Cortés had watched with satisfaction as his falconets billowed fire and the pair of one-pound balls exploded into the centre of the barricade, smashed apart a section of heavy fencing and transformed it into a deadly weapon from which a hail of lethal splinters and shrapnel tore into the enemy ranks and plunged them instantly into ferment.
Followed by the infantry in a disciplined mass, the gun crews hurriedly wheeled the cannon forward, swabbed out the barrels and reloaded while the musketeers and crossbowmen picked off milling, terrified Indians through the breach. Amidst clouds of smoke and the fearful din of battle, the second volley from the falconets, now at point-blank range, demolished two further segments of the defences and set off a terrified, stampeding retreat.
‘Santiago and at them!’ Cortés yelled at the top of his voice. His men wrenched apart what remained of the Indian defences and he led the charge into a broad street beyond. At the end of it, a hundred paces distant, stood another row of barricades, barely waist-high and much flimsier than the first, behind which, and atop the neighbouring houses, the Indians – poor fools that they were – had rallied.
There was no time or need to bring up the falconets. As the infantry square once again formed and surged forward, Cortés gave the signal to Vendabal, and eighty ferocious war dogs raced ahead. Some, following their noses, found entry to the houses that lined the street, from which wails of terror were immediately heard; others leapt the barricades and tore into the defenders, snarling and snapping like demons from hell. The infantry followed, swords flashing, pikes and battle-axes gleaming in the sun, and fell upon the scattered and broken enemy, squads peeling off to root them out of the houses, others tearing their miserable barricades apart.
As quickly as it had formed, the square disintegrated into ever smaller units, each pursuing separate objectives in what seemed to be a generalised rout of the enemy, when suddenly – a trap! – fresh war cries were heard and a thousand or more Indians converged in great masses from three different side streets and charged down on the conquistadors, seeking to exploit their temporary loss of coherence and pressing them hard.
‘Square!’ Cortés yelled, ‘Square!’, making himself a focal point in mid-street to which his men could rally, but also attracting the attention of dozens of the enemy who seemed to recognise him as the Spanish captain and surrounded him with single-minded intent, jabbing at him with spears and knives. For an instant he stumbled and nearly fell as a great wooden club smashed into the side of his head, but surged up with a roar, rammed his buckler into his attacker’s face, hacked the edge of his broadsword at the man’s knee and killed him with a thrust to the heart. As more of the enemy closed with him he heard a voice – ‘I’m with you, Hernán’ – and his friend Juan de Escalante fought his way through the melee, long black hair hanging loose to his shoulders, broadsword dripping with blood, to stand at his side.
Precious time was lost mooring the brigantines, detailing skeleton crews to guard them, and disembarking the rest of the men as the sounds of battle from the western sector of town into which Cortés had led the main attack grew fiercer and more urgent. ‘Santiago and at them!’ Bernal Díaz was at last able to yell, and led the charge across the waterfront – though at first the Spaniards struggled to make headway, so high and so tangled were the heaps of dead and dying Indians left by the ships’ guns.
During the action this morning, Díaz had been shot in the muscle of his right thigh by an Indian arrow. He had pushed the barbed head through, broken off the shaft and extracted both pieces of the little missile, so he was reasonably sure, if he could dress the wound cleanly in the next few hours, that there would be no infection. Meanwhile he ignored the pain, as he had long ago learned to in the heat of battle, and let his ears and sense of direction guide him towards the sounds of heavy fighting, charging through Potonchan’s deserted main square and past the looming stepped pyramid into a maze of mean alleys and small adobe houses. Finally, rounding a corner with Sandoval at his side and seasoned troops behind him, he saw Cortés’s infantry barely a hundred paces away at the convergence of four streets. By some misjudgement or accident they had lost their formation as a proper fighting square and were beset by a large Indian force. ‘Santiago and at them!’ Díaz yelled, and at the same moment, to his immense relief, he heard the ancient battle cry of his forefathers echoed not only by Sandoval and his own men but by another Spanish contingent – Alvarado and Davila! – charging into the fray from the east.
In an instant the tide turned and the enemy, losing heart, fled in a mass towards the south.
