Gary Jennings - Aztec

When Ce-Malinali translated that speech, to Aguilar in the Xiu language, we translated it thus: "The Revered Speaker Motecuzóma sent those trifling gifts in hope that the Captain Cortés would be satisfied with them and would immediately go away. But in fact they represented only the merest skimming of the inestimable treasures in Tenochtítlan. Motecuzóma wishes to discourage the Captain from seeing the real wealth that abounds in his capital city."

While Aguilar was putting that into Spanish for Cortés, I spoke for the first time, and quietly, and to Ce-Malinali, and in her native tongue of Coatlicamac, so that only she and I would understand:

"Your job is to speak what is spoken, not to invent lies."

"But he lied!" she blurted, pointing to my companion. Then she blushed, realizing that she had been caught in her duplicity and that she had confessed to having been caught.

I said, "I know his motive for lying. I should be interested to know yours."

She stared at me, and her eyes widened in recognition. "You!" she breathed, mingling fright, loathing, and dismay in that one word.

Our brief colloquy had gone unnoticed by the others, and Aguilar still had not recognized me. When Cortés spoke again, and Ce-Malinali translated it, her voice was only a little unsteady:

"We would be gratified if your emperor were to extend to us his formal invitation to visit his magnificent city. But tell him, my lords ambassadors, that we do not insist upon any official welcome. We will come there, with or without an invitation. Assure him that we will come."

My four companions all began at once to expostulate, but Cortés cut them short, saying:

"Now, we have carefully explained to you the nature of our mission, how our emperor the King Carlos sent us with most particular instructions to pay our respects to your ruler, and to ask his permission to introduce the Holy Christian Faith into these lands. And we have carefully explained the nature of that Faith, of the Lord God, the Christ Jesus, and the Virgin Mary, who wish only that all peoples live in brotherly love. We have also taken the trouble to demonstrate to you the insuperable weapons we possess. I cannot think of anything we have neglected to make clear to you. But before you depart, is there anything else you would know of us? Any questions you care to ask?"

My four companions looked bothered and indignant, but they said nothing. So I cleared my throat, and spoke directly to Cortés, and in his own language: "I have one question, my lord."

The white men all looked surprised at being addressed in Spanish, and Ce-Malinali stiffened, no doubt fearing that I was about to denounce her—or perhaps apply to take her place as interpreter.

"I am curious to know..." I began, pretending humility and uncertainty. "Could you tell me...?"

"Yes?" prompted Cortés.

Still seeming shy and hesitant, I said, "I have heard your men—so many of your men—speak of our women as, well, incomplete in a certain respect...."

There was a clanking of metal and a squeaking of leather as all the white men bent closer their attention to me. "Yes? Yes?"

I asked as if I really wanted to know, and asked politely, solemnly, with no hint of scurrility or mockery. "Do your women... does your Virgin Mary have hair covering her private parts?"

There was another clank and squeak of their armor; I think their opening mouths and eyelids almost squeaked too, as they all sat back and gaped at me—rather as Your Excellency is doing at this moment. There were shocked mutters of "Locura!" and "Blasfemia!" and "Ultraje!"

Only one of them, the big flame-bearded Alvarado, laughed uproariously. He turned to the priests dining with us and pounded his big hands on the shoulders of two of them and, between his gusts of laughter, asked, "Padre Bartolome, Padre Merced, have you ever been asked that before? Did the seminary teach you a suitable answer to that question? Have you ever even thought of it before? Eh?"

The priests made no comment, except to glare at me and grind their teeth and make the cross sign to ward off evil. Cortés had not taken his eyes off me. Still skewering me with his falcon gaze, he said, "No, you are no hijodalgo or grandee, or any other sort of courtly gentleman. But you will bear remembering. Yes, I will remember you."

Next morning, while our party was packing to depart, Ce-Malinali came and imperiously beckoned to me, indicating that she wished a private discussion. I took my time about joining her. When I did, I said:

"This should be interesting. Speak, One Grass."

"Kindly do not address me by my discarded slave name. You will call me Malintzin or Doña Marina." She explained, "I was christened with the name of the Santa Margarita Marina. That means nothing to you, of course, but I suggest that you show me the proper respect, for the Captain Cortés regards me highly, and he is quick to punish insolence."

I said coldly, "Then I suggest that you sleep very close against your Captain Cortés, for at a word from me any of these Totonaca hereabout will gladly slip a blade between your ribs the first time you are off guard. You are talking insolently now to the Lord Mixtli, who earned the -tzin to his name. Slave girl, you may fool the white men with your pretensions to nobility. You may endear yourself to them by coloring your hair like a maátitl. But your own people see exactly that: a red-haired slut who has sold more than just her own body to the invader Cortés."

That shook her, and she said defensively, "I do not sleep with the Captain Cortés. I serve only as his interpreter. When the Tabascoob presented us, we twenty women were shared out among the white men. I was given to that man." She indicated one of the under-chiefs who had dined with us. "His name is Alonso."

"Are you enjoying him?" I asked drily. "As I recall from our earlier meeting, you expressed a hatred of men and the use they make of women."

"I can pretend anything," she said. "Anything that serves my purpose."

"And what is your purpose? I am sure the mistranslation I overheard was not your first. Why do you goad Cortés to press on to Tenochtítlan?"

"Because I wish to go there. I told you so, years ago, when we first met. Once I get to Tenochtítlan, I care not what happens to the white men. Perhaps I will be rewarded for having brought them to where Motecuzóma can squash them like bugs. Anyway, I will be where I have always wanted to be, and I will be noticed and known, and it will not take me long to become a noblewoman in fact as well as in name."

"On the other hand," I suggested, "if by some quirk of chance the white men are not squashed, you would be even better rewarded."

She made a gesture of indifference. "I only wish to ask... to beg if you like, Lord Mixtli... that you do nothing to imperil my opportunity. Only give me time to prove my usefulness to Cortés, so that he cannot dispense with my help and advice. Only let me get to Tenochtítlan. It can matter little to you or to your Revered Speaker or to anyone else, but it matters much to me."

I shrugged and said, "I do not step out of my way just to squash bugs. I will not impede your ambitions, slave girl, unless and until they conflict with the interests I serve."

While Motecuzóma studied the portrait of Cortés and the other drawings I had given him, I enumerated the persons and things I had counted:

"Including the leader and his several officers, there are five hundred and eight fighting men. Most of them carry the metal swords and spears, but thirteen of them have also the fire-stick harquebuses, thirty and two have the crossbows, and I venture to suppose that all the other men are equally capable of using those special weapons. There are, in addition, one hundred men who were evidently the boatmen of the ten ships that were burned.