Dancers spun and whirled across the square in richly embroidered loincloths, over which hung cloaks woven with fur and feathers. The spotted skins of animals were worn in strips around their ankles, and their bodies were draped with strings of shells. Golden lip plugs and earrings pierced their flesh, and tiny golden bells – all of which had miraculously escaped the attentions of the Spanish – tinkled as they swayed, a sweet sound that was at odds with the expression of intense concentration etched across the brow of every dancer.
My father and I were carried in a litter through the crowd that comprised every soul in the city. When we reached the temple, we were lifted onto the dais from which we were to watch. This sacrifice brought great distinction to our family; thus my father and I were compelled to stand raised up before the onlookers so that all could see how we gloried in this rite.
Dread wrapped itself around me like a sodden cloak, but I could not let go the tiny splinter of hope with which Francisco had pierced my heart.
From where I stood, I could see Spanish soldiers threading through the crowd. Sunlight glinted on plumed helmets, on armoured breastplates, on polished swords. There was their leader, flanked by his holy men.
The dance ended. There was a silence, which was broken by the shouts of Spanish priests urging Cortés to act.
The crowd parted, and Mitotiqui – painted the blue of sacrifice – walked alone across the square. A great scream was rising within me. A cry of rage, a desolate howl, that I could scarcely contain.
The presence of Tezcatlipoca was palpable. I had felt him walk the city streets and dance amongst the men. He had sat beside me, crushing me, as I was carried in the litter. Now his cool fingers traced the bones of my spine. His chill breath was on my neck as Mitotiqui’s hair was cut. My brother stood a spear’s length from me. So close! I could push my way through to him. Take his hand and tug. We could run to the chinampa fields. To freedom.
But we were children no longer.
A sigh of expectation ran through the crowd like a breath of wind rippling the surface of the lake. Mitotiqui was handed a flute. A conch. Raising them above his head, he mounted the first of the temple steps. Turning to face the crowd, he lifted his hand in a gesture of farewell.
As he looked about him for the last time, his eyes met mine and I had to bite my lip to stop the scream from bursting forth. For at that moment I saw not the dulled, dead eyes of one whose mind was fixed on paradise, but the eyes of a boy. The eyes of my brother. Full of pain. Misery. Anguish.
Mitotiqui was terrified.
The scream rose; my chest ached with holding it. I swallowed, over and over again, for a rock had lodged itself hard in my throat. My mouth ran dry and my tongue seemed to swell until it choked me. I could not breathe. The priests’ eyes were on me. Peeling back the skin. Seeing the truth in my heart. I had to keep silent; mask my distress. My heart sounded like the clanging of a great bell, and my whole body trembled with its reverberation. My breath came in gasps. My palms were cold. Clammy. I was shivering. Clenching my teeth to stop them chattering.
Mitotiqui turned to face the steps.
A Spanish cry. A shouted command.
My brother began his ascent.
Spanish soldiers pushed through the throng.
Mitotiqui reached the top.
The press of people was too great. The soldiers could not get through.
Mitotiqui broke his flute.
Swords unsheathed.
Arms outstretched, my brother submitted himself to the priests.
Golden curls near the temple. A youth breaking free.
Mitotiqui on the altar.
Francisco running up the steps.
The priest’s knife raised aloft. Black obsidian, glinting in the sun.
Francisco’s sword drawn.
The crowd took a sharp breath; thousands of mouths drew in air at the selfsame moment. There was none left for me. It was sucked from my lungs, squeezed from my body. In that dreadful, airless pause, I prayed that time would freeze. Go backwards. Cease.
Francisco’s yell.
My brother’s scream.
The knife came down.
As Francisco reached the top of the temple steps, my brother’s blood flowed to meet him.
When the flute of the new Tezcatlipoca rang across the square, the dancing began once more. I was scarcely aware of the soldiers who made their way between the onlookers.
Numb with grief, I knew only that Francisco was suddenly at my side, tugging me from the dais. Eve was yelping anxiously, almost drowning out his words.
