"My face?"
"He is blind, my lord. He wishes to see you."
My lord gives his assent, standing rigid while the old chief runs his gnarled fingers across his lips and eyes and beard. The cacique's face splits into a beatific smile.
"Quetzalcóatl," he says.
"What was that?" Cortés asks me.
"He spoke the name of one of our gods, my lord."
"Which one?"
"Feathered Serpent."
I see a moment of fear on his face. "Well, my lord?"
"Yes, Doña Marina?"
"What shall I tell him?"
"Tell him nothing. He knows enough for now."
✽ ✽ ✽
That night, Aguilar waits for me in the darkness.
"I need to talk with you," he says, falling into step beside me. I can smell him, fervent and rank. I walk faster, trying to outpace him.
"Cortés does not make me privy to his deliberations any longer," he says.
"That is not my concern."
"I fear for him. He is a good man but there are some things he does not understand."
"What things?"
"He trusts too much. For instance, he trusts that you translate exactly what he says to these lords and chieftains."
"What is it you think I do? Recite poems about butterflies?"
"You must take care, Doña Marina. You are playing a dangerous game."
I wheel around. Look at him! That tattered book he clutches to his chest, the ridiculous fertility symbol he wears at his neck. How much can he possibly understand about the Mexica, and about my lord? "I will do nothing to harm him. Ever."
"Then be careful what you say. You will destroy him."
"He cannot be destroyed. Not by me, and certainly not by you."
"You are wrong. He is just a man and any man may be destroyed. Especially by a woman."
Chapter 45
Tenochtitlán
Motecuhzoma was huddled on the ycpcalli, a fur cloak wrapped around his shoulders. He stared into the distance. Woman Snake lay prostrate on the floor in front of him.
The Emperor contemplated the latest news: the Spaniards had defeated the Texcaltéca on the fields of flowers and had forced them to surrender, something their own armies had failed to do in a bundle of years. How could a few hundred men defeat an army of tens of thousands? How was such a thing possible?
It was not possible, of course, unless these Castilians were led by a god. Unless this Malintzin was Quetzalcóatl, the Feathered Serpent.
A god must be properly propitiated. But Feathered Serpent was not one of their own gods, and therein lay the problem. When Montezuma's ancestors had reached this valley many bundles of years before, they had come under the protection of Huitzilopochtli, Hummingbird of the Left, the God of War; and Tezcatlipoca, Smoking Mirror, Bringer of Darkness. Both were bitter enemies of Feathered Serpent. It was Smoking Mirror himself who had plotted Feathered Serpent's expulsion from his ancient city of Tollan.
Unlike Feathered Serpent, they both demanded human blood as sacrifice.
Montezuma considered the terrible implications of these recent events. What if his people were caught in a direct confrontation between the gods? A clash of these titans would either destroy the sun or bring an end to the wind and rain. Whoever won, it would mean the utter destruction of the Mexica and he, Montezuma, was responsible for preventing this cataclysm.
He had always known it would come to this. When he had taken the throne, he commissioned the building of a shrine to Feathered Serpent in the court of the Great Temple in the hope of allaying this moment.
The weight of his responsibilities overwhelmed him and he started to giggle with fear.
Chapter 46
Texcála
Aprince's ransom in gold and silver and precious stones lay on the floor at his feet. Cortés tried not to look impressed.
"They wish to congratulate you on your victory over the Texcaltéca," Malinali said.
"Thank them for their kind words. But tell them it was all a misunderstanding. Insist that I have not come to make war on anyone, I have come here in peace."
She relayed this sentiment to the leader of the Mexica, an indian with more pride than was good for him. He had thick jades and opals on his fingers, even more jade through his ears and lower lip. On his head was a great fan of quetzal feathers that gave him the look of a strutting peacock.
"He says you should not trust the Texcaltéca," Malinali said, "for they are a perfidious and unworthy people and he is greatly concerned that we may all be murdered in our beds."
Cortés smiled. How sweetly we talk to one another! "Thank him again for his concern on my behalf. But tell them that if the Texcálans should think of dealing treacherously with me in any way I would know of it in advance because I can read men's minds."
Another rapid exchange. Malinali seemed surprised at what the Mexica had to say and appeared to verify it.
"What is it?" Cortés asked her.
"He says that the Revered Speaker of the Mexica, the great Montezuma, would like to offer you annual tribute to demonstrate his friendship. You yourself may set the amount in gold, silver, jade and cloth, payable each year. But Montezuma insists that it is too dangerous for you to travel further towards his capital since there are many treacherous republics like Texcála between here and Tenochtitlán. He therefore asks that once you collect your tribute you must return to the Cloud Lands in the east."
He is afraid of me! Cortés thought. He is afraid of me and it must be because he, too, thinks I am this mysterious Feathered Serpent! First, he sends his ambassadors to plead with me, now he offers me rich bribes to leave his lands as if I was the commander of great armies and he the captain of a few hundred men! Above the Totonacs and the Texcálans there is one ally here that I have so far overlooked, an ally far stronger than any of them.
Montezuma's mind.
These naturales really believe that men can become gods! It is a blasphemous notion, but one that will serve me well for the present, as long as I tread carefully.
