Текст книги "Aztec"

Автор книги: Gary Jennings

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"You have exceeded the authority of your mission. You have seriously embarrassed your Lord Speaker and compromised the honor of the Mexíca nation. You have broken the promise of truce I granted to these esteemed visitors and all their subordinates. Have you anything to say for yourselves?"

Cuaupopoca was dutiful to the end, though he was recognizably more of a man, more of a noble, more of a Mexícatl, than the creature on the throne to whom he said respectfully, "It was all my doing, Lord Speaker. And I did what I thought best to do. No man can do more."

Motecuzóma said dully, "You have caused me grievous hurt. But the death and damage you caused have more grievously hurt these our guests. Therefore..." And incredibly the Revered Speaker of the One World said, "Therefore, I will defer judgment to the Captain-General Cortés, and let him determine what punishment you deserve."

Cortés had evidently given prior thought to that matter, for he decreed a punishment that he must have been sure would deter any other individuals trying to oppose him, and it was at the same time a punishment intended to flout our traditions and spite our gods. He commanded that the five should be put to death, but not to any Flowery Death. No heart would be fed to any god, no blood would be spilled to the honor of any god, no flesh or organ of the men would remain to be used as any least sacrificial offering.

Cortés had his soldiers bring a length of chain; it was the thickest chain I ever saw, like looped constrictor snakes made of iron; I learned later that it was a segment of what is called an anchor chain, used for mooring the heavy ships. It took considerable effort on the part of the soldiers, and surely caused considerable pain to Cuaupopoca and his four officers, but the giant links of that chain were forced over the heads of the condemned men, so a link hung around each man's neck. They were taken into The Heart of the One World, where a great log had been fixed upright in the square... just yonder, in front of where the cathedral now stands, where the Señor Bishop now has his pillory for the exposure of sinners to public vilification. The chain was fastened around the top of that heavy post, so the five men stood in a circle, their backs to the log, pinioned by their necks. Then a pile of wood, previously soaked in chapopotli, was heaped around their feet and as high as their knees, and it was set afire.

Such a novel punishment—a deliberately bloodless execution—had never been known in these lands before, so almost everyone in Tenochtítlan came to see it. But I watched it while standing beside the priest Bartolome, and he confided to me that such burnings are quite common in Spain, that they are especially suited to the execution of enemies of Holy Church, because the Church has always forbidden its clerics to shed the blood of even the worst sinners. It is a pity, reverend scribes, that your Church is thereby enjoined from employing more merciful methods of execution. For I have seen many kinds of killing and dying in my time, but none more hideous, I think, than what Cuaupopoca and his officers suffered that day.

They bore it staunchly for a while, as the flames first licked up along their legs. Above the heavy iron collars of the chain links, their faces were calm and resigned. They were not otherwise bound to the post, but they did not kick their legs or flail their arms or struggle in any unseemly manner. However, when the flames reached their groins and burned away their loincloths and began to burn what was underneath, their faces became agonized. Then the fire needed no longer to be fed by the wood and chapopotli; it caught the natural oils of their skin and the fatty tissue just under the skin. The men, instead of being burned, began to burn of themselves, and the flames rose so high that we could barely see their faces. But we saw the brighter flash of their hair going in one blaze, and we could hear the men begin to scream.

After a while, the screams faded to a thin, high shrilling, just audible above the crackling of the flames, and more unpleasant to hear than the screaming had been. When we onlookers got a glimpse of the men inside the blaze, they were black and crinkled all over, but somewhere inside that char they still lived and one or more of them kept up that inhuman keening. The flames eventually ate under their skin and flesh, to gnaw on their muscles, and that made the muscles tighten in odd ways, so that the men's bodies began to contort. Their arms bent at the elbows; their hands of fused fingers came up before their faces, or where their faces had been. What was left of their legs slowly bent at the knees and hips; they lifted off the ground and bunched up against the men's bellies.

