Feathered Serpent (44 page)
Authors: Colin Falconer
———————
What has happened to us since Otumba? I wonder as I hurry across the plaza. If that day had ended differently I would not be wearing this fine dress of black lace, with a mantilla covering my face, a fan of mother of pearl in my right hand; I would not be the consort of the most powerful man in New Spain. I would also not be required to listen to the screams of tortured men or watch my dreams crumble to dust before my eyes.
The white adobe walls of the palace at Coyoacan loom ahead. They have proved an excellent surface for the messages of the graffitos. Someone has scrawled across it, in black paint:
MORE WERE CONQUERED BY CORTES THAN BY MEXICO
Even the heroes of Otumba are in revolt over the profits from their sacred expedition. When they did not find their pockets bulging with gold, they blamed the treasurer, Mejía, who in turn had blamed my lord, Cortés. Rumours spread that he had taken out a second quinto for himself, that he had retained many pieces of worked gold his men thought had been forwarded under their name to the king.
For his own part, my lord claimed that it was the fault of Falling Eagle, that he had hidden much of the gold from them. He protested that all had been done in accordance with the law and that he had behaved properly at all times. But he lives in a palace and eats his food from golden plates and has a retinue of servants to attend him. They have won for themselves no more than the price of a new sword. Why should they not wonder at the justice of it?
As for Tenochtitlán, the carrion birds were still gathering overhead when the rebuilding got under way. Falling Eagle was forced to order his people back to the capital to bury the dead and start work on the new shrine to the god Christi rising over the site of the Templo Mayor. My lord built himself a new palace on the site of Motecuhzoma’s former seat, using thousands of felled cedars from the surrounding forests. Even the canals were filled with stone salvaged from the ruins, so that no other conqueror could isolate the capital as we had done. The Mexica are bent at their work every daylight hour, carrying stones and earth under the lashes of the thunder lords, and many are dying of starvation and disease.
The priests have ordered that all the Mexica’s codices and statuary be burned or broken with hammers. Brother Aguilar has been especially active in these endeavours.
If Feathered Serpent were to return to the Valley, I do not think he would recognise it.
———————
My lord sits at his desk, quill in hand. He wears a suit of black silk trimmed with white lace, there is a thick rope of gold at his throat, and an emerald flashes on his finger. His attendants are gathered about him and armed soldiers guard the doors. Mexican servants await his pleasure. His moles go with him everywhere and when he passes in the street all
naturales
must prostrate ourselves on the ground, as once we did for Motecuhzoma.
I am ushered into the room and my lord dismisses his retinue with a nod. I recognise only Benítez; he is accompanied by a fine Christian gentlewoman in a black mantilla veil. This woman has an Indian’s eyes and our glances meet and secretly caress. It is Rain Flower saved from the holocaust. Her Spaniard is here to obtain my lord’s permission for the marriage. There are many such marriages now, for there is a shortage of delicate Spanish brides in the new colony. I do not think Benítez wants her for the sake of convenience, though. After the city fell, he sat by her bedside day and night for two weeks, feeding her back to health by his own hand. I know it is true, for I was there, and I watched him do it.
As she leaves the room our fingers touch lightly for a moment. But then the door closes and my lord and I are left alone, only the servants standing mute against the walls.
“I take it, as you are here, that Alderete has finished his interrogation.”
“Indeed, my lord. They are bandaging Falling Eagle’s feet as we speak.”
“Did he answer the señor’s questions to his satisfaction?”
“He gave him the same answer he gave you, my lord.”
A frown. “I told him it was useless. He would not listen to me. Well, so be it. I am tired of distracting them from their greed. Let them wallow in it if they must. God will decide the justice of it.”
“You gave your word to Falling Eagle. You told him he was under your protection.”
He looks up, his eyebrows sharply raised. “My lady?”
“As I was leaving, I heard one of the guards say that it was you who ordered the torture, not Alderete.”