"Mali, ask him to convey to his great lord my most devout friendship. Tell him I would dearly wish to accede to his lord's wishes, but I must convey my words to Montezuma in person. I cannot turn back without disobeying my own king."
The Mexican ambassador seemed dismayed at this reply. There was another long exchange. I wonder what she is saying to him, Cortés wondered, how much she embellishes this myth that I am not mortal? A dangerous game. No matter what these Mexica believe, not a word of heresy or sedition must be seen to emanate from my own lips. I must remain blameless.
"What is his reply?" he asked Malinali.
"He says that if you must approach, then he asks that you travel by way of Cholula for there you can be certain of a welcome befitting a great lord. He is even willing to act as your guide."
"Thank him most kindly for me. Tell him I will think on this and he will have his reply in due course."
The Mexican ambassador and his retinue bowed and left. Cortés stared after them, lost to his own thoughts.
Malinali
Painali, 1510:
The Mexica are to dedicate a new temple in their capital, Tenochtitlàn, and there is to be a day of celebration demanding many sacrifices to their insatiable gods. Below us, in the market square, are gathered together the young men and women they have chosen as suitable gifts for Huitzilopotchli.
Hate, real hate like this, is a new experience for me. My legs are trembling with the force of it so that I have to lock my knees and clench my fists. It is only when you feel such powerlessness that you lust for power, ache for it, pine for it. I think this is what happened to me at that moment, I think that was the beginning. I want to watch their own beating hearts blacken and burn and see their faces suffer in agony and death for once.
Down there among the milling prisoners are two of my brothers and a sister; down there, five friends I have played with since I walked my first steps; down there one hundr
ed boys and girls from my village little older than myself. I hear their mothers shriek in grief, watch the blank faces of fathers powerless to protect them.
I understand, of course, that if rain is to fall and maize is to grow, that the gods must have their due. Even here in our own temples our priests offer up a slave from time to time. But this wanton slaughter of Persons is savagery beyond comprehension.
My father stands beside me. His face betrays no emotion.
“Quetzalcoàtl, Feathered Serpent, will return in the year One Reed,” he whispers to me. “He will return on a raft from the east, as he has done before, and he will put these vermin, this plague on our people, to the torch. The hours of our suffering are almost past.”
Later this became my creed; but back then I barely heard him. I watched the boys and girls file from the plaza, roped together, a hundred hearts for Huitzilopotchli, the warm blood humming through their veins soon to be dashed in the face of Hummingbird of the Left.
I rushed away to vomit. Pure bile. I spit out my hate on the hot stones of the plaza. May Feathered Serpent hasten his return. Bring them down in pain and suffering and terrible, shrieking death, all of them.
I am ten years old.
Chapter 47
Texcála, 1519:
The beat of drums, the whistle of flutes, the tantalising odours of warm food and spices. Heaped dishes of maize cakes, roasted rabbit and beans with chili were placed on the mats in front of them. Acrobats cart-wheeled across the floor of the great hall and dwarves tumbled and danced.
Ring of the Wasp the Elder whispered something to Malinali.
Cortés had eaten very little, his eyes darting everywhere. He saw this exchange and wanted to know what the old chief had said.
"He says you should not go to Cholula,” Malinali told him.
"The Mexica have assured us of a hospitable welcome."
She conferred briefly with the Texcálan chief in Nahuatl then turned back to Cortés. "He says he would trust a rattlesnake not to bite him before he trusted a Mexican's hospitality. If you go to Tenochtitlán you must go by way of Huexotzinco."
Suddenly everyone is concerned for our welfare, Cortés thought. How things have changed in the past few days. "I will have to think about this."
"Of course you will think about it," Malinali said, "but then you must go to Cholula."
Alvarado and Benítez overheard the conversation and they both stared at her in stunned silence. "Damn your eyes," Alvarado muttered, "you cannot speak to the caudillo in such a manner."
Cortés smiled. “But she is right. I do have to go to Cholula."
"But why, caudillo?" Benítez asked him.
Cortés did not answer.
“Ring of the Wasp wants to cement the alliance we have made with him," Malinali said to Cortés. “He offers women for all your captains." She hesitated. "He would like you to have his daughter."
Ring of Cotton indicated the five women sitting demurely on the other side of the hall. They wore beautifully decorated huipitli and fine pieces of jade had been worked into their hair.
"They are all from families of important Texcaltéca lords. The one Ring of the Wasp claims as his own daughter is the one on the right. Actually she is his grandchild. He is being vain."
Cortés studied the women critically. "What do you think, Mali?"
"My lord?"
"Should I accept his kind offer? Should I bed his grand-daughter?"
He saw a flicker of uncertainty, of pain, on that inscrutable face. His little indian princess was jealous and possessive, after all. Like all women. She seemed to have lost her tongue.
"Tell him it is a most gracious offer and I thank him for it. But I cannot accept his daughter, although she is indeed quite lovely, because I am already married and my religion permits me just one wife."
He returned to his food but he felt her stillness. Several moments went by before he heard her relay his words to Old Ring of the Wasp and when she did her voice was not the same.
