Aztec

by Colin Falconer

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  I hold the strappings of his great chestnut beast. "My lord."

  He leans down from the saddle. "How is the future Emperor of Mexico?"

  I put a hand to my belly. The bleeding was heavy that night on the causeway, but now it has stopped. Just now he heard his father’s speech to his soldiers and I thought I felt him move. "He is well, my lord."

  He removes the leather gauntlet from his hand, touches my cheek. "Stay inside the square of our defence. All will be well."

  "Do not let them harm you."

  "We will sit together in the palace of Tenochtitlán. I swear it." And then, a sweet kiss. "My love." He smiles and spurs his horse forward. The rest of his thunder lords follow, the brass trappings jangle, the great beasts snorting and stamping, sensing the fear and excitement in the air around them.

  We will never sit in the palace. Even gods may die, and today is that day. You will die on this field of flowers, and I will die with you. We have tested the gods too far with our pride and arrogance.

  But I will never regret it, for I have found my Feathered Serpent and followed my destiny, and if I was given my time over, I would do it all the same.

  My father’s prophecies will not be fulfilled, but I have avenged him now and so I can hold my head high when I join him in the place of the spirits.

  Chapter 95

  Benítez forced himself into the saddle. Every muscle in his body ached. He had received a slash with a lance the night of the retreat - the noche triste, as Cortés now called it - which had opened his cheek to the bone and now his face felt as if it was on fire; two days before their column had been ambushed and an arrow had lodged in his calf. He could barely move his right leg. He had not eaten for days and he feared he might faint from his horse. But he was determined that the indians would not take him alive, would not stretch him over their infernal stones. He would fight to the end.

  "We will charge in squadrons of five," Cortés shouted. "Keep your lances high, aim for the eyes and return at a gallop. Ignore the common warriors, aim only for the officers, the ones with head dresses in the form of birds of prey or of tigers. Better even than these, kill those with plumes and nose jewels and wicker standards, for they are the generals."

  And then he said to his officers what he had not dared say to his men: "If we are to die, better to die proudly. May God be with you all."

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  The battle went on, hand to hand, for hours. Young Mexica warriors with obsidian-bladed clubs, intent on glory, were thrown against squadrons of well-drilled Spanish pikemen who fought as units and slaughtered them in their thousands. The Spaniards' lurchers and mastiffs, already demented with hunger, took a terrible toll of the indians. Hundreds of Mexica died for every Spaniard.

  But the weight of numbers began to tell, and by the middle of the day the Castilians, weak from their wounds and from starvation, were at the point of exhaustion.

  Their lines began to waver. The Mexica pressed on.

  Malinali

  "Here, take this dirk." Jaramillo reaches into the scabbard at his waist and presses a dagger into my hand. He was pierced through the thigh with a lance during the noche triste and now lies with the other wounded inside the defensive square. The Mexica howl and whistle as they throw themselves against the thin line of pikemen, all that lies now between them and us.

  "My lord?"

  "I am not having my blood spilled in their bestial temples!" His hands are shaking. "I have seen your dexterity with this weapon. I just ask you make the end a little cleaner and a little quicker than it was for my lord Montezuma."

  I hold the knife, bewildered. A man should not fear the flowery death on the battlefield or on the stone. Would he rather prefer to bleed and die at the hands of a woman?

  Jaramillo lifts his shirt, grasps the hilt of the dagger and pulls it towards him, so that the point rests against the skin above his heart. "Do it."

  I shake my head.

  "Do it!"

  "No!” Strong fingers close around my wrist and tries to wrest the knife from me. It is Aguilar. "You must not! He will burn forever in the fires of hell!"

  "Only if I die by my own hand!" Jaramillo shouts.

  "The intention is the same." Aguilar falls to his knees. "Let us pray to God to give you strength for the end."

  Jaramillo pushes him away. "I don't want your prayers!" He turns back to me. "Do it now! Do it now, you demon cunt! Let me die quickly!" His voice is shrill, like a woman's.

  Aguilar again grabs for the knife. "He will lose his mortal soul!"

