FEATHERED SERPENT, page 22
‘My lord,’ Malinali said, ‘you must not take his words at such literal meaning. What is said in our language, and what is meant, is not always the same thing.’
‘So what do you think my lord Montezuma means?’
‘He means that you may be king of this place, as long as you do as he says.’
Feathered Serpent’s eyes blazed at this, as she hoped they would. ‘Tell him that he lives his life in error, that there is only one God and that these idols that he worships are in fact only devils. All men are descended from Adam and Eve, which means we are all brothers and so this practice of sacrifice and cannibalism is an offence against man and against God! Tell him that we have come here to save him and his people. Unless he accepts Christ as his savior and turns his back on his idols he will burn in the fires of hell for eternity.’
She had heard this same speech before, from Fray Olmedo and Brother Aguilar, but she had never thought she might have to repeat it to the emperor of the Mexica. If it was incomprehensible to her, what will Montezuma make of it? ‘You wish me to say that to him exactly?’
‘They are my words.’
She did as he asked. Montezuma listened with a mixture of confusion, terror and outrage. First, my lord had told him that he came as a friend, in peace; now he was being harangued and threatened in his own palace. By a God, yes, but by a lesser god than his own.
Worse, all this came from the lips of a woman, who looked directly at him, like an equal. It was utterly humiliating.
‘Tell Lord Malinche that my own gods have served me very well. I will obey him in all other things. But what he asks is impossible.’
She passed on the emperor’s words. Her lord struggled with this answer. He glanced at his priests.
Fray Olmedo stepped forward. ‘My lord,’ he whispered, ‘I fear we should not press him. Enough that we have broached this subject, for now. Let us progress by stages, consolidating as we go.’
‘It was you who urged me to show more piety, Father.’
‘We do not doubt your piety, my lord. But I think in this case we should not be overly rash in our fervor.’
‘Just yesterday you dared lecture me that I am not fervent enough!’
‘I think Fray Olmedo is right,’ Alvarado said. ‘Let us leave off for now.’
‘Very well,’ Feathered Serpent said with bad grace. He returned his attention to Malinali. ‘Thank Montezuma once again for his gifts and his hospitality. Tell him we shall take our leave of him now.’
She felt a rush of disappointment. She had for so long prepared herself for this collision between god and prince, and now he had been persuaded from it by his own moles.
Montezuma smiled thinly as they took their leave of him. There will be another day, she told herself. Feathered Serpent will not stay his hand forever. And I will be there when he finally brings you to account for your cruelty and throws you from the throne into the dust.
50.
Falling Eagle watched the Spaniards leave. He had noticed that during the exchanges with his uncle, the girl had been careful never to call this stranger Feathered Serpent by name. Instead she used the honorific ‘lord,’ which could be applied to either a prince or a god. It was still not clear who they were dealing with.
He was convinced that this Lord Malinche was a man like himself, a mortal man with far more cunning than any god.
Hall of the Jaguar Knights
‘He has asked to see the Temple,’ Woman Snake said.
Above them the priests sounded the conches from the roof of the pyramid. It was the last watch of the night and before the dawn could come it was the priests' duty to tear the heads from hundreds of quails and use their blood to salute the rising sun. The quail were chosen for this ceremony because of their markings. They were speckled white on black like the stars in the sky, the same stars that Hummingbird, the Sun God, must defeat before he could rise in the east.
‘What does he wish to find in the Temple?’ Cuitlahuac asked.
The question remained unanswered.
Falling Eagle felt helpless with rage. So far, these intruders had shown scant regard for their gods. What could be their purpose in seeing the temple but to offend them further?
Like Montezuma, he was worried about the portents. These strangers had chosen to enter their city on the day One Wind, the sign of Feathered Serpent in his guise as the whirlwind. One Wind was also the sign of sorcerers and thieves who chose this particular day to hypnotize their victims before taking over their houses, eating all their provisions, raping their women, and stealing all their treasure.