“You must move, Itacate. Leave now. Cortés’s mood is ugly. It is not safe here.”
I could not set one foot in front of the other. Horror held me to the spot. My eyes were fixed on Francisco’s boots, soaked with my brother’s blood. A low moan – the cry of an injured animal – escaped me, a noise that I barely recognized as coming from myself.
“He is dead!” I sobbed. “He is gone!” Dragging my eyes to Francisco’s face, I accused him. “You were too slow.”
Francisco was stricken. “We were not meant to succeed. Cortés’s command came too late. Our priests are appeased by this sham of action; now they will forgive him anything. You do not know what my comrades can do. For god’s sake come away from this place!”
His desperate plea could not be resisted. He half dragged, half carried me across the square, yelling at my father to follow.
The dancers spun, and the beat of the drums became louder, more insistent. The men of Tenochtitlán sang, lifting their hearts and voices to the heavens, begging the god for peace, for children, for health, for wisdom. Feet pounded the stone slabs in ever more rapid steps. Sweat filled the air with a salty tang. They were blind with ecstasy. They did not see they were surrounded.
Steel glinted in the sun. The soldiers’ swords were raised. Perhaps even then, they might not have attacked.
But as Francisco dragged me through the press of people, I saw the wizened man with jaguar-clawed feet approach the Spanish leader. Titlacuan, the destroyer. His eyes flared with divine possession. He lifted his stick and struck Cortés across the face.
One shout. That was all it took for the slaughter to begin. Incensed, the Spaniard yelled aloud in his rage and the soldiers fell upon the dancers.
Hands were hacked off, heads severed, stomachs slashed open. The murder of these unarmed men took no time at all. But the Spanish were not content with these lives alone. They turned upon the crowd, slicing those red-bladed swords through garlanded girls, plump-limbed boys, mothers with babies in their arms.
Some ran to the temple, attempting to evade their attackers by climbing the steps. They were pursued and the whitewashed stones were drenched anew with scarlet. The air was thick with the stench of blood, clogged with the screams of the dying. And still Francisco pulled me away.
We had reached the canal, were about to cross the bridge, when our path was blocked. A warrior – a man of my own race – gave a violent cry. Stepping forward, he swung his cudgel at Francisco’s head. The obsidian blades bit deep, cutting through his ear and sinking into his jaw.
It can have lasted no longer than a heartbeat, but that moment seemed to stretch into eternity. Francisco’s eyes sought mine. He opened his mouth to speak, but only blood spilled from between his lips. And then his lake-blue eyes glazed to grey. Without a word, Francisco fell, his face smashing onto the stone street. I made no sound. My mind could not accept what my eyes had seen, and disbelief robbed me of my voice. Only Eve told of her misery. Standing astride Francisco’s unmoving body, she raised her head and howled.
I did not stay with him. Though I resisted, my father had seized my arm and was dragging me from there when the fleeing crowd burst from the square behind us, running in terrified panic. We were carried with them.
Later, much later, we sat in our home too grieved for talk, too horrified for thought. All was cold and bleak and comfortless.
Then I heard a single bark and ran into
the street. For a fleeting moment, I thought he was with her. That he had somehow escaped the slaughter. He had come to me!
But Eve was alone, and I knew then that Francisco’s death was certain.
It was war. Pure. Simple.
The Spanish leader had mesmerized our emperor; held him bewitched and the city enthralled. But now the spell was broken. The warriors had awoken. Death stalked the city.
The Spanish force and their Tlaxcalan followers had retreated into the palace. At first light our own warriors gathered outside the walls, armed with new-made cudgels and lances. A crowd gathered on the temple steps to watch our men take their revenge. I too was drawn there, compelled by the god to witness it. I stood close to the palace, for I cared nothing for my own safety.