Díaz heard Cortés shouting, ‘Get me prisoners!’ and saw a dozen warriors who’d not yet broken out of the melee tackled and brought down. Exulting in their sudden victory, a large squad of conquistadors set off in hot pursuit of the rest, but the caudillo called them back. He looked strong and cheerful though blood dripped from beneath his helmet. ‘We’ve done enough for one day,’ he said. ‘We’ll finish this tomorrow.’
Cortés strode into the main square of Potonchan as the afternoon shadows lengthened and brought his troops to a halt before the forbidding terraces of the pyramid where a giant silk-cotton tree grew. Pointing to it he asked Aguilar if it had any significance, and the interpreter replied that it was sacred to the Maya. ‘For them it is the tree that connects the underworld, the earth and the heavens.’
‘Pretty idea,’ said Cortés thoughtfully. He looked up into the branches for a moment, made certain that Godoy, the royal notary, whom he’d summoned at the double from the camp, was present to witness the act, then drew his sword and slashed three deep cuts into the tree’s broad trunk. Speaking loudly, and in a firm voice, he said: ‘I have conquered and I now take possession of this town, and this land, in the name of His Majesty the King. If there is any person who objects I will defend the king’s right with my sword and my shield.’
Huge shouts of ‘Hear, hear!’ followed from the mass of the men, passionately affirming that he did right and that they would aid him against any challengers. But, he noted, some of the friends of Diego Velázquez, lead by the glowering, lantern-jawed Juan Escudero, had gathered in a tight group and were plainly offended that Cortés had failed so conspicuously to mention the governor. ‘See the upstart,’ he heard Escudero bark, ‘who usurps Don Diego’s rights. Something must be done to stop this treachery.’ The man had made no attempt to lower his voice, but the other Velazquistas around him, including Diego de Ordaz, Cristóbal de Olid, and the governor’s cousin Juan Velázquez de León all averted their eyes when they saw they were observed.
Cortés smiled cheerfully and pretended nothing was amiss, but a reckoning was coming – and not only with the Indians. Sensing trouble, his own close allies, Pedro de Alvarado, Juan de Escalante and Alonso Hernández Puertocarrero came to stand on either side of him as, in the distance, from the surrounding countryside, they all heard the sound of drums and the ululations of warriors. ‘The town is ours,’ Cortés said, clapping his friends on their shoulders, ‘but it seems our fight here is far from over. Time to bring the horses ashore and get them exercised. I’ll wager we’ll have need of them tomorrow.’
Chapter Fifty-Five
Tacuba, Wednesday 24 March 1519
Four days after agreeing the plan with Huicton, Tozi left Tenochtitlan and crossed the Tacuba causeway amongst busy early evening crowds. She was visible, but invisible, a dirty beggar girl of no consequence who came and went as she pleased. No one noticed as she made her way into the warren of side streets off Tacuba’s main square, blending in amongst the other beggars. With night falling she followed a narrow, dark alley choked with rubbish and came at last to a green gate in a wattle fence. She knocked and the gate swung open. Looking neither left nor right, Tozi passed through the gate, nodded a greeting to the burly middle-aged woman who admitted her, made her way across a yard where sheets, blouses, loincloths and a threadbare cotton cloak hung drying and entered the simple dwelling. A lantern flickered in the single large room that s
erved as bedchamber, kitchen, dining area and parlour, and here Huicton was waiting, seated at a rough-hewn table sipping from a cup of pulque.
‘So, Tozi,’ he said. ‘Are you still willing to charm Prince Guatemoc?’
‘I’ll do my best,’ she replied.
An hour later she was ready, dressed up in the finery of the goddess Temaz, her cheeks painted with yellow axin pigment, her lips reddened with cochineal, black bitumen applied to her eyelids.
‘Gods!’ said Huicton. ‘I myself could believe you are Temaz. You have the look of a woman of twenty – a wise and beautiful woman! – not a girl of fourteen. You know what to say? You know what to do?’