Ever since their arrival, an oppressive silence had hung over the city. Meanwhile here they sat, the cream of the nation's princes and warriors, seemingly helpless to intervene.
‘I do not believe this Lord Malinche is really Feathered Serpent,’ Falling Eagle said.
‘Revered Speaker believes it,’ Lord Maize Cobs said.
Falling Eagle turned to the Prime Minister. ‘What do you think, Woman Snake?’
The prime minister shook his head. ‘If he were an ambassador, he would have presented us with his credentials. He has not done this. Instead he has intimated that he is rightful king of Tenochtitlàn. If Montezuma accepts his word, as he seems disposed to do, what is to become of us?’
There was silence in the audience chamber. Despite their frustrations, they knew there was nothing they could do. Montezuma was their Revered Speaker, chosen ruler for life. To defy him was unthinkable. Slowly, one by one, the great lords got up and left the chamber until Falling Eagle was left there alone.
At the foot of the steps of the Great Temple, the mutilated body of a naked woman was strewn in a circle some four paces wide. This was Moon Goddess, Malinali said, daughter of Serpent Skirt, mother of the Moon and Stars. When Serpent Skirt was pregnant with the sun god, Hummingbird, the Moon Goddess had tried to kill her. Instead Hummingbird had leaped, fully formed and fully armed, from his mother's womb to save her. He had cut the Moon Goddess down with his sword, as he had to do each night to be born again. Now here she lay, carved from stone, at the foot of his shrine, her gory fresco placed precisely so that she could accept the bodies as they rolled from the sacrificial stone at the top of the steps.
Benítez tore his eyes from the evil, blood-caked stone and looked up at the towering stone pyramids around him. Less than fifty paces from where they stood was the church of Feathered Serpent, his temple different from the others that surrounded it. Instead of a pyramid, it was rounded, Malinali said, so that it provided no impediment to the Lord of the Wind, allowing his breath to flow where it would.
Its appearance was similar enough to a real church to appear beautiful, if it had stood alone. But close by it were the skull racks - the tzompantli, as the Indians called them. Thousands of heads were piled up, some fresh, others bleached by the sun, testament to the voracious appetite of the Mexica's gods.
Cortés said they would ascend to the shrine at the very top of the Great Temple. Benítez shielded his eyes to look up at the peak, which was by his estimation higher than the spire of the cathedral at Seville. The steps that led to its summit were so steep they seemed to ascend almost vertically to the clouds. Two painted stone serpents stood sentinel on either side.
The Mexica who accompanied them indicated to Malinali that they would carry Cortés up the steep incline but he waved them away and started to stride up the steps towards the summit unaided. Benítez followed, his breath burning in his chest as he tried to keep pace with him.
Montezuma was waiting for them at the summit, rested, gloriously attired. Cortés was breathing hard from the exertion of his climb, and sweat shone on his forehead. One by one the rest of his officers appeared, gasping in the thin air.
‘Revered Speaker asks if you are tired from your climb,’ Malinali said to Cortés.
‘Tell him we never tire,’ he said.
Perhaps you do not tire, Benítez thought, but my own lungs are on fire and I believe they can hear my heartbeat in Cuba.
The city was spread out in front of them, a precise gridwork of streets and canals and white thatched-roof houses as far as the eye could see. Other pyramid temples soared above the plaza, their ochre and blue colors vivid against the snow-capped volcanoes of Sleeping Woman and Smoking Man. The day was clear and bright, and in the far distance Benítez could make out the pine forests they had marched through just a week before.
‘Have you ever seen anything like this?’ Ordaz breathed at his shoulder.
‘Not even in my dreams,’ Benítez answered.
‘I have fought all over the known world, I have seen the great cities of Europe - Rome, Venice, and Naples, even Constantinople - but I have never seen anything to compare with this.’
Benítez had a troubling thought: if God has chosen us as his blesséd people, how is it that we have never created an earthly paradise like this one?
