Aztec

by

Colin Falconer

Foreword

The strangest part of this story is that it is not a work of fiction.

I have not strayed from the actual historical facts of the Mexican Conquest; I

have merely interpreted the motivations and characters of the participants.

I have tried to keep faith with the known characters of those conquistadores

such as Cortés and Alvarado and others who took part in the enterprise.

The woman Malinali did exist, and her actions are still a matter of

passionate debate in Mexico. However, almost nothing is known about the

personal history of this most extraordinary woman before the Spanish

insurgency.

At the time of the Spanish conquest the ruling tribe of the Mexican valley

called themselves the Cuhlua Mexica. The term 'Aztec' did not come into

common usage until the nineteenth century.

Mexico City, October 2000.

Malinali

I am an old, old woman, dressed in the rags of an Indian, and I will walk

the streets of the city tonight, crying for my lost children; the dirty streets, the

ancient streets, the streets of the homeless and the dispossessed. I stumble across

the great square, near the ruins of the Temple, shouting at the ghosts who haunt

me.

See me shuffle along the arcades of the plaza, keeping close to the shadows,

where the great cathedral leans like a drunken Indian, its old stones sinking into

the lake that lies beneath our feet. Hear me crying at night among the stranded

ruins of the Temple Mayor, now the gringos with their Nikons and video

cameras are gone.

The tourists are shut away in their expensive hotels on the Paseo. In the

Republica de Cuba a frightened indian hears me weeping and, making the sign

of the cross, he hurries home across the plaza with an eye cast fearfully over his

shoulder for me, La Llonora, the weeping woman of Mexico.

I have reason to weep for what I have done, and what was done to me. And

if you venture with me a little way, into this darkened catholic doorway that

smells of age and piss, if you can bear to sit this close to an old indian woman,

wrinkled like a monkey and smelling of death, I will tell you my story, the only

story Mexico has.

PART I

The Feathered Serpent

When the time has come, I will return into your midst, by the eastern sea, together

with white and bearded men...

- proclamation to the Toltec people by their god-king, Feathered Serpent,

circa 1000 AD. (From Aztec legend.)

Malinali

Painali, Tabasco: 1513

I stare into the darkness, listening to the sounds of my own funeral.

It is the Eighth Watch of the Night, when ghosts walk and headless demons

pursue lonely travellers on the roads. I am trussed on the floor of my mother's

food store. Wicker baskets of vanilla pods are stacked against the adobe walls

and the room is filled with their sweet, cloying smell.

A screech owl twists its great head and watches me from its perch on the

carved cedar beam above my head. Its yellow eyes blink slowly. An omen; the

owl is envoy from the Lord of the Darkness, Mitlantecutli, come to lead me into

the underworld.

And my mother is to send me from this world without even my fare

through the Narrow Passage.

I try again to wriggle free but the thongs around my wrists and ankles bite

deeper into my skin.

My mother wants me dead.

I close my eyes and listen to the dirge sounds, the bass boom of the conches,

the hollow thrum of the huehuetl drums, the shriek of whistles. I can hear

someone shouting my name, then the crackle of flames; another is blackening on

the pyre in my place.

The moan of the East Wind consoles me. At this moment of my great

danger, Feathered Serpent, Lord of Wisdom, is watching over me.

I hear whispers outside the hut. My eyes blink open to search the shadows.

There is the flare of a pine torch as they enter. I know them; slave merchants

from Xicallanco. They have visited Painali many times; my father always treated

them with disdain. One of them is without an eye and the flesh is smeared pink

around the old scar like cold grease.

The torches throw their faces into shadow. "Here she is," the one-eyed man

says.

The gag is making me choke. One of the men laughs at my struggles but

One Eye hisses at him to be quiet. But there is no need for stealth. They could all

be drunk and screaming on peyotl juice but no one would hear them over the

sound of the funeral drums.

They lift me easily between them and carry me out of the hut into the

darkness. The wind moans again, Feathered Serpent growling in anger.

I must not be frightened. This is not the end my father prophesied for me. I

am Ce Malinali, One Grass of Penance, I will find my destiny in disaster, I am the

drum that beats the sunset for Motecuhzoma, my future is with the gods.

My future is with Feathered Serpent.

Chapter One

Tenochtitlàn

One Reed on the ancient Aztec Calendar,

The Year of Our Lord, 1519.

The owl man staggered, white froth on his lips, laughing at the shadows

hiding in the corners of the Dark House of the Cord. His hair, which reached

almost to his waist, was matted with dried blood, and the black mantle around

his shoulders gave him the appearance of a hunched and malevolent crow.