  Oh, these men are not worthy of Feathered Serpent. How did he come so far with such cowards and fools?

  The battle is on us now, a man screams and falls on us, and dies. I can hear nothing over the cries and whistling and drums. The Mexica are close enough to touch. I bring the knife down. The blade pierces the earth to the hilt, a few inches from Jaramillo's head.

  He starts to cry.

  "You have saved his soul," Aguilar tells me.

  "No, Aguilar. I just do not believe my lord will lose."

  Chapter 96

  Iam defeated, Cortés thought.

  Even as he broke his charge he knew he had disobeyed his own instruction, had ridden too far from his own lines. Fatigue had blurred his concentration. The Mexica had broken their line, but now as he wheeled his horse they ran back in to encircle him. They could kill him easily with their clubs and lances but none of them dared spill his blood because Lord Malinche belonged to Hummingbird.

  He slashed wildly with his sword, chopping at the hands that tried to hold him, cutting the nooses of the snarers. But there were too many of them and he was dragged from the saddle. He hit the ground hard and the breath went out of him.

  He saw Benítez and Sandoval charging through the indian ranks. Three others joined them, Olid, Alvarado and Juan de Salamanca. Cortés jumped back to his feet, and regained his mount.

  I cannot die, Cortés thought. God chose me for this. He keeps me alive, even now, for a purpose.

  It was then he saw her, in the clouds above the hill. Her smile was serene, her eyes luminous. She stretched out her hand towards him, and the east wind whipped the folds of her purple robe.

  Nuestra Señora de los Remedios.

  Below her, on a grassy knoll, he saw the royal litter, shaded by a golden canopy, and reclining on it a great lord with an elaborate wicker standard strapped to his back with a shoulder harness. The towering basketwork emblem was worked with rich feathers into the insignia of the Woman Snake and decorated with gemstones and gold. The lord who carried it wore a great head dress of quetzal plumes and his ears and nose and arms flashed with gold ornaments.

  It was their chief general. His rash charge had brought him to within a hundred paces, and now there was just a handful of Mexican warriors between them. He remembered the first battle with the Texcála and what Malinali had told him then; when they lose their commander, they lose heart.

  "We must move back before they encircle us again!" Benítez shouted.

  "No! We go there!" He pointed towards the knoll. "The Virgin points the way! Kill their chiefs and we are victors!"

  He spurred his horse up the slope, slashing a path through the ragged lines. The Virgin beckoned, the promise of victory in her mother's outstretched arms.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Cortés galloped towards the golden canopy. The generals saw his intention and he read the confusion and dismay in their faces. There was nothing they could do to stop him. He rode straight at Woman Snake, struck him with his horse, the elaborate wicker standard smashing under the hooves of his mare. Cortés wheeled around, saw the general stagger to his feet, bleeding and dragging his leg. Juan de Salamanca, charging in behind, drove his lance through his chest, driving him off his feet. Benítez, Olid, Sandoval and Alvarado scattered the rest of his company with their swords.

  Cortés reached down from his horse and picked up the shattered wicker standard. He held it aloft in
his fist. At once there was a bedlam of whistles and drums.

  He watched in amazement as the Mexica immediately melted away across the plains, a tide turning from his feet, as if he had commanded the very ocean to retreat. Our Lady had brought him a miracle.

  Cortés let his sword hang limp at his side.

  Alvarado started to laugh, then wept. Benítez slid from the saddle and lay spreadeagled on his back. Juan de Salamanca stared at him, his eyes empty.

  It was over. He had won.

  EPILOGUE

  Spiritus Sanctus

  If there's Spaniards in Heaven, I don't want to go there

  - response of Hatay, chief of the Cuban indians, on being offered the Last Rites before being burned at the stake.

  Malinali

  Tenochtitlán: August, 1521

  "Inever wanted this.”

  A tent with a crimson canopy has been erected on the rooftop of a Tlatelolco palace. It overlooks the last enclave of the Mexica. Tonatiuh's men are making a final sweep of the city. The defenders are holding out, although now their only means of resistance is to hurl stones on the Castilians from the roofs of the few remaining houses.

