Feathered Serpent (43 page)

Tenochtitlán: August, 1521
.

“I never wanted this.”

A tent with a crimson canopy has been erected on the rooftop of a Tlatelolco palace. It overlooks the last enclave of the Mexica. Tonatiuh’s men are making a final sweep of the city. The defenders are holding out, although now their only means of resistance is to hurl stones on the Castilians from the roofs of the few remaining houses.

The city lies in ruins. The soldiers have destroyed everything, toppled statues, smashed the adobe walls of the palaces, torching thatch, burning temples.

My lord’s orders.

Feathered Serpent’s victory has a bitter taste: if I cannot have the city as it was, then I shall destroy every last stone of it. Tenochtitlán was the most beautiful city I have ever seen. Soon it will all be gone.

“I never wanted this,” he whispers again, as if he is trying to convince himself.

Only a genius or a madman, Benítez had said, would dream of building a navy in a land-locked valley. But Martín Lopez, once he had recovered from his wounds, had set about this very task, at my lord’s urging. He salvaged iron and sheet from San Juan de Ulúa and shaped twelve great canoes from freshly-cut timber. Eight thousand porters carried my lord’s navy, in pieces, across the sierra to the shores of Lake Texcoco.

And such ships they were, each of them the length of twenty ordinary canoes. They captured the Serpent’s wind in canvas cloaks and with these great canoes, and the soldiers that joined us from the Cloud Lands, we laid siege to Tenochtitlán, exactly as my lord had said that we would. Tens of thousands of warriors from surrounding provinces rushed to join us, eager to participate in the destruction of the Mexica.

Inside the city, another weapon did its work; the thunder lords called it ’smallpox', a terrible magic that left thousands of black bodies rotting in the streets. It was Feathered Serpent’s revenge on the Mexica.

“I had no other choice. To save this city, I had to destroy it. Do you understand?”

What can I say to him? Freom up here on the roof, I can see Tonatiuh’s men enter the Tlatelolco quarter, and swarm like ants up the temple pyramid. My head aches from the dust-stench of falling masonry and the acrid stink of smoke from the burning buildings. The air crackles to the sound of the thunder sticks, I can hear the shrill screams of those trapped under buildings, the fading whistles and drums of these last defiant Mexica. These are the hymns of Motecuhzoma’s city as it dies.

“You know my heart, Malinali. I never wanted this.”

I cannot answer him.

“These Mexica are determined to die. But how else can we establish our authority here? I did not want to destroy them, I did not want to destroy this city. I had no choice.”

My father was right. I have found my destiny in destruction, and I have brought chaos and the end of the fifth sun.

One of the new thunder lords, his clothes covered in dust, appears on the roof, panting for breath. “Good news,
caudillo
,” he gasps, “we have captured Falling Eagle.”

———————

My lord is seated in a chair on the terrace of the Face of the Water Lord palace, or what remains of it. He wears a suit of black velvet and a cap with green plumes, to imitate the quetzal feathers of the Mexica emperors, who wore them as symbols of divine rule. Falling Eagle stands in front of us, his wrists and ankles in chains. He wears the helmet of an eagle knight, with silver-grey feathered leggings and cloak. Garcia Holquin, his captor, stands behind him, two Texcaltéca warriors as guard.

I wonder about this Falling Eagle. Here is the man who taunted Motecuhzoma for being unable to die. Perhaps he himself found it was not so easy.

I am struck by the silence. For ninety three days we have lived with the sounds of battle; the screams, the whistles, the drumming of the
teponaztli
from the pyramids. The very moment of Falling Eagle’s capture it had ceased. Now the silence almost hurts my ears.

Falling Eagle murmurs something so softly I can hardly hear him.

“What doe she say?” my lord asks me.

“He asks if he may have your knife.”

“My knife?”

“He wishes to kill himself. He says he has fought you as hard as he can and now he has failed he wishes only for death.”