‘You’ve prepared me well, Huicton. I’ll go to Cuitláhuac’s estate at Chapultepec, wait until after midnight, enter the mansion, climb to the second floor and find Guatemoc’s room in the south wing. I’ll do all I can …’
‘He’s deeply estranged from Moctezuma after the attempt to poison him. It shouldn’t be too difficult to work on his mind and detach his loyalties further.’
‘I’ll do everything in my power …’
‘The only thing I ask you, Tozi …’
She frowned. ‘We’ve been through this already. You don’t want me to speak of Quetzalcoatl. But why should I not?’ She was aware her lower lip was sticking out in a stubborn, childish way.
‘It would be too soon. It might scare him off.’
‘Tonight I am a goddess,’ she said. ‘I will speak of what I wish.’
Huicton shrugged. ‘You know my mind on this; I can only pray that you will listen to me.’ He leaned forward and embraced her. ‘I wish you luck, little Tozi.’
‘So I’ll see you on the fourth day then?’
The arrangement, unless anything went radically wrong, was that Tozi, in her disguise as the goddess Temaz, would visit Guatemoc tonight and for the two nights following, returning to Tenochtitlan to report to Huicton on the fourth day. But that had changed. Huicton’s arrangements often changed.
‘I regret not, little one,’ he said. ‘I’ll be gone when you return. My master Ishtlil has entrusted me with a mission. I’m to go to Tlascala and meet the famous battle king Shikotenka.’
Tozi made a face: ‘I met many Tlascalans in the fattening pen when I was waiting to be sacrificed. I didn’t like them at all.’
‘No one likes the Tlascalans! They’re fierce, prickly, downright difficult, but they’ve kept Moctezuma at bay until now and for that reason Ishtlil intends to make an alliance with them.’
‘Make an alliance or don’t make an alliance – either way Moctezuma is going to fall. Quetzalcoatl is coming, Huicton. He’s coming right now. So you’d better tell those Tlascalans to be with him not against him.’
Huicton cupped her face in both his hands and kissed her on the nose. ‘I believe you,’ he said, ‘about Quetzalcoatl. But no one else will until they see proof of it. That’s why it’s best to keep quiet about him for now.’
‘Like you want me to keep quiet with Guatemoc?’
‘Exactly! Quiet as an owl in flight. Will you promise me you’ll do that, Tozi?’
‘I promise,’ Tozi lied.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Wednesday 24 March 1519
Melchior had been sullen and uncommunicative since that night on Cozumel when they’d taken their part in murdering Muñoz and disposing of his body. Pepillo thought he knew why. It was the Inquisitor’s claim to have ‘had’ Melchior for a peso – surely also overheard by Díaz, Mibiercas and La Serna – that had shamed him and made him withdraw so far within himself.
Pepillo now had a clear idea of what ‘having’ someone meant, and it was horrible and disgusting, but even if Melchior had once allowed Muñoz to do that abominable thing to him, he could not and would not look down on his friend because of it. God alone knew what other indignities he must have suffered as a slave, but he was good and brave and true and this was all that mattered.
Throughout the long voyage, hugging the coast from Cozumel to Potonchan, Melchior had gone about the work that Cortés had assigned to him without any of his usual laughter, bravado and cynical jokes, and whenever Pepillo had tried to talk to him he’d responded with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ or a grunt, or simply said nothing, but now, suddenly, there was a change in him.
Again it wasn’t difficult to work out why.
Since anchoring at the mouth of the Tabasco river on Sunday 21 March, the caravels and carracks of the fleet, the Santa María amongst them, had sat idle in the bay while the brigantines and longboats ferried soldiers, guns and supplies ashore to reinforce a beachhead that it seemed Cortés had established on the riverbank near Potonchan. Pepillo had learned what he could by listening to the talk of the men as they came and went, but had been able to establish nothing first-hand because he and Melchior had been confined to the ship with nowhere to go and nothing to do except attempt, as best they could, to exercise the stiff, torpid, fearful horses on the bobbing deck. In a curious way, Pepillo thought, the condition of the horses seemed to mirror Melchior’s own depressed inner state.
