But now Benítez steps forward. “This is not justice, my lord. This is murder.”
A knotted vein in my lord’s temple bulges. “Do not dare to question me! Be silent or I shall give you cause to repent it! I have made my decision in accordance with the law! These men must die!”
Chapter 70
The pyre was built with the wood from arrow shafts and atlatl spear throwers plundered from the palace armoury. Smoking Eagle and his fellow warrior chiefs were bound hand and feet bound to stout poles.
Cortés watched the preparations from the palace walls. He turned to Alvarado and asked for two more sets of chains. When they brought he held them towards Montezuma. "Mali," he said, "tell the Emperor he must hold out his wrists to me."
Montezuma did as he was ordered, and Cortés placed the irons on his wrists and snapped them shut. Then he knelt and placed the other set of fetters around Montezuma's ankles.
With this simple act he breaks him, Benítez realised, both in the eyes of the crowd watching below, and as importantly, in the emperor’s own mind. It would have been kinder to have killed him along with his warriors.
The Revered Speaker of the Mexica was crying like a woman.
In the courtyard below Jaramillo threw a flaming torch into the wood at Smoking Eagle's feet. Through the drifting smoke, the Mexica chief did in death something he would not have dared to do in life. He raised his head and looked up into the face of Montezuma. Even from the terrace above Benítez could see the hatred in his eyes.
He turned to the caudillo. "My lord, why do we murder a brave man?"
"Nine of our own brave men died at Vera Cruz at his hand. Or have you forgotten?"
"That man down there was merely following orders." Benítez pointed at Montezuma. "That is the wretch who killed them."
"If we kill him, we forfeit our own lives. Meanwhile, by this simple act, we teach the rest of the people what to expect if they ever again lay their filthy hands on a Spaniard."
Montezuma’s chest heaved. What spell did Cortés put on you? Benítez wondered. Or is this some private madness that keeps you imprisoned? One word from you and your people would crush us like insects. What an irony that in this nation of warriors the Emperor, like all bullies, had turned out to be a coward.
The crowd in the plaza watched the burnings in silence. Not one of the Indians cried out. They endured their death’s agonies without a sound. Some seemed to enjoy the spectacle: Benítez heard Jaramillo call up to Alvarado: "Now the Eagle is really smoking!"
And Alvarado laughed.
✽ ✽ ✽
When it was over the stench of charred flesh hung in the plaza like a pall.
Cortés bent to remove Montezuma's chains.
"Mali, tell him that I am sorry for what has taken place here today. Tell him also that even though I know that it was he who was the guilty one, and that he deserved to die along with Smoking Eagle, I would not harm him for all the world, as he is my friend. Tell him I will help to spread his fame far and wide and give him even more lands for his empire. From this day on should he look for salvation, he should look to me."
Mother of God, Benítez thought. The man is a monster. How did we not see it until now?
PART III
The Bringer of Darkness
"The Pope must have been drunk."
- reaction of the Cenu indians when told PopeAlexander VI had divided the world between the Spanish and the Portuguese.
Chapter 71
The Year of Our Lord, 1520.
Two Flint on the ancient Aztec Calendar.
The centre of the world had shifted its focus to the palace of the Face of the Water Lord.
Montezuma's favourite tapestries and dwarves and wives were transferred to the new court. Scribes hurried across the plaza between the palaces with codices and tribute records and the great princes of the empire gathered in the reception halls to visit their emperor in apartments his own guests now guarded.
But many did not come; Cuitlahuac, Lord Maize Cobs, Falling Eagle, all refused to obey his summons. They withdrew to Texcoco and Ixtalapalapa and brooded there.
An uneasy peace returned to the city although the political wrangling between Montezuma and Cortés continued behind the palace walls. As a further concession to Cortés, Montezuma's daughter and niece were initiated into the Christian faith by Father Olmedo and baptised Doña Ana and Doña Elvira.
Meanwhile, in Vera Cruz, Juan Escalante died of the wounds he received in the battle with the unfortunate Smoking Eagle's army and was replaced by Gonzalo de Sandoval.
The soldiers settled into a routine, playing cards and dice, observing the life of the city from the behind the palace walls, looked to the mountains for sign of the re-inforcements they believed Puertocarrero would soon bring.
Benítez noticed a change in the behaviour of his own squadron, and one member in particular; Gonzalo Norte. Since Texcála the soldiers had stopped mocking him, and as the slow months in the capital passed he was even accepted into their pastimes and their ribald talk. He stopped shaving his beard and no longer bathed every day. He spent much of his time gambling with Flores and Guzman, his former tormentors.
In fact, Benítez decided, he was well on his way to becoming a Spaniard once again. I should be pleased for him.
Malinali
"You must tell my lord Montezuma there is a matter I need urgently to discuss with him. A religious matter."
The laughter freezes on Montezuma’s face. He has aged these last few months and today he looks like a frail old man. His captors treat him with patronising forbearance, as one would an enfeebled uncle. He has lost all pride in himself.
He is busy at patolli with Alvarado and Jaramillo, a game the Culhua-Mexica played with marked white beans. Players move six pebble counters around a board according to the fall of the beans. Since his confinement his only passion is gambling on the results of these games, though whenever he wins he gives all his winnings to his guards.
"What is it he wishes to say to me?" Montezuma asks, turning from his game. He has about him the sulky expression of a child about to be scolded.
I translate my lord's words and wait, stiffly, at his side. These last weeks my lord has become a stranger to me. He marches the corridors of the palace with a retinue of servants following him everywhere, puffed up as an emperor. I have seen the way he looks at Montezuma's daughters. Now he is past the mountains and inside the kingdom's heart, he no longer needs me.
"Tell him it is about the future of the Templo Mayor," my lord says. "For months Fray Olmedo and Brother Aguilar have been instructing him in the ways of Christianity and I also have explained to him at length about his false gods. Tell him the time has now come to pull down the idols in the temple and erect in their place an image of the blesséd Virgin. Tell him if he does not agree to this we shall do it by force and kill any priests who try to stop us."
Montezuma looks stricken. What did he expect? Cortés cannot be stayed forever.
"Tell the Lord Malinche he must do not do this," Montezuma whispers to me. "Should he attempt it, our gods will surely strike him down and my people will rise up in revolt. It is a very delicate matter. I need more time to handle this my own way."
When he hears this, my lord's expression becomes kinder. "You may tell Montezuma that if it were up to me, I would leave the matter entirely in his hands. But my captains press me every day. Perhaps, though, if I could give them something to occupy their minds ..."
What game are you playing now?
"If he can tell us where his jewellers obtain all their gold, it might perhaps relieve the sickness in my captains' hearts and make them more amenable."
It is like a blow to the stomach. Just gold, my lord? Is that all you ever wanted?
"My lord says that it is not he, but his captains, who press for the destruction of your temples. He thinks he can buy them off with your gold mines. He wants to know where they are."
A flicker of a smile, but a sad one. Does he
still believe my lord is Feathered Serpent? Does he also realise that the world can never return to the way it was, that he can never again be Emperor? He must know by now that the Thunder Lords will never leave, that the only way the Mexica can be free again is for Montezuma to give them the order to fight, and if he does, they will kill him. Does he really still hope to rule by ingratiating himself with them?
"Tell him that most of our gold is obtained by panning," Montezuma tells me. "There is Zacatula, in the south, which belongs to our vassals, the Mixtecs. There is another near Malinaltepec ..."
"Wait," Cortés says, and holds up his hand and calls Cáceres to come forward. The major-domo is holding quill and parchment. "We must write these names down, together with precise locations so that we can send expeditions to these places. Now, this Zacatula, how many days is it from Tenochtitlán ...?"
