Aztec

by Colin Falconer

  "My army is ready to march, as you ordered," Lord Maize Cobs said. "You have only to give the command."

  "That unfortunate remedy may not be necessary," Montezuma answered. "There has been a new development. Three of the calpisqui have been released. They were escorted through Totonáca lands by Malintzin's own soldiers."

  The gathered Mexica nobles shook their head in bewilderment.

  "They brought a personal message from this Malintzin. He has conveyed his feelings of friendship to me and has promised to punish the Totonáca personally for the offences they have committed against our tribute gatherers."

  There was a long silence. What to make of such a thing? Incomprehensible.

  "Then, just a few hours ago, their companions also returned to Tenochtitlán. They, too, have been saved from the Totonáca sacrificial stones by this Malintzin, who conveyed them to safety on his own war canoes. They said these lords treated them most gently."

  "What does it mean?" one of the old warriors said aloud.

  "This woman he has with him," Woman Snake began, "this - Malinali. She says Malintzin is a god. She says he is Feathered Serpent returned."

  A deathly hush.

  "We cannot be sure what this woman says is true," Cuitlahuac murmured. "Malintzin does not have the elegant speech. They are not his words, they are hers."

  Lord Maize Cobs nodded. "He may only be an ambassador from some far-off place. If that is the case, then we must welcome him with good hospitality and hear what he has to say."

  Falling Eagle, Montezuma's nephew, shifted irritably on his bench. "You should not let someone into your house who will try to throw you out of it."

  "If this Malintzin is indeed an ambassador of another country," a general of the Jaguar Knights said, "then we should give him the hospitality he is due, as Lord Maize Cobs has said. If he comes dishonestly we have brave warriors who can defend us. What do we have to fear, we millions against a few hundred?"

  "And yet Lord Tendile does not believe them to be ambassadors. He thinks they are invaders, come in the guise of gods."

  "Invaders?" one of the chief priests interrupted. "How can so few men invade all Mexico?"

  Montezuma, who had said nothing during this debate, now raised his hand for silence. "The calpisqui overheard the Totonáca also calling them gods."

  "The Totonáca were fathered by monkeys," Falling Eagle said.

  "Yet this Malintzin and his followers behave as incomprehensibly as gods. He has come in the year that was prophesied, One Reed, and he landed on our beaches on the day of his name, Nine-Wind.

  "What should we do then? If we send our armies against him, and they are victorious, what should happen to us?" He looked around the room, seeing other worried faces. "If we destroy Feathered Serpent we destroy the wind, and without the wind there will be no clouds, no rain and no crops in the field. To vanquish him would be to vanquish ourselves."

  For a long time the only sound was the hissing of burning green logs in the brazier.

  "Now he has proclaimed himself my friend and given proof of it. To take up our arms against him would be a needless folly."

  "What if he is not Feathered Serpent?" Lord Maize Cobs asked.

  "What if he is?" Montezuma countered. "No, for now we will do nothing. We will wait."

  He rose to his feet to indicate that the council was closed. The gathered nobles fell to their knees as he left the chamber, each of them more frightened now than when he entered the room. Their emperor seemed paralysed by indecision while somewhere on their borders a mischievous hand was manipulating events. Either as a god or as a man this Malintzin was manifestly dangerous. Only the priests seemed satisfied with the interpretation Montezuma had placed on events; the rest of them, the soldiers and the statesmen, did not trust what they did not understand.

  But they must be guided by Revered Speaker; they must believe, as he did, that they might yet be spared the doom that had been foretold.

  Malinali

  Our alliance with Gordo and the Totonáca is done with great public ceremony in the plaza. One of my lord's moles writes everything down in his book, as Feathered Serpent wishes. Gordo then announces that the Cempoallans will cement this alliance in the normal way.

  "The Totonáca and your thunder gods will now make a bond that will last forever. We now present our finest daughters as their wives!"

  I turn to Aguilar. "There is to be more mounting of women," I tell him.

  "What do you mean?"

