FEATHERED SERPENT, page 2
‘For Saint James!’ he shouted.
Indeed, God must be with me today, Benítez thought. I should be dead by now. Why did the native not kill me when he had his chance?
4.
Benítez leaned on his sword, dragging breath into fiery lungs, sweat and watery blood from a head wound stinging his eyes. He had survived his first battle. He took comfort in his own performance. He had shown no particular valor, he was sure, but he had at least proved himself a man. Yet he found there was no great pleasure to be had from killing another man, even a heathen. If this was soldiering, then he was happy to leave it to others.
Cortés strode towards a ceiba tree with thick buttress roots, which stood in the center of the village. He held his helmet under his left arm, so that his long, dark hair fell loose around his shoulders. His eyes glittered with excitement. He sensed the same enthusiasm in the men around him. This rabble like nothing better than a scrap, he thought, as long as losses are light.
He made three broad slashes in the bark of the tree with his sword and shouted, ‘I take possession of this town in the name of His Majesty King Charles of Spain.’
Godoy recorded the moment.
A handful of captured natives were prodded forward by their guards, their hands roped behind their backs. The rest had fled.
During the battle Benítez had glimpsed only a blur of feathered head dresses, half naked bodies and painted faces. Now he had the opportunity to study his enemy a little more closely. They were mostly bow-legged and all sported neat loin and hip cloths. Several had richly embroidered cloaks, knotted at the shoulder. All had red tattoos on their faces and bodies and the flesh of their ear lobes had been mutilated.
Like Norte.
‘Tell them they have nothing to fear,’ Cortés said to Aguilar, who relayed this to their captives. They received this information stoically and, it seemed to Benítez, with little enthusiasm.
‘Inform them that we have been sent by a great king from across the ocean and we have many interesting things to tell their chiefs. Assure them also that we mean them no harm and want only to take on fresh water and provisions for our journey.’
The captives exchanged puzzled looks among themselves but said nothing. An officer called Alvarado led them away and Cortés turned to Benítez.
‘Post guards around the town. We will camp here tonight and wait for the natives to return. Now we have given them a taste of our steel they may be in a mood to parlay with us.’
There was an uneasy silence. It was León, a large man with a great black beard and thundering voice, who finally spoke up. ‘My uncle gave strict orders that we were not to sleep ashore.’
Cortés glared at him. ‘Who is the commander here?’
León would not be intimidated. ‘We are under the governor's instruction.’
‘And under my command!’ Cortés shouted. He thrust his sword into the dirt where it trembled. ‘If any man wants to challenge my authority, we shall see to it now!’
By Satan's ass, Benítez thought. He means it.
No one spoke. They were a long way from Cuba now. Cortés looked around, daring them to challenge him. Not this time.
‘It is settled then,’ he said. ‘We camp here.’ He sheathed his sword and strode away.
‘There's nothing here,’ Jaramillo said. He spat in the dirt. ‘No gold, no silver. Not even a woman.’
As they walked through the dusty streets a few dogs yapped at their heels. Benítez wandered into one of the houses, a simple affair, the walls made of adobe, the thatched roof built low against the sun and rain. There was no door in the entranceway, and no furniture, the beds were just bundles of dry sticks and grass covered with cotton mats. There was a small shrine in one of the dark corners housing a crude statuette surrounded by small offerings of fruit.
He looked closer. Demons, shaped out of pieces of red clay. He shuddered.
But these were nothing compared to what they found on top of the pyramid.
The pyramid was immense, perhaps as high as the courthouse in Seville, by Benítez’ estimation. It had been constructed of massive stone blocks and towered over the mud-brick houses around it. Stone dragons and serpents stood sentinel in the courtyard and strange glyphs had been carved in the stones.
‘Have we found China?’ Benítez murmured.
Jaramillo shrugged his shoulders, as bewildered as he was.
They followed Cortés up to the summit. It was a steep ascent and they rested for a moment at the top to catch their breath before stepping into the shrine. Like the houses in the village, it had been constructed of adobe and thatch.
