Feathered Serpent (23 page)

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.

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.

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.

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.

Feathered Serpent waits for them, the morning sun bright on his golden armour. I stand at his right shoulder, his thunder lords behind me.

The leader of the Cholulans steps forward, touches the ground and his lips in formal salutation and makes his greeting.

“He says his name is Angry Coyote,” I tell my lord in a loud voice.

I hear Alvarado whisper to Jaramillo and Sandoval, “He looks more like a slightly aggrieved duck,” and there is laughter.

My lord silences them with a stare. “Thank him for his greeting,” he says to me. “Tell him we have come in the name of his most catholic majesty Charles the Fifth to bring news of true religion and put an end to the devil’s works in this country.”

I turn to Angry Coyote and tell him, in words he will understand: “Feathered Serpent has returned to rest in his city. He has been sent by Olintecle, father of all the gods, to reclaim his throne and bring an end to human sacrifice.”

Angry Coyote’s face betrays nothing. His reply appears to me to be carefully rehearsed.

It is just as I expected. These people are such hypocrites! They feign devotion to their god, and yet, when he finally returns to them, as he promised, they do not even recognise him! What kind of religion is that?

“What does he say?” Cortés asks me.

“He says you are most welcome in their city. They are happy to receive you. Quarters have been prepared and food will be provided.” I hesitate, wondering how to tell him the rest of it. “He says they will be most interested to hear all you have to say. But he also insists that you must not upset their other gods, who already provide them with everything they need.”

Laughs at Women, in his rough
maguey
cloak, approaches one of the Cholulan senators and is fingering his mantle acquisitively. It is made of a beautiful dyed cotton of a quality his own people cannot obtain because of Tenochtitlán’s embargo. The nobleman who is the object of his attentions looks uncomfortable and tries to shuffle away. Laughs at Women holds on, leering at him.

Angry Coyote turns back to me. “If this Lord Malinche has come in friendship, why has he brought such a large army of our enemies with him?”

“Angry Coyote is frightened of the Texcaltéca,” I tell my lord. “They and the Cholulans are traditional enemies.”

“Tell him they are accompanying me on my journey to Tenochtitlán. They intend no harm to him or his people.”

I pass this on but Angry Coyote is not mollified. He demands that when the Spaniards enter Cholula they leave the Texcaltéca outside the city.

“Never,” Alvarado says when he hears this.

“It’s a trick,” Sandoval says.

I wait, wondering what my lord will decide.

Cortés shrugs. “If I were Angry Coyote and strangers appeared with my sworn enemies ... the French, for example ... I should also ask that they remain outside my city.”

“
Caudillo
,” Alvarado hisses, “we cannot agree to this!”

“I am aware of the risk.” He looks at me. “Tell him we accede to his request.”

Suicide, I think. Once again, he behaves exactly like a god, with complete arrogance.

“Feathered Serpent agrees to your request,” I tell Angry Coyote, “but he warns you not to test his patience. He is able to read men’s minds and will know everything you plan.”

Angry Coyote gives me a look of sweet contempt. “I do not see Feathered Serpent here.”

“Revered Speaker has seen him,” I answer. “He has sent him a mountain of gold and jewels in tribute.”

My lord interrupts our exchange and demands to know what is being said.

“It is nothing. He was just being insolent.”

I see Alvarado and Sandoval exchange a glance. It is clear they do not like me conducting private conversations with the
naturales
. But my lord does not seem concerned. “Tell him we shall look forward to being received in his city,” he says.

After Angry Coyote and his retinue have left my lord takes me aside. “Should I trust them?” he whispers.

“Only if you wish your army to be destroyed, my lord.”

“As I thought.”

He walks away, joins the other thunder gods. Later I see a wild rabbit dash across the path from the bushes. It is an omen. Something bad is about to happen.

———————

An eerie silence as they crossed the temple court, the echo of their boots on the stones and the metallic chink of their steel swords the only sounds to be heard. The crowd parted for them.

Cortés led the way up the stepped walls of the pyramid. It was a long climb and a steep one, and they were all wearing heavy armour. When they reached the summit they were all panting for breath and their faces were streaked with sweat. The priests, dressed in cloaks of white and red, huddled together, watching them.

Cortés marched past them into the shrine. Benítez followed.

It took some moments for his eyes to grow accustomed to the light. Benítez realised he was staring at a giant coiled serpent carved from stone. It was dressed in a mantle of white, emblazoned with red crosses, similar to the garb they had seen on the priests outside. The snake’s body was studded with jade stones but its head was not that of a snake; it was instead, that of a man with long hair and a beard.

“So this is Feathered Serpent,” Cortés said.

Benítez felt his flesh crawl. He could make out the visceral gleam of fresh, dark blood on the sacrificial stone. The smell of death was everywhere.

