Aztec

by Gary Jennings

  He did not. He expressed to Cortés his dismay and condolence. He sent a force of his palace guard to make apologies in Tzempoálan and Vera Cruz, to relieve Cuaupopóca of his authority, to bring him and his chief military officers under arrest to Tenochtítlan.

  What was worse, when the praiseworthy Cuaupopóca and his four commendable cuáchictin “old eagles” of the Mexíca army knelt in obeisance before the throne, Motecuzóma sat flaccidly slumped on that throne, flanked by the sternly erect Cortés and Alvarado, and in a not at all lordly voice he said to the prisoners:

  “You have exceeded the authority of your mission. You have seriously embarrassed your Lord Speaker and compromised the honor of the Mexíca nation. You have broken the promise of truce I granted to these esteemed visitors and all their subordinates. Have you anything to say for yourselves?”

  Cuaupopóca was dutiful to the end, though he was recognizably more of a man, more of a noble, more of a Mexícatl, than the creature on the throne to whom he said respectfully, “It was all my doing, Lord Speaker. And I did what I thought best to do. No man can do more.”

  Motecuzóma said dully, “You have caused me grievous hurt. But the death and damage you caused have more grievously hurt these our guests. Therefore …” And incredibly the Revered Speaker of the One World said, “Therefore, I will defer judgment to the Captain-General Cortés, and let him determine what punishment you deserve.”

  Cortés had evidently given prior thought to that matter, for he decreed a punishment that he must have been sure would deter any other individuals trying to oppose him, and it was at the same time a punishment intended to flout our traditions and spite our gods. He commanded that the five should be put to death, but not to any Flowery Death. No heart would be fed to any god, no blood would be spilled to the honor of any god, no flesh or organ of the men would remain to be used as any least sacrificial offering.

  Cortés had his soldiers bring a length of chain; it was the thickest chain I ever saw, like looped constrictor snakes made of iron; I learned later that it was a segment of what is called an anchor chain, used for mooring the heavy ships. It took considerable effort on the part of the soldiers, and surely caused considerable pain to Cuaupopóca and his four officers, but the giant links of that chain were forced over the heads of the condemned men, so a link hung around each man’s neck. They were taken into The Heart of the One World, where a great log had been fixed upright in the square … just yonder, in front of where the cathedral now stands, where the Señor Bishop now has his pillory for the exposure of sinners to public vilification. The chain was fastened around the top of that heavy post, so the five men stood in a circle, their backs to the log, pinioned by their necks. Then a pile of wood, previously soaked in chapopótli, was heaped around their feet and as high as their knees, and it was set afire.

  Such a novel punishment—a deliberately bloodless execution—had never been known in these lands before, so almost everyone in Tenochtítlan came to see it. But I watched it while standing beside the priest Bartolomé, and he confided to me that such burnings are quite common in Spain, that they are especially suited to the execution of enemies of Holy Church, because the Church has always forbidden its clerics to shed the blood of even the worst sinners. It is a pity, reverend scribes, that your Church is thereby enjoined from employing more merciful methods of execution. For I have seen many kinds of killing and dying in my time, but none more hideous, I think, than what Cuaupopóca and his officers suffered that day.

  They bore it staunchly for a while, as the flames first licked up along their legs. Above the heavy iron collars of the chain links, their faces were calm and resigned. They were not otherwise bound to the post, but they did not kick their legs or flail their arms or struggle in any unseemly manner. However, when the flames reached their groins and burned away their loincloths and began to burn what was underneath, their faces became agonized. Then the fire needed no longer to be fed by the wood and chapopótli; it caught the natural oils of their skin and the fatty tissue just under the skin. The men, instead of being burned, began to burn of themselves, and the flames rose so high that we could barely see their faces. But we saw the brighter flash of their hair going in one blaze, and we could hear the men begin to scream.

  After a while, the screams faded to a thin, high shrilling, just audible above the crackling of the flames, and more unpleasant to hear than the screaming had been. When we onlookers got a glimpse of the men inside the blaze, they were black and crinkled all over, but somewhere inside that char they still lived and one or more of them kept up that inhuman keening. The flames eventually ate under their skin and flesh, to gnaw on their muscles, and that made the muscles tighten in odd ways, so that the men’s bodies began to contort. Their arms bent at the elbows; their hands of fused fingers came up before their faces, or where their faces had been. What was left of their legs slowly bent at the knees and hips; they lifted off the ground and bunched up against the men’s bellies.

  As they hung there and fried, they also shrank, until they ceased to resemble men, in size as well as appearance. Only their crusted and featureless heads were still of adult size. Otherwise they looked like five children, charred black, tucked into the position in which young children so often sleep. And still, though it was hard to believe that life still existed inside those pitiful objects, that shrill noise went on. It went on until their heads burst. Wood soaked in chapopótli gives a hot fire, and such heat must make the brain boil and froth and steam until the skull can no longer contain it. There was a sudden noise like a clay pot shattering, and it sounded four times more, and then there was no noise except the sizzle of some last droplets from the bodies failing into the fire, and the soft crunch of the wood relaxing into a bed of embers.

