‘Wife,’ Shikotenka said gruffly, ‘do not try my patience.’
‘It’s a big thing,’ she continued, ‘but I feel strongly about it, so I am compelled to speak.’
‘Speak then.’
‘Do not rush into battle with the white men. Find some neutral ground and talk to them. Perhaps, after all, you should consider this alliance they propose.’
‘Aiyee! Enough!’ Shikotenka rolled Xilonen onto her back and spread her legs. ‘Here’s a big thing I feel strongly about,’ he said, ‘and it demands your immediate attention.’
* * *
There was a soft chill in the mountain air, the stars were bright, the sky the deepest midnight blue. On the roof of the guest quarters that Olintecle had provided, Malinal lay side by side with Hernán Cortés, the man she had set out to use as a weapon of vengeance against the Mexica, but had grown to love. He was, in every way that mattered, the most exceptional, extraordinary and contradictory man she had ever known: tender and imaginative in their sex play, ferocious in battle, clever and quick witted, a loyal friend and an indomitable enemy, kind-hearted by nature, yet capable of great cruelty when it served his interests.
‘What your plan,’ she asked, ‘when we get to Tenochtitlan?’
Malinal had described the Mexica capital to Cortés many times before: how it stood amidst the waters of a great lake, with its houses built on islands or on stilts; how every house had a flat roof which, with the erection of breastworks, could transform it into a fortress; and how the city could be approached only along the three causeways that connected it to the mainland, each causeway having multiple openings, allowing the water to flow from one part of the lake to another and spanned by wooden bridges which, if removed or raised, made entry – or escape! – impossible.
Nor was the problem simply one of Tenochtitlan’s unique situation. Moctezuma had recently suffered a severe reverse in his war against the Tlascalans; nonetheless, Malinal estimated he could still command a standing army of at least a hundred and fifty thousand men and call in perhaps a hundred thousand more from his remote garrisons and vassal states, as well as Otomi and Chichemec mercenary forces, numbering in the many tens of thousands, that he was reported to have hired recently.
So Cortés knew all this when, lying there in the dark beside her, his hard naked body still alien to her in its bone-white beauty, he replied calmly, ‘If we can continue to play the game well, as I believe we have done until now, we will enter Tenochtitlan as Moctezuma’s guests, with smiling faces, exchanging gifts, knowing all the while he means to trap us and kill us there. But we will never let that happen. Once we are within his walls, I will make him my hostage and rule his city and his empire and all his armies through him, and take everything that belongs to him and make it mine.’
Malinal was momentarily stunned by the audacity and simplicity of the strategy, which Cortés had never hinted at before, and by the realisation that it might actually work. Because Moctezuma was a coward, because of his superstitious fear of the white men, but above all because he was an absolute dictator in whom all the power of the state was concentrated, it was just possible, if the caudillo could face him down with daring and succeed in taking him prisoner and terrifying him enough, that the whole Mexica empire might fall into line, without the need to storm its impregnable capital, or do battle with its myriad armies, or shed even a single drop of blood.
‘It could work,’ she breathed, thinking out loud.
‘Of course it will work,’ said Cortés. He sounded supremely confident.
But then he always did.
* * *
Telling Xilonen to keep the bed warm, Shikotenka went to Tree’s home and found him, morose and belligerent, drinking pulque in the back yard. The big warrior had lived alone since the sudden death of his own wife a year previously. They’d not been blessed with children, and Tree refused even to have servants to tidy up after him. As a result his place was a mess, with a bad smell about it.
‘Come on,’ said Shikotenka. ‘I need your help with something.’
‘A fight?’ said Tree hopefully.
‘Not a fight. Not tonight anyway! I’m going to do something a bit odd and I want you to witness it.’
‘Almost everything you do is odd, so why do you want a witness? Leave me alone.’ Tree upended his cup and poured himself another hefty draft of the milky liquor.
‘No, I really need your help,’ Shikotenka insisted. ‘I’m going to give those two Totonacs a chance to escape and their guards will feel better about the whole thing if you’re there to witness it. Otherwise they might fear they’ll be blamed.’
‘I’m drinking, can’t you see?’
