Feathered Serpent (17 page)

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She took off her clothes and waded into the pool. The water glistened like dew on her. It was cool in the green shadows and her nipples were erect.

Benítez felt suddenly unsure of himself.

She said something in her own language and waited. He just stood there. She climbed out of the pool again, water streaming from her limbs, and started to peel off his clothes. He pushed her away and finished the job himself. He felt ashamed to be standing naked with a woman in the daylight. Was this the first step in his degeneration to a savage, like Norte?

He followed her into the water. Rain Flower was holding a piece of soap tree root. She rubbed it between her hands and smeared the grease from it over his body. Then she cupped the water in her hands, poured it over his chest and shoulders, and pulled him to a deeper part of the pool to wash off the residue of the soapstone.

After she had finished bathing him, she turned and swam away from him, to a wide flat rock. The shade had moved from that part of the glade and the stone had been warmed by the sun. She lay on her back and beckoned him to join her.

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“You are big and ugly,” she said in Chontal Maya, knowing he could not understand, “but you are also kind and just. What you did for Norte was a good thing.”

He pulled himself up onto the rock beside her. The water streamed off his chest and belly. She noticed that when it was wet the hair on his body looked like the pelt of an animal. He shivered in the dappled sunlight. His skin was cool to the touch.

“What am I to do?” she said to him. “My lover is beautiful and a Person and he understands the ways of the gods. You are clumsy but you are kind. The Spaniards have made you my husband. What am I to do?”

She felt his thick arms wrap around her. They lay back on the sun-warmed stone. She stretched herself on it, imagining it was Motecuhzoma’s altar stone and she was a sacrifice. Is this how it will feel when it is my time to die? she wondered, staring at the washed blue sky.

His beard was wiry and rough against her skin. “Look at you,” she whispered, “you are so hairy. Your
maquauhuitl
is like a purple fist punching its way through a forest.”

She wrapped her arms and thighs around him, entangled her fingers in his hair. “But at least now you do not smell like a corpse. Now you can enter the cave redolent of water and the forest and I will enjoy the closeness of you also.”

“Caro,” he whispered. “caro mia.”

She wondered what the words meant. She would ask Little Mother.

She would make the best of things, show her lord and husband what she liked, help him to be gentle, make him smell sweetly, even teach him some words of her own language. And perhaps, in time, she might even grow a little fond of him.

Every man named on Escudero’s list had been sent north to Cempoallan. Cortés had told them it was a routine patrol. Alvarado was placed in charge.

When they returned some weeks later they were shocked and dismayed to find the bay empty. They were informed by their comrades that the entire fleet had been hauled up onto the beach and scuttled.

There was no way back to Cuba now.

———————

Cortés stood on the sand, the sea at his back. Father Olmedo stood beside him, holding a large wooden cross. A nice touch, Benítez thought, the empty sea and the cross. The
caudillo
had a flair for such silent theatre. He was telling them to have faith for there was no way back.

The mood was volatile and hard to gauge. Looking around at the men Benítez saw fear, resignation, anger, resentment. The expedition had already taken much longer and travelled much further than any had anticipated when they left Cuba.

“Gentlemen,” Cortés began, “I know you are distressed at hearing what has happened to our ships. But here is the report from the master mariners in charge of our fleet, which I received while some of you were away in Cempoallan. It states that this accursed climate had rotted out the timbers of every ship and that the predations of water-worms and rats had made the hulls unsound. Our pilots therefore told me that the boats were no longer safe for ocean voyage and that my only recourse was to have them beached so that we might salvage what we could.”

Benítez had seen this document. The pilots had indeed reported the condition of the boats just as Cortés had described it. They had done this because he had paid them to do it. The subterfuge was a matter of small signifance to Benítez personally, he had already made the decision to stay. By the time the boats were scuttled he no longer had any interest in them.

“While some of you were absent, I made the decision to ferry sails, ironwork and cordage here to the shore,” Cortés said. “What could not be salvaged was scuttled there in the bay. It was a heavy decision to make, but it was forced on me by my advisers. There was simply no other choice.”

He weighed the silence, the breeze rustling the papers he held in his right hand.

“In the sober light of reflection you will all realise that this unfortunate incident should not distress us unduly. With misfortune also comes many benefits. The loss of the ships means that we have gained a hundred good men for our expedition, as our mariners will no longer be required to man the fleet. They have this day pledged their allegiance to us and will assist us, by the grace of God, in our enterprise.

“And let no one doubt that glory is ours for the taking. The
naturales
of this land esteem us to be a superior race of beings and I see no reason to discourage them in their prejudice.”

Benítez spared a glance at Aguilar. The deacon gave Doña Marina a look of pure venom.

“I swear this day to make each of you rich beyond your wildest dreams,” Cortés went on. “All we need is courage - and faith. For remember, although we go to seek our fortunes, there is another mandate we carry, that of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have all seen how these heathen engage in the most unnatural practices. We shall tear down their infernal temples wherever we find them and bring salvation and true Christianity to these savage lands. So you see, in our adventure we are in the happy position of serving not only our own interests but those of God Almighty.

“So let us go on, knowing that while we do God’s will, we cannot fail! With the loss of our ships, the die is cast. We go on - to Tenochtitlán!”

