Gary Jennings - Aztec

"On the day Eight Alligator, my Lord Speaker," began one of the Totonaca, and went on to recite the message sent by Patzinca. On the day Eight Alligator, the eleven ships had suddenly materialized on the ocean and had come to a halt outside the bay of Chalchihuacuecan. It was a place I had once visited myself, The Place of Abundant Beautiful Things, but I made no comment, knowing better than to interrupt a word rememberer. The man went on to report that, on the following day, the day Nine Wind, the white and bearded strangers had begun to come ashore and build themselves little houses of cloth on the beach, and to erect large wooden crosses in the sand, also large banners, and to enact what appeared to be some sort of ceremony, since it included much chanting and gesticulation and kneeling down and standing up, and there were several priests, unmistakably priests, for they dressed all in black, just like those of these lands. Such were the occurrences of the day Nine Wind. On the next day...

One of the old men of the Speaking Council said pensively, "Nine Wind. According to at least one legend, Quetzalcoatl's full name was Nine Wind Feathered Serpent. That is to say, he was born on the day Nine Wind."

Motecuzóma flinched slightly, perhaps because that information struck him as portentous, perhaps because the informant should have known that it was a mistake ever to interrupt a word rememberer. A word rememberer could not just pick up his recitation where it was broken off; he had to back up and start from the beginning again.

"On the day Eight Alligator..."

He droned along to the point he had reached before, and went on, to report that there had been no battles on the beach, or anywhere else as yet. That was understandable. The Totonaca, besides being ignorant, were a servile and whining people. For years they had been subordinate to the Triple Alliance, and they regularly, though with querulous complaints, had paid us their annual tribute of fruits, fine woods, vanilla and cacao for making chocolate, picíetl for smoking, and other such products of the Hot Lands.

The residents of that Place of Abundant Beautiful Things, said the messenger, had not opposed the outlanders' arrival, but had sent word of it to their Lord Patzinca in the capital city of Tzempoalan. Patzinca in turn sent nobles bearing many gifts to the bearded white strangers, and also an invitation that they come to visit his court. So five of their presumably highest-ranking personages went to be his guests, taking with them one woman who had come ashore with them. She was neither white nor bearded, said the messenger, but was a female of some nation of the Olméca lands. At the Tzempoalan palace, the visitors presented gifts to Patzinca: a chair of curious construction, many beads of many colors, a hat made of some heavy, fuzzy red cloth. The visitors then announced that they came as envoys of a ruler called Kinkarlos and of a god called Our Lord and a goddess called Our Lady.

Yes, reverend scribes, I know, I know. I merely repeat it as the Totonacatl ignorantly repeated it.

Then the visitors intensely questioned Patzinca as to the circumstances obtaining in his land. To what god did he and his people pay homage? Was there much gold in this place? Was he himself an emperor or a king or merely a viceroy? Patzinca, though considerably perplexed by the many unfamiliar terms employed in the interrogation, replied as best he could. Of the multitudinous gods in existence, he and his people recognized Tezcatlipóca as the highest. He himself was ruler of all the Totonaca, but was subservient to three mightier nations farther inland, the mightiest of which was the nation of the Mexíca, ruled by the Revered Speaker Motecuzóma. At that very moment, confided Patzinca, five registrars of the Mexíca treasury were in Tzempoalan to review this year's list of the items the Totonaca were to yield in tribute...

"I should like to know," a Council elder suddenly said, "how was this interrogation conducted? We have heard that one of the white men speaks the Maya tongue. But none of the Totonaca speaks anything but his own language and our Náhuatl."

The word rememberer looked momentarily flustered. He cleared his throat and went all the way back to: "On the day Eight Alligator, my Lord Speaker..."

Motecuzóma glared with exasperation at the hapless elder who had interrupted, and said between his teeth, "Now you may perish of old age before the lout ever gets around to explaining that."

The Totonacatl cleared his throat again. "On the day Eight Alligator..." and we all sat fidgeting until he worked his way through his recital and arrived again at new information. When he did, it was of sufficient interest to have been almost worth the wait.

The five haughty Mexíca tribute registrars, Patzinca told the white men, were exceedingly angry at him because he had made those strangers welcome without first asking the permission of their Revered Speaker Motecuzóma. In consequence, they had added to their tribute demand ten adolescent Totonaca boys and ten virgin Totonaca maidens, to be sent with the vanilla and cacao and other items to Tenochtítlan, to be sacrificed when such victims should be required by the Mexíca gods.

On hearing that, the chief of the white men made noises of great revulsion, and stormed at Patzinca that he should do no such thing, that he should instead have the five Mexíca officials seized and imprisoned. When the Lord Patzinca expressed a horrified reluctance to lay hands on Motecuzóma's functionaries, the white chief promised that his white soldiers would defend the Totonaca against any retaliation. So Patzinca, though sweating in apprehension, had given the order, and the five registrars were last seen—by the word rememberers, before they departed for Tenochtítlan—caged in a small cage of vine-tied wooden bars, all five stuffed in together like fowl going to market, their feather mantles lamentably ruffled, to say nothing of their state of mind.

"This is outrageous!" cried Motecuzóma, forgetting himself. "The outlanders may be excused for not knowing out tributary laws. But that witless Patzinca—!" He stood up from his throne and shook a clenched fist at the Totonacatl who had been speaking. "Five of my treasury officials treated so, and you dare to come and tell me! By the gods, I will have you thrown alive to the great cats in the menagerie unless your next words explain and excuse Patzinca's insane act of treason!"

The man gulped and his eyes bulged, but what he said was, "On the day Eight Alligator, my Lord Speaker..."

"Ayya ouíya, BE STILL!" roared Motecuzóma. He sank back onto his throne and despairingly covered his face with his hands. "I retract the threat. Any cat would be too proud to eat such trash."

One of the Council elders diplomatically supplied a diversion by signaling for one of the other messengers to speak. That one immediately began to babble rapidly, and in a mixture of languages. It was evident that he had been present during at least one of the conferences between his ruler and the visitors, and was repeating every single word that had passed among them. It was also evident that the white chief spoke in Spanish, after which another visitor translated that into Maya, after which still another translated that into Náhuatl for Patzinca's comprehension, after which Patzinca's replies were relayed back to the white chief along that same chain of interpretation.

"It is good that you are here, Mixtli," Motecuzóma said to me. "The Náhuatl is poorly spoken but, with enough repetitions, we may be able to make sense of it. Meanwhile, the other tongues—can you tell us what they say?"

I would have liked to show off with an immediate and glib translation but, in truth, I understood little more of the welter of words than did anyone else there. The messenger's Totonacatl accent was enough of an impediment. But also his ruler did not speak Náhuatl very well, since it was for him a language acquired only for conversing with his betters. Also, the Maya dialect being spoken as an intermediate translation was that of the Xiu tribe and, while I was competent enough in that tongue, the presumably white interpreter was not. Also, I was of course far from fluent in Spanish at that time. Also, there were many Spanish words used—such as "emperadore" and "virrey"—for which there were then no substitutes in any of our languages, so they were merely and badly parroted without translation in both the Xiu and Náhuatl the messenger recited. Somewhat abashedly, I had to confess to Motecuzóma: