Feathered Serpent (32 page)

———————

The Palace of the Face of the Water Lord was no more than a hundred paces away on the other side of the plaza. News travelled quickly and a small crowd had already gathered outside to watch this unlikely procession. The courtiers who carried him had tears streaming down their faces.

What else can I do? Motecuhzoma asked himself, breathless with the humiliation of what was happening to him. At all costs I must avoid a confrontation between the gods which will ruin the Culhua-Mexica forever. Perhaps when Smoking Eagle has been punished for his infraction they will release me. Lord Malinche will marry my daughters and this terrible moment can be forgotten.

I may yet outwit this Feathered Serpent.

———————

“He refuses to answer your questions.”

My lord sits on his throne of beaten gold, Motecuhzoma seated at his left side. I stand at his right. The Thunder Lords are arrayed behind him in open court. The fifteen Mexica chiefs who have accompanied Smoking Eagle from the coast are on their knees in front of us, not out of obeisance to my lord but in deference to Motecuhzoma.

My lord regards his prisoners for a long while. “If he will not answer to me,” he says finally, “perhaps my lord Motecuhzoma would care to ask this Smoking Eagle why my men were attacked.”

Motecuhzoma, his head buried in his chest, does as he is asked, his voice so soft it is barely audible.

Smoking Eagle addresses his answer to Revered Speaker.

“What is he saying?” my lord asks me.

“It seems Smoking Eagle was ordered to collect tribute from the Totonacs. Motecuhzoma had ordered him to punish them for giving us assistance. He was to take everything they have, as well as all the young girls and boys in the town as sacrifice. Gordo defied him, saying that you yourself had excused him from all further taxes to the Mexica. Gordo then sought help form your soldiers. Smoking Eagle says that to run away from this fight would have been unthinkable. Not only would it have been contrary to his orders, it would have disgraced the Mexica and his own manhood.”

“You think he is telling the truth?”

“Motecuhzoma says he is lying. But that is because he is afraid for himself. Yes, I believe this Smoking Eagle. I think he is telling the truth.”

My lord gives this evidence long consideration then says to me: “The law states that any man who commits murder must himself die. I therefore have no choice but to sentence Smoking Eagle and his chieftains to be burned alive in the plaza in front of this palace in full view of the population. The execution will take place immediately.”

I cannot believe my ears. Was this why we have risked so much, to slaughter a few innocent Mexica warriors? If anyone is guilty of the murder of these Thunder Lords is Motecuhzoma.

I catch Benítez’s eye for a moment and I know he is thinking the same thing.

“But my lord, this is not just, Motecuhzoma ...”

“I did not invite you to contend with me. You over reach yourself. You are my translator – translate. Tell them what I have said. That is all.”

But now Benítez steps forward. “This is not justice, my lord. This is murder.”

A knotted vein in my lord’s temple bulges. “Do not dare to question me! Be silent or I shall give you cause to repent it! I have made my decision in accordance with the law! These men must die!”

The pyre was built with the wood from arrow shafts and atlatl spear throwers plundered from the palace armoury. Smoking Eagle and his fellow warrior chiefs were bound hand and feet bound to stout poles.

Cortés watched the preparations from the palace walls. He turned to Alvarado and asked for two more sets of chains. When they brought he held them towards Motecuhzoma. “Mali,” he said, “tell the Emperor he must hold out his wrists to me.”

Motecuhzoma did as he was ordered and Cortés placed the irons on his wrists and snapped them shut. Then he knelt and placed the other set of fetters around Motecuhzoma’s ankles.

With this simple act he breaks him, Benítez realised, both in the eyes of the crowd watching below, and as importantly, in the emperor’s own mind. It would have been kinder to have killed him along with his warriors.

The Revered Speaker of the Mexica was crying like a woman.

In the courtyard below Jaramillo threw a flaming torch into the wood at Smoking Eagle’s feet. Through the drifting smoke, the Mexica chief did in death something he would not have dared to do in life. He raised his head and looked up into the face of Motecuhzoma. Even from the terrace above Benítez could see the hatred in his eyes.

He turned to the
caudillo
. “My lord, why do we murder a brave man?”

“Nine of our own brave men died at Vera Cruz at his hand. Or have you forgotten?”

“That man down there was merely following orders.” Benítez pointed at Motecuhzoma. “That is the wretch who killed them.”

“If we kill him, we forfeit our own lives. Meanwhile, by this simple act, we teach the rest of the people what to expect if they ever again lay their filthy hands on a Spaniard.”

Motecuhzoma’s chest heaved. What spell did Cortés put on you? Benítez wondered. Or is this some private madness that keeps you imprisoned? One word form you and your people would crush us like insects. What an irony that in this nation of warriors the Emperor, like all bullies, had turned out to be a coward.

The crowd in the plaza watched the burnings in silence. Not one of the Indians cried out. They endured their death’s agonies without a sound. Some seemed to enjoy the spectacle: Benítez heard Jaramillo call up to Alvarado: “Now the Eagle is really smoking!”

And Alvarado laughed.

———————

When it was over the stench of charred flesh hung in the plaza like a pall.

Cortés bent to remove Motecuhzoma’s chains.

