Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Nights of the Witch
Part I: 18–19 February 1519
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Part II: 19 February 1519 to 18 April 1519
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Time Frame, Principal Settings and Cast of Characters
War God and History
Acknowledgements
WAR GOD
Graham Hancock
www.hodder.co.uk
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Coronet
An imprint of Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © Graham Hancock 2013
The right of Graham Hancock to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 444 73439 3
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
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Nights of the Witch
‘The Mexica … never at any point referred to themselves, or their city states, let alone their empire as “Aztec” … At the time of the Spanish conquest they were [rightly] referred to by the Spanish as “Mexica” – hence the name for modern Mexico.’
Colin McEwan and Leonardo López Luján, Moctezuma: Aztec Ruler (2009)
‘The Mexica were the cruellest and most devilish people that can be imagined.’
Father Diego Duran, The History of the Indies of New Spain (first published 1581)
‘Take care that they do not escape … Feed them well; let them be fat and desirable for sacrifice on the day of the feast of our god. Let our god rejoice in them since they belong to him.’
Priestly regulations, c. 1519, for securing and preparing victims for sacrifice in the Mexica capital city of Tenochtitlan
Part I
18–19 February 1519
Chapter One
Tenochtitlan (Mexico City), Thursday 18 February 1519
Moctezuma loved eminences, for to stand on any high place was to be reminded that he was the greatest and most magnificent of men, wielding the power of life and death over all he surveyed. Yet of the countless high places in his kingdom, none offered him a deeper and more abiding sense of ownership, or clearer evidence of his own importance, than the summit platform of the colossal pyramid on which he now perched, soaring three hundred feet above his glorious capital city Tenochtitlan, which in turn stood on an island in the midst of a vast lake at the centre of an immense valley surrounded by lofty, snow-capped mountains.
Moctezuma’s gaze ranged out to those mountains and volcanoes – there Iztaccihuatl and there Popocatépetl – crowned with snow and wreathed with smoke.
Lower down, old-growth forests of tall trees carpeted the slopes, giving way in the floor of the valley to a gigantic patchwork of farmed fields shining green with new maize. The fields marched in to the edge of the great lake, its shores embellished with his vassal states, Tacuba, Texcoco, Iztapalapa, Coyoacan, Atzcapotzalco, Tepeyac and many more, its blue waters alive with fish, dotted with the bright colours of floating gardens planted with fruits and flowers, woven by the wakes of canoes, traversed by mighty causeways.
Moctezuma allowed his gaze to follow the causeways from the south, west and north where they led into Tenochtitlan, passing thousands of houses, whole districts, entire neighbourhoods standing out above the lake on stilts connected by a perfect geometrical grid of intersecting canals filled with busy water traffic. These gave way to streets lined with noble stone mansions, where flowers bloomed from every rooftop, interspersed by market squares and pyramids and temples and imposing public buildings, beneath which the contours of the original island on which the Mexica capital had been built could still just be discerned.
Closer still, surrounded and protected by the city as the nest of an eagle safeguards its egg, lay the vast square of the sacred precinct, defined by its massive enclosure wall, oriented to the cardinal directions, measuring seven hundred paces along each side and decorated with reliefs depicting huge bronze, green and blue serpents, their gaping jaws set with long fangs and their heads plumed with crests of feathers. The wall was penetrated by four giant gates, one each in the midst of its north, south, east and west sides, opening onto the polished limestone paving of the grand plaza and aligned with the north, south, east and west stairways of the great pyramid. Measuring three hundred paces on each side at its base, the pyramid rose up from the centre of the plaza in four successive levels, painted respectively green, red, turquoise and yellow, narrowing to fifty paces on each side at the summit where Moctezuma stood in possession of the very heart of the world. ‘Come Cuitláhuac,’ he said. ‘See how inspiring the view is this morning.’
Obediently his younger brother strode forward to join him at the top of the northern stairway, the hem of his scarlet cloak flapping around his large bare feet. Moctezuma wore purple, a colour reserved for the Great S
peaker of the Mexica empire alone, his feet were shod with golden sandals and his head was adorned with the elaborate diadem of the monarch, studded with gold and jewels and enriched with precious feathers.