✽ ✽ ✽
When the inventory is finished the Thunder Lords quit the room and I am left alone with Montezuma. He broods silently, staring at a yellow parrot in a silver cage. "Now I know how that little bird feels," he murmurs.
He takes the cage down from the wall, walks over to the terrace and opens the cage. The bird hesitates for a moment, surprised, then launches itself from its prison and flaps away over the roofs of the palace.
He hurls the empty cage across the tiles. "The strangers have the gold sickness again, then?"
"It seems."
"I wonder what is so valuable about gold? Silver is harder to work, jade and quetzal feathers rarer and more beautiful to look at." When he turns around I am surprised to see that he has a smile on his face. The frail old man is gone. Is he truly cowed by these thunder lords or is it an act? "Why do you do his bidding?"
"Why do you, my lord?"
"I have no choice." He studies me intently. "Do you trust this Lord Malinche?"
I am silent. How am I supposed to answer such a question?
"I have noticed your waist has thickened. Are you growing stout on tamales or is his child swelling in your belly?"
I place a hand on my womb. "The future ruler of Mexico."
He shakes his head. "He will betray you. Your son will never rule Tenochtitlán."
For a moment I cannot get my breath. The words echo in the room, fragile clay dreams shatter on the marble floors. He would not betray me.
"Your son will never rule Tenochtitlán," he repeats.
"Nor will yours," I answer and hurry away.
✽ ✽ ✽
I wake in the final watch of the night to find my lord already dressed in his quilted armour, staring out of the window, waiting impatiently for the dawn. There have been many nights like this one since we arrived in Tenochtitlán. These days he seems hardly to sleep at all.
"My lord."
"I did not mean to wake you.”
"Come back to bed." He hesitates then crawls under the blanket fully clothed. I mould my body around his, my head nestles into the crook of his arm. "What were you doing?"
"Thinking."
"About what?"
"About that morning at Merchant's Meeting ... how did you know that the lord they sent to us was not Montezuma?"
"It was the way the others behaved towards him."
"That was all?"
"How a man holds himself, how others hold themselves when they are with him ... how else do you tell if a man is a king or a peasant?"
He kisses my forehead. "And how do I hold myself, my lady? Am I a king?"
"More than a king."
"More than a king ..." It is growing light. I can make out the lines and hollows of his face. There is something wrong.
"What is it, my lord?"
He shakes his head.
"I would do anything for you. Anything."
He enfolds me in his arms. I wish I could always have his arms around me. I have cut myself loose from the ties of my ancestors and my people, but here at least I am safe. At least, I believe it to be so.
He will betray you. Your son will never rule Tenochtitlán.
I hold him tighter. He will never betray me. I have his child in my belly. He is my destiny. Without him, there is no meaning to my life.
✽ ✽ ✽
They are all gathered in one of the great halls of audience, all of Montezuma's élite; his brother Cuitlahuac, his nephew Lord Maize Cobs, all of his most favoured noblemen, including the lords of Taluca and Tacuba. They are seated on mats with their wrists in manacles. The Thunder Lords ring the walls.
Montezuma sits on a throne beside Cortés on the dais, his head sunk onto his chest. I stand at my lord's right shoulder.
He turns to me now, his eyes hard as flint. "My lord Montezuma knows what he must say. Be sure that he does not stray from the speech he has been given."
I look at the Emperor. He looks shrunken, as if his vitals have been hollowed out of his chest. His noblemen stare up at him, none of them afraid now to look openly on their god-king.
Montezuma begins, his voice shrill: "Lords, you all know the legend of Feathered Serpent, who ruled this land many bundles of years before we the Mexica were led here by Hummingbird. You all know that on the day he left he promised to return and end human sacrifice and reclaim his seat here in our kingdom. I believe that day has come. I have prayed to Hummingbird ... for enlightenment on this question and ... and he has ... has advised me ... "
Montezuma's voice breaks and he cannot finish.