“Do you think to interrogate me on this matter?”
“I ask you only to give me the truth.”
“I gave you the truth. It was Alderete’s decision, not mine. Let us leave the matter there.”
“But you gave your word to Falling Eagle!”
He lays his quill aside and stands up. He puts his hands behind his back and walks to the window. “We all have bright and shining dreams, Mali. Those who are blessed by God never see their dreams come true. Somehow they lose their lustre in the living of them.”
I put my hand to my belly, feel the babe kick. Our first son, the gift I had so wanted to give him, had died stillborn in Texcála. I wonder what throne will be prepared for this new son. “I have loved you, my lord, more than it is possible for a woman to love a man.”
He turns to me and I wonder what moves behind his eyes, for today they are as grey and cold as winter. His presence is forbidding, even here, when he stands at ease and unarmed. It is hot in the room and from outside I hear the ring of a stonemason’s hammer, building a New Spain. “I know you have, Mali. I know you have.”
We stare at each other, naked in our ambitions and weakness, and this is how I will remember him best. He has made me a lady of New Spain; I have made him the conqueror of Mexico. I do not see the end in his eyes, but I do see the beginning of it. We have travelled together to the top of the high mountain, elevated ourselves for our own sakes. But now the pinnacle is attained, and although we shall talk often about our journey in the days to come, I can see it in his face, in that moment, in that room, the end of our travails together.
The future my father saw in the stars was skewed in the sky’s terrible mirror, the chaos and destruction he foretold was intended not for the Mexica alone, but for all of us.
The god in him has departed, leaving behind the man. I should hate him for what he has brought me to, but I love him too much.
Through the window I see Benítez cross the new plaza with his new bride. He says he will take her back to Cuba, become a humble man again and plant crops. Life is simpler when one needs only love and not a destiny. I console myself that at least one of us found something better here than gold and vengeance.
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And so tonight I walk the streets, dressed in the rags of an Indian, crying for my lost children; the dirty streets, the ancient streets, the streets of the homeless and the dispossessed.
The city of Motecuhzoma chokes now on its own dust and fumes; the chimalpas are buried, the temples are just a few ancient and crumbling stones, the centuries have buried Hummingbird of the Left for ever. Time has even buried the Spanish.
Feathered Serpent now guards the metro station at Piño Suarez and the Mexica warriors in the plaza dance only for the tourists’ copper coins.
Not far from here is the Church of Jesus Navareno, and I wander inside, to sit in the quiet, another weeping woman, praying for myself, praying for my family, praying for Mexico. He is buried here, my lord, my great lord, fifty years left in peace now, though you would have to look hard to see where they put him, just a few scratchings up on the wall by the altar there. That’s how much the priests think of him now.
He crumbles to dust in the place where he first met Motecuhzoma, for the church is built on the causeway, or at least where the causeway once stood. Outside the city dies in its own sulphurous haze; you will not find much beauty there now. I stay here until the priest will no longer tolerate this crazy woman and the church is shut up for the night. I leave my lord there to moulder, and return to my weeping streets, my tormented city, my Mexico.
Like a comet in the black sky, my life flared and soared, dragging portent and disaster across the firmament. Now I fall through the vacuum of these endless cold and silent days, cursed and cursing wherever I go.
Malinali Tenepal was only one of a large number of women living under Cortés’s roof when his wife arrived in July of 1522. Doña Catalina de Cortés, however, fared much worse than the others. Four months later she was found dead in her bedroom. The doctor attributed the death to natural causes, but no one was allowed to see the body, and the lid of the coffin was nailed down before it was buried.
Cortés awarded Malinali for her service to him by giving her in marriage to one of his officers, Juan Jaramillo.
He continued to serve as governor of the land he called New Spain, waiting for the king’s official elevation of his position to viceroy. He became extremely wealthy, the Crown granting him gold and silver mines, cotton and sugar plantations, mills and grazing lands. He built a turretted palace in Cuernavaca and was given the title of marquis. It was his pleasure to be called Don Hernando.
