Feathered Serpent (30 page)

——————— 

Motecuhzoma 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.”

Perhaps you do not tire, Benítez thought, but my own lungs are on fire and I believe they can hear my heartbeat in Cuba. But he attempted to look unconcerned, as Cortés did, while he tried to slow the heaving of his chest.

The panorama of the city was laid out in front of them, a grid work 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 colours vivid against the snow-capped volcanoes of Sleeping Woman and Smoking Man. The lake was crowded with canoes, beetling their way between the city and the distant shore. The day was clear and bright, and in the far distance Benítez could even make out the pine forests and the high col through which they had marched just a week before into this great valley of wonders.

“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 and Venice and Naples, even Constantinople - but I have never seen anything to compare with this.”

Benítez thought of what Norte had said; barbarians at the gates of Rome. He had a troubling thought: if God has chosen us as the blessed, how is it that we have never created an earthly paradise like this one? Perhaps he intends for us to bring our cathedrals and our religion and make this paradise a better one. That is the reason he has led us here.

Motecuhzoma was pointing to a nearby island, another temple city with arcades and markets which Malinali told them was called Tlatelolco. There was an aqueduct that carried fresh water from a place called the Hill of the Grasshopper all the way down to the city.

This is like a dream, Benítez thought. One wonder after another.

He forced himself to look away, from heaven back to hell. There were two shrines on the summit; the one on the left to Tlaloc, Rain Bringer, painted blue and white, guarded by stone frogs and a reclining polychrome figure of a
chacmool
, messenger to their devilish gods. She took pains to point out 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.

A brazier burned beside it. 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 sulphur and rotted flesh; even from a distance their odour made him want to retch.

The emperor said something in his own monkey tongue, and Malinali translated: “Motecuhzoma asks if you would like to step inside the shrine of their great god, Hummingbird of the Left.”

The
caudillo
nodded, and they followed the emperor into the temple. Nothing had prepared them for what was to follow.

The house of the Beast.

Stepping out of the bright sun, he was blind for a moment; as his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, Benítez was aware only of the stench, the choking stench of a slaughterhouse.

A pair of luminous eyes watched him. Instinctively, he took a step back then realised the eyes were just two huge glass-like set in a golden mask. Below the mask was the statue of a warrior holding a golden bow and arrows, his body encrusted with jade and opals and pearls.

“This is Huitzilopochtli, Hummingbird of the Left, God of the Sun, Decider of Wars,” Malinali translated for Motecuhzoma. “He says that the Culhua-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. And the smell ...

Motecuhzoma led them through a pair of curtains - made from human leather, Malinali announced - and hung with tiny copper and silver bells. Three fresh human hearts quivered in a brazier of copal incense. Another beast lurked in the gloom; it had the face of a bear and its eyes glittered with obsidian mirrors, and its body was ringed with devils with long tails. Malinali introduced them; Tezcatlipoca, Smoking Mirror, Lord of hell, lord of darkness, prince of wizards and sorcerers and ruler of eagles.

No, it’s Satan,
Benítez thought.

Cortés’ face was black with rage. He turned on his heel. They hurried after him, into the fresh air, away from the leering faces of these stone devils.

———————

Motecuhzoma is pale with humiliation. Yet there is pleading in his eyes. He had yet hoped to avoid this confrontation, and knows now he cannot.

My lord, too, is consumed by his rage. I see the god in his eyes now, the man has gone.

“Tell this creature that I cannot credit how he can debase himself before such idols, which are only 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 Saviour in the arms of the Virgin.”

I turn to Motecuhzoma, eager now to begin this final accounting, which is his destiny, and my own. “My lord is very angry. He is astonished that a great prince such as yourself persists with these evil human sacrifices. Surely you realise these idols you serve are monsters. He wishes to consecrate this temple to his own religion immediately.”

As I make my speech I am pleased to see our Revered Speaker trembling.

“If I had known Malinche would use this occasion to insult our gods I should not have invited him here.”

My lord has his hand on his sword. I feel 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. Do it now!

But one of the Thunder Lords put his hand on his arm. “Not here,
caudillo
,” Benítez whispers. “This is not the time.”

“This is not religion!” my lord shouts, pointing at the black-robed priests.

“I agree with what you say, my lord, yet I fear the good captain is right.” It is Father Olmedo speaking now, his normally ruddy face now 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.”

My lord removes his hand from his sword. He turns too his captains. “What do you think, gentlemen? The beauty of our surroundings is there but to deceive us. Here is the capital where the Devil has his main seat. Once this place is mastered, the rest is ours to conquer.”

He turns and walks off the summit. I hurry after him. Whatever ailment had afflicted him since Cholula is gone. The god has returned, magnificent in his anger.

Motecuhzoma watched them go. He felt his priests watching him, felt their silent accusation, 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?