There was a moment’s hesitation, a critical pause when all may have been lost, Benítez thought. But it was then that Leon unsheathed his sword and held it high in the air. The shadow of the noose and Cortés’ gesture of mercy had brought about a radical change in his character.

“On to Tenochtitlán!” he shouted.

The rest of the men, without a leader to champion their fears and complaints, let themselves be carried with the tide. From hundreds of throats came the cry: “On to Tenochtitlán!”

Yes, on to Tenochtitlán, Benítez thought.

And may God have mercy on us all.  

August, the Month of the Falling of Ripe Fruits.

Cortés left one of his junior captains, Juan Escalante, in charge of the fort at Vera Cruz, his garrison those soldiers too sick or too old to endure the rigours of the journey. The rest left with Cortés.

Cristoval, the standard-bearer, rode at the head of the column on a dappled grey, followed by the
caudillo
, his crest and breastplate shimmering in the sun. Malinali followed on foot, alongside Father Olmedo, who held aloft a great cross studded with turquoise stones extracted from the ears and noses of his Totonacs converts. Behind them came the main body of the infantry, six companies each of fifty men.

Totonac and Cuban bearers hefted the Spaniards' heavy steel armour or hauled the wheeled carts that carried the artillery. Behind the artillery came the pikemen, arquebusiers and crossbowmen. An army of five thousand Totonac warriors, resplendent in their feathered regalia, took up the rear. A hot sun bounced off the steel helmets, the muskets and the brass studded trappings of horses.

Madness, Benítez thought. An army of five hundred and a few thousand natives with tasselled clubs and shields made from turtle shells setting off to conquer an entire nation.

Utter madness!

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The road from Cempoallan led them first through ripening fields of maize, then up damp and winding jungle trails strewn with wild passionfruit vines. The soldiers panted and cursed in their heavy armour. Those Tabascan women who had not been left behind in Cempoallan fled into the jungle at their first opportunity. Only Malinali and Rain Flower remained.

They camped in a broad and fertile valley planted with vanilla and cochineal and the next day they made the steep climb to Jalapa, the Town of the Sand River. They left behind the steaming jungles and distant fever coast; in front of them now the land rose in surging crags and snowy passes.

Jalapa was just a cluster of stucco buildings clinging to the walls of a thickly forested valley. The inhabitants had been warned in advance of their arrival and the stone gods had been hastily removed from the temple to a hiding place in the jungle in anticipation of Feathered Serpent’s wrath. The priests had cut off their blood-matted hair and were dressed in new cotton robes. The nobles threw open their fine houses to the Spaniards as barracks. A feast was prepared.

So far it had been a triumph, a procession. But tomorrow they would leave the lands of the Totonacs and take their first steps in the lands of the Mexica.

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There is mist in the valley, the dark forest is thick with tree ferns and orchids. Steam rises from the flanks of a chestnut horse. An owl blinks from its hiding place in the shadows, its head cocked to the small cries of humans.

I slip off my tunic and skirt, lie down on the hard floor of the cave, raise my arms above my head in sacrifice to a god. My lord kneels between my legs. There is sweat on his face and his eye glitter in the darkness. There is a third figure watching us unseen, in the darkest corner of the cave; Feathered Serpent with his bared fangs and snarling tongue, fired clay given life with polychrome paint.

My lord hovers like an eagle above its prey. His hair is dark and matted like a priest’s. In the gloom of the cave his medallion gleams with gold, the image of a mother with child, potent and rich with meaning at this moment of conquest, this instant of possession, this hour of conception. I embrace my invader, welcome him in.

Feathered Serpent slides into the cave. I entwine with my god, my destiny won. 

From Jalapa the road snaked upwards. The jungle was left behind, and they climbed through cool forests of cedar, oak and pine, traversed by rushing streams. They passed under the shadow of a great volcano. Forbidding and snow-swept mountain fastnesses reared up ahead of them. The scantily dressed bearers began to shiver with cold.

They reached the Totonac frontier town of Xicotlan. The chieftain’s name was Olintetl, and he seemed unimpressed by their horses and their dogs of war and told them instead of the army of one hundred thousand men that Motecuhzoma had waiting for them in the Valley of Mexico.

The thunderheads growled over the Cofre de Perote. The Totonacs, their eyes turned to the horizon in dread, bought or stole every blanket in the town.

They marched on under a leaden sky. The pennons of the cavalry whipped in the wind and the beat of their drums echoed around lonely passes.

———————

Rain fell every afternoon; cannons bogged in the mud and the horses fought for their footing in the defiles. Their army disappeared into the clouds, at a high col they named the Nombre de Dios. The rain turned to sleet and hail. Several of their Cuban porters froze to death.

Occasionally they came upon a miserable pueblo. The villagers always fled at their approach, leaving just a few scrawny Xolo dogs to yowl at their heels before they were silenced by the soldiers' swords and butchered for the evening meal. In the deserted temples they found the remains of human bones.

Diego Godoy dutifully read the Requiremiento at each shrine. Fray Olmedo and Brother Aguilar placed wooden crosses. Buzzards screeched overhead.

The tree line was far below them. They reached a barren plateau, a vista of salt lakes broken only by the spiny claws of huge
maguey
cactus and a few gnarled trees. There was no food to be scavenged, no fresh water to drink. More of the bearers died, from pneumonia, from starvation or from thirst.

Cortés urged them on. “We are nearly there!” he shouted to them. “The end of the journey is just over the next rise!”

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