"Please inform him however that my other captains would be greatly honoured to accept these beautiful ladies into their households after they have been baptised into the Christian faith. Remind him also that he is an old man and must soon think about death. And because he is my friend I would like him and his fellow chiefs to also take the sacrament and renounce their old gods, so their souls might find peace in heaven."
Malinali seemed shaken by this. Cortés listened to her stammer through her translation, with many pauses. When she had finished, Old Ring of the Wasp's toothless grin was gone.
"He answers you this way," Malinali said. "He is very happy for his daughters to be sprinkled with water if that will make you content. But for himself, he could not renounce his gods even at the forfeit of his own life. Should he do so, there would be an insurrection among the people."
Why were these people so stubborn? Cortés wondered. He thought Fray Olmedo and Fray Díaz had explained this matter thoroughly to the naturales, so that they should see their errors. "If he becomes a Christian he will find eternal happiness in heaven. But if he dies without the sacrament he will be thrown into the infernal pit and roast forever in agony. He must renounce these blood sacrifices ..."
Fray Olmedo leaned forward and put a hand on Cortés's shoulder. "My lord, perhaps now is not the time. We should be more gentle in our approach."
Cortés stared at his friar. "Am I to be prevented from spreading the word of Christ by a priest? Which of us is the man of God?"
"I only wish that you moderate your remarks."
"Why do you seek to hold me back!"
"I believe it is better we bring God to these people slowly than rush at this and by doing so, lose all the ground we have gained."
Alvarado leaned forward. "He is right, caudillo. To force our hand when we have only just found peace with these people would be suicide."
Men were such cowards, he thought. On a subject as important as salvation, what did it matter if men came to the truth willingly or at the point of a sword? But if his churchmen would not stand with him on this, there was nothing he could do. He turned back to Malinali. "Tell Ring of the Wasp we shall be happy to take his brides. We will talk more on matters of religion at some future time."
✽ ✽ ✽
Benítez, seated just a few feet from Cortés, had been holding his breath, sensing a disastrous confrontation. He let it out now in a long sigh. Even Fray Olmedo was trembling. They had won so much; he thought Cortés had been about to throw it all away.
Perhaps he still might.
✽ ✽ ✽
As a concession to his new friends, Old Ring of the Wasp allowed Cortés to convert one of the city's temples into a Christian shrine and it was here that the five young Texcálan princesses were baptised in a special ceremony before being given to Cortés's captains as camaradas.
Ring of the Wasp's grand-daughter was christened Doña Luisa and given to Alvarado; Cortés had softened his rejection of her by telling the old cacique that the red-haired giant was his brother. Cortés chose Sandoval, Cristobal Olid and Alonso de Avila to receive the other women; the most beautiful of them all, the grand-daughter of Ring of Cotton, was given to León and re-christened Doña Elvira.
A good tactical choice, Benítez thought, giving her to León; a way to reward a one-time enemy and make him a firm ally. Cortés never stopped thinking politics, even in bed.
Malinali
I lie beside him on the sleeping mat, his honey still sticky in the cave. Through the window I see Sister Moon, beheaded by her brother Huitzilopochtli, slipping defeated down the night sky. Cortés is silent, staring at his brother stars, lost to me for now.
"You have never spoken of a wife.”
He stirs, but does not answer.
"Is she very beautiful?"
"She is not like you. I do not love her."
"But she is your wife. Why is she not here with you?"
"Come here? She would not get out of bed in the night unless she had
a maid to hold her hand."
I wrap my thigh over his, put my cheek against the strange, coarse curls of his chest. "What is her name?"
"I do not want to talk about her."
"Do you have children with her?"
"No. There are no children."
No sons yet for Mexico, then. "Will she come here and join you when we reach Tenochtitlán?"
"Why all these questions? I told you. I do not love her."
"But it would have been better if you had told me."
"Why? Perhaps one day I will have a better wife."
"Me?"
"Who else?”
I know there can be no one else but I want him to say the words; that the new Tollan will come through me, his spirit, my bone. I wait for one glimpse of his heart, I hold my breath, I can hear his heartbeat and mine. But he is silent and I realise he has fallen asleep.
I lie awake long into the night, thinking. My lord may be divine yet gods are unpredictable by their nature. Even my gentle Feathered Serpent may demand sacrifice of me and I must decide if I am willing to offer up my heart for him.
Chapter 48
Some gasped aloud when they saw the city of Cholula spread before them in the Anahuac valley; hundreds of white towers, pyramids of the gods, soaring above a sprawl of flat-roofed stone houses that seemed to go on forever. If this is a town only for pilgrims, Benítez thought, what must the capital, Tenochtitlán, be like? Just when he had seen something he thought could not be surpassed, a new wonder proved him wrong.
They camped that night in the dry bed of the Atoyac River in the dark shadow of Sleeping Woman. A dusting of snow glittered in the moonlight below the peak, like a necklace of pure white on the throat of a princess.
Malinali
The Cholulans come out the meet us, their senators and priests dressed after local custom in fringed and sleeveless cotton cassocks. Their arrival is announced with the blowing of conches and flutes, and slaves run before them with fans and censers of copal incense.
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