There were shouts and cries, and our warriors fought savagely and with relish. But with no leaders – for they lay amongst the slain – there was no one to direct the attack. As I watched, a small group banded together and attempted to scale the walls. A makeshift ladder was leant against the palace, and a jaguar warrior swiftly ascended with the speed of a monkey. He reached the flat roof, but before he could set foot on it, a soldier appeared, sword slashing. From the precinct below, an arrow was sent thudding into the chest of the Spaniard and he fell, plunging headfirst onto the stone. Those standing on the temple steps sent up a great cheer.
The warrior was on the roof, raising his cudgel, striking at the swarm of soldiers who came to fight. He was stopped by the smoking shot from a Spanish gun and sent hurtling to the ground, landing lifeless on the stone as the soldier had done. The ladder was pushed away, crashing down on our men below. They stood in groups, debating what their next move should be.
But they were in no hurry. The Spaniards were trapped and outnumbered. Our warriors would find a way to penetrate the palace and then our enemy would die – of that there could be no doubt.
Close as I was to the palace walls, I heard the commotion within before the massed warriors did. A Spaniard – his voice so angry that it carried clearly through the upper-floor windows – was calling our emperor’s name and shrieking, “Look! I am wounded! See what your men have done to me!”
The words were translated for our emperor, and then I heard his clear reply.
His voice seemed to contain every sorrow in the city. With immense dignity he said, “Cortés, my friend, if you had not begun it, my men would have no need to finish it this way. You have ruined yourself, and me also.”
His reply caused even greater fury to erupt in the Spaniard. I heard sounds of struggle, a cry of protest, and then the emperor was forced onto the roof. I moved back to better see what took place, but the crowd closed so hard about me that I could not. Sunlight dazzled my eyes, but I beheld Montezuma, lord of the world, outlined against the sky as he was forced to address his warriors.
“Put down your shields; unstring your bows. We must have no more of this battle. My children, our dead are many. The sacred rites must be observed if their souls are to enter paradise. For the sake of our loved ones, go now. Go home and mourn them.”
His plea was eloquent. It touched the hearts of all those who heard it. And, to honour the dead, his people did as they were asked. For if they were not given all due ceremony, the souls of our loved ones would be lost and wandering for eternity. All went home to grieve their losses, and the Spanish were left in peace. And I – fearing my brother’s soul was in Mictlan, knowing Francisco’s heathen spirit was condemned to roam this earth without rest – could pray to our angered gods for neither.
For many days, wakes and funerals dominated the city. The elite were buried, the commoners burned. The Spanish had slaughtered the flower of our nobility: artisans, craftsmen, peasants alike. The smoke of many thousands of cremations hung like a cloud above Tenochtitlán. The sound of fathers sobbing, widows wailing and mothers weeping echoed through the empty streets and was carried across the still lake until the mountains themselves seemed to cry in loud lament.
Grief. Fear. They wear the same mask. Both gnaw at the insides and give no rest. In those days an ominous calm held Tenochtitlán frozen, and yet I seemed beset with parasites that wormed and tunnelled through the very marrow of my bones. I itched with an intolerable restlessness; I could not keep still. Yet neither could I move about the city streets. My father begged me to keep within the house.
We were then in the time of Etzalcualiztli, the peak of the season of dryness. Food was often scarce at this time of year and, since the Tlaxcalan hordes had eaten our food reserves, many went hungry.
The priests had control of the city. They roamed wild and fearsome, insulting or beating anyone who displeased them, for they had to do whatever was necessary to bring the rains. They could take whomever they pleased for sacrifice: captives, slaves, children. Their hearts were then thrown into Pantitlan, the whirlpool that spun in the centre of the lake, in offering to Tlaloc.
When Mitotiqui and I were small, we had been confined to the rear of the house until the rains came lest we should attract the attention of a wandering priest. Now my father and Mayatl and I did the same. They had never been known to take grown citizens, but this was a time without precedent. We lived by eating what little remained growing in our roof garden. None of us ventured out.
