War God: Return of the Plumed Serpent

by Graham Hancock

  ‘Gentlemen,’ the letter read, ‘you already know we wish to send His Majesty a present of the gold we have obtained here. Because it is the first we are sending from these lands, it should be much more than the king’s usual fifth. It seems to us that all we who serve him should give our shares. We gentlemen and soldiers have signed our names here as wishing to take nothing, but to give our shares voluntarily to His Majesty in the hope that he may bestow favours upon us. He who wishes to keep his share may do so. But let all those who renounce theirs do as we have done and sign here.’

  ‘He’s got us in a fork, the devil,’ Escudero now continued. ‘If we sign the letter it makes us disloyal to Don Diego de Velázquez. If we refuse to sign it, he makes us disloyal to the king … ’

  ‘Either way we can’t win,’ Alvarado prompted.

  ‘Exactly. Which is why some of us have decided to take action,’ said Escudero. ‘Governor Velázquez is the rightful authority here, by the king’s own command and licence, and it is the governor, not that madman Cortés, who must decide how the treasure we’ve won is to be divided … I tell you what, Pedro, Cortés is pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes. His plan to send the treasure to the king is a trick. I have impeccable intelligence on this … ’

  Ah, gods! thought Alvarado. Intelligence of any kind from this stuffed codpiece? I somehow doubt it. But he did his best to summon an expression of keen interest.

  ‘First,’ Escudero continued, ‘have you observed the urgency with which the Santa Luisa is being refitted?’

  The Santa Luisa was Puertocarrero’s carrack, and Alvarado had not only observed but also knew exactly why she was being refitted. Like virtually every vessel in the fleet, his own San Sebastian not excluded, the Santa Luisa had taken a beating and suffered badly from rot and storm damage over the past few months. She’d sprung a hundred leaks, her hold was rarely less than thigh deep in stinking bilge water (the pumps were always working, even now in the sheltered harbour beneath Villa Rica), and her bottom was fouled with weed and barnacles. There was no possibility of putting her in dry dock, which would have been the ideal solution, but her leaks would nevertheless have to be made sound by the carpenters, and as much of her keel cleaned as possible before she could attempt the journey across the Atlantic to Spain.

  ‘I’ve noticed,’ Alvarado answered. ‘I assume it’s because she’s in more urgent need of repair than our other ships. My own San Sebastian could do with some work,’ he added innocently, with an airy wave towards the closed stateroom door and the navigation deck beyond it.

  ‘Bah!’ exclaimed Escudero. ‘There is only one reason for this haste. Cortés has chosen his lapdog Puertocarrero to carry away the treasure and – I assure you of this, my friend – it will not be carried to the king, but to Cortés’s own father Martin, who will hold it in safekeeping for him. Our great leader, who is in truth nothing more than a common thief, plans to divide everything we have won between himself and Puertocarrero.’

  ‘The swine!’ growled Alvarado. He summoned the required frown of outrage: ‘What’s Puertocarrero’s share for his treachery?’

  ‘Thirty per cent, I’m told, with a third of that going to his crew to buy their silence. After the treasure’s delivered, the Santa Maria will be scuttled, the men will pull away to safety in the longboats and the story will be put about that our so-called “gift” to the king was lost at sea.’

  ‘Damn!’ Alvarado was in fact beginning to feel quite angry now. Escudero spoke with such conviction, and the story was in many ways so plausible that he almost found himself believing it. He wouldn’t put such a scheme past Hernán, who was capable of anything. ‘So what do you propose?’ he asked Escudero. ‘You said you’d decided to take action.’

  ‘That I have, but before I tell you more, are you with us, or are you not?’

  ‘I’m with you!’ said Alvarado with conviction. ‘I’ve had enough of Hernán and his tricks. He made me return the gold I’d taken from the savages in Cozumel and I had to swallow the insult. He promised us gold after Potonchan and we found none. Now we’ve finally extracted a king’s ransom from the Mexica, I’ll be damned if I let Cortés take it for himself.’

  ‘Can I trust you?’ Escudero said. ‘Some in my group believe you’re still a friend to Cortés … ’

  ‘Friends come and go,’ Alvarado replied smoothly, remembering he’d said the same exact words to Diego de Velázquez himself in answer to exactly the same question in February, ‘but gold is a constant companion. If you don’t trust me, trust gold.’