  "He is offering my Lord more women for his pleasure. Perhaps this time you should ask for one for yourself."

  Aguilar turns away from me and gives the news to Feathered Serpent.

  "My lord Cortés wants you to thank Gordo for his generosity," he says after some consultation, "but you must remind him that the young women must first be baptised in the Holy Spirit before they can ... accompany a Christian gentleman."

  "They are to be sprinkled outside and in, yes Aguilar?"

  His face turns the colour of a ripe chili.

  I know it is not politic to goad him but I cannot help myself. Besides, I am growing anxious now, and Aguilar is an easy target for my frustrations. What if my lord Feathered Serpent should choose one of these women for himself, over me?

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Eight young women are led into the plaza, dressed in sheer cotton mantles and glittering with golden collars and ear rings. So much for the destitution to which the Mexica had apparently condemned the Totonac nation. But never mind. I am sure my Lord is aware of their perfidy; as long as they are unaware of his.

  Seven of the women are presented to my lord's captains; my violet-eyed Puertocarrero and Tonatiuh are rewarded with a second wife. My husband's is especially beautiful, the daughter of Gordo's own prime minister, Lord Cuesco. She is immediately sprinkled with water by Fray Olmedo, and Aguilar tells me she is henceforward now to be called Doña Francisca.

  Then Gordo presents my lord with his own niece. There are stifled guffaws among the moles. I feel a surge of relief. The princess is not as fat as Gordo; not quite. Give her a few months. She approaches in a wobbling gait like an overfed turkey and looks utterly ridiculous in her bridal finery, covered from head to foot in flowers, a garden on the move.

  I dare a glance at my lord. He silences the titters of his captains with a hard stare and then steps forward and kisses his bride gallantly on the hand. I wonder at his manners and his kindness. My heart goes out to him.

  Then he looks at me and I see laughter in his eyes but not on his lips. He whispers something to Aguilar.

  "My lord Cortés wishes you to tell this girl's uncle that his generosity is huge." I smile at this, but it is evident Aguilar cannot see the joke. In my translation I change "huge" to something approximating "boundless", as I am sure my lord wishes me to do.

  Gordo's niece is the last to submit to the sprinkling of the water.

  Aguilar seems pleased. "Tell Gordo that now he has sworn fealty to his most Catholic majesty the King of Spain, he must abandon these damnable blood sacrifices and tear down his devilish idols."

  I turn to Gordo. "Feathered Serpent says that you must now abandon human sacrifice as he preached when he was last here many sheaves of years ago."

  Gordo gapes at me, astonished. "But surely, a few slaves, some prisoners taken in battle, this is not unreasonable to ensure a good harvest or to propitiate the gods when the rains are late...”

  "Feathered Serpent says it is a crime and must be stopped immediately. You must also tear down your images of his great enemy, Tetzcatlipoca, Bringer of Darkness."

  "But if we destroy our gods there will be no more rains, no more crops in the fields...”

  An angry murmur passes through the crowd. Like a ripple on a pond, the whispers pass from mouth to mouth.

  "What is Gordo saying?" Aguilar wants to know.

  "He argues like a woman at the market. Let me have one more moment with him." I return my attention to the cacique. "All these years you and you
r ancestors have waited for Feather Serpent's return and now you reject his teaching! First you welcome him back with a great procession and then you betray him! What if he decides not to bother with you any further? What do you think Montezuma will do when my lord is no longer here to protect you, when he has gone back to the Cloud Lands in disgust?"

  Gordo hesitates.

  I turn to my lord Feathered Serpent in frustration. He gives a signal to the other lords waiting on the other side of the plaza.

  A clap of thunder. The crowd gasps, some fall to the ground in terror, others start to run. Tonatiuh and his fellow captains sprint up the temple steps, holding swords and heavy iron bars. When they reach the top they knock aside the priests and then a dozen of them lever one of the stone idols towards the edge. It is Serpent Skirt herself.