  The city lies in ruins. The soldiers have destroyed everything, toppled statues, smashed the adobe walls of the palaces, torching thatch, burning temples.

  My lord's orders.

  Feathered Serpent’s victory has a bitter taste: if I cannot have the city as it was, then I shall destroy every last stone of it. Tenochtitlán was the most beautiful city I have ever seen. Soon it will all be gone.

  "I never wanted this," he whispers again, as if he is trying to convince himself.

  Only a genius or a madman, Benítez had said, would dream of building a navy in a land-locked valley. But Martín Lopez, once he had recovered from his wounds, had set about this very task, at my lord's urging. He salvaged iron and sheet from San Juan de Ulúa and shaped twelve great canoes from freshly-cut timber. Eight thousand porters carried my lord's navy, in pieces, across the sierra to the shores of Lake Texcoco.

  And such ships they were, each of them the length of twenty ordinary canoes. They captured the Serpent's wind in canvas cloaks and with these great canoes, and the soldiers that joined us from the Cloud Lands, we laid siege to Tenochtitlán, exactly as my lord had said that we would. Tens of thousands of warriors from surrounding provinces rushed to join us, eager to participate in the destruction of the Mexica.

  Inside the city, another weapon did its work; the thunder lords called it 'smallpox', a terrible magic that left thousands of black bodies rotting in the streets. It was Feathered Serpent's revenge on the Mexica.

  "I had no other choice. To save this city, I had to destroy it. Do you understand?"

  What can I say to him? From up here on the roof, I can see Tonatiuh's men enter the Tlatelolco quarter, and swarm like ants up the temple pyramid. My head aches from the dust-stench of falling masonry and the acrid stink of smoke from the burning buildings. The air crackles to the sound of the thunder sticks, I can hear the shrill screams of those trapped under buildings, the fading whistles and drums of these last defiant Mexica. These are the hymns of Montezuma's city as it dies.

  "You know my heart, Malinali. I never wanted this."

  I cannot answer him.

  "These Mexica are determined to die. But how else can we establish our authority here? I did not want to destroy them, I did not want to destroy this city. I had no choice."

  My father was right. I have found my destiny in destruction, and I have brought chaos and the end of the fifth sun.

  One of the new thunder lords, his clothes covered in dust, appears on the roof, panting for breath. "Good news, caudillo," he gasps, "we have captured Falling Eagle."

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  My lord is seated in a chair on the terrace of the Face of the Water Lord Palace, or what remains of it. He wears a suit of black velvet and a cap with green plumes, to imitate the quetzal feathers of the Mexica emperors, who wore them as symbols of divine rule. Falling Eagle stands in front of us, his wrists and ankles in chains. He wears the helmet of an eagle knight, with silver-grey feathered leggings and cloak. Garcia Holquin, his captor, stands behind him, two Texcaltéca warriors as guard.

  I wonder about this Falling Eagle. Here is the man who taunted Montezuma for being unable to die. Perhaps he himself found it was not so easy.

  I am struck by the silence. For ninety-three days we have lived with the sounds of battle; the screams, the whistles, the drumming of the teponaztli from the pyramids. The very moment of Falling Eagle's capture it had ceased. Now the silence almost hurts my ears.

  Falling Eagle murmurs something so softly I can hardly hear him.

  “What does he say?” my lord asks me.

  "He asks if he may have your knife."

  "My knife?"

  "He wishes to kill himself. He says he has fought you as hard as he can and now he has failed he wishes only for death."

  "You must tell him, my lady, that he must not blame himself, for he has acquitted himself with great valour." He smiles, but I know his heart in this, and it is not the same as his words. In truth he would like to rip out Falling Eagle's vitals for not surrendering Tenochtitlán to him intact. "Tell him I am his friend and from this time on I shall treat him as I would my own brother. I will personally guarantee his safety."

  I relay this to Falling Eagle but I know he does not believe it either.

  "Now I would like you to ask him what happened to the gold that was left on the causeway the night of the noche triste."