They were both tall, gaunt men but, looking at Cuitláhuac, Moctezuma thought, was like looking at himself in a poorly made obsidian mirror, for every aspect of their appearance was almost but not quite the same – the same fine bone structure, the same high, flat brow, the same liquid brown eyes, larger and rounder than was usual amongst the Mexica, the same sculpted cheek bones, the same long, prominent nose, the same delicate chin and the same full lips turned down disapprovingly at the corners. In Moctezuma these features were just as they should be and combined to create an aura of severe beauty and divine charisma fully justifying his powerful name, which meant ‘Angry Lord’. But in poor Cuitláhuac they were all very slightly awry – distorted, twisted and roughened in such a way that he could never hope to appear regal or commanding or ever live up to his name which meant ‘Eagle over Water’ but which could, with the deliberate mispronunciation of a single syllable, be made to mean ‘Heap of Excrement’ instead.
He looks so much older than me, Moctezuma thought, which was gratifying because at forty-eight, Cuitláhuac was in fact five years his junior. Better still, he was loyal, stolid, unambitious, unimaginative, predictable and dull; in this ill-omened year of One-Reed, when dangers long prophesied threatened to manifest, such qualities made him invaluable. After Moctezuma himself and his deputy Coaxoch, now away on campaign in the mountains of Tlascala, Cuitláhuac ranked third amongst the lords of the nation and was a potential rival since he was of royal blood. There was, however, no danger he would ever seek to seize power for himself. On the contrary, Moctezuma could be absolutely certain of his brother’s steadfast support through whatever trials and turmoils lay ahead.
A shiver of apprehension ran down his spine and he glanced superstitiously over his shoulder at the tall, dark edifice that towered behind them. Dominating the summit platform of the pyramid, with its fantastic roof comb and brutal reliefs of serpents and dragons and scenes of battle and sacrifice, this was the temple of Huitzilopochtli, ‘Hummingbird’, the much-feared war god of the Mexica and Moctezuma’s patron deity.
War was a holy pursuit and by means of it, under Hummingbird’s guidance, the Mexica had risen in just two centuries from a wandering tribe of despised nomads to become the absolute masters of an enormous empire stretching from the eastern to the western oceans and from the lush jungle lowlands of the south to the high deserts of the north. After subjugating neighbouring states such as Tacuba and Texcoco and harnessing them to Tenochtitlan in a ruling alliance, Mexica armies had gone on to conquer ever more distant cities, peoples and cultures – Mixtecs, Huaxtecs, Tolucans, Cholulans, Chalcans, Totonacs and so many others. One by one, they had all been forced to become tribute-paying vassals offering up huge annual treasures in gold, jewels, maize, salt, chocolate, jaguar skins, cotton, slaves and a thousand other goods, including myriad victims for the human sacrifices that Hummingbird unrelentingly demanded.
There remained only a few pockets of resistance to this otherwise unstoppable advance. Of these, because of its central position in the ruling alliance, Moctezuma had to admit he was somewhat vexed by the recent turn of events in Texcoco, where he had ousted Ishtlil, the eldest son of the late King Neza, and placed Cacama, Neza’s youngest son, on the throne instead. This had been necessary because Ishtlil had proved to be a free thinker, showing signs of rejecting his vassal status, whereas Cacama was compliant and could be relied upon to do as he was told. The surprise was that the impertinent Ishtlil had refused to accept the coup and had staged a rebellion, leaving the lakeside city of Texcoco and its valley provinces in Cacama’s hands but taking the highland provinces out of the alliance.
It was a declaration of war and there had already been bloody clashes. To punish the affront to his dignity and authority, Moctezuma had laid careful plans to have Ishtlil poisoned. His death would have been spectacular and agonising, with massive haemorrhaging from all major organs. Disturbingly, however – since it meant a resourceful spy must be at work in Tenochtitlan – a warning had reached the rebel prince just in time. A military solution was now being prepared, although not on so grand a scale as the campaign currently underway in the fiercely independent mountain kingdom of Tlascala, the other main sector of resistance to the spread of Mexica power.
Unlike Texcoco, where normal relations would have to be restored with all provinces after Ishtlil was smashed, it pleased Moctezuma for the stubborn Tlascalans to remain free so he could wage all-out war on them whenever he wished in a manner that would have to stop if they submitted to vassalage. His goal, confided to no one except Coaxoch when he had sent him into battle at the head of a huge field army, was to bring a hundred thousand Tlascalan victims to Hummingbird this year. The mission had been crowned with early success and Coaxoch had already sent back hosts of new captives to be fattened for sacrifice.