  Even as I will them on, I concede it is a terrible sight to witness. The goddess falls, lurching sideways onto the topmost step, and then comes crashing down towards us. Serpent Skirt is broken in three pieces by the time she reaches the plaza, stone splinters landing a hundred paces from where she finally comes to rest, bloodying some of the crowd.

  The thunder gods are now attacking Rain Bringer and Maize Mother. The crowd spills back into the plaza, moaning like a giant wounded beast. They rush the temple to protect their gods, only to retreat again as Bringer of Darkness rumbles down the steps, gathering speed before shattering into pieces at the bottom beside Serpent Skirt.

  It is a moment I had thought never to see in my lifetime, a sacrilege that leaves me breathless, exhilarated and terrified. I smell smoke. They have overturned Lord of Fire and the sparks from his crown have ignited the thatched roof.

  A black pall hangs over the temple. The wails of the Totonáca are deafening. They will turn on us any moment, I am sure of it, they are only waiting for a signal from Gordo.

  But the thunder lords have already formed a defensive perimeter around Feathered Serpent and the fat cacique, their swords and pikes and thunder sticks trained on the crowd. It seems impossible that just a few moments before the Totonáca were giving us their women and their devotion. Gordo's fat niece is running comically in circles, wailing at the top of her lungs. Fray Olmedo is on his knees, hands clenched and thrust towards the sky.

  Aguilar, though, evinces my grudging admiration. In the face of this wild crowd he stands in front of his own soldiers with his precious book clutched to his chest and regards the Totonáca who wish to kill him with the benign forbearance of a schoolteacher.

  I feel almost serene. My father had told me never to fear chaos. In destruction you will find your destiny.

  Chapter 23

  Cortés drew his sword. "How many innocent women and children have been butchered by these heathen?" he shouted to his soldiers over the baying of the crowd. "How can we count ourselves as Christians and honourable Spaniards if we allow this to continue? Let us count our lives as nothing if we fail God in this venture!"

  The soldiers kept their order as the Indians surged forward. Benítez shouted a warning and pointed to the royal palace. Totonac archers were assembling on the roof.

  Cortés grabbed Gordo by the arm and held his sword to his throat.

  "Lady Marina!" Aguilar shouted over the din. "Cortés says you must inform their cacique that he is about to die unless he restores order!"

  Cortés forced Gordo to his knees, the sharpened edge of his sword had already drawn a trickle of blood from his doughy flesh. Malinali put her face in front of his and whispered to him in Nahuatl. He nodded his acquiescence, babbling.

  It took four of his own slaves to get him back to his feet. He addressed the mob, his voice a wavering tremolo and gradually a silence fell over the plaza.

  Malinali

  The next day the Totonacs drag their shattered gods from the plaza with ropes. Rain Bringer and Maize Mother and the rest disappear into the forest. They will not be smashed and buried as my lord has ordered, of course. They will be hidden in the jungle, so that the Totonáca can steal away, from time to time, to the secret hiding places. But it is enough for now that their hold on the people broken.

  On the summit of the pyramid another thatch is already being built over the ashes of the old, and the bloodstained walls have been whitewashed. A new shrine has been laid, this one bright with fresh flowers and illuminated by the candles that the thunder gods make from bees wax. The priests have been made to exchange their blood-encrusted black garments for new white vestments. Their hair, which they allowed to grow to their waists and was caked stiff with dried blood, has been sawed off with the sharp blades of the captains' swords.

  In the place of the old stone gods, a cross and a picture of the goddess Aguilar calls Virgin has been placed in the temple. Feathered Serpent himself carried the picture up the step.

  I must confess, this new shrine disturbs me. My lord is truly like no other god I have ever imagined. He is divine and yet he bends his knee each day before the gentle image of a mother and child; he rages against human sacrifice yet drinks the blood of his own god, Olintecle.

  He is Feathered Serpent as I always imagined him to be; and yet in so many ways he is also not him.

  He is not faultless, but then no god is without fault. Sometimes a god will find his way inside a man, as with Montezuma. And if a god may find his way inside a man, could the divine not also find a warm place inside the heart of a living woman?