As they hung there and fried, they also shrank, until they ceased to resemble men, in size as well as appearance. Only their crusted and featureless heads were still of adult size. Otherwise they looked like five children, charred black, tucked into the position in which young children so often sleep. And still, though it was hard to believe that life still existed inside those pitiful objects, that shrill noise went on. It went on until their heads burst. Wood soaked in chapopotli gives a hot fire, and such heat must make the brain boil and froth and steam until the skull can no longer contain it. There was a sudden noise like a clay pot shattering, and it sounded four times more, and then there was no noise except the sizzle of some last droplets from the bodies falling into the fire, and the soft crunch of the wood relaxing into a bed of embers.

It was a long time before the anchor chain was cool enough for Cortés's soldiers to undo it from the blackened post, and let the five small things drop into the embers to burn entirely to ash, and they took the chain away to be saved for future use, though no other such execution has taken place since then. That was eleven years ago. But just last year, when Cortés returned from his visit to Spain, where your King Carlos raised him from his rank of Captain-General and ennobled him as the Marqués del Valle, Cortés himself designed the emblem of his new nobility. What you call his coat of arms is now to be seen everywhere: it is a shield marked with various symbols, and the shield is encircled by a chain, and in the links of that chain are collared five human heads. Cortés might have chosen to commemorate others of his triumphs, but he knows well that the end of the brave Cuaupopoca marked the beginning of the Conquest of The One World.

Since the execution had been decreed and directed by the white strangers who should have had no such authority, it caused much trepidation and unrest among our people. But the next occurrence was even more unexpected and unbelievable and mystifying: Motecuzóma's public announcement that he was moving out of his own palace to go and live for a while among the white men.

The citizens of Tenochtítlan crowded The Heart of the One World, watching with stony faces, on the day their Revered Speaker strolled leisurely across the plaza, arm in arm with Cortés, under no restraint or any visible compulsion, and entered the palace of his father Axayicatl, the palace occupied by the visiting aliens. During the days following, there was a constant traffic back and forth across the square, as Spanish soldiers helped Motecuzóma's porters and slaves to move his entire court from the one palace to the other: Motecuzóma's wives and children and servants, their wardrobes and the furnishings of all their chambers, the contents of the throne room, libraries of books and treasury accounts, all the appurtenances necessary to conducting court business.

Our people could not understand why their Revered Speaker would become a guest of his own guests, or, in effect, a prisoner of his own prisoners. But I think I know why. I long ago heard Motecuzóma described as a "hollow drum," and over the years I heard that drum make loud noises, and on most of those occasions I knew those noises to be produced by the thumping of hands and events and circumstances over which Motecuzóma had no control... or things which he could only pretend he controlled... or which he only halfheartedly tried to control. If there had ever been any hope that he might someday wield his own drumsticks, so to speak, that hope vanished when he relinquished to Cortés the resolution of the Cuaupopoca affair.

For our war chief Cuitlahuac soon afterward ascertained what Cuaupopoca had in fact achieved—an advantage that could have put the white men and all their allies at our mercy—and Cuitlahuac used no brotherly words in telling how Motecuzóma had so hastily and weakly and disgracefully thrown away the one best chance for saving The One World. That revelation of his latest and worst mistake drained away any strength or will or lordliness still inherent in the Revered Speaker. He became a hollow drum indeed, too flabby even to make a noise when beaten. Meanwhile, as Motecuzóma dwindled into lethargy and enfeeblement, Cortés stood taller and bolder. After all, he had demonstrated that he held a power of life and death, even inside the stronghold of the Mexíca. He had snatched from near-extinction his Vera Cruz settlement and his ally Patzinca, not to mention himself and all the men with him. So he did not hesitate to make of Motecuzóma the outrageous demand that he voluntarily submit to his own abduction.

"I am not a prisoner. You can see that," said Motecuzóma, the first time he summoned the Speaking Council and me and some other lords to call upon him in his displaced throne room. "There is ample space here for my whole court, and comfortable chambers for us all, and ample facilities for me to continue conducting the affairs of the nation—in which, I assure you, the white men have no voice. Your own presence at this moment is evidence that my counselors and priests and messengers have free access to me and I to them, without any of the outlanders present. Neither will they interfere with our religious observances, even those requiring sacrifices. In brief, our lives will go on exactly as always. I made the Captain-General give me those guarantees before I agreed to the change of residence."