  ‘How much buys your loyalty?’ asked Escudero, all business now.

  ‘Why, thirty per cent, of course.’

  ‘Thirty per cent of what?’

  ‘I must guess you aim to wrest the treasure from Cortés. I’ll want thirty per cent of the total if I’m to join you.’

  ‘Thirty per cent of the total?’ fumed Escudero. ‘That’s absurd!’

  ‘If Cortés bought Puertocarrero with so much, I don’t see why I should settle for less from you, Don Juan.’

  ‘But Velázquez will have to have his share. And we of the rebellion are many. I can only offer you ten per cent.’

  ‘Ten per cent won’t answer, Juan. Twenty at the least, or I’ll be speaking to Cortés next.’

  After further haggling they settled on fifteen per cent, a bigger cut than the king’s under the new licence granted to Velázquez.

  Why was Escudero prepared to go so far? Alvarado wondered. To be sure the Velazquistas had told him too much over the past months, shared too many of their secrets with him, made themselves vulnerable to exposure by him. Now that they were about to take some definite action, therefore, he could understand why they wouldn’t want to leave him on the loose. Murder must have been an option they’d considered, but he was Pedro de Alvarado, a notoriously hard man to kill, so perhaps they’d decided not to risk an assault that might easily backfire on them? Still, he felt, there was something missing from the picture, some other motive lurking in the sewers of the plot that must surely soon emerge.

  ‘Very well then,’ said Alvarado. ‘I’m one of you now. Tell me what’s to be done.’

  ‘We sail tonight for Cuba,’ said Escudero. ‘With fair winds and current we can reach Santiago in five days. Three more days for Don Diego de Velázquez to mobilise his forces and take ship, then five days again to return, let us say six. In summary we can be back in two weeks. It will require at least that long for the refit of the Santa Luisa to be complete, so we’ll be able to take command here and seize the treasure before it’s sent to Spain. Your presence amongst us and your good name as a respected man and a former ally of Cortés will help persuade the loyalists of Villa Rica that their beloved caudillo was in error, and with luck we’ll be able to settle everything without a fight … ’

  Alvarado had to laugh; even if the sailing and muster times for the governor’s troops could be achieved, which was most unlikely in his view, the whole idea was still so patently ridiculous it would look downright suspicious if he just went along with it. ‘Without a fight!’ he exclaimed. ‘You’re joking, of course. We’ll have the fight of our lives on our hands. Cortés isn’t the man to take such a thing lying down, and he’s loved by many. Be sure he’ll whip up stiff resistance. You’ll need a big force if you’re to have any hope of defeating him.’

  ‘We’ve thought of that,’ said Escudero with a sly smile. ‘It’s why I agreed to your extortionate demand for fifteen per cent. Your participation is important, of course; it will send the right signals to the others. But we expect rather more from you than that, dear Pedro—’

  ‘More? What do you have in mind?’

  ‘We need you to kill Cortés before we sail tonight. You’re the only one of us who can get close enough to him to do it. He still has allies, of course, they’ll try to rally the men, but with their beloved caudillo gone they’ll lose their stomach for defying Velázquez, and when we return from Cuba their surrender will be easily negotiated.’
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br />   Alvarado thought about it for a long while, saying nothing. Finally he spoke. ‘For killing Cortés,’ he said, ‘fifteen per cent won’t answer. I’ll need fifty if you want this done.’

  Eventually they settled on twenty-five.

  * * *

  When they were ferried back to shore around 4 p.m., Alvarado knew everything about Escudero’s plans and exactly who his accomplices were – all the usual suspects, of course, and some surprising additional players. Had he in fact been willing to murder Cortés, there was even a possibility the plot might have succeeded, and perhaps for fifty per cent he would have considered it! But amongst Escudero’s many faults was a severe lack of imagination, coupled with a deep-rooted meanness of spirit – hence his refusal to go up even a whisker beyond twenty-five per cent. In so doing he had signed his own death warrant.

  As soon as night fell, the Velazquistas would begin loading the last of their stores of oil, water, cassava and fish on board the caravel Potencia which, with the collusion of its pilot and crew, they were going to steal. The crew Escudero had subverted for pitifully small sums, but the pilot, Diego Cermeno, had held out for a much larger amount, since his skills would be vital for getting the ship safely back to Cuba. Around 10 p.m., an hour before the Potencia was due to sail on the ebb tide, Alvarado was to stab Cortés to death in his pavilion – as though doing such a thing were a simple matter! – and then make his way down to the strand, where a longboat would be waiting to ferry him out to join the other conspirators.