It was dank inside, and smelled of the jungle and of death. For a moment they were blind, as they waited for their eyes to grow accustomed to the darkness.
Benítez heard Jaramillo's voice. ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God.’
A snake was draped across the altar, its length coiled around a marble jaguar. Behind it, a stone monster with great goggle eyes and fangs watched them from its nest. It had been painted bright blue.
‘It is Tlaloc, the Rain Bringer,’ Norte whispered. He sounded almost reverent.
‘It is the Devil,’ Cortés said. He slashed with his sword, deftly removing the snake’s head with one blow and then flicking the body into the musty darkness. He stepped closer to examine the stone jaguar. A bowl had been carved onto its back, a viscous liquid pooled at the bottom. He dipped his fingers into the bowl, sniffed them, then hurled the idol onto the floor. He rounded on Norte.
‘What is this?’
Norte was silent.
Jaramillo discovered fresh offerings on the stone flags below Rain Bringer’s grinning mask; three or four human skulls and an assortment of rotting bones.
‘It is human sacrifice,’ Aguilar said. ‘They believe it will make the rains come and nourish the fields.’
Cortés kept his eyes on Norte. He held up his fingers, still wet with blood from the stone receptacle. ‘The Devil's work,’ he said and dried his fingers on Norte's shirt.
He turned to Aguilar. ‘How are these sacrifices made?’
Aguilar hesitated. ‘They cut out their victims’ hearts while they are yet alive and offer the blood to their gods. Then they feast on the limbs. It is the fate of all prisoners of war. It should have been our fate, had we not prevailed.’
Several soldiers had followed them inside. They stood by the entrance, staring at the gruesome discovery. The euphoria of their victory had vanished.
Alvarado broke the moment, bursting in from outside. He was panting hard from his ascent of the temple steps. ‘There is nothing in this whole town worth my spit! They have taken everything!’ He stopped, looked around. ‘What in God's name is this?’
‘We have stumbled on a nest of cannibals,’ Cortés said.
‘God's blood.’ Alvarado turned to Norte. ‘These savages are your former comrades?’
Benítez wondered if Norte had ever participated in any of these rites. Had he eaten human flesh with his adopted tribe? Jaramillo was right, they should have finished him on the beach. Let him die unshriven. It would have been a just fate.
‘Let us pray we can lead these people to the one and true faith,’ Aguilar said and he fell to his knees. Cortés did the same.
Benítez, Alvarado and Jaramillo could not do otherwise. The soldiers followed suit and Aguilar led them all in prayer.
The moment they had finished Benítez rushed back out to the sunlight and ran down the steps, his gorge rising in his throat.
The night was clamorous with the pulsing of drums and whistles, the ululations of the women as they keened for the dead.
Malinali sat, cross-legged, staring at her dead husband, Tiger Lip Plug. He had been prepared for cremation in the traditional way, sitting upright, bound in a broad cloak of embroidered cloth. She had placed a piece of jade in his mouth to pay his fare across the Narrow Passage to the Yellow Beast who guarded the way to Paradise.
She leaned closer to her dead lord, so that her lips were next to his. ‘When you are a butterfly in Rain Bringer's Heaven, I hope you give more pleasure to the flowers than you ever gave to me.’
They had told her that he fought bravely. He had almost claimed one of the white gods as his prisoner, dragging him by the hair through the shallows of the river, but then another of the thunder lords had, against all the rules of war, stepped in and pierced him with his sword. Two of Tiger Lip Plug's own brothers had carried him back from the river and he had lain there these past two days and nights in silent agony before releasing his spirit. It was the terrible death Tiger Lip Plug would have chosen for himself, she supposed. Now he resided in Rain Bringer’s green heaven, the butterfly paradise where fountains bubbled eternally and emerald birds skimmed the surface of the lakes.
She would not miss him.
The doorway was closed off by a tapestry sewn with tiny gold bells. The bells murmured as Rain Flower entered and knelt down on the mat beside her.