"But why agree at all?" asked the Snake Woman, in an anguished voice. "It was not seemly, my lord. It was not necessary."

"Not necessary, perhaps, but expedient," said Motecuzóma. "Since the white men entered my domains, my own people or allies have twice made attempts on their lives and property—first at Chololan, more recently on the coast. Cortés does not hold me to blame, since those attempts were made either in defiance or in ignorance of my promise of truce. But such things could happen again. I myself have warned Cortés that many of our people resent the white men's presence. Any aggravation of that resentment might make our people forget their obedience to me, and rise up again in troublesome disorder."

"If Cortés is concerned about our people's resentment of him," said a Council elder, "he can easily allay it. He can go home."

Motecuzóma said, "I told him exactly that, but of course it is impossible. He has no means of doing so until, as he expects, his King Carlos sends more ships. In the meantime, if he and I are resident in the same palace, it demonstrates two things: that I trust Cortés to do me no harm, and that I trust my people not to provoke him into doing harm to anybody. So those people should be less inclined to cause any further contention. It was for that reason that Cortés requested my being his guest here."

"His prisoner," said Cuitlahuac, almost sneering.

"I am not a prisoner," Motecuzóma insisted again. "I am still your Uey-Tlatoani, still the ruler of this nation, still the chief partner in The Triple Alliance. I have made only this minor accommodation to insure the keeping of peace between us and the white men until they depart."

I said, "Excuse me, Revered Speaker. You seem confident that they will go. How do you know? When will it be?"

He gave me a look of wishing I had not asked. "They will go when they have the ships to take them. And I know they will go because I have promised that they can take with them what they came for."

There was a short silence; then someone said, "Gold."

"Yes. Much gold. When the white soldiers were assisting in my change of residence, they searched my palace with great thoroughness. They discovered the treasury chambers, although I had taken the precaution of walling over the doors of them, and—"

He was interrupted by cries of chagrin from most of the men present, and Cuitlahuac demanded, "You will give them the nation's treasury?"

"Only the gold," said Motecuzóma defensively. "And the more valuable gems. It is all they are interested in. They care nothing for plumes and dyes and jadestones and rare flower seeds and the like. Those stores we will keep, and those riches will adequately sustain the nation while we work and fight and increase our tribute demands to make up the treasury's depletion."

"But to give it away!" someone wailed.

"Know this," Motecuzóma went on. "The white men could demand that, and the wealth of every single noble besides, as the price of their departure. They could make it a cause of war, and call for their mainland allies to help them take it from us. I prefer to avert any such ugliness by offering the gold and jewels as a seeming gesture of generosity."

The Snake Woman said between his teeth, "Even as High Treasurer of the nation, ostensibly the keeper of the treasure my lord is giving away, I must concede that it would be a small price to pay for the expulsion of the outlanders. But I remind my lord: every other time they have been given gold, they have only been stimulated to want more."

"I have no more to give, and I believe I have convinced them of that truth. Except for what gold is in circulation as trade currency, or in the keeping of private individuals, there is no more in the Mexíca lands. Our treasury of gold represents the collection of sheaves and sheaves of years. It is the hoard of all our past Revered Speakers. It would take lifetimes to scratch even a fraction more from the earth of our lands. I have also made the gift conditional. They do not take it until they depart from here, and they are to take it directly to their King Carlos, as a personal gift from me to him—a gift of all the treasure we have. Cortés is satisfied, and so am I, and so will their King Carlos be. When the white men leave, they will not come back."

None of us said anything to dispute that—until after we had been dismissed and had passed through the palace gate in the Snake Wall and were making across the plaza.

Someone said, "This is intolerable. The Cem-Anáhuac Uey-Tlatoini being held prisoner by those filthy and stinking barbarians."

Someone else said, "No. Motecuzóma is right. He is not a prisoner. All the rest of us are. As long as he meekly sits hostage, no other Mexícatl dares even to spit on a white man."

Someone else said, "Motecuzóma has surrendered himself and the proud independence of the Mexíca and the bulk of our treasury. If the white men's ships are long in coming, who can say what he will surrender next?"