But in 1526, the king’s commissar arrived from spain to examine accusations of misconduct during his
entrada
five years before, included charges of murder and defrauding the Crown. Cortés was never convicted on any of these charges, but the proceedings damaged his reputation beyond repair. Consequently, he never did recieve the imprimatur from the king for which he so longed. The administration of the country was instead turned over to bureaucrats from the court in Toledo.
Despite the opprobrium that surrounded Cortés, his fame brought him a marriage to Juana de Zuñiga, a relativew of the Duke of Bejar, one of the most powerful men in Spain. Juana brought with her a substantial dowry, which gave Cortés for a short time, the respectability and the courtly connections of which he had always dreamed.
But the scandals of hte past dogged the rest of his career. Restless and tormented, he spent the remainder of his life searching for a nother Mexico, another Motecuhzoma. He squandered most of his wife’s dowry in a futal quest for the legendary Amazons and passed his last years in Spain trying to solicit an audience with the king. He became an embarrassment, an old man buttonholing minor functionaries with petitions regarding the wrongs, real and imagined that had been done him. FInally, realizing he would never recieve the regal blessing for which he so longed, he decided to return to his beloved Mexico. He fell ill just days before he planned to sail and died suddenly, an embittered and lonely man. He was sixty-two years old.
In a footnote of history, his son by Malinali Tenepal, Martín, was implicated in New Spain in 1565 in a conspiracy against the Crown. Accused of treason, he was subjected to torture and then exiled from Mexico.
The gold lost on the
noche triste
was never found; it may still lie some where under the streets of Mexico City.
No one will ever know.
It is not true, it is not true
that we come on this earth to live
we come only to sleep, only to dream
ancient Aztec poem:
translated by Leon-Portilla
A
dobe
sun-dried brick made of clay
Alcalde
Spanish term for mayor
A
rquebus
musket steadied on a supporting metal rod for firing
Burgonet
helmet with a low collar at the back to protect the neck
Cacique
village chieftain
Castile
one of the two great kingdoms of what is now Spain
Caudillo
captain
Chacmool
stone figure representing a messenger between men and the gods.
Chontal Maya
language spoken by the Mayan Indians
Culverin
large bronze cannon capable of firing a ball of between 18-30 pounds
Encomienda
a grant of land
Entrada
invasion of a previously unexplored land
Extremadura
province of Castile, in south-west Spain.
Falconet
s
wrought iron cannon, smaller than a
culverin
, capable of firing balls of 2-3 pounds.
Grandee
lord
Hidalgo
name given to a landed gentleman of Castile
Huehuetl
drum made from a hollowed log, often bearing carvings of eagles and jaguars.
Jinetas
Spanish horseman riding a la jineta, with stirrups very high
Labret
ornament inserted into a hole pierced in the lip
Maguey
a species of cactus plant
Maquauhuitl
war club; also means penis in
Nahuatl
slang
maraved
unit of
currency; in 1519 450
maraved
¡s equalled one crown or peso
Nahuatl
the 'elegant speech' of the Meixca
Nao
large Spanish galleon
Naturales
Castilian term for indigenous peoples
Peyotl
white truffle-like cactus; when taken, powdered in water, it caused hallucinations
Pulque
alcoholic liquor distilled from a cactus plant
Q
uetzal
indigenous bird with startling green plumage, highly valued among the Mexica
Teponaztli
a snakeskin drum
Toltecs
a race of people, once pre-eminent, that lived in Valley of Mexico some five hundred years before Cortés arrived at Yucatan.
Ypcalli
low wooden throne
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Born in north London, Colin Falconer worked for many years in TV and radio and freelanced for many of Australia’s leading newspapers and magazines. He has been a novelist for the last twenty years, with his work published widely in the UK, US and Europe. His books have been translated into seventeen languages.