As the god of war, Hummingbird was thought to favour male victims, which was why four of the five fattening pens distributed around the edges of the sacred precinct and visible from the top of the great pyramid were exclusively reserved for men. Only one at present held women prisoners. This latter was positioned in the northwest corner of the precinct, in the shadow of the enclosure wall and adjacent to the palace of Moctezuma’s late father Axayacatl. Moctezuma’s own far larger royal palace, with its extensive gardens and its elaborate zoo featuring the House of Panthers, the House of Serpents, the House of Hunting Birds and the House of Human Monsters, stood to the east of the great pyramid.
‘Truly an uplifting sight, eh, Cuitláhuac?’ Moctezuma said.
‘Indeed, lord,’ his brother replied.
Down below, at the foot of the northern stairway, the fifty-two victims for this morning’s special ceremony were being assembled under the directions of Ahuizotl, the high priest. They were all young Tlascalan men, the finest specimens, the fittest, the strongest, the most beautiful, the most intact of the prisoners sent back by Coaxoch.
Moctezuma licked his lips. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘I will perform the sacrifices myself today.’
Chapter Two
Tenochtitlan, Thursday 18 February 1519
Tucked in a secret pocket inside her filthy blouse, Tozi carried two atl-inan leaves rolled into delicate little tubes, crimped at each end and filled with the sticky red paste of the chalalatli root. The medicine, obtained by barter from an unscrupulous guard in a dark corner of the women’s fattening pen, was for her friend Coyotl, so Tozi kept her hand protectively over the pocket as she threaded her way through the crowds of prisoners, acutely conscious of how easily the tubes would be broken if anyone bumped into her.
Consisting of two interconnected wings, each a hundred paces long and thirty paces deep, set at right-angles to one another like an arm crooked around the northwest corner of the sacred precinct, the fattening pen had held just four hundred women when Tozi first arrived here seven months previously. Now, thanks to Moctezuma’s recent wars with the Tlascalans, it held more than two thousand, and droves of new captives were still arriving every day. The rear of both wings was built of solid stone, and formed part of the larger enclosure wall of the sacred complex as a whole. The flat roof, also of stone, was supported by rows of giant stone columns. On its inner side, facing the great pyramid, the pen was open, except for a final row of stone columns and the stout bamboo prison bars that filled the gaps from floor to ceiling between them.
Tozi was near the back of the northern wing, making her way towards the western wing where she’d left Coyotl, when she saw five young Tlascalan women clustered in her path. Her heart sank as she recognised Xoco amongst them, a cruel, hulking, brute of a girl, a couple of years older than herself. She tried to dodge but the crowd was too dense and Xoco lunged forward, shoving her hard in the chest with both hands. Tozi reeled and would have fallen, but two of the others caught her and pushed h
er back at Xoco again. Then Xoco’s fist slammed into her belly and drove the air out of her lungs with a great whoop. Tozi stumbled and fell to her knees but, even as she gasped for breath, an instinct she could not suppress sent her hand searching inside her blouse for the medicine tubes.
Xoco spotted the movement. ‘What you got in there?’ she screamed, her face writhing with greed.
Tozi felt the outline of the tubes. They seemed bent. She thought one of them might be broken. ‘Nothing,’ she wheezed as she brought out her hand. ‘I … I … just … wanted to find out what you’d done … to my ribs.’
‘Liar!’ Xoco spat. ‘You’re hiding something! Show me!’
The other four girls jeered as Tozi arched her back and loosened the ties on her blouse exposing her flat, boyish chest. ‘I don’t have anything to hide,’ she panted. ‘See for yourself.’
‘I see a witch,’ said Xoco. ‘A crafty little witch! Hiding something from me.’
The rest of the gang hissed like a basket of snakes. ‘Witch!’ they agreed. ‘Witch! She’s a witch!’
Tozi was still kneeling, but now a heavy kick to her ribs knocked her sideways. Someone stamped on her head and she looked into her attackers’ minds and saw they weren’t going to stop. They would just go on beating and kicking and stamping her until she was dead.
She felt calm as she decided she would use the spell of invisibility. But the spell itself could kill her, so she needed a distraction first.
Curling her body into a ball, ignoring the kicks and blows, she began to sing a dreary song, deep down at the bottom of her voice – Hmm-a-hmm-hmm … hmm-hmm … Hmm-a-hmm-hmm … hmm-hmm – raising the pitch with each repeated note, summoning forth a fog of psychic confusion and madness.
It wasn’t a fog anyone could see, but it got into the girls’ eyes and minds, making Xoco screech and turn furiously on her own friends, grabbing a handful of hair here, clawing a face there, interrupting the attack long enough for Tozi to surge to her feet.