And then someone said what was in all our minds: "In the entire history of the Mexíca, no Uey-Tlatoani has ever been deposed while he still lives. Not even Ahuítzotl, when he was totally incapable of ruling."

"But a regency was appointed to act in his name, and it worked well enough while it bridged the succession."

"Cortés might take it into his head to kill Motecuzóma at any time. Who knows the white men's whims? Or Motecuzóma might die of his own self-loathing. He looks ready to."

"Yes, the throne might suddenly be left vacant. If we make provision for that eventuality, we would also have a provisional ruler standing ready... in case Motecuzóma's behavior becomes such that we must depose him by order of the Speaking Council."

"It should be decided and arranged in secret. Let us spare Motecuzóma the humiliation until and unless there is no choice. Also, Cortés must not be given any least reason to suspect that his precious hostage can suddenly be rendered worthless to him."

The Snake Woman turned to Cuitlahuac, who had until then made no remark at all, and said, using his lordly title, "Cuitlahuatzin, as the Speaker's brother you would normally be the first candidate considered as his successor on his death. Would you accept the title and responsibility of regent if, in formal conclave, we determine that such a post should be created?"

Cuitlahuac walked on some paces farther, frowning in meditation. At last he said, "It would grieve me to usurp the power of my own brother while he lives. But in truth, my lords, I fear he now only half lives, and has already abdicated most of his power. Yes, if and when the Speaking Council may decide that our nation's survival depends on it, I will rule in whatever capacity is asked of me."

As it happened, there was no immediate need for an overthrow of Motecuzóma, or any other such drastic action. Indeed, for a considerable while, it seemed that Motecuzóma had been right to counsel that we all simply be calm and wait. For the Spaniards stayed in Tenochtítlan throughout that winter and, if they had not been so obviously white, we might hardly have noticed their presence. They could have been country folk of our own race, come to the big city for a holiday, to see the sights and peaceably enjoy themselves. They even behaved irreproachably during our religious ceremonies. Some of those, the celebrations involving only music, singing, and dancing, the Spaniards watched with interest and sometimes amusement. When the rites involved the sacrifice of xochimíque, the Spaniards discreetly stayed inside their palace. We city folk, for our part, tolerated the white men, treating them politely but distantly. So, all during that winter, there were no frictions between us and them, no untoward incidents, not even any more omens seen or reported.

Motecuzóma and his courtiers and counselors seemed to adapt easily to their change of residence, and his governing of the nation's affairs appeared unaffected by the dislocation of the center of government. As he and every other Uey-Tlatoani had always done, he regularly met with his Speaking Council; he received emissaries from outlying Mexíca provinces, from the other countries of The Triple Alliance, and from foreign nations; he gave audience to private supplicants bringing pleas and plaintiffs bringing grievances. One of his most frequent visitors was his nephew Cacima, no doubt nervous, and rightly so, about the shakiness of his throne in Texcóco. But perhaps Cortés too was bidding his allies and subordinates to "be calm and wait." At any rate, none of them—not even Prince Black Flower, impatient to take that throne of the Acolhua—did anything rash or unruly. Throughout that winter, our world's life seemed to go on, as Motecuzóma had promised, exactly as always.

I say "seemed," because I personally had less and less to do with matters of state. My attendance at court was seldom required, except when some question arose on which Motecuzóma desired the opinions of all his lords resident in the city. My less lordly job as interpreter also became less often necessary and finally ended altogether, for Motecuzóma apparently decided that, if he was going to trust the man Cortés, he might as well trust the woman Malintzin as well. The three of them were seen to spend much time together. That could hardly have been avoided, with them all under the same roof, big though that palace was. But in fact Cortés and Motecuzóma came to enjoy each other's company. They conversed often on the history and current estate of their separate countries and religions and ways of life. For a less solemn diversion, Motecuzóma taught Cortés how to play the gambling bean game of patoli—and I, for one, hoped that the Revered Speaker was playing for high wagers, and that he was winning, so that he would get to keep part of that treasury he had promised to the white men.

