Gary Jennings - Aztec

As I have said, there is snow on those heights even in the hottest days of summer. By the time that company came across, the winter was beginning. If anything was likely to dishearten the white men, it would have been the numbing chill and fierce winds and great drifts of snow they had to make their way through. To this day, I do not know what the climate of your native Spain is like, but Cortés and his soldiers had all spent years in Cuba, which I understand is as torrid and humid as any of our coastal Hot Lands. So the white men, like their allies the Totonaca, were unprepared and unclothed to withstand the piercing cold of the frozen route Tlacotzin chose. He later reported with satisfaction that the white men had suffered terribly.

Yes, they suffered and they complained, and four white men died, and so did two of their horses and several of their staghounds, and so did perhaps a hundred of their Totonaca, but the remainder of the train persevered. In fact, ten of the Spaniards, to show off their stamina and prowess, briefly digressed from the route of march, with the declared intention of climbing all the way to the top of Popocatepetl to look down into his incense-smoking crater. They did not get that far; but then, not many of our own people have ever done so, or have cared to try. The climbers rejoined their company, blue and stiff with cold, and some of them later had a number of their fingers and toes fall off. But they were much admired by their comrades for having made the attempt, and even the Snake Woman grudgingly had to admit that the white men, however foolhardy, were men of dauntless courage and energy.

Tlacotzin also reported to us the white men's very human expressions of astonishment and awe and gladness when at last they came out from the western end of the pass, and they stood on the mountain slopes overlooking the immense lake basin, and the falling snow briefly parted its curtain to give them an unimpeded view. Below and beyond them lay the interconnected and varicolored bodies of water, set in their vast bowl of luxuriant foliage and tidy towns and straight roads between. So suddenly seen, after the unappealing heights they had just crossed, the sweep of land below would have appeared like a garden: pleasant and green, all shades of green, thick green forests and neat green orchards and variously green chinampa and farm plots. They could have seen, though only in miniature, the numerous cities and towns bordering the several lakes, and the lesser island communities set in the very waters. They were then still at least twenty one-long-runs from Tenochtítlan, but the silvery-white city would have shone like a star. They had journeyed for months, from the featureless seacoast beaches, over and around numberless mountains, through rocky ravines and rough valleys, meanwhile seeing only towns and villages of no particular distinction, finally breasting the formidably bleak pass between the volcanoes. Then, suddenly, the travelers looked down on a scene that—they said it themselves—"seemed like a dream... like a marvel from the old books of fables...."

Coming down from the volcanoes, the travelers of course entered the domains of The Triple Alliance by way of the Acolhua lands, where they were met and greeted by the Uey-Tlatoani Cacamatzin, come out from Texcóco with an impressive assembly of his lords and nobles and courtiers and guards. Though Cacama, as instructed by his uncle, made a warm speech of welcome to the newcomers, I daresay he must have felt uneasy, being glared at by his dethroned half brother Black Flower, who at that moment stood before him with a powerful force of disaffected Acolhua warriors at his command. The confrontation between those two might have erupted into battle right there, except that both Motecuzóma and Cortés had strictly forbidden any strife that might mar their own momentous meeting. So, for the time being, all was outwardly amicable, and Cacama led the whole train into Texcóco for lodging and refreshment and entertainment before it continued on to Tenochtítlan.

However, there is no doubt that Cacama was embarrassed and enraged when his own subjects crowded the streets of Texcóco to receive the returning Black Flower with cheers of rejoicing. That was insult enough, but it was not long before Cacama had to endure the even worse insult of mass desertion. During the day or two that the travelers spent in that city, perhaps two thousand of the men of Texcóco dug out their long unused battle armor and weapons, and when the visitors moved on, those men marched with them as volunteer additions to Black Flower's troop. From that day on, the Acolhua nation was disastrously divided. Half of its population remained submissive to Cacama, who was their Revered Speaker and was so recognized by his fellow rulers of The Triple Alliance. The other half gave their loyalty to the Black Flower who should have been their Revered Speaker, however much they may have deplored his having cast his lot with the alien whites.

From Texcóco, the Snake Woman Tlacotzin conducted Cortés and his multitude around the southern margin of the lake. The white men marveled at the "great inland sea," and marveled even more at the increasingly evident splendor of Tenochtítlan, which was visible from several points along their route, and which seemed to grow in size and magnificence as they neared it. Tlacotzin took the entire company to his own sizable palace at the promontory town of Ixtapalápan, where they lodged while they polished their blades and armor and cannons, while they groomed their horses, while they furbished their shabby uniforms insofar as possible, that they might look suitably imposing when they made the last march across the causeway into the capital.

While that was going on, Tlacotzin informed Cortés that the city, being an island and already densely populated, had no room for quartering even the smallest part of his thousands of allies. The Snake Woman also made it plain that Cortés should not tactlessly take with him to the city such an unwelcome guest as Black Flower, or a horde of troops which, although of our own race, were from notably unfriendly nations.

Cortés, having already seen the city, at least from a distance, could hardly dispute its limitations of accommodation, and he was willing enough to be diplomatic in his choice of those who would accompany him there. But he set some conditions. Tlacotzin must arrange for his forces to be distributed and quartered along the mainland shore, in an arc extending from the southern causeway to the most northern—in effect, covering every approach to and egress from the island-city. Cortés would take with him into Tenochtítlan, besides most of his Spaniards, only a token number of warriors from the Acolhua, Texcalteca, and Totonaca tribes. And he must be promised that those warriors would have unhindered passage on and off the island, at all times, so he could use them as couriers to maintain contact with his mainland forces.

Tlacotzin agreed to those conditions. He suggested that some of the native troops could remain where they were, in Ixtapalápan, convenient to the southern causeway; others could be camped about Tlácopan near the western causeway; others in Tepeyáca near the northern causeway. So Cortés selected the warriors he would keep with him for couriers, and he sent the remaining thousands marching off with the guides Tlacotzin provided, and he ordered various of his white officers and soldiers to go in command of each of the detached forces. When runners came back from each of the detachments to report that they were in position and making camp to stay on call as long as necessary, Cortés told Tlacotzin, and the Snake Woman sent the word to Motecuzóma: the emissaries of King Carlos and the Lord God would enter Tenochtítlan the next day.

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That was the day Two House in our year of One Reed, which is to say, early in your month of November, in your year counted as one thousand five hundred and nineteen.