his book. Aguilar does the same.
The black-robed priests watch us from the shrine, clustered together like carrion crows. Feathered Serpent's face is terrible. I hear the rattle of steel as he draws his sword from its scabbard but Puertocarrero puts a hand on his arm and whispers something to him and he relents.
I am proud of his fury. Feathered Serpent had always promised he would abolish human sacrifice. Now I have witnessed his outrage and I know I am in his presence. I wish Rain Flower were here, then she would believe also.
The thunder gods huddle behind him, their faces white, staring at the dismembered corpse.
Aguilar turns to me. "Is this how you care for your children in this land?"
How can I explain this to him? The child was probably malformed, or taken from another village during war. "The sacrifice is for Tlaloc, the Rain Bringer. Unlike a man, a child weeps when faced with the sacrificial stone. The tears are like the falling rain. The more tears there are, the more rains there will be in the winter to feed the harvest."
Aguilar makes a sign in the air with his hand and mutters something in his own language. The others are looking at me as if this is my doing. I wish I understood what is going through their minds. But what mortal can truly fathom the ways of the gods?
Chapter 20
"Something must be done here for the Lord," Cortés said.
Benítez stared at the dead child. Cortés' words drummed inside his head. Something must be done here for the Lord.
He turned around. Norte was standing there behind him; Norte the renegade, Norte the traitor, Norte the savage, that unfathomable half-smirk on his tattooed face.
"Another offering to your gods?"
"What is a god, Benítez? An invention of our own minds."
Heresy! They should hang this demon now before he infected them all with his devilish ideas. "What mind invented this?"
"A mind that has never been sure that its body will escape starvation."
Benítez shook his head. What kind of answer was that? "Did you witness rites such as these?"
Norte did not answer him directly. Instead, he said: "You have a fanciful morality, Benítez. You do not blanche when the Church's inquisitors break a man's arms and legs on a rack when he is still alive, but remove them when he is dead and you are suddenly offended. You will tear out a man's intestines with your pike on the field of battle, leave him there to die by inches, but to cut out his heart and kill him quickly appears to you a great barbarity. Your logic defeats me."
"This is just a child!"
"And women and children do not die in our wars?"
"Not in our churches. Our religion is not murder and cannibalism."
"No, our religion is gold."
Why do I justify what is holy to this savage? Benítez thought. No, he is worse than a savage, because he has known civilisation and true faith and has knowingly turned his back on God to embrace this barbarity. "I have nothing but contempt for wretches such as you."
"You are supposed to have pity for me, Benítez. A lost lamb, a sinner who has strayed from the fold."
"Cortés should have hanged you."
"You see? You think human meat is sacred, but you hold life so cheap. We have seen men burned to death at the stake you and I. Women, too. Why? In the name of God. Why is that so different from what has happened here?"
Benítez spun around. "You excuse this?"
"Are you asking me if I would rather expire screaming in my own funeral pyre or die quickly from one of these priest's knives? I know my answer."
He spat in the dirt and walked away.
✽ ✽ ✽
They feasted in the square. The mats were heaped with the finest delicacies the Cempoallans could provide; venison with chilies, tomatoes and squash seeds; roasted turkeys; locusts with sage; newts with yellow peppers. The Spaniards feasted riotously on the venison and turkey but the other dishes were pushed aside. Dogs fought for the scraps of gristle and bone that the soldiers tossed over their shoulders while the Totonac girls serving the food flirted and giggled.
Cortés was seated beside Gordo on one of the feasting mats, Malinali and Aguilar behind them to translate. The Totonac chieftain was still enumerating his complaints against Montezuma when his servants brought out a steaming tray of meats, which was placed reverently between him and Cortés. Gordo indicated that this dish was special and that Cortés should have the great honour of serving himself first.
Cortés recognised the sulphurous smell of cooked human blood. There was a shocked silence broken only by Fray Olmedo's murmured prayer for the dead.
"Tell him I cannot touch this," Cortés hissed at Aguilar. "Tell him that eating human flesh is an abomination before God."
Aguilar relayed Cortés' outrage to Malinali, who then leaned forward and whispered a few words in nahautl to Gordo. The fat cacique's jaw fell open in astonishment.
"What has he to say for himself?" Cortés asked Aguilar.
/> "He asks what else might be done with prisoners captured in battle if one does not eat them. May God have mercy on his soul."
"Explain to him if you will, Brother Aguilar, that these gods he serves are actually devils and he will burn for all eternity in the fires of Hell unless he desists from his heathen practices. Tell him we come here to bring him true religion, and that if he wishes to become a vassal of King Charles he must learn to be a Christian gentleman."
Cortés watched Malinali as spoke at some length with the Totonac chief. At first Gordo seemed confused. He whispered an answer to Malinali who hesitated before relaying it to Aguilar.
"The woman says he will think about this," Aguilar said, "but he fears that if they do not give the gods due sacrifice there will be droughts and floods and locusts will come and devour all their harvests. But he is still happy to become your vassal."
Cortés felt himself losing his rein on his temper. "Tell him again...”
Fray Olmedo, seated next to Alvarado, leaned forward. "Perhaps, my lord, we need not suppress their barbaric rites immediately. We are in a tenuous position. We should speak gently to them over time, so that they...”
"-We are here to do God's work!"
"Even God's work is not done in one day."
Now it was Aguilar's turn: "Fray Olmedo, with respect, I agree with our commander, the Lord cannot...”
The debate was interrupted by the blast of conch shells. The Totonacs leaped to their feet and rushed from the square. A messenger hurried over to Gordo and whispered in his ear.
Cortés looked at Malinali. The girl smiled and nodded, almost as if she had orchestrated this moment. What could have happened that could have pleased her so well yet so greatly terrified the Totonacs? She whispered something to Aguilar.
"It seems," he said, "that the Totonacs are about to receive more visitors. The Mexica have arrived."
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