Gary Jennings - Aztec

Since it was our people's belief that gold is the sacred excrement of the gods, our treasurers did not simply hoard it in the raw form of dust or nuggets, and they did not melt it into featureless ingots or strike coins of it, as you Spaniards do. Before it went into our treasury, it went through the skilled hands of our goldsmiths, who increased its value and beauty by transforming it into figurines, gem-encrusted jewelry, medallions, coronets, filigree ornaments, jugs and cups and platters—all sorts of works of art, wrought in homage to the gods. So, while Cortés must have beamed with satisfaction to see the immense and ever growing pile of treasure his men were heaping in his hall, nearly filling that spacious chamber, he must also have frowned at its variety of shapes, unsuited for being loaded onto either horses or porters.

While Cortés thus occupied his first night back on the island, the city all around him remained quiet, as if no one paid any attention to the activity. He went to bed sometime before dawn, taking Malintzin with him, and, in the most contemptuous manner, he left word that Motecuzóma and his chief counselors should stand ready to attend upon him when he woke and called for them. So the pathetically obedient Motecuzóma sent messengers early the next morning to call his Speaking Council and others, including myself. He had no palace pages to send; it was one of his own younger sons who came to my house, and he looked rather frayed and disheveled after his long immurement in the palace. All of us conspirators had expected such a message, and we had arranged to meet at Cuitlahuac's house. When we were gathered, we all looked expectantly to the regent and war chief, and one of the Council elders asked him:

"Well, do we obey the summons or ignore it?"

"Obey," said Cuitlahuac. "Cortés still believes he holds us helpless by holding our complaisant ruler. Let us not disillusion him."

"Why not?" asked the high priest of Huitzilopóchtli. "We are in readiness for our assault. Cortés cannot cram that whole army of his inside the palace of Axayácatl, and barricade it against us, as the Tonatíu Alvarado did."

"He has no need to," said Cuitlahuac. "If we cause him the slightest alarm, he can quickly make the entire Heart of the One World a fortification as unapproachable as the palace was. We must keep him lulled in false security only a little longer. We will go to the palace as bidden, and act as if we and all the Mexíca are still the pliant and passive dolls of Motecuzóma."

The Snake Woman pointed out, "Cortés can bar the entrances when we are inside, and he will have us hostage, too."

"I am aware of that," said Cuitlahuac. "But all my knights and cuáchictin already have their orders; they will not need my person. One of my orders is that they proceed with the various feints and movements, whatever the hazard to me or to anyone else who is inside the palace at the striking time. If you prefer not to share that risk, Tlacotzin—or any of the rest of you—I here and now give you leave to go home."

Of course, not a man of us backed away. We all accompanied Cuitlahuac to The Heart of the One World, and fastidiously made our way through the crowded and smelly encampment of men, horses, cooking fires, stacked weapons, and other paraphernalia. I was surprised to see, grouped in one area apart from the white men, as if they were inferiors, a contingent of black men. I had been told of such beings, but I had never seen any until then.

Curious, I briefly left my fellows to go and look more closely at those oddities. They wore helmets and uniforms identical to those of the Spaniards, but they physically resembled the Spaniards considerably less than I did. They were not really black black, but a sort of brown-tinged black, like the heartwood of the ebony tree. They had peculiarly flat, broad noses and large, protuberant lips—in truth, they looked very like those giant stone heads I once saw in the Olméca country—and their beards were only a sort of kinky black fuzz, scarcely visible until I was close to them. But then I was close enough to notice that one of the blackamoors had a face covered with angry pimples and suppurant pustules, such as I had long ago seen on the white man Guerrero, and I hastily rejoined my fellow lords.

The white sentries stationed at the Snake Wall entrance to the Axayácatl palace felt us all over for concealed weapons before they let us enter. We passed through the dining hall, where there had grown up an indoor mountain of heaped and tumbled jewelry, the gold and gems coruscating richly even in that dim chamber. Several soldiers, who were probably supposed to be guarding the hoard, were fingering various pieces and smiling at them and very nearly drooling over them. We went on upstairs, to the throne room, where waited Cortés, Alvarado, and numerous other Spaniards, including a new one, a one-eyed man, who was Narváez. Motecuzóma looked rather surrounded and beleaguered, since the woman Malintzin was the only other of his race in evidence until our arrival. We all kissed the earth to him, and he gave us a cool nod of salute, while he went on speaking to the white men.

"I do not know what the people's intentions were. I know only that they planned a ceremony. Through your Malintzin, I told your Alvarado that I thought it wiser not to allow such a gathering so close to this garrison, that perhaps he ought to order the plaza cleared." Motecuzóma sighed tragically. "Well, you know the calamitous manner in which he cleared it."

"Yes," said Cortés, through his teeth. His flat eyes turned icily on Alvarado, who stood wringing his fingers and looking as if he had endured a very hard night. "It could have ruined all my—" Cortés coughed and said instead, "It could have made your people our enemies for all time. What puzzles me, Don Montezúma, is that it did not. Why did it not? If I were one of your subjects and had suffered such maltreatment, I would have pelted me with dung when I rode in. No one in the city seems to show the slightest detestation, and that strikes me as unnatural. There is a Spanish saying: 'I can avoid the turbulent torrent; God preserve me from the quiet waters.' "

"It is because they all blame me," Motecuzóma said wretchedly. "They believe I insanely ordered my own people killed—all those women and children—and that I meanly employed your men for my weapons." There were actually tears in his eyes. "So all my domestics left in disgust, and not so much as a peddler of fried maguey worms has come near this place since then."

"Yes, a most trying situation," said Cortés. "We must remedy that." He turned his face to Cuitlahuac and, indicating that I should translate, said to him, "You are the war chief. I will not speculate on the probable intent of that alleged religious celebration. I will even humbly apologize for my own lieutenant's impetuosity. But I will remind you that a truce still exists. I should think it the responsibility of a war chief to see that my men are not segregated in isolation, deprived of food and human contact with their hosts."

Cuitlahuac said, "I command only fighting men, Lord Captain-General. If the civilian population prefer to shun this place, I have no authority to command that they do otherwise. That authority resides only in the Revered Speaker. It was your own men who shut themselves in here, and the Revered Speaker with them."

Cortés turned back to Motecuzóma. "Then it is up to you, Don Montezúma, to placate your people, to persuade them to resume supplying and serving us."

"How can I, if they will not come near me?" said Motecuzóma, almost wailing. "And if I go out among them, I may go to my death!"

"We will provide an escort—" Cortés began, but he was interrupted by a soldier who ran in and told him in Spanish:

"My captain, the natives begin to congregate in the plaza. Men and women are crowding through our camp and coming hither. Not armed, but they look none too friendly. Do we expel them? Repel them?"