The lord Malinche’s initial show of friendship had not been sincere. Soon the news would be all around the city how these strangers had defiled the temple. This Malinche 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 he 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 Culhua-Mexica lay on his shoulders. The future of the men of Aztlan 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:

“O master, O our Lord, 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 ...”

Pulsing hearts roasting in the coals. The terrible eyes of the Beast, the fetid stink of his breath. Benítex fled down the labyrinth corridors of the palace. His handprint left a bloodied smudge on the wall. Headless corpses pursued him, blaming him. His legs were trapped in the mud of the lake. He couldn’t move ...

He sat up, eyes wide, staring into the darkness.

The priests sounded the conches from the summit of the Templo Mayor, bleeding themselves to ensure that in the morning the sun would rise again for one more day.

“Just a dream,” he said alouod to reassure himself. His shirt was soaked in sweat.

He lay down again and Rain Flower wrapped herself around him, whispered words in
Nahuatl
he did not understand, to comfort him. When had she become so precious to him? She made him want to live a little longer yet. Yet he doubted there would be time for them. They were lost to the world he knew and trusted, and the days and hours that lay before them were steeped in blood.

——————— 

It was one of the carpenters, Alonso Yañez, who found it. He had been directed by Cortés to build a chapel inside the palace, and while selecting a suitable site he found a patch of wall that had been very recently covered over with lime plaster. He decided to open it and see what lay beyond.

——————— 

Cortés held the lamp above his head, the beam illuminating, piece by piece, cameos of the fabulous treasure; tumbling hills of jade, opals and pearls; cascades of necklaces, worked in gold and studded with precious stones; fallen regiments of statues worked from pure silver; a pile of golden platters like the one he had been given at San Juan de Ulúa. He could scarcely believe his own eyes.

The Mexica had tried to hide their treasure under their very noses. 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.

Finally, from Alvarado: “By Satan’s black and hairy ass.”

“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
caudillo
,” Alvarado protested, “this will only sharpen their greed. There will be dissension ...”

“Why do you think these men are all here? Because of 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 Motecuhzoma 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.

“My lady Marina,” he said.

Malinali went around him. “What now, Aguilar?”

“I have to talk to you.”

“I am busy. I have an errand to run for my lord.”

He hurried after her, hampered by the flapping brown robes that he wore. “You cannot ignore me forever.”

She stopped, turned around to face him. He was right, never run from conflict, her father had told her. Conflict is your destiny.

“What do you have to say to me?” Malinali asked him.

“You have ignored my warnings. You have taken it upon yourself to distort our message to these people, may God forgive you. Is it not true that Motecuhzoma still suspects that Cortés is one of their gods, returned?”

They were on the terrace at the top of the staircase. A painted Toltec statue stood sentinel to the entrance of the apartments. She ran a hand across the rough stone. These moles hold my lord back, she thought. They are as much our enemy as Motecuhzoma.

“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. And yet she understood that somehow she had placed Cortés in unnecessary danger. Yet being who he was, he would always be in danger. There was no help for that. “But he is a god, Aguilar.”

“How dare you say such a thing! He is a man!”

Mali touched the wooden cross at Aguilar’s throat, steeling herself against the stench of him. Why was it that priests always smelled so bad? “You think an ordinary man could have brought us this far?”

Aguilar flinched, intimidated, as she knew he would be, by the closeness of her. “But he is an ordinary man! He is of noble birth, and so does Alvarado. He is clay, my lady, like the rest of us.”

“Then perhaps God came to him late in life, as it did to Motecuhzoma.”

“A man may find god, but god does not ... take human form. Only once has this happened! You cannot compare Cortés to our Saviour Jesus Christ!”

Malinali turned away. All this nonsense that Aguilar talked made her head ache. “I do not try to understand it,” Malinali said, “but he has a god in him and he does not even know it. He may not be the Feathered Serpent we thought would come, our gentle God of Wisdom, yet he is like no ordinary man. And I know this: if I live a thousand lifetimes I will never know another quite like him. He is my destiny, Aguilar. If there is no Cortés, there is no Malinali.”

“You are a witch!”

The sound of raised voices drew the attention of the sentries outside Cortés’ private rooms.

He lowered his voice: “If it were not for Cortés, you would burn.”

“I have a worse fate, Aguilar.” Malinali said. “I love him. So I burn each and every day.”

Aguilar watched her walk away. “I love him too,” he murmured after her. “In ways you could never understand.”

Once again men huddled in small groups, whispering among themselves. The disease that had afflicted them all at San Juan de Ulúa was spreading again, like a contagion. It was the monkey sickness; the fever for gold.

Cortés paced his quarters, took his meals alone in his room, planned, fretted, prayed to God for guidance, and searched the darker places of his own soul for his ambition.