  It was a long time before the anchor chain was cool enough for Cortés’s soldiers to undo it from the blackened post, and let the five small things drop into the embers to burn entirely to ash, and they took the chain away to be saved for future use, though no other such execution has taken place since then. That was eleven years ago. But just last year, when Cortés returned from his visit to Spain, where your King Carlos raised him from his rank of Captain-General and ennobled him as the Marqués del Valle, Cortés himself designed the emblem of his new nobility. What you call his coat of arms is now to be seen everywhere: it is a shield marked with various symbols, and the shield is encircled by a chain, and in the links of that chain are collared five human heads. Cortés might have chosen to commemorate others of his triumphs, but he knows well that the end of the brave Cuaupopóca marked the beginning of the Conquest of The One World.

  Since the execution had been decreed and directed by the white strangers who should have had no such authority, it caused much trepidation and unrest among our people. But the next occurrence was even more unexpected and unbelievable and mystifying: Motecuzóma’s public announcement that he was moving out of his own palace to go and live for a while among the white men.

  The citizens of Tenochtítlan crowded The Heart of the One World, watching with stony faces, on the day their Revered Speaker strolled leisurely across the plaza, arm in arm with Cortés, under no restraint or any visible compulsion, and entered the palace of his father Axayácatl, the palace occupied by the visiting aliens. During the days following, there was a constant traffic back and forth across the square, as Spanish soldiers helped Motecuzóma’s porters and slaves to move his entire court from the one palace to the other: Motecuzóma’s wives and children and servants, their wardrobes and the furnishings of all their chambers, the contents of the throne room, libraries of books and treasury accounts, all the appurtenances necessary to conducting court business.

  Our people could not understand why their Revered Speaker would become a guest of his own guests, or, in effect, a prisoner of his own prisoners. But I think I know why. I long ago heard Motecuzóma described as a “hollow drum,” and over the years I heard that drum make loud noises, and on most of those occasions I knew thos
e noises to be produced by the thumping of hands and events and circumstances over which Motecuzóma had no control … or things which he could only pretend he controlled … or which he only halfheartedly tried to control. If there had ever been any hope that he might someday wield his own drumsticks, so to speak, that hope vanished when he relinquished to Cortés the resolution of the Cuaupopóca affair.

  For our war chief Cuitláhuac soon afterward ascertained what Cuaupopóca had in fact achieved—an advantage that could have put the white men and all their allies at our mercy—and Cuitláhuac used no brotherly words in telling how Motecuzóma had so hastily and weakly and disgracefully thrown away the one best chance for saving The One World. That revelation of his latest and worst mistake drained away any strength or will or lordliness still inherent in the Revered Speaker. He became a hollow drum indeed, too flabby even to make a noise when beaten. Meanwhile, as Motecuzóma dwindled into lethargy and enfeeblement, Cortés stood taller and bolder. After all, he had demonstrated that he held a power of life and death, even inside the stronghold of the Mexíca. He had snatched from near-extinction his Vera Cruz settlement and his ally Patzínca, not to mention himself and all the men with him. So he did not hesitate to make of Motecuzóma the outrageous demand that he voluntarily submit to his own abduction.

  “I am not a prisoner. You can see that,” said Motecuzóma, the first time he summoned the Speaking Council and me and some other lords to call upon him in his displaced throne room. “There is ample space here for my whole court, and comfortable chambers for us all, and ample facilities for me to continue conducting the affairs of the nation—in which, I assure you, the white men have no voice. Your own presence at this moment is evidence that my counselors and priests and messengers have free access to me and I to them, without any of the outlanders present. Neither will they interfere with our religious observances, even those requiring sacrifices. In brief, our lives will go on exactly as always. I made the Captain-General give me those guarantees before I agreed to the change of residence.”

  “But why agree at all?” asked the Snake Woman, in an anguished voice. “It was not seemly, my lord. It was not necessary.”

  “Not necessary, perhaps, but expedient,” said Motecuzóma. “Since the white men entered my domains, my own people or allies have twice made attempts on their lives and property—first at Cholólan, more recently on the coast. Cortés does not hold me to blame, since those attempts were made either in defiance or in ignorance of my promise of truce. But such things could happen again. I myself have warned Cortés that many of our people resent the white men’s presence. Any aggravation of that resentment might make our people forget their obedience to me, and rise up again in troublesome disorder.”

  “If Cortés is concerned about our people’s resentment of him,” said a Council elder, “he can easily allay it. He can go home.”

  Motecuzóma said, “I told him exactly that, but of course it is impossible. He has no means of doing so until, as he expects, his King Carlos sends more ships. In the meantime, if he and I are resident in the same palace, it demonstrates two things: that I trust Cortés to do me no harm, and that I trust my people not to provoke him into doing harm to anybody. So those people should be less inclined to cause any further contention. It was for that reason that Cortés requested my being his guest here.”

  “His prisoner,” said Cuitláhuac, almost sneering.

  “I am not a prisoner,” Motecuzóma insisted again. “I am still your Uey-Tlatoáni, still the ruler of this nation, still the chief partner in The Triple Alliance. I have made only this minor accommodation to insure the keeping of peace between us and the white men until they depart.”