  I put this question to Falling Eagle, who stares back at me down his beak of a nose. "Tell Lord Malinche it is all gone. It vanished in the mud of the lake or disappeared under the rubble when his band of thieves burned our city. All that is left of our treasure was in my canoe when they took me captive."

  "He will never believe that."

  "I do not care what he chooses to believe. You are a prostitute and he is a thief and a murderer. Why should I answer to you?"

  I pass on his answer but omit these final insults. Despite his contempt for me - perhaps because of it - I find that I somehow admire him.

  My lord's fingers claw the arms of his chair. "What we found in his canoe was some gold helmets and a few armbands. That cannot be all."

  "It is all his thieves left us when they departed Tenochtitlán," Falling Eagle answers.

  "Ask him where he hid my treasure!"

  "He is very angry," I tell Falling Eagle. "He demands to know where you have hidden his gold."

  "His gold?" Falling Eagle shakes his head. "All our treasure disappeared beneath the mud of the lake the night you fled like dogs from our city."

  I lean close to my lord's ear. "My lord, he insists it was lost the night of the noche triste."

  He smiles and this is unexpected. He gets slowly to his feet, takes two steps towards Falling Eagle and embraces him. "Tell him we shall not worry over such matters now. Everything that has passed between us formerly must be forgotten. The dark hour is gone. I want him to think of me from this moment on as his friend."

  His friendship falls upon Falling Eagle like a curse. I shudder for him.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Benítez tied a cloth around his mouth and nose and tried not to breathe too deeply or look too hard at the bodies lying in the streets or floating in the canals. Some were victims not of Spanish or Texcálan lances but of hunger or disease and had been there a very long time. The ground had been broken up where the starving Mexicans had tried to find roots to eat. Even the bark was gone from the trees.

  Those still living were huddled on the ground with the dead. Mexica warriors, their wounds rotting, lay silently waiting for death. They appeared indifferent to the killing blows that ended their torments. As in Cholula, their Texcálan allies took revenge on the women and the children and the old.

  The great city of towers and palaces reeked of blood and corpse fires. Rain hissed on burning timbers, smoke trailed into a limp grey sky.


  A line of wraiths filed along the causeways, mostly women and children, the few that had escaped the massacres, sacks of bones in ragged loincloths.

  He was appalled at himself, at his fellows. What have we done? We came here to serve God. How far did we take our commission? Here was a city greater than Seville, greater perhaps than Venice or Constantinople, and we have laid it to waste. Norte was right. Who, truly, are the heathen in this land?

  A group of soldiers dragged a woman from the line of refugees. A rumour was circulating the Spanish camp that the Mexican women were hiding gold in their most private places. The conquistadores had taken it upon themselves to search for it when and wherever they fancied.

  There were three of them, officers, and they were all drunk. Two of them were men who had arrived only recently from the coast. Benítez recognised only one of them: Jaramillo.

  "There's more than one place to hide gold," Jaramillo shouted, laughing, and threw the woman to the ground. He started to tear at her tunic. "Let's see what she has in her vault."

  For the sacred pity of God, Benítez thought. She is no more than a pile of bones. How can you desire such a creature? What pleasure could you get from tormenting her further?

  "Leave her," he shouted. He drew his sword from its scabbard and Jaramillo heard the rasp of steel and looked up, alarmed.

  "Benítez?"

  "Leave her alone!"

  The two officers with him stopped grinning and put their hands on their swords.

  Jaramillo seemed to relax. "Stop carping, Benítez. I am sure her vault is large enough to accommodate us all."

  "I want none of it. Find your sport somewhere else."

  He tilted the blade in front of Jaramillo's face. He watched his former comrade make his calculation, looking first at Benítez and then at his companions.

  "If you wish to try your luck against a former planter, you may," Benítez said. "But I remind you that I have a little more experience with a sword than I once did. Thanks to Cortés I am accustomed to fighting against the odds. I do not know how good your friends here are at swordplay but let me tell you this: I will see your guts on the ground, regardless of what follows afterward."