‘Yes, and too much these days. You’ll lose your edge in battle if you go on this way.’
‘Like you’re losing your edge with all this mercy?’
‘Xilonen persuaded me to let them go,’ Shikotenka answered honestly.
‘Right there,’ growled Tree, ‘I hear the sound of an edge being lost.’ He paused: ‘Are we still going to fight the white men, or did she talk you out of that as well?’
‘If they cross the border,’ said Shikotenka. ‘We’re going to fight them with everything we’ve got.’ He grinned. ‘So let’s stay sharp, both of us.’
He walked with Tree to the fattening pens, where hundreds of prisoners were held in bamboo cages and fed on a special diet to make them plump for sacrifice. The two Totonac emissaries were kept in a cage of their own.
Shikotenka took the warders aside. ‘Keep your voices down,’ he warned. ‘An hour after midnight, when the whole city’s asleep, I want you to let the Totonacs escape.’
‘Escape, lord? It’s more than our lives are worth.’
‘It will be more than your lives are worth,’ Shikotenka whispered, ‘if they’re still here in the morning.’
‘Yes, lord.’
‘Take food in for them and tell them they must eat. Tell them they’re to be sacrificed the day after tomorrow and we want them to be pleasing to the god. But when you go out, leave the gate of their cage open. Make it look accidental, but make sure they notice … ’
‘We’d prefer to discharge them into your custody, lord. Then you can set them free yourself.’
‘They’d think I’ve gone soft and that won’t help us. Just know you’ll have done a great service to me personally if these men are long gone in the morning. I’ll see you’re well rewarded for it. Tree here will witness there’s been no dereliction of duty on your part.’
‘But lord—’
‘No more questions. I’m counting on you. Get this done.’
‘Get it done,’ rumbled Tree, looming over the warders.
As they nodded their agreement, Tree strolled across the courtyard to the cage where the emissaries were held, snatched a flickering brand from a bracket and shoved it through the bamboo bars, revealing the terrified prisoners hunched in a corner. ‘Snivelling Totonac bastards,’ he observed.
The one called Mamexi gave a nervous squeak, while his companion Teuch got to his feet. ‘What do you want with us?’ he asked.
‘Just checking your meat’s still fresh,’ said Tree with a horrible laugh. ‘Day after tomorrow, the priests will take your hearts and me and the boys get to eat your thighs with chillies and beans before we march out to slaughter those tueles of yours.’
Mamexi was sobbing inconsolably now. ‘We’ve done nothing wrong.’
Tree threw the brand down near the gate where it flared and flickered. ‘See you for breakfast, day after tomorrow!’
‘What was that all about?’ Shikotenka asked a few moments later when they’d left the prison yard.
‘You want those fools to escape?’ said Tree, ‘so I gave them a motive and some light to see by.’
Chapter Thirty-Three
Sunday 29 August 1519 to Monday 30 August 1519
The news from Xocotlan was as bad as it could possibly be. The tueles were preparing to march to Tlascala. Since they constantly
demanded gold, Olintecle had tried to register the Great Speaker’s disapproval by withholding further presents from them, but this had only caused them to advance their plans. They would depart at first light the next day.
In a fury, Moctezuma despatched a command to his vassal to give the tueles more gold. The messengers would carry the order from relay post to relay post, running without cease through the night. The entire team of runners, Moctezuma had made clear, would face execution if his instructions failed to reach Olintecle before the tueles marched.
* * *
When Olintecle walked his thighs slapped together – slap! slap! slap! slap!; this sound announced his arrival as he bustled into the square where the conquistadors were mustering on the morning of Monday 30 August. It was early, not long after dawn, the sky was clear but the air was still cold, and in patches here and there a light mist lay close to the ground. Olintecle came bearing gifts – a dozen necklaces, three pendants and some lifelike lizards, all of pure gold – which was surprising because over the previous days he had politely sidestepped Cortés’s persistent requests for presents to send to King Carlos in Spain. But the motive for the chief’s change of heart was transparent. ‘You must not go to Tlascala, Lord Cortés,’ he protested through Malinal, his face crumpling with insincere concern. ‘Your emissaries’ failure to return is a sure sign that danger awaits. Those evil savages have murdered them and they will murder you if you enter their lands.’