  I said, “Excuse me, Revered Speaker. You seem confident that they will go. How do you know? When will it be?”

  He gave me a look of wishing I had not asked. “They will go when they have the ships to take them. And I know they will go because I have promised that they can take with them what they came for.”

  There was a short silence; then someone said, “Gold.”

  “Yes. Much gold. When the white soldiers were assisting in my change of residence, they searched my palace with great thoroughness. They discovered the treasury chambers, although I had taken the precaution of walling over the doors of them, and—”

  He was interrupted by cries of chagrin from most of the men present, and Cuitláhuac demanded, “You will give them the nation’s treasury?”

  “Only the gold,” said Motecuzóma defensively. “And the more valuable gems. It is all they are interested in. They care nothing for plumes and dyes and jades tones and rare flower seeds and the like. Those stores we will keep, and those riches will adequately sustain the nation while we work and fight and increase our tribute demands to make up the treasury’s depletion.”

  “But to give it away!” someone wailed.

  “Know this,” Motecuzóma went on. “The white men could demand that, and the wealth of every single noble besides, as the price of their departure. They could make it a cause of war, and call for their mainland allies to help them take it from us. I prefer to avert any such ugliness by offering the gold and jewels as a seeming gesture of generosity.”

  The Snake Woman said between his teeth, “Even as High Treasurer of the nation, ostensibly the keeper of the treasure my lord is giving away, I must concede that it would be a small price to pay for the expulsion of the outlanders. But I remind my lord: every other time they have been given gold, they have only been stimulated to want more.”

  “I have no more to give, and I believe I have convinced them of that truth. Except for what gold is in circulation as trade currency, or in the keeping of private individuals, there is no more in the Mexíca lands. Our treasury of gold represents the collection of sheaves and sheaves of years. It is the hoard of all our past Revered Speakers. It would take lifetimes to scratch even a fraction more from the earth of our lands. I have also made the gift conditional. They do not take it until they depart from here, and they are to take it directly to their King Carlos, as a personal gift from me to him—a gift of all the treasure we have. Cortés is satisfied, and so am I, and so will their King Carlos be. When the white men leave, they will not come back.”

  None of us said anything to dispute that—until after we had been dismissed and had passed through the palace gate in the Snake Wall and were walking across the plaza.

  Someone said, “This is intolerable. The Cem-Anáhuac Uey-Tlatoáni being held prisoner by those filthy and stinking barbarians.”

  Someone else said, “No. Motecuzóma is right. He is not a prisoner. All the rest of us are. As long as he meekly sits hostage, no other Mexícatl dares even to spit on a white man.”

  Someone else said, “Motecuzóma has surrendered himself and the proud independence of the Mexíca and the bulk of our treasury. If the white men’s ships are long in coming, who can say what he will surrender next?”

  And then someone said what was in all our minds: “In the entire history of the Mexíca, no Uey-Tlatoáni has ever been deposed while he still lived. Not even Ahuítzotl, when he was totally incapable of ruling.”

  “But a regency was appointed to act in his name, and it worked well enough while it bridged the succession.”

  “Cortés might take it into his head to kill Motecuzóma at any time. Who knows the white men’s whims? Or Motecuzóma might die of his own self-loathing. He looks ready to.”

  “Yes, the throne might suddenly be left vacant. If we make provision for that eventuality, we would also have a provisional ruler standing ready … in case Motecuzóma’s behavior becomes such that we must depose him by order of the Speaking Council.”

  “It should be decided and arranged in secret. Let us spare Motecuzóma the humiliation until and unless there is no choice. Also, Cortés must not be given any least reason to suspect that his precious hostage can suddenly be rendered worthless to him.”

  The Snake Woman turned to Cuitláhuac, who had until then made
no remark at all, and said, using his lordly title, “Cuitláhuatzin, as the Speaker’s brother you would normally be the first candidate considered as his successor on his death. Would you accept the title and responsibility of regent if, in formal conclave, we determine that such a post should be created?”

  Cuitláhuac walked on some paces farther, frowning in meditation. At last he said, “It would grieve me to usurp the power of my own brother while he lives. But in truth, my lords, I fear he now only half lives, and has already abdicated most of his power. Yes, if and when the Speaking Council may decide that our nation’s survival depends on it, I will rule in whatever capacity is asked of me.”

  As it happened, there was no immediate need for an overthrow of Motecuzóma, or any other such drastic action. Indeed, for a considerable while, it seemed that Motecuzóma had been right to counsel that we all simply be calm and wait. For the Spaniards stayed in Tenochtítlan throughout that winter and, if they had not been so obviously white, we might hardly have noticed their presence. They could have been country folk of our own race, come to the big city for a holiday, to see the sights and peaceably enjoy themselves. They even behaved irreproachably during our religious ceremonies. Some of those, the celebrations involving only music, singing, and dancing, the Spaniards watched with interest and sometimes amusement. When the rites involved the sacrifice of xochimíque, the Spaniards discreetly stayed inside their palace. We city folk, for our part, tolerated the white men, treating them politely but distantly. So, all during that winter, there were no frictions between us and them, no untoward incidents, not even any more omens seen or reported.