Feathered Serpent (41 page)

———————

An old woman, drawing water from the lake, gave a shrill scream of alarm, and this was taken up by two Mexica sentries. A crossbowman silenced the woman’s screams but it was too late. From the summit of the Templo Mayor came the mournful boom of the
huehuetl
drum. It echoed across the lake and through the valley, summoning the warriors of Hummingbird.

———————

Panic.

Cortés shouted for the bridge to be brought forward, and hurry, damn your eyes. Benítez twisted in the saddle. What was happening? Where was Magariño? Without the pontoon, they were trapped here in the open and helpless.

“Where is the bridge?” Benítez screamed.

It had stuck fast. The rain that had muffled their exodus betrayed them now, softening the banks of the lake and jamming the bridge supports into the mud at the first divide. Magariño and his men desperately tried to raise it. There would not be time. Torches appeared all over the lake as the war canoes descended, like thousands of fireflies. Their column was at the mercy of the
naturales
, like a huge caterpillar being swarmed by ants.

Benítez’s horse stamped its hooves, sensing fear. He heard the splashing of paddles, saw the white cotton tunics of the Mexica warriors through the fog and rain. They made good targets for the crossbowmen and the arquebusiers, so many targets, too many to kill...

Cortés shouted again for the bridge, but his voice was lost to the ululations of the Mexica and the cacophony of horns and whistles. The first volley of stones and arrows rained down from a pitch-black sky.

The column surged forward, pushing towards the second breech. He went with them, a cork on the tide, angry, frightened, bellowing defiance. 

———————

I scramble down the muddy banks into the water, slipping on the musket balls and Venetian glass beads that have spilled from overturned chests. The breech in the canal is already filled with dead horses and overturned carts. Soldiers are trying to scramble across, but many are so weighed down with ingots they immediately disappear under the water. Others cannot run because of the gold they carry under their armour and are overtaken by the Mexica and dragged away screaming, captives for Hummingbird.

More canoes speed across the lake to join the battle.

I swim to the far bank but the mud has been so churned up by hooves that it is impossible to clamber out again. My fingers hook desperately around a stone flag and I drag myself clear of the water. I dare a glance behind me, clasping my swollen belly.

A scene of utter chaos, screams and death, all lit by fire. The breech is almost filled now with Mexica war canoes. I see Doña Ana wade from the water, hands and feet scrambling for purchase in the slick mud. She sees me and reaches out her hand.

I wonder if she has my lord’s seed in her.

Our fingers lock, I pull her towards me. When she is close enough, I place my foot in her stomach - about the place of her womb - and push hard. Doña Ana screams and falls back into the canal. I see her head bob once in the darkness, then disappear.

I scramble to my feet and start to run.

Benítez staggered across the gravel beach and fell to his knees. He wore only doublet and breeches now, had abandoned his steel breastplate and helmet in order to swim the last two cuts in the canal. His horse was dead, the king’s fifth gone. It was out there somewhere, sinking into the mud.He raised his face to the black sky, mouth open, gulping in air. Around him the remnants of Ordaz' squadron lay sprawled on the beach, exhausted.

Benítez heard hooves drumming on the sand.

“Who’s there?” someone shouted.

He recognised Cortés’ voice. “It is Benítez, my lord.”

“Captain!” Ordaz shouted, somewhere close by. “Captain, you must lead us back. We have to help the others.”

“There is nothing we can do, Ordaz. You are fortunate to have survived. We all are.”

The sounds of fighting were muted now, the Indians were already celebrating their victory. It was quiet here on the beach, almost peaceful.More stragglers stumbled up the beach, a handful of Texcálans, covered in blood. Then Alvarado, on foot and alone.

“
Caudillo
!”

“Pedro?”

His hair was plastered to his skull with mud and rain. There were black blood stains on his tunic. He fell to his knees and started to weep. Benítez and Ordaz rushed to help him.

“Where are the others?” Cortés barked from the saddle.

“Dead,” Alvarado said.

“Not all of them, surely?”

“We must save ourselves now,” Alvarado sobbed, “there is nothing else we can do.”

The last straggler was El Romo, Benítez' stallion, a dark sheen of blood on both flanks. He collapsed in the shallows. By the time Benítez reached him, he was dead.

“Well,” Cortés growled, “at least we will have some meat for dinner.”

———————

Only Sandoval and his vanguard reached the village of Popotla unscathed. The rest of our army has been routed on the causeway. Now Cortés sits under a great cypress tree, his shoulders hunched, weeping. None of the thunder lords will approach him; even I am frightened of this.

I sit a little distance away, my limbs shaking uncontrollably. My stomach is hurting and I feel wetness leaking down the inside of my thighs. Blood. The baby.

“Why do they not come after us?” Benítez asks me.

“They will not attack us tonight.” I am surprised by the sound of my own voice, strong and clear.

“Why? We are their mercy. They could finish us.”

“They have many captives to offer Hummingbird. The warriors who took prisoners must attend the ritual fasting and lead them to the stone for sacrifice. If Hummingbird is not properly honoured tonight it does not matter how well they fight tomorrow, they cannot possibly win. But if they give their god his sacrifice they will defeat us no matter what we do or how fast we run. That is what they believe.”

I look at Cortés. He is on his knees in the mud, shivering with cold, fingering his sacred beads as he stumbles through a prayer to the goddess Virgin. I cannot bear to look at my god so destroyed.

He is just a man now, just clay like myself, like these poor others.

I take shelter under the branches of an ancient ceiba tree. I rest my back against the trunk, put my head on my knees and fall into a black sleep.

———————

Dawn.

We reach the pyramid at Tototepec, the Hill of the Turkey Hen, and take refuge in the temple there. It is a natural fortress, with an uninterrupted view of the surrounding plain. The rain has stopped and the earth steams under a weak, yellow sun. Men move about like ghosts, eyes red-rimmed and empty, sodden rags wrapped around their wounds. Others lie on the cobbles of the temple court, not moving, utterly spent.

“Where is Lopez?” a voice shouts over and over.

I look around; it is Feathered Serpent, reborn with the morning, his spirit re-awakened by the cries of the ocelots and the bewitching light of Morning Star. He sits astride his horse, in full armour, moving slowly among the knots of groaning, exhausted men.

“Is Lopez here?”

His eyes are black points in a ghost-pale and chiselled face. He rides straight in the saddle, arrogant and impatient beneath the plumed
burgonet
.

Alvarado hobbles towards him, limping, pale and bloody. “Who is it you require,
caudillo
?”

“Martín Lopez?”

“The carpenter? He is here somewhere. He was wounded in the fighting but he survived.”

Cortés slams his fist onto his wooden saddle and laughs. “Then we have lost nothing!”

“My lord?”

“We have our shipbuilder! You see?”

Alvarado shakes his head. He does not see. I do not see. None of us see.

“I have been thinking on this during the night,” Feathered Serpent shouts, “and it now occurs to me that when we return we may use their greatest defence against them.”

Alvarado’s face is quite blank. He sways on his feet, faint from loss of blood. “Return?”

“The lake, Pedro! We will build brigantines and encircle them in their own city! We will send for more cannon from Santo Domingo and lay siege using their very own lake!”

Alvarado stares up at him, slack-jawed.

“Because of one setback, you do not abandon a whole campaign. We shall return with brigantines and quell this rebellion for our king!”

Even in the grey chill of the morning, I feel a warmth spread through my whole body. I love him now, more than I have ever believed I could love anything. He is defeated but he cannot be destroyed. While the moles around him huddle, shivering and beaten, the god in him strides ahead of the dawn, clothed in the man. Everything else he has ever done is forgiven now.

He is, after all, Malinche, my malintzin, Malinali’s lord.   

He’s mad, Benítez thought.

We shall return with brigantines and quell this rebellion for our king.

Quite mad.

We lost six hundred men tonight - not counting two thousand of our Texcálan allies - as well as some of our finest officers, including León. All our cannon are gone, disappeared under the mud on the causeway, and we have barely two dozen horses left, most of them lame. Most who survive have grievous wounds. We number a few hundred and we are surrounded by the Mexica in their millions.

But all that concerns him is whether Lopez is injured.

Madness.

He stumbled away and slept, eyes open, his back against a skull rack. His dreams were of Mexica warriors; he was trying to run from them but his legs were stuck in thick mud and he could not move. When he woke - minutes or hours later, he could not tell from the grey overcast of the sky - he heard the blast of conch shells as the priests on the summit of the Tlatelolco temple heralded the victory. The great drum that sounded the alarm a few hours before now reverberated again around the valley, announcing that Hummingbird would now take his pleasure of the captives.

Benítez thought about Norte. He hoped he had died quickly, drowned in the canal with his pockets weighted with gold, like Fray Guevarra. He hoped the conches did not sound for him this grey morning.

———————

The priests waited, their faces smeared with soot, black robes stained with fresh bright blood. They had done brisk commerce that morning.

The black heart sizzling in the brazier belonged to León.

Norte’s legs would not support him. He fell and was dragged the rest of the way to the summit by the warrior who had claimed him as his captive. How many times had he seen this happen to some other poor wretch?

A head dress was forced onto his head, plumed fans thrust in his hands. The priests forced him to dance in time with the drums, prodding at his feet and legs with spears and flaming torches. Hummingbird watched hungrily from the darkness, eyes glowing in the light of the braziers, body lustrous with jade and pearl.