In his turn, Cortés introduced Motecuzóma to a different diversion. He sent to the coast for a number of his boatmen—the artisans you call shipwrights—and they brought with them the necessary metal tools and equipment and fittings, and they had woodsmen cut down for them some good straight trees, and they almost magically shaped those logs into planks and beams and ribs and poles. Within a surprisingly short time, they had built a half-size replica of one of their oceangoing ships and launched it on Lake Texcóco: the first boat ever seen on our waters wearing the wings called sails. With the boatmen to do the complicated business of steering it, Cortés took Motecuzóma—sometimes accompanied by members of his family and court—on frequent outings over and among all the five interconnected lakes.

I did not at all regret my gradual relief from close attendance at the court or on the white men. I was pleased to resume my former life of idle retirement, even again spending some time at The House of Pochtéa, though not so much time as I had used to spend there. My wife did not ask, but I felt that I ought to be oftener around the house and in her company, for she seemed weak and inclined to tire easily. Waiting Moon had always occupied her empty time with womanly little crafts like embroidery work, but I noticed that she had taken to holding the work very close to her eyes. Also, she would sometimes pick up a kitchen pot or some other thing, only to drop and break it. When I made solicitous inquiry, she said simply:

"I grow old, Záa."

"We are almost exactly the same age," I reminded her.

That remark seemed to give offense, as if I had abruptly begun frisking and dancing to show my comparative vivacity. Béu said rather sharply, for her, "It is one of the curses of women. At every age, they are older than the male." Then she softened, and smiled, and made a pallid joke of it. "That is why women treat their men like children. Because they never seem to grow old... or even to grow up."

So she lightly dismissed the matter, and it was a long time before I realized that she was in fact showing the first symptoms of the ailment that would gradually bring her to the sickbed she now has occupied for years. Béu never complained of feeling bad, she never requested any attention from me, but I gave it anyway, and, although we spoke so little, I could tell that she was grateful. When our aged servant Turquoise died, I bought two younger women—one to do the housekeeping, one to devote herself entirely to Béu's needs and wishes. Because for so many years I had been accustomed to calling for Turquoise whenever I had any household orders to give, I could not break myself of the habit. I called the two women interchangeably Turquoise, and they got used to it, and to this day I cannot remember what their real names were.

Perhaps I had unconsciously adopted the white men's disregard for proper names and correct speech. During that nearly half a year of the Spaniards' residence in Tenochtítlan, none of them made any effort to learn our Náhuatl tongue, or the rudiments of its pronunciation. The one person of our race with whom they were most closely associated was the woman who called herself Malintzin, but even her consort Cortés invariably mispronounced that assumed name as Malinche. In time, so did all our own people, either in polite emulation of the Spaniards or mischievously to spite the woman. For it always made Malintzin grind her teeth when she was called Malinche—it denied her the -tzin of nobility—but she could hardly complain of the disrespect without seeming to criticize her master's own slovenly speech.

Anyway, Cortés and the other men were impartial; they misnamed everybody else as well. Since Náhuatl's soft sound of "sh" does not exist in your Spanish language, we Mexíca were for a long time called either Mes-sica or Mec-sica. But you Spaniards have lately preferred to bestow on us our older name, finding it easier to call us Aztecs. Because Cortés and his men found the name Motecuzóma unwieldy, they made of it Montezúma, and I think they honestly believed they were doing no discourtesy, since the new name's inclusion of their word for "mountain" could still be taken to imply greatness and importance. The war god's name Huitzilopóchtli likewise defeated them, and they loathed that god anyway, so they made his name Huichilobos, incorporating their word for the beasts called "wolves."

* * *

Well, the winter passed, and the springtime came, and with it came more white men. Motecuzóma heard the news before Cortés did, but only barely and only by chance. One of his quimichime mice still stationed in the Totonaca country, having got bored and restless, wandered a good way south of where he should have been. So it was that the mouse saw a fleet of the wide-winged ships, only a little distance offshore and moving only slowly northward along the coast, pausing at bays and inlets and river mouths—"as if they were searching for sight of their fellows," said the quimichi, when he came scuttling to Tenochtítlan, bearing a bark paper on which he had drawn a picture enumerating the fleet.