During these days, I mourned for my brother. For Francisco. I could scarce take in all I had witnessed. While it was light I occupied my hands with grinding such corn as we had stored. It was a task I had once so despised, yet now it gave me something of a purpose and I was glad of it. Our meals were sparse, but our appetites were so dulled with unhappiness that we did not crave for more. While I rolled tortillas, and stuffed them with thin shreds of vegetable, my numbed mind refused to accept what had befallen those I loved. But in the darkness of night, truth pierced me like a knife. Paroxysms of grief convulsed me and I clung to Eve for comfort.
While I was thus paralysed with sorrow, the men of Tenochtitlán were creating for themselves a new order. Our city was governed so tightly that we had no means or system for a single man to rise above his fellows and take command of them. But now necessity forged a different path. In the days when the city wept for its dead, the warriors formed a new hierarchy. With what rites and secret ceremonies the elite stripped power from Montezuma and made his brother Cuitlahuac emperor, I did not know. But Tenochtitlán had a new leader. One, moreover, who was intent on revenge.
Perhaps Cortés thought all resistance had ceased when the warriors were ordered home and that they would fight no more. Perhaps he could not bear to leave the city he had travelled so far to conquer, for he did not move from the palace.
When the days of ritual mourning were done, when the rains had come and the time of Etzalcualiztli was ended, our warriors struck. One night I awoke suddenly to the stench of burning. Climbing to the roof, I saw fires in the distance. Many flames pierced the darkness. I knew my city well and did not need to be told where these fires burned. The bridges. The pleasure boats the Spanish used to sail upon the lake. Torches had been put to them all. There would be no escape for our enemy.
As conch blasts called forth the dawn, the palace was surrounded by warriors: men dressed in the furs of leopards, or wearing the masks of eagles. Standing high on the temple steps beside my father, I saw it all and yet felt nothing. My body lived, but I was dead within.
For five days, there was fighting. Battle sounds rang in the square. Steel on wood. Roars of angry men.
On the afternoon of the sixth day, the Spanish leader was roused to desperate action. It had worked before. Our emperor had been forced onto the roof and the warriors had melted away.
And so Montezuma – shrunken with misery, unwashed, his face bloated with weeping – was once more paraded before us.
He could not have commanded a dog.
He raised his slackly withered arms above his head. Not one word fell from his mouth. Not one word reached the ears of the gathered crowd. A storm of stones, sticks, broken vessels – anything that came to hand �
� rained upon him. Pelted with missiles, pierced by shards of obsidian, bruised and bleeding, he was forced back within.
Whether he truly died of these wounds, I do not know. It was said by the Spanish that his own people had killed him. But a different tale was passed from mouth to mouth in Tenochtitlán.
Montezuma was of no further use to Cortés. Attacked by his own warriors, all authority gone, what purpose was there in keeping him alive? Like a toothless dog, he was nothing but an encumbrance. And so he suffered the same fate as a beast that has outlived its usefulness. He was slain. His attendants were slain with him. And the nobles’ wives and children who had long ago been taken captive were slaughtered like animals, their bodies hurled from the palace roof into the precinct below.
It did not take long for word to travel. In the gathering dark the square was lit as bright as day by the flaming torches and braziers carried by the people of Tenochtitlán. They came for their husbands. Their brothers. Their sons. Wives. Sisters. Daughters. Throwing themselves on their corpses with wails of despair, their lamentations rang to the heavens. The buildings quaked with their suffering. The desolation I felt within was manifest all around me.
As I stood and watched the broken body of our emperor being carried from that place, I wept for him. For Mitotiqui. For Francisco.
For us all.
It was the god who woke me. Tezcatlipoca who breathed an icy chill through my bedchamber and caressed my flesh with his cold fingers. In the darkest hour of that night, he whispered in my ear.
I did his bidding.
I went to the palace.
The streets are deserted when dark, for it is a time of dread. The sun battles in the underworld, and who knows if it will win its fight and rise once more? In the night demons are abroad, and the gods are at their most fearsome: they wear the aspects of their dark sides and will violate and murder any who cross their path.
The Goldsmith's Daughter Page 15