  So much for the plan. Instead, after parting company with Escudero, Alvarado went straight to Cortés and told him everything.

  ‘Excellent, Pedro!’ Cortés responded when he’d heard him out. ‘Well done indeed. I knew I could count on you. Now we can take the whole nest of vipers in one fell swoop and rid ourselves of them for ever!’

  ‘You may be surprised at how many they’ve managed to recruit,’ Alvarado said. ‘They’re laying in stores for more than fifty.’

  Cortés whistled. ‘Fifty! That does surprise me. I thought I was loved by the men.’

  He looked genuinely hurt, but then brightened. ‘At least I’ll know who my enemies are from now on,’ he said, ‘and take precautions against them.’

  ‘You won’t execute them all then?’

  ‘Certainly not! We’ll need every man we can muster if we’re to defeat Moctezuma.’

  * * *

  Cortés led the arrest force personally. It was spearheaded by the squad of twenty-five trained killers under García Brabo, who’d done his dirty work for years, supported by another eighty of the best and most loyal soldiers to be found in Villa Rica. Amongst the captains and officers were Juan de Escalante, Alonso Davila, Gonzalo de Sandoval and Bernal Díaz.

  The fact that the night was unusually dark and overcast made everything so much easier. The crew of the longboat waiting to pick up Alvarado after his supposed murder of Cortés were quickly overwhelmed; four other longboats drawn up on the shore were launched, and within minutes the Potencia had been boarded and the Velazquistas taken without a fight. Only Escudero put up any kind of resistance, but Alvarado had him at sword-point in a trice. ‘You should have offered me fifty per cent,’ he whispered in his ear as soldiers bound his hands and led him away.

  A little later, after the rank and file conspirators had been sent back to shore under guard, Cortés and Alvarado made their way to the stateroom, where the ringleaders lay trussed and gagged on the floor. Cortés felt a mixture of emotions: triumph that the whole operation had gone off so smoothly and that he was now in a position to lance the Velazquista abcess once and for all, but sadness at the evidence now before his eyes of so much bad faith and treachery.

  He walked from one man to the other, occasionally nudging them with the toe of his boot. Here was Velázquez de Léon and here Ordaz. Hardly surprising to have this latest confirmation of their eagerness to betray him; after all, they’d been Velazquistas from the start. Yet it hurt when he remembered their previous rebellion just a few weeks before and how he’d jailed them, then bribed them and finally freed them, in return for promises of loyalty. Ha! So much for loyalty.

  Escudero was lying on his stomach. Cortés got the instep of his boot under the bastard and rolled him over onto his back, where he lay, glaring up furiously, mumbling and choking through his gag. He’d been jailed and bribed and freed and sworn loyalty too, but in his case Cortés had never expected the oath to be kept. ‘Do you recall, Don Juan,’ he now said, ‘certain words we exchanged that night in February when the fleet sailed from Cuba?’

  Escudero shook his head violently.

  ‘Let me remind you.’ Cortés rested his foot on Escudero’s chest. ‘If I recall correctly – and I believe I do – what you said to me was that given enough rope I’d be bound to hang myself … Does that ring a bell?’

  Another violent shake of the head and more grunts from Escudero.

  ‘Yet look at where we find ourselves now,’ Cortés said. ‘You have mutinied in time of war against the duly appointed captain-general, namely myself, of a lawfully constituted colony of Spain, namely Villa Rica de la Veracruz. Do you know, my dear chap, what the penalty for that offence is?’

  Escudero was struggling mightily as the question was posed, shouting and barking through his gag, straining his wrists against the stout length of rope that bound him.

  ‘The penalty,’ continued Cortés, reaching to remove the gag, ‘is death, and if my memory of the statutes does not betray me – and I don’t think it does – the prescribed means is hanging.’