Since this morning, however – it was Wednesday 24 March – all on board ship had heard the distant sounds of cannon and musket fire that spoke of a sustained battle, and now, as evening drew in, a longboat had come out from Potonchan. Its crew brought news that the town had been captured, and orders from Cortés to prepare the ropes, pulleys and harnesses to lower the horses into the brigantines, which would follow directly. Pepillo’s heart leapt when he heard that he and Melchior were to accompany the horses, he bringing parchment, quills and ink – for there were certain matters the caudillo wished set down in writing – and Melchior paying special attention to Cortés’s own mount Molinero. With a flash of insight Pepillo realised it was his friend’s sense of being needed again, the prospect of action and, last but not least, freedom for his beloved horses, that had brightened his dark mood.
With the deck of the Santa María the height of a man above the deck of the brigantine, lowering the horses was difficult and risky work. Fortunately the sea was calm and the big moon, just past full and still bright in the clear sky, made lanterns almost unnecessary. Still Melchior fussed like an old maid over Molinero and cursed the crew like a trooper as one by one they cinched all ten of the great destriers into their leather harnesses, raised the derricks and swung the quivering and blindfolded animals down to the close-moored smaller vessel.
Bundles of long cavalry lances followed, their lethal steel warheads enclosed in leather sheaths, and finally several large, very heavy wooden chests that had to be handled with almost as much care as the horses themselves.
While this was being accomplished, the second brigantine collected the five horses from Alvarado’s San Sebastián and the three from Puertocarrero’s Santa Rosa, together with more lances and chests, and finally the two ships made for shore.
Pepillo saw how Melchior stayed with Molinero, stroking his sweating flanks, calming him with whispered endearments as their brigantine entered the mouth of the Tabasco and rowed steadily upstream. There was an atmosphere of hushed expectancy on board and the musketeers and crossbowmen who had come along as guards watched the banks fiercely – as though they expected an attack at any moment. Thickets of manglars, weird and otherworldly in the moonlight, pressed down to the water’s edge, transforming the wide river, in Pepillo’s eyes, into the haunt of devils and spirits. No one talked and for a long while the only sounds to be heard were the splashes of the oars, the nervous whinneys of the horses, mysterious shrieks rising and falling from all quarters of the night, and the distant, spine-chilling thunder of a thousand native drums.
‘What do the drums mean?’ Pepillo asked Melchior. ‘What are those cries?’
‘They mean trouble,’ his friend replied. ‘We heard them when we were here with Córdoba just before the Indians threw ten thousand men at us.’
Pepillo looked down at the deck. It was obvious the brigantine had seen action earlier because the moon’s g
lare showed smears of blood and arrows still embedded in the planking. ‘Looks like there’s been plenty of trouble already,’ he said.
Melchior shrugged. ‘Sure. There’s been a big fight for Potonchan and Cortés won. But the enemy have towns and villages all over this region, hundreds of thousands of people, more warriors than you can imagine. They’ll be gathering their men and then they’ll be back.’
‘So we could die here?’ Pepillo wondered.
Melchior seemed not to have heard his question and fell silent for a long while. Then abruptly he spoke. ‘About Muñoz,’ he said, but so quietly that men even a few paces away would not hear him. ‘There’s something I want to tell you.’
Alvarado was in a furious bad temper as he crashed, lantern in hand, through the empty, echoing rooms, devoid even of wall hangings and furniture, of the big two-storey building identified by the prisoners as the chief of Potonchan’s palace. Like the shrine on top of the pyramid, and the three stinking temples he’d already searched in the plaza, there wasn’t a single item of value in it. The Indians had used the time while Cortés had been strengthening his beachhead to remove all the treasures from the town!
Not only that, but as the prisoners had revealed through Aguilar, the painted savage called Muluc – who’d presented himself merely as an emissary of the chief – was in fact the chief himself! These swine had a sort of low cunning that Cortés had not anticipated, and had taken liberties that they must not be allowed to repeat.
Feeling murderous, Alvarado stormed out of the palace, across the plaza, back to the spot under the silk-cotton tree where Cortés was still patiently interrogating the prisoners and announced: ‘Nothing, Hernán! Not a jewel, not a ring, no gold plate. Nothing at all! They stripped the town bare before they left.’