  Chapter 24

  Cortés abandoned San Juan de Ulúa and built his new colony on the plain seven miles to the north of Cempoallan. Alvarado took possession in the name of King Charles the Fifth of Spain. He named it The Rich Town of the True Cross - Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz.

  The men cheered him, even those who had formerly wished to go back to Cuba. After all, as Cortés had said, the gold wheel must be only the beginning, and if they continued to create new colonies, soon every last one of them would be an alcalde himself.

  After the ceremony, the position of chief justice and captain-general of the new colony was declared vacant. The post was unanimously offered to Hernan Cortés who humbly accepted.

  The next day they set to work on building; there was to be a church, a marketplace, warehouses, a stockade, a hospital, a town hall and an arsenal, all protected by a high stone wall with watchtowers, parapets and barbicans. They would also construct kilns to make clay bricks, and smithies from the ships were put to work forging wrought iron. As part of the treaty Cortés had made with Gordo, thousands of Cempoallans were recruited as native labour. But all the Spaniards helped with the work, digging foundations or carrying earth to the kilns; Cortés himself put his back into hewing logs.

  Malinali and Rain Flower went to work in the hospital, assisting the Spaniards' only doctor, Mendez. Now they were away from the marshes there were fewer cases of fever and vómito, but Malinali proved her worth, preparing herbal remedies for a variety of ailments.

  As the months passed, the new colony took shape. The Mexica waited and watched.

  Malinali

  Cortés kneels before the wooden trestle that serves as an altar in the half-finished church. A wooden cross has been fixed high on the wall above a picture of Aguilar's goddess and her baby. Cortés fingers the beads he holds in his right hand, his face serene, oblivious to the banging of nails and the shouts of the moles around him.

  I watch him at his devotions. It moves me to my core that such a great lord will fall to his knees before the image of a woman with an infant. It is testament to both his gentleness and his strength. The picture perhaps reminds him that in his last incarnation he was a priest, serving the gods. Now he has returned to destroy those same gods and bring us a new divinity, a gentle god, not a bringer of war and destruction and deception.

  Seeing him like this renews my faith in him. How can a goddess with a suckling baby be the harbinger of anything but good? Would such a goddess demand blood and burning?

  As I leave the church I see Norte, bare-chested, heading across the plaza, carrying some rough-hewn timb
er over his shoulder.

  I call out to him in Chontal Maya. "Norte! Will you help me?"

  He lays down his burden and looks up, surprised. "If I can, Doña Marina."

  "Come here, please."

  He approaches, cautiously. "What can I do for you?"

  "I want you to talk to your lord for me."

  "Why me? What about Aguilar?"

  "Because I want you to speak for me, not Aguilar."

  Norte reluctantly agrees. He follows me back inside the half-built church and we wait for my lord to finish his devotions.

  He stands up and smiles at me, but frowns when he sees Norte.

  "Please beg his forgiveness," I say to Norte, "and tell him I did not mean to disturb him while he was with the gods. But there is something I must ask him."

  There is a swift exchange between the two men. "He says that there is nothing to forgive. He is very happy to see you."

  I smile at this gallantry. But then I hesitate. How can I tell him what I wish to say? "Tell him ... tell him that I know ... that I know he is Feathered Serpent."

  Norte stares at me. "What?"

  "Have you not guessed?"

  "This man is no god, believe me."

  "Just tell him what I say."

  Feathered Serpent watches our exchange and appears puzzled. Norte turns back to him, finishes the translation as I have asked him to. When it is done, my lord stares at me for a long time without speaking. Finally he murmurs something to Norte.

  "There, I told you,” Norte says.

  "What does he say?"

  "He says he does not know what you are talking about. He asks me who Feathered Serpent is."

  "I don't believe you."

  "He's just another Spaniard, like I am. Except a little more greedy and ruthless than most."

  My lord speaks again.

  "He wants you to leave him in peace," Norte says to me. "You're to leave and I have to remain here. He'll probably have me flogged for this."