My lord raises an eyebrow. "Remind my lord that this is not a time for weeping, but for celebration."
I do this, but it has little effect on the emperor's ill humour. He is making tiny mewing noises, like a baby in its crib. I am afraid he does not share my lord's view of the circumstances.
"Tell my lord Montezuma we need to complete our business here!"
I nudge our whining lord. "Lord Malinche grows impatient," I tell him.
Montezuma makes an effort to compose himself. "Feathered Serpent .... wishes us .... to hand over the throne ... as is his right ... and agree to pay him ... yearly tribute ... in gold."
"This is not Feathered Serpent," Cuitlahuac shouts. "You have allowed a thief into our house and now he wants to take everything we have!"
"We should have attacked him before he reached our city," Lord Maize Cobs says, "as we planned to do at Chalco. By your cowardice and indecision you have shamed the name of the Mexica!"
"I will never agree to this," Cuitlahuac says. "I would rather die!"
Montezuma's face is wet with his tears. "We have no choice!”
Why is he doing this? I wonder. Does he still fear the gods or is it, as Lord Maize Cobs says, just cowardice?
"What are they saying?” my lord asks me.
"They cannot agree among themselves."
"They have to obey their emperor. To do otherwise is treasonous."
"They say they would rather die."
"I can oblige them in their wish. By my conscience, they are an intractable people!" A pulse pounds in his temple. "Very well. We do not require their sanction at this point." He turns to one of his moles, who is scribbling on a piece of parchment. "Let it be known that I asked of Montezuma, the emperor, if he agreed to become a vassal of the King of Spain and pay regular tribute, in gold, to the King and his agents, of a sum yet to be determined."
This is my cue; I turn to Montezuma. "He wishes you to formally declare your vassalage and accord him tribute in gold each year."
Montezuma cannot speak. Instead, there is an almost imperceptible nod of the head.
"He accepts your terms."
"Very well. Let the royal notary record that Montezuma is from today under the protection of his most catholic majesty, the King of Spain, according to the bequest of the Holy Church." He glares at the gathering of rebel noblemen before him. "As for these others, keep them here, under guard, so they can do no mischief. Doña Marina, will you kindly ask my lord Montezuma to rise."
The emperor, fearing further humiliation, gets slowly to his feet, aided by his own courtiers. My
lord rises also. Unexpectedly, he embraces him.
"Thank my lord Montezuma for his help in this. Tell him he has nothing more to fear. I will care for him as if he was my own brother."
He leaves the room. Montezuma stares blankly at the wall, his body stiff, startled by this final humiliation, this violation of his person.
"My lord conveys his thanks," I tell him, "and tells you not to fear. From now on he will treat you as his own brother." And then, in a whisper, I add through some mischief of my own: "But I do not think you should believe him."
Chapter 72
Cortés strode from the room, jubilant. He had within his grasp that treasure he had glimpsed from the first; he would hand to his king a new kingdom, fully made, fully realised, the most beautiful city ever built together with unheard-of riches in gold. He would scrub the temples clean of their accurséd idols and the pyramids would become shrines to the Virgin. He would have served not only his king but fulfilled the destiny shaped for him by God. He would bring light to this darkness and save millions of lost souls for God. His deeds would bring him fame and honour such as no Spaniard since the Cid had achieved.
When it was done he would ask the king's permission to be grandee of this land, to rule as absolute governor. How could any king refuse such a request?
He was just one small step from achieving his goal. There was just one more risk to take for God.
✽ ✽ ✽
The allotment of the treasure took place in the courtyard, in the presence of the royal notary. Cortés climbed on one of the carts that had been used to transport the artillery. A hush fell over the assembled soldiers. This was the moment they had been waiting for, when they would know how much of the fabulous wealth they had seen would be theirs. Each of them nursed a dream of what they would do with their share when they returned home, to the Indies or to Extremadura or to Castile.
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