He forced himself to look away, from heaven back to hell. There were two shrines on the summit, the one on the left dedicated to Rain Bringer. It was painted blue and white, and was guarded by a reclining polychrome figure of a chacmool, messenger to their devilish gods. Malinali pointed out for them the bowl carved into the chacmool’s back where roasted human hearts were placed as sacrifice. Beside it was the shrine of Hummingbird, with a frieze of white stone skulls, and in front of it the green, slightly convex sacrificial stone. The stone and the steps in front of it were black with dried blood.
Behind it there was a gathering of crows in human form, the priests of the temple. Their black robes were embroidered with human skulls, their waist-long hair clotted with human blood, their ears ragged from repeated self-mutilations. They stank of sulfur and rotted flesh. Even from a distance their odor made him want to retch.
The emperor said something to Malinali, which she translated: ‘Montezuma asks if you would like to step inside the shrine of their great god, Hummingbird of the Left.’
Cortés nodded, and they followed the emperor into the shrine.
Stepping out of the bright sun, Benítez found himself blind for a moment. As his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, he was aware only of the stench, like a slaughterhouse.
A pair of luminous eyes watched him. Instinctively, he took a step back then realized the eyes were just two huge glass-like rubies set in a golden mask. Below the mask was the statue of a warrior with bow and arrows, his body encrusted with jade, opals, and pearls.
‘This is Hummingbird of the Left, God of the Sun, Decider of Wars,’ Malinali translated for Montezuma. ‘He says that the Mexica are his chosen people and he protects them and brings them great victories. The collar he wears contains the skulls and hearts of kings they have defeated in battle, wrought in silver by the emperor's finest craftsmen.’
Benítez swallowed back vomit. There was blood everywhere, clotted in thick black layers on the walls and floors.
Montezuma led them through a pair of curtains, made from human leather, Malinali told them. They were hung with tiny copper and silver bells. Another beast lurked in the gloom. It had the face of a bear and its eyes glittered with obsidian mirrors, its body ringed with devils with long tails. Malinali said this was Smoking Mirror, Lord of Darkness.
Cortés’ face was black with rage. He turned on his heel. They hurried after him, into the fresh air.
Satan, Benítez thought.
Montezuma followed them outside. Malinali could see the fear on his face. He had hoped to avoid this confrontation, but now he knew he could not.
‘Tell this creature that I cannot credit how he can debase himself before such idols,’ Feathered Serpent said to her. ‘They are manifestations of the devil himself. With his permission I shall remove the demons that live here and replace them with the sign of the true cross and a picture of our Savior in the arms of the Virgin.’
She turned to Montezuma, eager to begin this final accounting. ‘My lord is very angry. He is astonished that a great prince such as yourself persists with these evil human sacrifices. Surely you realize these idols you serve are monsters. He wishes to consecrate this temple to his own religion immediately.’
The Revered Speaker started to shake.
‘If I had known Lord Malinche would use this occasion to insult our gods I should not have invited him here.’
Feathered Serpent moved his hand on his sword. She felt a shiver of excitement. Yes, let us do it now. Hack off his head, right here, throw down the idols, murder the priests, sack the temple.
But one of the thunder lords put a restraining hand on his arm. ‘Not here,’ Benítez whispered. ‘This is not the time.’
‘This is not religion!’ her lord shouted, pointing at the black-robed priests.
‘I agree with what you say, my lord, yet I fear the good captain is right.’ It was Fray Olmedo speaking now, his normally ruddy face pale with fright. ‘Let us not precipitate a fight when it is not to our advantage. We have only just arrived in this city. The Lord does not expect us to overthrow the devil and all his works in just one day.’
Feathered Serpent turned to his captains. ‘What do you think, gentlemen? The beauty of our surroundings is but an illusion. Here is the capital where the Devil has his main seat. Once this place is mastered, the rest is ours to conquer.’