‘What is happening, Little Sister?’ Malinali said.
‘The chiefs cannot decide if these thunder lords are Persons or are gods. Our warriors claim that they must be gods, for their skin shines like the sun and is so hard it makes their swords shatter in their hands. They say their canoes can conjure thunder from a clear sky.’
‘Of course they are gods. They come from the east and capture the wind in the giant cloaks they hold above their canoes. They are the harbingers of the great lord Feathered Serpent returning to us.’
‘You cannot believe that foolish tale! These thunder lords came here last year. At Champotón the people killed twenty of them.’
‘Feathered Serpent is served by moles and dwarfs, as mortal as you or I. Any number of them may die, but Feathered Serpent himself is indestructible. And in the sacred calendar, this is his year.’
‘No, Mali. They are just a few hundred ordinary men against thousands. Tomorrow their hearts will roast in the temple.’
Let Rain Flower believe what she wished, Malinali thought. In her heart she knew the truth.
She could still remember the day her father first told her the legend of Feathered Serpent. He dropped a piece of copal incense into a burner and started to pray, facing to the east, in the god’s direction. After he finished his prayers, he set to work divining the future.
Some believed that prophecy could only be found in the visions that were conjured by peyotl juice. But with his almanacs and bright-colored calendar wheels her father could predict the movement of the stars and sun better than the ravings of the emperor’s owl men. He had told her that the secrets of time itself could be unlocked by mathematical calculation.
As he studied the sacred markings in his codex, he related the story of Feathered Serpent.
‘He is tall with fair skin and he has a beard. In his last incarnation he was the priest-king of Tollan, the capital of an ancient tribe called the Toltecs. They were a people of great learning and culture and Feathered Serpent was their greatest lord. He was very wise and so gentle he would not kill any living creature or even pick a flower from the ground. He taught his people the art of healing and how to watch the stars move around the sky. Raw cotton grew in all colors in their fields and they harvested ears of corn so fat a man could not fit his arms around them. The people spent their time playing music and listening to birds.
‘But Feathered Serpent had a rival, Tezcatlipoca, the god they call Smoking Mirror. He was jealous of Feathered Serpent and how everyone loved him. So, one night he tricked him into getting drunk and fornicating with his own sister. The next morning Feathered Serpent was filled with remorse. He went to the shores of the eastern sea and threw himself on a fire. The ashes rose like a flock of white birds, carrying his heart to Serpent Skirt, mother of all the gods. Then he stepped whole from the fire, wove a raft from a thousand snakes, and sailed into the dawn. He promised that one day he would return to bring back the paradise that vanished with his departure.
‘Since his departure, our people have fallen into terrible times. These Mexica who rule us have taken our lands and our temples for themselves. But Feathered Serpent will return.
‘One day, you will see him, Malinali. Not only will you see him, you will be there at his side. That is your destiny.’
Bright sun, intense heat, the buzzing of flies. Cortés ducked his head as he entered the temple. A wooden table had been transported from his ship and he took his place behind it, settling himself into the heavy mahogany chair he had also brought with him from Cuba.
The stone statue of Rain Bringer had been removed from the temple. It had taken a dozen men to drag it to the edge of the pyramid. Using their pikes and lances as levers, they had toppled it over the side of the platform and down the steps where it had crashed into the courtyard below, shattering into pieces. In its place Fray Olmedo had erected a wooden cross and nailed a picture of Cortés’ own icon, The Virgin of Los Remedios, to the adobe walls.
Cortés’ officers were clustered around the table. There was Puertocarrero, golden haired and aristocratic, but no fighter; the impetuous Alvarado, with his red hair and russet arrow-shaped beard, gold chain glinting against his black quilted doublet; dour young Sandoval, the horseman; the old warhorse Ordaz; the fiery young León; Jaramillo with his vicious hawk's face and pock-marked skin; and finally Benítez, with his lop-sided features and scrap of beard.