Motecuhzoma, the Angry Lord, Revered Speaker of the Mexica, watched,

the turquoise plugs in the piercings of his ears and lips reflecting the glow of the

pine torches. He whispered his questions to Woman Snake at his elbow.

Woman Snake repeated the questions carefully. "Owl Bringer, can you see

through the mists to the future of the Mexica?"

The owl man lay on his back on the floor, laughing hysterically, helpless to

the grip of the peyote liquor. "Tenochtitlàn is in flames!"

Motecuhzoma shifted uneasily on the low carved throne.

The owl man sat up, pointed at the wall. "A wooden tower walks to the

temple of Yopico!"

"A tower cannot walk," Motecuhzoma hissed.

"The gods have fled ... to the forest."

Motecuhzoma wrung his hands in his lap. He whispered another question

to Woman Snake. "What do you see of Motecuhzoma?"

"I see the Angry Lord burning and no one to mourn him. The Mexica spit

on his body!"

Woman Snake stiffened. Even under the intoxication of peyotl the obscenity

echoed around the cavernous room like thunder. "What other portents?" he

asked.

"There are great temples on the lake ... marching towards Tenochtitlàn!"

"A temple cannot march."

"The Feathered Serpent returns!" The owl man gasped gasped the words

between paroxysms of laughter. "There will be a Tenochtitlàn no longer!"

Motecuhzoma rose to his feet, his face contorted into a grimace.

"Our cities are destroyed ... our bodies are piled in heaps ... "

The emperor put both hands to his face.

"Soon we will see the portents in the sky!"

The owl man crawled towards the throne on his hands and knees. There

was saliva smeared on his cheek. His eyes were like obsidian. "Turn and see

what is about to befall the Mexica!"

Motecuhzoma was silent, his face hidden in his hands. When he removed

them, Woman Snake dared a glance at his emperor and saw that he was

weeping.

"Wait until the effects of the peyotl have worn off," Motecuhzoma growled,

"then skin him."

He hurried from the chamber. Owl Bringer lay on the floor, lost to his wild

and fevered dreams, laughing at shadows.

near the Grijalva River.

Hernan Cortés steadied himself on the rail of the Santa Maria de la

Concepción, sailing close-hauled, the coast of Yucatan no more than a grease-

green border on the port horizon. He sniffed at the taint of tropic vegetation on

the salt air. The canvas cracked like grapeshot in the yards above his head, his

personal banner whipping from the mast. It bore a red cross on black velvet,

below it a Latin inscription in royal blue, the same words that had once graced

the Emperor Constantine's own ensign:

Brothers, let us follow the Cross, and by our faith shall we conquer!

A long way, all this, from the melancholy plains of Extremadura. It was the

culmination of all his dreams. He was sailing to a hostile coast in uncharted

waters and yet it was as if he was coming home. This wind was his wind,

carrying him to his destiny. He knew it as sure as there was a God in heaven.

He looked down at the main deck, at Benitez and Jaramillo hunched in

conversation; poor hidalgos like himself, men with education and breeding but no

inheritance. They had come to the Indies, as he had, to find their fortunes and

escape boredom and poverty, to free themselves from the petty tyrannies of

grandees and the harping of priests. They had all rushed to join him in Cuba,

these soldiers of fortune, these bored planters, these failed gold miners, looking

for plunder and profit. And he would give it to them, and more besides. It would

be an adventure in the old style, with fame and riches and service to the Lord.

This was his hour, and a good day to be alive.

***

Gonzalo Norte wanted only to die.

He retched again, spitting green bile into the ocean. Who would believe he

had spent eleven of his thirty three years as a sailor? But the last time he had

stood on the heaving deck of a ship was eight years ago, another lifetime.

It was not the oily pitching of the Nao that made him wish for death. It was

a sickness of another kind, a sickness of the soul. He dared a glance and saw his

new companions staring at him with their vicious eyes. They feared and hated

him, of course. He was a plague carrier, incubus of a contagion worse than any

black-blistered pestilence known on this fever coast. A few of them spat in his

direction as they passed him on the deck.

He felt an arm go around his shoulders. Aguilar! His one friend on this boat

and the pity of it was he did not have the strength to throttle the bastard.

"Is it not good to be among Christians again, Gonzalo?" Aguilar used the

Chontal Maya tongue, for Norte had forgotten all but a few words of his native

Castilian.

Thy rancid and hairy balls! Norte thought. My dog spits them out! "Good?

For you, perhaps, Jeronimo."

