The other looked at him in disbelief. “Why? You are not even a soldier. You were of no danger to our expedition.”
Don Fielding sighed. “Undoubtedly, your good Captain-General looked forward to a period when he might wish new lands to conquer—lands to the north. He didn’t want me taking off for my own country and warning them of his presence on the scene. Actually, he needn’t have worried, but he didn’t know that.”
Bernal Diaz considered it. “Well,” he said, a certain admission in his tone, “had Don Hernando decided on such an action, Gomez would have been the man to carry it out. Come, we’ll find you quarters.”
Don said, “I lived here for a few days before your arrival. If you have no objection, I’ll reoccupy my old room.”
“Why not? So you lived here before. By my beard, you are full of surprises, Don Fielding. What would you be doing in the palace of the Great Montezuma’s father, King Axayacatzin?”
Don led the way toward the room he had formerly occupied.
“It’s not a palace,” he said. “It’s the nearest thing they have to a hotel, combined with their administrative offices.”
“What is a hotel?”
“An inn.”
“An inn.” Bernal gestured. “An inn this size? Why, it will house thousands.”
“It has to,” Don said, realizing full well that the other put no credence in what he was saying. “In this city they have no other place to put up visitors. Delegations, embassies, merchants, all have only this building in which to sleep and eat, and of course, such people come to this city from all over… New Spain.”
They reached his former room and found it occupied by some twenty Cholulan porters. Bernal shooed them out contemptuously.
He stood in the middle of the room, hands on hips, and said, “No chairs, no tables, no beds. They have much that is magnificent, but they live like Moors.”
“Have you ever seen the way Moors live?”
“Why, no, but I have heard.”
“Well, these people don’t live on the level Moors do. Their culture is not nearly so advanced.”
The other scowled. “You say strange things, Don Fielding, and a great deal that is hard to understand.”
Don said, “Speaking of furniture, I have a stool and a small table and various odds and ends over in my quarters in the house of the Eagle calpulli.”
“The where?”
Don said, “The palace of the Great Montezuma.”
“Very well. Most likely we will be able to have it brought. There will be a great deal of things brought, I assume, when the Great Montezuma moves his belongings and brings his people.” He added apologetically, “Whether or not you will be alive long enough to need your things, I cannot say. But it is my belief that the Captain-General wants to know considerably more about this land of yours, and even if what you say about the attempt to assassinate you is correct, now he need not be in any hurry. You are completely in his power.”
“And have even given my parole as a gentleman,” Don said dryly. He sat down on the floor, leaning his back against the wall, and crossed his long legs.
Bernal scowled at him. “I detect sarcasm.”
Don couldn’t help saying, “In my country the law says that a contract made under duress lacks validity.”
The other shook his head. “You seem to speak excellent Spanish, but much of what you say holds little understanding.”
Hernando Cortes seemed to be in no hurry insofar as Don Fielding was concerned. Bernal Diaz had probably been correct. Don was completely in the Captain-General’s power and the other could take his time in deciding just what to do with the mysterious stranger who claimed to be from the north.
The Spanish leader kept his promise to Motechzoma in reference to his freedom to conduct his government and his head men to come and go as they wished. Don realized, as the Captain-General did not, that bringing the war chief here was not as upsetting to the Indians as all that. Motechzoma was simply returning to the building that housed the official offices of the administration. They had always conducted their government here, and he had lived here since becoming First Speaker. Snake-Woman, the full Tlatocan and numerous other chiefs, including representatives from other cities, came and went, carrying on the affairs of Tenochtitlan and the confederacy.
It was on the day following the kidnapping that Bernal said to him, “Come see something, Don Fielding. God’s truth, it is a sight to make a saint’s eyes pop.”
Don followed him to a point where two musketeers stood guard before a door. By the looks of it, it had been sealed up, and evidently the inquisitive Spaniards had wondered why and chipped away the plaster.
Bernal said to one of the guards, “Let us take a look at the treasure, Diego.”
The other scowled. “The Captain-General has forbidden…”
“Oh, come now, Diego, my old friend. Every man in the army has been in there. If anyone approaches, call out and we’ll leave immediately.”
“Very well, Bernal, but just a few minutes.”
Bernal led the way into what became immediately obvious to be the treasure room of the Tenochas. Gold, silver, jewels, in a thousand forms, were everywhere, along with the highly praised featherwork, mantles richly embroidered, and various other items of Indian wealth. Bernal had been right—a saint’s eyes would have popped. Certainly, Don’s did. He had no manner of estimating the value of it all, but it would certainly have amounted to many, many millions in his time.
It must have taken centuries to accumulate.
Diego, the guard, hissed, “Bernal, quickly! The Captain-General!”
Don and Bernal Diaz hustled from the place. It would be all Don needed to have the suspicious Hernando Cortes find him in a treasure room.
They hurried outside and ducked around the corner, Assistant Professor Donald Fielding feeling like a grammar-school child lurking in the faculty lounge.
They stood with their backs to the wall and could hear the approach of several persons. The voice of one was obviously that of Hernando Cortes, and then Don could recognize that of Malinche, then that of Motechzoma. There was another voice—Aguilar, undoubtedly.