The
caudillo
’s eyes shone strangely in the gloom. He looked as if he had drunk too much wine. He turned to Alvarado. “Some of these people think I am Feathered Serpent.” He vaulted onto the shrine beside the bearded idol so they could make comparison. “Do you think he looks like me?”

Alvarado spared a glance at Fray Olmedo. This might be construed by some as blasphemous.

“It is the Devil,” Fray Olmedo said.

“The Devil? Oh, I rather think it looks like Aguilar,” Sandoval said and laughed. “Or maybe Pedro,” he added, looking at Alvarado.

“You should not say such things,” Alvarado muttered.

Benítez put a hand to his sword. He did not like the way the priests had crowded around the entrance, blocking their retreat. “Let us leave now,” he said. He was worried that Cortés might incite them further. He had become dangerous and unpredictable of late, certainly not the same man who had left Santiago de Cuba seven months ago.

Cortés turned to Fray Olmedo. “Father, you shall be my witness. Today I vow to throw down every idol in this kingdom and scrape every drop of blood from these walls! For there is no god but God and I am his servant. Amen.”

“Amen,” Fray Olmedo echoed.

Cortés leaped down from the statue and strode towards the entrance. The priests backed away. Benítez and the others hurried after him, eager to be away from that accursed place. 

I wander the marketplace, Flores and a handful of my lord’s soldiers following behind, as escort. I am dazzled by this place. Everything is for sale here; stone and lime and wooden beams for building, cooking pots, obsidian mirrors, kohl for darkening the eyes, herbs for curing sick children, feathers, salt, rubber, bitumen. Merchants haggle over cacao and maize, porters with tumplines across their foreheads carry wicker panniers of mantles or embroidered skirts or fibre sandals; a prostitute raises her skirts to prospective customers, displaying her tattooed legs. Old women squat on the ground beside the corn cobs and strings of peppers laid out for sale on reed mats. I can smell the savoury aroma of tamales, and gourd seeds toasting over braziers.

The crowd ahead of us parts for a woman in a beautifully embroidered cloak, her wrists and throat and fingers adorned with onyx jewellery. She is surrounded by a coterie of slaves. I recognise her at once from the arrival celebrations; it is Bird in the Reeds, the mother of Angry Coyote.

Bird in the Reeds waits while one of her slave girls barters for a hundred sheets of bark paper. The price is finally set at a hundred and twenty cacao beans.

I tell my escort to wait and approach her courteously, lowering my eyes, showing her proper respect. She glares back at me imperiously.

“I need to speak with you, Mother.”

“What would we have to discuss?”

“I need your help.”

This declaration brings a change to the woman’s demeanour. Her expression softens. She spares a glance over my shoulder in the direction of my lord’s soldiers.

“It is quite safe, Mother. None of those dogs have the elegant speech. They cannot understand a single word we say.”

“What is the matter, child?”

“I have to get away from these devils.”

Bird in the Reeds seems alarmed, but not surprised, as if she had anticipated this predicament. “You are a slave?”

“I have royal Mexican blood in my veins and I was the daughter of a great and noble lord until some specks of dirt kidnapped me from my home in Painali. Now I am enslaved to these bearded monsters. Will you help me?”

Another furtive glance at the soldiers. “Not here. Tonight. At my house.” She walks on, her entourage trailing behind her.

“For the second day running there has been no food brought to us,” Alvarado said. “The men are hungry. What are they to eat? The promises of the Cholulans?”

Benítez leaned both hands on the table. “Norte has spoken with the Totonacs. They say they have found pitfalls in the roads leading out of the city. They are lined with sharpened stakes that will impale any who fall in them. They also say there are stones stockpiled on the flat roofs of the houses, ready to be hurled down on any trying to escape through the street below. We have been lured into a trap.”

Just three days after their carnival entrance in Cholula and the feasting on turkeys and maize was already a distant memory. Now, instead of bouquets of welcome, they got only sneers and murderous looks.

Their discussion was interrupted by the blast from a conch shell, from the temple close to the palace where they were quartered. Another sacrifice, another heart offered up to Huitzilopochtli.

The sound of it sent a chill through the room. None of them spoke for a few moments.

“They have evacuated all the women and children,” Jaramillo said. “I saw hundreds of them leaving this afternoon, heading towards the foothills.”

“We should go back to Vera Cruz,” de Grado said.

Ordaz folded his arms and grunted to show his contempt for this remark.

“You were one of those who called loudest for our return a few months ago,” de Grado reminded him.

“Since then I have seen the gold piling up in the wagons and our
caudillo
has brought us victories and fame I did not believe possible. Besides, we have been through this many times before. We cannot go back.”

“Then we should have brought the Texcálans into the city with us,” Alvarado said.

Cortés had been oddly silent through this debate. Now he stirred. “They may not love us, as the Texcálans do, but I am yet to be convinced that they intend to betray us.” He turned to Malinali. “Well, Doña Marina? What do you think?”