“Mali, tell him that I am sorry for what has taken place here today. Tell him also that even though I know that it was he who was the guilty one, and that he deserved to die along with Smoking Eagle, I would not harm him for all the world, as he is my friend. Tell him I will help to spread his fame far and wide and give him even more lands for his empire. From this day on should he look for salvation, he should look to me.”

Mother of God, Benítez thought. The man is a monster. How did we not see it until now?

The Year of Our Lord, 1520,

Two Flint on the ancient Aztec Calendar.

The centre of the world had shifted its focus to the palace of the Face of the Water Lord.

Motecuhzoma’s favourite tapestries and dwarves and wives were transferred to the new court. Scribes hurried across the plaza between the palaces with codices and tribute records and the great princes of the empire gathered in the reception halls to visit their emperor in apartments his own guests now guarded.

But many did not come; Cuitlahuac, Lord Maize Cobs, Falling Eagle, all refused to obey his summons. They withdrew to Texcoco and Ixtalapalapa and brooded there.

An uneasy peace returned to the city although the political wrangling between Motecuhzoma and Cortés continued behind the palace walls. As a further concession to Cortés, Motecuhzoma’s daughter and niece were initiated into the Christian faith by Father Olmedo and baptised Doña Ana and Doña Elvira.

Meanwhile, in Vera Cruz, Juan Escalante died of the wounds he received in the battle with the unfortunate Smoking Eagle’s army and was replaced by Gonzalo de Sandoval.

The soldiers settled into a routine, playing cards and dice, observing the life of the city from the behind the palace walls, looked to the mountains for sign of the re-inforcements they believed Puertocarrero would soon bring.

Benítez noticed a change in the behaviour of his own squadron, and one member in particular; Gonzalo Norte. Since Texcála the soldiers had stopped mocking him, and as the slow months in the capital passed he was even accepted into their pastimes and their ribald talk. He stopped shaving his beard and no longer bathed every day. He spent much of his time gambling with Flores and Guzman, his former tormentors.

In fact, Benítez decided, he was well on his way to becoming a Spaniard once again. I should be pleased for him.

———————

“You must tell my lord Motecuhzoma there is a matter I need urgently to discuss with him. A religious matter.”

The laughter freezes on Motecuhzoma’s face. He has aged these last few months and today he looks like a frail old man. His captors treat him with patronising forbearance, as one would an enfeebled uncle. He has lost all pride in himself.

He is busy at patolli with Alvarado and Jaramillo, a game the Culhua-Mexica played with marked white beans. Players move six pebble counters around a board according to the fall of the beans. Since his confinement his only passion is gambling on the results of these games, though whenever he wins he gives all his winnings to his guards.

“What is it he wishes to say to me?” Motecuhzoma asks, turning from his game. He has about him the sulky expression of a child about to be scolded.

I translate my lord’s words and wait, stiffly, at his side. These last weeks my lord has become a stranger to me. He marches the corridors of the palace with a retinue of servants following him everywhere, puffed up as an emperor. I have seen the way he looks at Motecuhzoma’s daughters. Now he is past the mountains and inside the kingdom’s heart, he no longer needs me.

“Tell him it is about the future of the Templo Mayor,” my lord says. “For months Fray Olmedo and Brother Aguilar have been instructing him in the ways of Christianity and I also have explained to him at length about his false gods. Tell him the time has now come to pull down the idols in the temple and erect in their place an image of the blesséd Virgin. Tell him if he does not agree to this we shall do it by force and kill any priests who try to stop us.”

Motecuhzoma looks stricken. What did he expect? Cortés cannot be stayed forever.

“Tell the Lord Malinche he must do not do this,” Motecuhzoma whispers to me. “Should he attempt it, our gods will surely strike him down and my people will rise up in revolt. It is a very delicate matter. I need more time to handle this my own way.”

When he hears this, my lord’s expression becomes kinder. “You may tell Motecuhzoma that if it were up to me, I would leave the matter entirely in his hands. But my captains press me every day. Perhaps, though, if I could give them something to occupy their minds ...”

What game are you playing now?

“If he can tell us where his jewellers obtain all their gold, it might perhaps relieve the sickness in my captains' hearts and make them more amenable.”

It is like a blow to the stomach. Just gold, my lord? Is that all you ever wanted?

“My lord says that it is not he, but his captains, who press for the destruction of your temples. He thinks he can buy them off with your gold mines. He wants to know where they are.”

A flicker of a smile, but a sad one. Does he still believe my lord is Feathered Serpent? Does he also realise that the world can never return to the way it was, that he can never again be Emperor? He must know by now that the Thunder Lords will never leave, that the only way the Mexica can be free again is for Motecuhzoma to give them the order to fight, and if he does, they will kill him. Does he really still hope to rule by ingratiating himself with them?

“Tell him that most of our gold is obtained by panning,” Motecuhzoma tells me. “There is Zacatula, in the south, which belongs to our vassals, the Mixtecs. There is another near Malinaltepec ...”

“Wait,” Cortés says, and holds up his hand and calls Cáceres to come forward. The major-domo is holding quill and parchment. “We must write these names down, together with precise locations so that we can send expeditions to these places. Now, this Zacatula, how many days is it from Tenochtitlán ...?”