Cortés spread the ink-drawn map of the coast on the table in front of them. It had been made by Grijalva the previous year.
‘Gentlemen, we have received no word from the natives as to their intentions, so let us examine our choices. We can return to our ships and explore further to the north. However, it is my opinion that if we are seen to be running away from these savages, as Grijalva did last year, we will only make them bolder, and it will be doubly hard to enforce our will the next time we land. Second - we could wait here for the Tabascans to approach us. Or finally, we can move against them before they have the chance to strengthen their forces. Gentlemen, I will be guided by you.’
He gave them a tight smile and sat back in his chair.
‘We should leave here at once,’ León growled. ‘The actions we have taken are contrary to the governor - my uncle's - orders.’
‘I agree,’ Ordaz said. ‘We do not have the men or supplies to conduct a full-scale land campaign against the natives. We are heavily outnumbered. Look what happened to Grijalva last year.’
‘I say we attack these bastards now,’ Alvarado shouted. ‘We have given them enough time to find their manners! It does not matter how many of them there are, one Spaniard is worth a hundred of these savages!’
‘I agree with Alvarado,’ Jaramillo said.
‘But we have no just cause to prosecute a war against these people,’ Benítez interrupted. ‘They believed they were defending their village against attack, no matter how misguided they might be. Let us move up the coast and look for a friendlier reception elsewhere.’
‘Where they will laugh at us for being women,’ Sandoval said.
Suddenly they were all speaking at once and Cortés held up a hand to silence them. ‘So, we are evenly divided,’ he said. He turned to Puertocarrero. ‘I shall give you the deciding vote. What say you?’
‘I say we heed the advice of our commander,’ Puertocarrero said.
Cortés smiled. As if the boy would say anything else. ‘Very well.’ He returned his attention to the map. ‘In my view we should proceed inland along this route until we make contact with the local people. If they wish to trade and furnish us with provisions, we shall be pleased to greet them. If they wish for further punishment, we shall accommodate them in that also.’
‘I question who will take the greatest punishment,’ Ordaz growled.
‘There is no need to fear the natives,’ Cortés said. ‘We have learned important lessons from our recent encounter with them. We were outnumbered, perhaps as much as ten to one, and though many of us received wounds, our losses were slight. They employ some manner of brittle glass for their swords and lances and it breaks easily against a steel buckler or breastplate. Their shields are made of leather or wood, which is no hindrance to good Toledo steel. Furthermore, I have been questioning Brother Aguilar and the renegade, Norte, at length, about their ways. It appears that their greatest honor in battle is not to kill but to capture, so the prisoner may be used in their infernal sacrifices.’ He glanced at Benítez. ‘Such a tactic works to our great benefit, does it not?’
Benítez had turned pale. He nodded. ‘Indeed, my lord.’
‘So now we know their weakness.’ He looked around the table. ‘As long as we do not grow fatigued from killing them, our eventual victory is assured.’
‘Even so,’ Ordaz objected, ‘there must come a point when the odds are so great that we cannot kill them as quickly as need demands. The natives must at this very moment be gathering a much greater army.’
‘Perhaps. But if two falconets fired into a swamp can make them scatter, imagine their reaction when we employ a full battery of cannon against their ranks. And,’ he paused and smiled, a gambler laying his final trump card, ‘they have yet to witness a warhorse in full charge.’
After his officers left, Cortés leaned back in his chair and stared at his flagship, now framed by the temple entrance against the glittering waters of the bay. One day they will write ballads about me, he thought. I will be remembered in the same breath as Alexander, or the Cid. In Cuba he was just another poor planter, a satellite of Velasquez the governor, but here he would become that other man, the man he dreamed himself to be.
5.
Ordaz advanced his infantry through the fields of maize, his progress hampered by the network of irrigation channels and drainage ditches. On the other side of the valley were several thousand natives, the plumes of their head-dresses dancing like ears of corn.
Benítez watched from the trees. The tumult of whistles and drums carried to him on the wind.