‘The Lord is my shepherd,’ said Cortés. ‘I fear no evil.’ He handed the gifts to Pepillo to pack away in Molinero’s saddlebags.
Olintecle tried another argument: ‘Besides, the Great Speaker himself commands it. He will be most offended if you fail to visit Cholula as he has ordered.’
‘Compliments to the Great Speaker,’ Cortés replied, ‘but I take orders from no man except my king. My mind is made up.’ He gave a wink to Pepillo who, as they’d prearranged when Olintecle had first appeared, loosed Melchior’s leash. The huge hound bounded forward to sniff the chief’s groin at which, breaking out in a sweat, he made his farewells and hurried away – slap! slap! slap! slap! When he was gone, Pepillo called Melchior back to his side.
All was now ready for the departure. Father Olmedo stood to the fore to lead the march out of Xocotlan. On such occasions the cheerful friar carried a standard embroidered with the cross of Christ. It hung limp, but now a soft morning breeze blew in from the west and the cloth rippled and flapped.
Perfect, thought Cortés. A sign. He swung himself into Molinero’s saddle, stood in the stirrups and turned to review the disciplined ranks of adventurers. With the four additional mounts brought by Saucedo, and the six left behind with Escalante to defend Villa Rica, the spearhead of his force was his cavalry, numbering sixteen. They were followed by the foot soldiers grouped in seven companies of fifty, their shields, weapons and armour shining in the sun. Next came the dogs in five packs of ten – for half the animals had stayed at Villa Rica. Behind them, in their feathers and paints, were the thousand Totonac warriors provided by the fat cacique, and bringing up the rear were the tamanes, also numbering a thousand, shouldering the baggage and hauling the artillery.
Signalling to Olmedo, who strode forward raising the billowing standard high, Cortés bellowed so that all could hear: ‘Gentlemen, let us follow the banner, the sign of the Holy Cross, and by this we shall conquer.’ There was a great cheer from the men followed by the steady tramp of marching feet and, with the whole population of Xocotlan now lined up to watch them go, the conquistadors wound their way through the narrow streets of the town heading west towards Tlascala.
* * *
An hour’s march west of Xocotlan, Bernal Díaz stood at the head of the foremost squad of infantry, looking up at a pair of massive wooden gates set into a gigantic wall fifteen feet high, twenty feet thick and more than three miles in length. Crossing the whole breadth of the valley, the battlements of this impressive fortification, which marked the border with Tlascala, were patrolled by a thousand Mexica sentries in full war panoply. They willingly opened the gates, but as the Spaniards entered they found themselves confronted by a second parallel wall that overlapped the first for a distance of forty paces, somewhat in the manner of a ravelin. This device obliged them to make a right turn along a passageway ten paces wide, commanded by the battlements of both walls, from which the defenders would be able to rain down spears, arrows and stones on any attackers attempting to force the gates from the Tlascalan side.
‘Thank God we don’t have to fight our way through this lot,’ observed Alonso de La Serna, looking up at the grinning, heavily armed sentries.
‘We’d take losses,’ Francisco Mibiercas conceded.
‘More likely we’d be wiped out!’ said Díaz, who was examining the immense blocks of stone, laid together without cement in the joints, from which the hulking fortification had been built. ‘Has to mean the Mexica are pretty damn afraid of their neighbours.’
‘Has to,’ agreed La Serna, with a cheerful wave to the sentries. ‘So let’s hope all this talk about the friendly welcome we’re supposed to get in Tlascala turns out to be true.’
Díaz hated confined spaces and was relieved to emerge from the shadow of the ravelin, but feelings of apprehension followed as he gazed into the wild, empty country that lay beyond. Already there was a marked change in the land from the pleasant meadows and fields around Xocotlan – the sky itself seemed less blue, the sun less bright. Though it had long-since healed, the arrow wound he had taken in his thigh at Potonchan now unexpectedly flared, piercing him with a sudden sharp stab of pain.
He shivered.
‘Someone just walk on your grave?’ asked Mibiercas.