Aguilar had donned the brown habit of a deacon. Only his shaved head and

tobacco-dark skin betrayed the fact that a few days ago he was the slave of a

Mayan cacique. He clutched the crumbling Book of Hours that had been his

constant companion through his captivity in Yucatan. "You must leave that other

life behind," Aguilar said. "Pray for forgiveness and it shall be given you. You

succumbed to the devil but you may still be saved."

By Satan's hairy ass, Norte thought. I would like to pitch this damned

deacon over the side and let God enjoy his company in heaven with the other

saints. Does he not understand that I have no soul left to save? They have

wrenched it from me, like a priest tearing out a heart. Why doesn't he just leave

me alone?

"Our Lord is boundless in mercy. Confess your sins and you may start your

life anew."

"Just leave me alone," Norte said. "For pity's sake, just leave me alone."

And he retched again.

***

Julian Benitez watched Aguilar’s attempts to console the renegade. Only

Norte truly disgusted him; Aguilar was merely insufferable, like most

churchmen. The two men - Norte was a crew member, Aguilar a passenger, a

deacon who had just taken minor orders - had been shipwrecked on the way

from Darien to Hispañola eight years ago. They and seventeen others escaped

the wreck in a long boat but most died of thirst long before they reached the

coast of Yucatan. Perhaps they were the lucky ones. The survivors were captured

by the Mayan atural and the captain, Valdivia, and several others were

murdered. Only Aguilar and Norte had escaped.

After a few days they were captured again, by a Mayan cacique who proved

a more amenable than their first captor. He had even offered Aguilar his own

daughter as a wife. As Aguilar told the story, he spent a whole night lying naked

beside her in a village hut, but had saved himself from the sins of the flesh by

taking refuge in his tattered copy of the Book of Hours.

Norte had not proved as resilient and thus far Benitez was in sympathy

with him. He understood Norte's carnality far better than Aguilar's self-imposed

chastity. What he did not understand was Norte's later actions; how he could

marry a heathen woman and have three children by her; how he could have his

ears and lower lip pierced and his face and hands tattooed like a atural. The man

was no better than a dog.

When Jaramillo and the rest of the landing party found Norte on Cozumel

Island he had tried to run away. Jaramillo would have murdered him with the

rest of the aturals if it had not been for Aguilar's intervention.

He is a Spaniard just like us, he had said, imploring them to mercy.

A Spaniard perhaps, Benitez thought. But not like any of us.

"Cortés should have hanged him," Jaramillo said over his shoulder."They

could roast me over a small fire, I would never allow myself to be so humiliated."

"When I found him he had stone plugs through his nose. And look at how

his earlobes are torn. Aguilar says that it is a part of the devil worship in their

temples."

"He even stinks like an atura."

"I should have slit his throat on the beach and to hell with it."

"Cortés says we need him and Aguilar to help us talk with the aturals."

"Aguilar perhaps, but not him. How do we know what he will say to

them?" Jaramillo spat into the sea. "I hear they sacrifice children in their temples.

Afterwards they eat the flesh."

Benitez shook his head. "I am no lover of priests but pray God we can bring

salvation to these dark lands."

Jaramillo grinned. "Pray God also that we are well rewarded for doing Him

such service."

***

Alaminos, the pilot, turned the fleet towards the river mouth. He had been

with Grijalva the year before when they beached in this spot and the natives,

who called themselves Tabascans, had shown themselves friendly. It was why

Cortés planned to make this his landing. The men gathered at the rail and

watched the coastline resolve into palms and sand dunes. A New World waited

for them, with dreams of gold and women and glory.

End of Excerpt

Purchase your copy at these outlets:

Another Book by Colin Falconer:

Anastasia

About the Author

Find Colin Falconer at: https://colinfalconer.wordpress.com

or on Twitter at @colin_falconer

Born in north London, Colin Falconer worked for many years in TV and radio and

freelanced for many of Australia's leading newspapers and magazines. He has been a novelist

for the last twenty years, with his work published widely in the UK, US and Europe. His

books have been translated into seventeen languages.

Copyright Page

Who Dares Wins Publishing

445 Ridge Springs Drive

Chapel Hill, NC 27516

www.whodareswinspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

of fictional characters to actual persons living or dead, business establishments,

events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Revised edition copyright © 2012 by Colin Falconer

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any

manner without written permission from the author and publisher except in the

case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Find Colin Falconer at http://www.colinfalconer.net

Colin Falconer's blog at: http://colin-falconer.blogspot.com/

or on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/colin_falconer

http://twitter.com/#!/colin_falconer