I and other lords and the entire Speaking Council were present in the throne room when Motecuzóma sent a page to bring the still uninformed Cortés. The Revered Speaker, taking the opportunity to pretend that he knew all things happening everywhere, broached the news, through my translation, in this fashion:

"Captain-General, your King Carlos has received your messenger ship and your first report of these lands and our first gifts which you sent to him, and he is much pleased with you."

Cortés looked properly impressed and surprised. "How can the Don Señor Montezúma know that?" he asked.

Still feigning omniscience, Motecuzóma said, "Because your King Carlos is sending a fleet twice the size of yours—a full twenty ships to carry you and your men home."

"Indeed?" said Cortés, politely not showing skepticism. "And where might they be?"

"Approaching," said Motecuzóma mysteriously. "Perhaps you are unaware that my far-seers can see both into the future and beyond the horizon. They drew for me this picture while the ships were still in mid-ocean." He handed the paper to Cortés. "I show it to you now because the ships should soon be in sight of your own garrison."

"Amazing," said Cortés, examining the paper. He muttered to himself, "Yes... galleons, transports, victuallers... if the damned drawing is anywhere near correct." He frowned. "But... twenty of them?"

Motecuzóma said smoothly, "Although we have all been honored by your visit, and I personally have enjoyed your companionship, I am pleased that your brothers have come and that you are no longer isolated in an alien land." He added, somewhat insistently, "They have come to bear you home, have they not?"

"So it would appear," said Cortés, though looking a trifle bemused.

"I will now order the treasury chambers in my palace unsealed," said Motecuzóma, sounding almost happy at the imminence of his nation's impoverishment.

But at that moment the palace steward and some other men came kissing the earth at the throne room door. When I said that Motecuzóma had barely got the news of the ships before Cortés did, I spoke literally. For the newcomers were two swift-messengers sent by Lord Patzinca, and they had been hurriedly brought from the mainland by the Totonaca knights to whom they had reported. Cortés glanced uncomfortably about the room; it was plain that he would have liked to take the men away and interrogate them in private; but he asked me if I would convey to all present whatever the messengers had to say.

The one who spoke first brought a message dictated by Patzinca: "Twenty of the winged ships, the biggest yet seen, have arrived in the bay of the lesser Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz. From those ships have come ashore one thousand three hundred white soldiers, armed and armored. Eighty of them bear harquebuses and one hundred twenty bear crossbows, in addition to their swords and spears. Also there are ninety and six horses and twenty cannons."

Motecuzóma looked suspiciously at Cortés and said, "It seems quite a warlike force, my friend, just to escort you home."

"Yes, it does," said Cortés, himself looking less than delighted at the news. He turned to me. "Have they anything else to report?"

The other messenger spoke then, and revealed himself to be one of those tedious word rememberers. He rattled off every word overheard from Patzinca's first meeting with the new white men, but it was a monkey like babble of the Totonaca and Spanish languages, quite incomprehensible, owing to there having been no interpreters present to sort out the speeches. I shrugged and said, "Captain-General, I can catch nothing but two names frequently repeated. Your own and another which sounds like Narváez."

"Narváez here?" blurted Cortés, and he added a very coarse Spanish expletive.

Motecuzóma began again, "I will have the gold and gems brought from the treasury, as soon as your train of porters—"

"Pardon me," said Cortés, recovering from his evident surprise. "I suggest that you keep the treasure hidden and safe, until I can verify the intentions of these new arrivals."

Motecuzóma said, "Surely they are your own countrymen."

"Yes, Don Montezúma. But you have told me how your own countrymen sometimes turn bandit. Just so, we Spaniards must be chary of some of our fellow seafarers. You are commissioning me to carry to King Carlos the richest gift ever sent by a foreign monarch. I should not like to risk losing it to the sea bandits we call pirates. With your leave, I will go immediately to the coast and investigate these men."

"By all means," said the Revered Speaker, who could not have been more overjoyed if the separate groups of white men decided to go for each other's throats in mutual annihilation.