Then four of the priests grabbed him, forced him backwards over the stone, each grasping a limb. Another slammed a wooden yoke across his throat. He stared at the sun with unblinking eyes and said a brief prayer to the god of his baptism.

———————

The high priest sawed open his chest with a stone knife. His movements were mercifully quick. In moments he had ripped out the palpitating heart with his hands. He showed it to the Spaniard as the light dimmed in his staring eyes. Then he offered the steam to the sun before flinging the organ into the face of Hummingbird of the Left.

He kicked Norte’s body down the steps of the pyramid and called for the next captive to be brought forward.

———————

Our one hope lies in Texcála. None of us can be sure if Old Ring of the Wasp will receive us now we are broken and defeated, but we know we cannot survive a long march to the coast without his help. There is no choice.

We are attacked intermittently at the temple fortress, harassment rather than a concerted assault. The Mexica are busy with the sacrificial rites demanded by their gods. It is the respite that my lord had hoped for, indeed, that he had counted on.

We march out soon after dark, leave the fires burning in the temple court to persuade the Mexica that we are still inside.

Such a pitiful retreat after our glorious arrival. Most horses carry two riders, at least one of them sorely wounded; other soldiers support themselves on stout sticks or drag themselves behind the horses, hanging grimly to tails or trappings. The most grievously wounded are thrown across the croups of horses considered too lame to fight.

Benítez is given a piebald mare whose rider died of his wounds during the night. Along with other thunder lords still fit to ride he tries to chase away the Mexican raiding parties who torment our long retreat with stones and with arrows.

The surviving Texcálans guide us to the north east, around Lake Texcoco. The next day we reach a town called Tepotzotlan, three leagues to the north. The population has fled in our wake and we are overjoyed to find stocks of maize and vegetables in the dry stores, as well as flocks of turkeys crowded into pens. We eat well that morning and sleep for a few hours on the floors of the
cacique
’s palace; lords and ladies, gods and moles side by side.

That afternoon we set off once more, pass through Citlatepecon on the most northern point of the great lake, then strike east. Again we pass the night in a temple, this one dedicated to Feathered Serpent. An omen perhaps. Again the population has fled, but this time they have taken all their food with them and now we must deal with our hunger as well as exhaustion.

All the next day the Mexica nip at our heels, like yellow dogs. Our progress is painfully slow. Some part of the column is always under attack and each night more of the wounded give up their spirit. My lord now commands just three hundred soldiers and twenty seven
jinetas
. Everyone, even the horses, is wounded in some way. Of our Texcálan allies, less than a thousand are left.

As we climb into the high passes we are reduced to eating the grass.

My belly still cramps with pain, though the bleeding has stopped. I cling to Tollan and the dream of the
Toltecs
as tenaciously as Feathered Serpent clings to his dreams of Tenochtitlán.

A rock hurled from the tree line had struck Cortés just above the eye. He had not been wearing his helmet and the missile opened a gaping wound in his forehead. Now, in the dying light of the day, Malinali sat him down beside the camp fire and prepared to stitch it closed. She used a
maguey
thorn as needle and had plucked out a long black hair from her own head to use as suture.

Cortés grunted as she probed with the sharp thorn. There was nothing to numb the pain. He concentrated his mind on other things; on his plans for the siege of Tenochtitlán, for instance.

“I will work as swiftly as I can, my lord,” Malinali promised.

“Any pain is preferable to death.”

“Not all men think so.”

“They should. Death comes soon enough.” He glanced up at her. Her pretty brown face was creased with concentration, her swollen belly just inches from his face. There beats the heart of my son. “Are you afraid?” he said.

“Not when I am with you.”

He smiled. Ah, Malinali, my dark and carnal angel, where would I be without you? You are no Christian gentlewoman, for all Fray Olmedo’s ceremony and sprinkling of water, but you are brave as any Spaniard and you have the cunning of a Moor. I could not have even stepped off the beach if it were not for you. What a pity you are not the daughter of a Spanish duke.

“Will you weep for Doña Ana?” she whispered.

“She was the dalliance of a single night.”

The thorn bit into his flesh. He clenched his teeth against the pain.

“And you, my lord? Are you afraid?”

“No, I am not afraid. I am at an age where a man must succeed or die. Let us be done with it, whatever it is. Fate will decide.”

It was true. Instead of fear there was only this black and vicious anger inside him, anger so deep it set his limbs trembling and his heart to palpitation. These Mexica, these dogs, these heathen, had brought him to the point of defeat and he would never forgive them for that. They had tried to snatch away his dreams.

Well, he would make them repent, every last one of them. He would make them see that he had God on his side.