  ‘You cannot hang me!’ Escudero yelled, but there was real fear in his voice and his eyes were rolling in a most satisfactory manner. ‘I do not accept your jurisdiction. I do not accept that Villa Rica is a legally constituted colony. I appeal to the authority of Governor Diego de Velázquez in this matter, for he is the king’s representative in these New Lands and he alone has the royal warrant to plant colonies.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ said Cortés, ‘but you see, most unfortunately for you, your patron the governor is in Cuba, sitting on his fat arse, while I am captain-general here, and I assure you that I do mean to hang you.’ He stooped again, pulled up the gag, adjusted it tightly over Escudero’s mouth and continued on his rounds.

  Here was Alonso de Grado, who’d pretended friendship for so long but was always a traitor at heart. There was a spreading damp patch around his crotch. ‘Tut tut, Alonso,’ said Cortés, fixing his glance on the stain. ‘You appear to have embarrassed yourself.’ Next in line on the floor was Cristóbal de Olid: no dribbles of piss on him. Like Ordaz he was fearless in battle and a great swordsman – qualities that must surely save them both from the gallows, Cortés thought.

  Onwards, and he came to Alonso Escobar and Bernardino de Coria. Like De Grado, they’d been his professed friends until very recently, but now their true allegiance was revealed. And who was this with one eye and lank black hair if not the verminous priest Pedro de Cuellar, who’d come to his pavilion back in May with Ordaz, Escudero and the other Velazquistas. At least he hadn’t tried to hide his connection with them. But a priest, for Christ’s sake! Taking part in a mutiny! What was the world coming to?

  There were others here on the floor whom Cortés knew more or less well and was more or less surprised or disappointed to see. Perhaps most depressing of all was the pilot Diego Cermeno, a good man, highly skilled at his job, but drowning in debt, with an extravagant young wife to keep. Cortés had advanced him a thousand pesos after visiting him in his home in Santiago when he’d recruited him six months before. ‘Why did you do it, Diego?’ he now asked. He reached down and removed the gag. ‘Could you not have stayed loyal to me? Did I not pay you well?’

  ‘They promised me twenty thousand pesos, Caudillo,’ Cermeno sobbed. ‘Enough to clear all my debts and start again. Enough to change my life forever.’

  ‘You would have made far more if you’d just been patient, Diego, but now there’s nothing I can do for you … ’<
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  ‘What do you mean, Caudillo?’ A look of terror crossed the pilot’s face.

  ‘Stealing a caravel is a capital offence, Diego. Didn’t you know that?’

  ‘I didn’t know, Caudillo. I swear it. I didn’t think. Oh God, my God, what have I done?’

  ‘You’ve changed your life forever, Diego. I’m afraid you’re going to hang.’

  * * *

  The trial of the conspirators took place in the meeting hall in the presence of all the colonists on the morning of Saturday 10 July, within a few hours of their arrest, and by the middle of the afternoon Cermeno and Escudero were dead. A little later, near sunset, Pepillo hurried past them, averting his eyes. It was horrible to behold them dangling from the ropes, their faces purple, their eyeballs and their tongues protruding, their privy members seemingly erect and their breeches fouled, for both had lost control of their bowels as they were hauled, kicking and choking, up the gallows post.

  On his master’s orders, Pepillo had drawn up the death warrants before the trial even began, and felt that Cortés was being less than honest about his feelings – at least where Escudero was concerned – when he gave a loud sigh, clearly audible at the back of the meeting hall, and said, ‘Oh, how I wish I did not know how to write, so that I could not sign men to their deaths.’

  ‘Bloody liar,’ Escudero yelled; ‘Mercy,’ Cermeno wept, as Cortés signed the document with a slow, deliberate hand – some element of theatre here, Pepillo thought – before going on to pass judgement on the other conspirators.

  Gonzalo de Umbria, the most senior of the defecting sailors, was to have all the toes of his left foot hacked off with an axe, while the rest of the caravel’s ten-man crew would receive fifty lashes each, the sentences to be carried out immediately. With the other plotters, Cortés was surprisingly merciful. Pedro de Cuellar, the priest, was told he would have been hanged had he not been a clergyman. He gave his warrant to engage in no more political activity and was released. Escobar, De Grado and Bernardino de Coria were likewise released after humiliating themselves before the caudillo and begging forgiveness. Diego de Ordaz had muttered as the trial began that he was sure Cortés would have him beheaded, but he too was freed, promising – not the first time he’d sworn such an oath! – to be the caudillo’s loyal man from now on. Velázquez de Léon and Cristóbal de Olid received the same lenient treatment.