“You must tell him, my lady, that he must not blame himself, for he has acquitted himself with great valour.” He smiles, but I know his heart in this, and it is not the same as his words. In truth he would like to rip out Falling Eagle’s vitals for not surrendering Tenochtitlán to him intact. “Tell him I am his friend and from this time on I shall treat him as I would my own brother. I will personally guarantee his safety.”

I relay this to Falling Eagle but I know he does not believe it either.

“Now I would like you to ask him what happened to the gold that was left on the causeway the night of the noche triste.”

I put this question to Falling Eagle, who stares back at me down his beak of a nose. “Tell Lord Malinche it is all gone. It vanished in the mud of the lake or disappeared under the rubble when his band of thieves burned our city. All that is left of our treasure was in my canoe when they took me captive.”

“He will never believe that.”

“I do not care what he chooses to believe. You are a prostitute and he is a thief and a murderer. Why should I answer to you?”

I pass on his answer but omit these final insults. Despite his contempt for me - perhaps because of it - I find that I somehow admire him.

My lord’s fingers claw the arms of his chair. “What we found in his canoe was some gold helmets and a few armbands. That cannot be all.”

“It is all his thieves left us when they departed Tenochtitlán,” Falling Eagle answers.

“Ask him where he hid my treasure!”

“He is very angry,” I tell Falling Eagle. “He demands to know where you have hidden his gold.”

“His gold?” Falling Eagle shakes his head. “All our treasure disappeared beneath the mud of the lake the night you fled like dogs from our city.”

I lean close to my lord’s ear. “My lord, he insists it was lost the night of the noche triste.”

He smiles and this is unexpected. He gets slowly to his feet, takes two steps towards Falling Eagle and embraces him. “Tell him we shall not worry over such matters now. Everything that has passed between us formerly must be forgotten. The dark hour is gone. I want him to think of me from this moment on as his friend.”

His friendship falls upon Falling Eagle like a curse. I shudder for him.

Benítez tied a cloth around his mouth and nose and tried not to breathe too deeply or look too hard at the bodies lying in the streets or floating in the canals. Some were victims not of Spanish or Texcálan lances but of hunger or disease and had been there a very long time. The ground had been broken up where the starving Mexicans had tried to find roots to eat. Even the bark was gone from the trees.

Those still living were huddled on the ground with the dead. Mexica warriors, their wounds rotting, lay silently waiting for death. They appeared indifferent to the killing blows that ended their torments. As in Cholula, their Texcálan allies took revenge on the women and the children and the old.

The great city of towers and palaces reeked of blood and corpse fires. Rain hissed on burning timbers, smoke trailed into a limp grey sky.

A line of wraiths filed along the causeways, mostly women and children, the few that had escaped the massacres, sacks of bones in ragged loincloths.

He was appalled at himself, at his fellows. What have we done? We came here to serve God. How far did we take our commission? Here was a city greater than Seville, greater perhaps than Venice or Constantinople, and we have laid it to waste. Norte was right. Who, truly, are the heathen in this land?

A group of soldiers dragged a woman from the line of refugees. A rumour was circulating the Spanish camp that the Mexican women were hiding gold in their most private places. The conquistadores had taken it upon themselves to search for it when and wherever they fancied.

There were three of them, officers, and they were all drunk. Two of them were men who had arrived only recently from the coast. Benítez recognised only one of them: Jaramillo.

“There’s more than one place to hide gold,” Jaramillo shouted, laughing, and threw the woman to the ground. He started to tear at her tunic. “Let’s see what she has in her vault.”

For the sacred pity of God, Benítez thought. She is no more than a pile of bones. How can you desire such a creature? What pleasure could you get from tormenting her further?

“Leave her,” he shouted. He drew his sword from its scabbard and Jaramillo heard the rasp of steel and looked up, alarmed.

“Benítez?”

“Leave her alone!”

The two officers with him stopped grinning and put their hands on their swords.

Jaramillo seemed to relax. “Stop carping, Benítez. I am sure her vault is large enough to accommodate us all.”

“I want none of it. Find your sport somewhere else.”

He tilted the blade in front of Jaramillo’s face. He watched his former comrade make his calculation, looking first at Benítez and then at his companions.

“If you wish to try your luck against a former planter, you may,” Benítez said. “But I remind you that I have a little more experience with a sword than I once did. Thanks to Cortés I am accustomed to fighting against the odds. I do not know how good your friends here are at swordplay, but let me tell you this: I will see your guts on the ground, regardless of what follows afterward.”

Jaramillo shook his head. “You are a fool, Benítez. Little wonder you lost the favour of the
caudillo
.” But he decided against a fight, as Benítez knew he would. He nodded to his companions, and got up, giving Benítez a last contemptuous glance as he walked away. Plenty more Mexica woman to toy with and Benítez could not follow them around all day.

Benítez sheathed his sword, wondering what he had achieved. He looked down at the ragged pile of skin and bones at his feet: matted hair, haunted eyes, a terrible stink coming from her. Poor wretch.

She raised a hand towards him and said softly, in
Nahuatl
: “Don’t you know who I am?”

He did not understand what she said but he recognised her voice. He groaned and collapsed onto his knees beside her,

as if he had been stabbed in the chest.

“Rain Flower.”

He lifted her easily and carried her back along the causeway. He saw soldiers grinning at him. An easy way to secure a bride for the night, they were thinking.

They don’t understand, Benítez thought. I am not like them, I never was like them. She is not a bride for tonight but a bride for life if my god and hers wills that she lives. This is not a Spaniard and a blood-spattered Christian gentleman, like themselves, but a renegade; a renegade like Gonzalo Norte.

———————

Coyoacan, the Place of the Wolf

They have tied Falling Eagle to a rack, and basted his feet in oil. When they bring the white hot brands close, I can hear the skin crackle and burn. The stench of burning flesh and fat makes me sick to my stomach. Yet he makes no sound.

The only solace is that my lord has not ordered or approved this. At least he tried to keep his word.

The one called Alderete strokes his beard. He has a long and narrow face, as solemn as a priest’s. He has requested my presence should Falling Eagle break and wish to reveal where the gold is hidden. He nods to the torturer who applies a little more oil to his victim’s feet and retrieves the brand from the glowing coals.

“Ask him again if he has clearer recollection of what happened to the gold that was lost on the noche triste,” Alderete says.

A tiny blue flame licks along the poor man’s soles as the oil ignites. Sweat beads down his face and his chest heaves. His eyes roll back in his head and his muscles twist like whipcord against the pain. He makes a sound deep in his chest, a sound I have heard many times since that day at Ceutla, the kind of sound a man makes as he gives up the spirit and swallows the earth. But he is not yet ready to meet the shadow. Death is not that kind.

I repeat Alderete’s question and Falling Eagle turns his face towards me, his eyes burning with hate. “Tell him ... may his wife grow teeth her place of pleasure ... and may all his children drown in dog shit.”

“What did he say?” Alderete asks me.

“He swears his innocence and calls on the Virgin to intercede on his behalf.”

Cristóbal de Ojeda, the doctor, examines the wounds. Blackened skin hangs in strips, like bark, revealing glistening white bone. Ojeda looks at Alderete and shakes his head. The king’s treasurer bites his lip. I believe it is of small consequence to him if Falling Eagle never walks again, but he is after all under my lord’s protection.

Falling Eagle is staring at me. “You betrayed … your own people.”

“You are not my people.”

“They have made you … a Spaniard then? Will they claim you … as one of theirs?”

“What is he saying?”

“He repeats that everything left of our treasure was found that day in the royal barge. The rest lies in the mud of Texcoco. He asks why you persist in torturing him when he has answered all your questions as best he can.”

“I am not without compassion. If men would only give up the truth more freely there would be no need for this.”

I turn my eyes away so I do not have to watch as Alderete continues his lonely quest for veracity. The pine torches throw terrible shadows on the stone walls of the cell. I wish Falling Eagle would tell them what they want to know. After all, what does it matter now?

This is not the world I imagined Feathered Serpent would bring, not the magical kingdom of Tollan I dreamed of as a child.