Díaz forced a laugh. ‘You’ll not bury me yet,’ he said.
A few moments later – the ravelin still lay no more than two hundred paces behind and scouts had not yet been sent out – Díaz heard faint shouts and cries carried on the breeze. He recognised he was in a dark mood, but something in the tone of these voices suggested terror. Mibiercas and La Serna were also listening, and the three friends exchanged concerned glances. Soon half the army was peering anxiously ahead; hands fell to sword hilts, spears and pikes were raised, musketeers fussed with their guns, archers cranked their crossbows.
* * *
They’d been hidden from view by the lie of the land, but now two Indians appeared at the top of a slope ahead and stumbled across the heath towards the conquistadors. So great was their haste, so frequently did they look over their shoulders, that they collided, tripping and falling twice before picking themselves up and darting forward again.
Cortés urged Molinero into a trot, and they soon reached the pair. They were battered and bloody, their clothing torn, their hair dishevelled. Still he recognised them. These were Mamexi and Teuch, the Totonac envoys he’d sent to the Tlascalans. Well, he thought, that’s one mystery solved, anyway! He rode past them to the top of the slope as Alvarado, Davila, Olid and Sandoval joined him at a gallop. They all reigned in, looking for whatever horror the men were fleeing from and seeing nothing but miles of wild, empty terrain framed by high and jagged peaks.
The envoys were in such a state of terror – Mamexi tearful, Teuch frozen – that they could hardly speak. Little by little, however, through Malinal’s gentle but insistent coaxing, and with help from Pepillo to put their words into flowing Castilian, the story came out.
The night before last they’d escaped from the fattening pen in the city of Tlascala, where they’d been held for three days awaiting sacrifice. They had run under cover of darkness, hidden themselves in a cave the following day, and run again all the previous night, convinced every moment they were followed and about to be recaptured, until finally they approached the wall, and safety, that morning. It seemed they’d only got away because the Tlascalans were so busy making preparations for war with the conquistadors that their jailers had become careless and left a gate open. ‘Otherwise those devils would have killed us,’ whimper
ed Mamexi, whose small, rat-like eyes seemed to contain inexhaustible reservoirs of tears. ‘They wanted to rip our hearts from our chests. They wanted to eat our flesh with chillies and beans.’
‘But didn’t you explain we’re on their side?’ demanded Cortés, ‘that we seek to be brothers to them – that we’re as much against the Mexica as they are?’
‘We explained,’ wailed Mamexi. ‘We explained a hundred times but they wouldn’t believe us. They said you’re in league with Moctezuma! They said they’re going to eat you as well!’
‘Not all felt that way,’ interrupted Teuch, who was regaining his composure. ‘There were different opinions. The elder Shikotenka wanted peace. It’s his son, Shikotenka the Younger, who persuaded the Senate they should make war on you.’
‘He’s the battle-king of the Tlascalans,’ volunteered Meco, who’d been standing nearby.
‘The man you were so confident would want to be our ally?’ sneered Cortés. ‘So confident you had me turn down the hospitality of Cholula to come this way instead?’
‘I don’t understand what went wrong, lord,’ said Meco. ‘The Tlascalans are our friends. I was sure they’d welcome us.’
Mamexi cackled hysterically: ‘Do you call this a welcome?’ He showed his multiple cuts and bruises. ‘They beat us like thieves. They humiliated us.’ He turned to Cortés and glared at him through a flood of tears: ‘Beware tuele,’ he said, his voice cracking, ‘they are animals, these Tlascalans. They’re mobilising their whole army against you. They mean to fight you to the death.’
For an instant Cortés contemplated turning round and going by way of Cholula instead. It was what Saint Peter had wanted him to do, after all! But he put the thought out of his mind at once. Certainly he would go to Cholula, but he would do so in his own good time after he’d settled things with the Tlascalans. No matter the adversity, no matter the risk, the high-stakes game he was playing with Moctezuma meant it would be fatal to back down or show even the slightest irresolution or weakness now. ‘Well, so be it,’ he boomed cheerfully, ‘if that’s how things are, then forward, and may fortune be on our side.’