Through the interpreters, Cortes was unctuously telling the fallen war chief, “It would be well, great king, if you sent a token of your respect to the Emperor Charles, my liege lord across the sea. So it was that when, by accident, we discovered your treasury, the thought occurred to me.” There was such an element of greed in the conquistador’s voice that Don Fielding flinched.
And there was nothing save depression and submission in Motechzoma. He said listlessly, “Take it, Malintzin, and let it be recorded in your annals that our people send this present to your chief.”
Bernal hissed between his teeth when the message was fed through Malinche and Aguilar.
Motechzoma said hopefully, “And now, Malintzin, that you have in your possession practically all of the gold and silver in Tenochtitlan, you are free to return to your own land.”
And the Cortes response to that was, “Ah, but unfortunately, great king, our ships have all been sunk and it will be necessary to build new ones. I have given orders that this be done.”
“If you wish, I will make arrangements that great numbers of our people be assigned to help you so that your departure can be hastened.”
Malinche said, “Unfortunately, the Tenochas do not know how to build the ships of the teteuhs. It not as though they were to hollow out logs for canoes.” Evidently, the group then turned and returned from whence they had come.
That evening, as Don Fielding sat at his rickety table, allowing dejection at his situation to seep over him, the mat at the door was pushed aside and Cuauhtemoc entered. He was dressed in nothing save a loincloth and was barefooted. Obviously, he was in his equivalent of being incognito. Like many conquerors of a people of other face, the Spanish professed not to be able to tell one Indian from another. They probably thought the young warrior simply one of the many servants with which the Ten
ochas had provided their unwelcome visitors.
He chuckled lowly and said, “And how does it go with my giant brother?”
Don said in a whisper, “Are you safe here? Aren’t you afraid that if the Spanish recognize you, they’d try to seize you as a hostage as well?”
The other shrugged it off. “I have been raised to be a chief of war of our clan and would look over the manner in which the teteuhs have fortified the tecpan, for already some of the younger chiefs talk of taking action against them. We know now that they can be killed, as other men can be killed, for Quauhpopoca and his men killed this teteuh Escalante. Besides, I wished to see how my blood brother fared.”
“For the time, I am all right,” Don said. “It seems as though the Captain-General, Cortes, can’t quite understand me and wishes more information before deciding what to do.”
“None can understand you, blood brother. However, you could escape over the wall at the back and into the canal. I would await you there in a canoe.”
Don shook his head. “Where would I go?”
“You would return to the home of the Eagle clan. Where else?”
Don shook his head again. “I gave my word to Cortes that I would not leave the tecpan. Besides, if I did try to hide in your buildings there, it would simply be a matter of time before they found out. I suspect that the girl, Malinche, is already organizing her espionage throughout the city. Her spies would bring in the information.”
His friend thought about it. “Perhaps you are right. And your presence here gives us our own opportunity to spy on the teteuhs—if you can survive.”
Don said unhappily, “Yeah. If I can survive. For the moment, that largely depends on keeping out of the sight of Alvarado, the man you call Tonatiuh, the sun, because of his red hair. He and that young snake, Sandoval.”
Cuauhtemoc said, “There was one other reason for which I came.” He stuck his head out the door and whispered.
And Don’s four students of Spanish slithered in one by one. He blinked his surprise at seeing them.
Cuauhtemoc, obviously pleased with himself, said, “We have come for our nightly lesson in the tongue of the teteuhs.”
Don Fielding shook his head in despair. “Was school ever held before in such circumstances?”
He kept out of the way, to the extent that he could. What was the old phrase—out of sight, out of mind? Hernando Cortes had plenty on his mind. If he wasn’t reminded of Don Fielding, he might postpone indefinitely a showdown with the mysterious stranger. Still, Don couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t been summoned long before this.
In the night hours he held his classes in Spanish. Cuauhtemoc turned up about one night out of two. The youngsters were outstripping him. Don was continually astonished at their progress.
Don Fielding didn’t witness the tragedy of Quauhpopoca, that unfortunate who had made the mistake of killing Escalante and the other Spaniards, thus proving that the so-called teteuhs were not immortal.
Cuauhtemoc told him about it. The Indian chief had been brought up from the coast and turned over to the Spaniards. Some fifteen of his subchiefs and his son were with him.
The Captain-General had killed two birds with one stone. He pressured the demoralized Motechzoma into emptying the tlacochcalcos, meaning, literally, “the houses of darts,” in other words, arsenals, in the vicinity of the great teocalli square, of their arrows, javelins, and other weapons. These he used for the bonfires which consumed the victims.
On top, to humiliate the Tenocha war chief still further, he put Motechzoma in irons on the charge that he had been the one who instigated the battle in which Escalante had been killed. Motechzoma, probably more bewildered than anything else, had submitted without even an argument.
When the whole thing was over, the Indian population, by appearance, was as confused as their war chief. In fact, most of them evidently assumed that the execution had been ordered by Motechzoma. Malinche had seen that that idea got around.