He turned and walked away. She hurried after him. Whatever ailment had afflicted him since Cholula was gone. The god had returned, magnificent in his righteous anger.
Montezuma watched them go. He knew his priests were watching him, judging him, for instead of assuaging the gods he had only angered them further. He went back inside Hummingbird’s shrine to make a blood offering as penance.
He pricked his tongue and ears with maguey spines and placed the bloodied thorns into a ball of plaited grass.
What was he to do?
Malinche’s initial show of friendship had not been sincere. Soon the news would be all around the city that these strangers had defiled the temple. He seemed concerned only with the abolition of human sacrifice, and in that he certainly behaved like a god, like Feathered Serpent.
And yet the servants Montezuma had sent to the palace of the Face of the Water Lord to cook and care for the strangers claimed that they did not behave like gods at all, that their excrement was not of gold, as it should have been, and that they smelled like dogs.
What was he to believe? The burden of the Mexica people lay on his shoulders, all their futures depended on his interpretation of these omens and signs.
He went beyond the curtain and threw himself on his face before the image of Smoking Mirror, and prayed for an answer to his dilemma.
‘Lord of the Nigh, Lord of the Near, open my eyes, open my heart, advise me, set me on the road to wisdom, inspire me, animate me, incline thy heart, guide me, show me what I must do ...’
51.
It was one of the carpenters, Yañez, who found it. Cortés had directed him to build a chapel inside the palace, and while selecting a suitable site he found a patch of wall that had recently been covered over with lime plaster. He decided to open it and see what lay beyond.
Cortés held the lamp above his head and stared in awe at the treasure Yañez had found. There were tumbling hills of jade, opals and pearls, cascades of golden necklaces, studded with precious stones, a pile of golden platters like the one he had been given at San Juan de Ulúa. He could scarcely believe his eyes.
All of the gifts they had received to this point paled in comparison. Here was the treasure he had promised himself, promised them all. Possession of it would eclipse even the wealth of many crowned kings of Europe.
There was awed silence.
‘How will we keep this secret from the men?’ Jaramillo said.
‘We will not,’ Cortés told him. ‘I want everyone to see this. Every last soldier.’
‘But this will only sharpen their greed,’ Alvarado protested.
‘Why do you think these men are here? Greed. When they know what we possess here, they will fight like demons to protect it. Now do as I say. Bring them all here, three at a time. Let everyone see what Montezuma tried to conceal from us, that which is rightfully ours by his own words. When it is done, have this chamber re-sealed immediately. We must think further on this. It is one thing to find a treasure. It is another to keep it.’
Malinali hurried across the patio, past the reflecting pool and its arbor of willows. The air was warm with the scent of scarlet tanager flowers.
Aguilar appeared from nowhere, blocking the way.
‘We need to talk,’ he said.
Malinali went around him. ‘What now, Aguilar?’
‘A moment.’
‘I am busy. I have an errand to run for my lord.’
He went after her, hampered by his flapping brown robes. ‘You cannot ignore me forever.’
She stopped, turned to face him. ‘What do you want to say to me?’
‘You have ignored all my warnings. You have taken it upon yourself to distort our message to these people, may God forgive you. Is it not true that Montezuma still thinks that Cortés is one of their gods, returned?’
She stared back at him.
‘This is damnable. In your ignorance you will destroy him! What if any of this blasphemy was made known to the Holy Office? If they thought he masqueraded as one of these foul demons they would have him executed!’
The man was talking gibberish again. ‘But he is a god, Aguilar.’
‘How dare you! He is a man!’
Malinali touched the wooden cross at Aguilar's throat, steeling herself against the stench of him. ‘You think an ordinary man could have brought us this far?’
Aguilar flinched, intimidated, as she knew he would be, by her closeness. ‘He is clay, my lady, like the rest of us.’
‘Then perhaps God came to him late in life, as it did to Montezuma.’