Cortes reentered the apartments occupied by Motechzoma, personally removed the leg irons, and embraced his captive, telling him that now all was settled. Cuauhtemoc, as flabbergasted as his uncle, must have been at all these proceedings, but hadn’t the vaguest idea of what it was all about.
Don Fielding had little to tell him beyond the fact that it was part of the conquistador’s plan to take over the whole country and part of the delusion that Motechzoma was king of all Mexico, or New Spain, as the invading army was already calling it.
Don said, “And how are the Tenochas taking all this?”
“We grow increasingly restive.”
“I would expect so,” Don said.
What could he say to this friend, this blood brother? He knew what would eventually transpire. The bloodbath, the complete collapse of the Indian power, the enslavement of not only the Aztecs but all the other Indian inhabitants, the decimation of the population under the Spanish lash in the mines, in the smelters, in the building of churches and cathedrals, palaces and haciendas. He knew what was going to happen. What could he say? Nothing. There was nothing to say.
It was only a few nights afterward, when he was conducting his class in Spanish for his little group of potential spies—well, more than potential, since they already had an amazing amount of the language—that he saw the rug which covered the doorway to his room stir.
He jumped to his feet and headed for it. Brushed it aside.
Stared out.
He could see a figure dashing away—a small one. The Cortes page, Orteguilla, the one he had caught trying to steal his pistol. He hadn’t seen much of the eleven-year-old since his enforced stay with the army. Cortes had assigned the boy to Motechzoma, and he was the only one in the Spanish forces that had picked up a bit of Nahuatl.
He turned and snapped to his students, “Go quickly! We have been discovered.”
They scooted from the room.
It was Gonzalo de Sandoval who came to get him, two footmen with pikes backing him up.
The young conquistaror was amused. As usual, he wore a velvet cap rather than the helmet most of the Spanish hatted themselves with night and day. He took it off and made a flourishing bow.
“Don Fielding,” he said with his slight lisp, “the Captain-General invites your attendance.”
“How courteous of him,” Don muttered hopelessly, “But tell him I have a previous engagement.”
“I beg your pardon?” The young dandy cocked his head.
“Nothing,” Don said wearily, coming to his feet.
He walked side by side with Sandoval, the two footmen bringing up the rear. His mind raced, desperately seeking an alibi.
They reached the set of rooms that Cortes was using for both living quarters and offices, and entered, leaving the two pikemen to join the balance of the sentries in front. Hernando Cortes was not making the mistake Motechzoma had. He had sentries and guards aplenty.
Inside, Cortes sat at an improvised table, in his usual military folding chair. Present were Fray Bartolome de Olmedo, the inevitable Malinche and Aguilar, and one that Don recognized as Francisco de Terrazas, Cortes’s major-domo and secretary. He sat at a smaller table to one side, a portable military desk with writing materials before him.
Cortes said coldly, “Is there anything you have to say before I order you hanged?”
Don Fielding pretended puzzlement. “But what is the charge?”
“My faith, you’re a cool one. The charge is that you have been secretly teaching these Indian dogs the Spanish language.”
Don held his two hands out, palms upward, in a gesture of surprise. “There was no secret about it. I thought you would be highly pleased. It was but a method of spending my time. I told you I was a scholar and teacher. What else would I do to pass the hours away?”
“Please me?”
Don Fielding indicated Malinche and Aguilar. “Your staff of interpreters is inadequate and you need them constantly at your side. Suppose you were to send an expedition to some other t
own under, say, Captain Sandoval here. You could not afford to let your own interpreters go along. So then, how would he communicate? Even the four I am training are too few. Eventually, of course, every Indian in New Spain must learn Spanish, but for the present you need many interpreters.”
“This makes reason, my son,” Fray Olmedo said to the army head.
Cortes said, “Why these secret classes at night?”
“Because during the day hours these boys work at their tasks around the building here. There is no secret. They had no time for lessons.”
“My faith, you have a glib tongue,” the Captain-General growled. “Something comes to me, what with you claiming to be the nephew of the king and being able to teach to the Indians. You must speak Nahuatl.”
“Yes, of course.”
“You never mentioned the fact.”
Don pretended bewilderment. “No one ever asked me.”
The Captain-General, irritated at that, said, “Speak in the accursed language to Dona Marina.”
Don looked at the girl and said, “I wish to thank you for warning me there in Cempoala. You saved my life.”
There was a sad something in her voice. She said softly, also in Nahuatl, “I saved it again, here in Tenochtitlan, Don Fielding. The others wanted you executed. I persuaded my lord, the Captain-General, to save your life so that we could learn more of your strange land to the north.”
The girl turned back to Cortes and said in very poor but understandable Spanish, “Yes, my lord, he speaks Nahuatl.” The conquistador grunted and turned back to his captive. “This nation of yours—is it large?”
“Yes. At least twice the size of all New Spain.”
That caused pause in the other, but he said, “Are all of the people as tall as you and do all look like you?”
“No. I am somewhat more than average height. We have many nationalities. We even have Moors—blacks. Yes, we certainly have blacks.”
“They make good slaves,” Terrazas put in.
“Maybe they used to,” Don said. “Not anymore. Yes, we have many nationalities, even some Puerto Ricans, as I already told you.”
The Other Time Page 17