Casca 10: The Conquistador (13 page)

Pointing a finger at the pale face of the Aztec king, he whispered, "Do not offend me further."

Moctezuma pulled his cloak over his head and fell to the floor on his face. Prostrate before the god, he sobbed out, "Mercy, Tectli Quetza. Have mercy on me and my people."

Moctezuma and Casca stayed in the king's chambers until past midday. Casca had to deliver his words carefully when Moctezuma asked what he should do.

Casca stood by the door thinking. He had made Moctezuma tell him all he knew about the Spaniards and what they were doing, including the slaughter of Cholula and the sacrifice of the children by the Cholutecas. Cortes was coming and was not far away.

"You must not oppose their coming any further, for if you do, all the tribes who are not your friends will ally themselves against you. Let Cortes come."

Moctezuma was too frightened to argue, but he was still confused. "But if you are the god, then who is the one called Cortes?"

Casca took his time. He knew more about the religion of the Aztecs and Indians of Mexico than any other of his race.

"I have many faces and many bodies. I can enter the soul of any I choose and use them as my tool. I am Cortes and a hundred others. You will treat him as you would me, for we are of the same spirit and use these fleshy shells only to serve our purpose. If they are destroyed, then I shall take another and another, for the spirit cannot be destroyed. I am going to leave you for a time, but we shall meet again. Obey me and do not resist those who are coming."

Casca walked away from the palace and out across the causeway leading to Tlacopan. From there he took the road leading to the volcano Popocatepetl. Cortes would have to pass within view of the smoking mountain. He would wait there until he came; it should not be much longer.

What he was doing to Moctezuma was harsh, but it was the only chance he had to save the lives of tens of thousands. If Moctezuma gave over the control of the Aztec empire to Cortes, there would not be as much bloodshed. It would save the lives of both Indian and Spaniard and perhaps preserve the good things of the Aztec culture too.

For now he could do no more. He would just have to wait for the conquistadors to come to him.

Three days and nights passed as he waited and watched on the slopes of the volcano. During the day he would go down lower to where he could gather wood and brush to keep him warm in the thin air. For food he ate mostly dried corn and meat he had picked up at the market in Tlacopan. At night the volcano rumbled and smoked to keep him company. On the third night, he heard men coming up the rough slopes. From the manner in which they moved and the hush of their voices, he knew that they were searching for him and that they were not Castilians. If his fire hadn't gone out as he slept, they most likely would have found him by now. Wearily he put on his plain breastplate and unsheathed his sword. He wondered if Moctezuma had sent them but thought it unlikely. Hiding behind a boulder of volcanic slag, he waited and listened.

The Aztecs were not very quiet. Loose rocks and gravel gave away their movements. Moving to the side of the boulder, he saw them coming up. Leading them was a priest, his face painted black. He knew where this bit of trouble had originated. One of Ceypal's priestly
order had taken it upon himself to seek vengeance. The six warriors with him were from the war god's Eagle Clan. In the lead, just in front of the priest, was a captain of the Eagles. Casca let him pass by, half crawling on hands and knees up the steep sides of the smoking mountain. This was no time for a sense of fair play or nobility. Casca was in no mood for it. He wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.

The Eagle captain was only a few feet up from the boulder when Casca rose, stepped forward two paces, and stabbed him through the back, his long steel blade entering the warrior's heart. Whipping his sword hand back around, he caught the priest rising, half on his hands and knees. The sword sliced his lower jaw off and then flicked back to open his throat. One more of the remaining five Eagle warriors found his belly split open by the Spanish steel. The last four turned and ran, racing back down the hill, slipping and sliding. Without the priest and their captain, they had no desire to meet the devil on the mountain. By the time they reached the bottom of the volcano, they looked as if they had been in a major battle. Their bodies were covered with cuts and scrapes from which blood oozed. Casca let them go. He doubted that he would be bothered anymore, but just to make sure, he moved his camp to another place where it would be even more difficult for anyone to come on him by surprise and he could still watch for the army of Cortes. Idly he wondered how de Castro was faring.

Cortes was ecstatic at the news the messengers from Moctezuma had brought him. The way was now open to Tenochtitlan and the heart of the Aztec empire. There would be no further resistance.

The Spaniards and their army, which had grown to six thousand, marched with him. They were still cautious about ambush or treachery, which was well, for since the Spanish had come, Moctezuma had done little to oppose them. The king was not in favor with many of his military commanders. Kings had been made before, and they could be broken if they went against the will of their people, especially the clans of the armies.

The conquistadors made Hudjotzingo their camp after the first day's march. The next day they reached a pass between two snow-covered peaks from where they could look out over the valley of Mexico. Its lakes and towns dotted the shores. Cortes led the way down from the pass. He would be the first to set foot in the valley. Once off the mountain, he made camp at a large estate belonging to a prince of Mexico. It was large enough so that his entire force was easily accommodated and fed.

While the Spaniards were there, many nobles of Tenochtitlan and other cities came to plead with him to go back, though they knew that Moctezuma had given orders that the strangers were not to be hindered in their advance. Cortes was promised tribute to be paid each year if he would return to the coast and go no farther. Cortes would have none of it. No matter how much gold they promised, he knew that there had to be ten times more at Tenochtitlan. He had not come this far to be turned back by promises. He could see that some of Moctezuma's nobles were not averse to trying to make their own deals. That didn't surprise him; it was a common enough practice with a long history where he came from.

The next day he reached Chalco, a city of twenty thousand, where he was presented with small gifts of gold and forty slave girls. In the morning, he was met by twelve Aztec lords who had come to give him greetings. The most important of them was another nephew of Moctezuma, Cacama, a young man of twenty-five who was carried in a litter on the shoulders of slaves. When he stepped down, the ground in front of him was swept away to remove any stones or objects that might hinder his progress. He gave greetings through Marina and told Cortes of their purpose. They were to escort the Spaniards the rest of the way to Mexico to ensure that there would be no trouble from recalcitrants in their path who had no love for the strangers.

From Chalco they moved to Culhuacan, where Cuitlahuac, its lord, made them welcome, opening his palaces to the Spaniards, who were much impressed by what they saw. The cities on the other side of the mountains had been rich, but these were the equal of the finest in Europe. The palaces were filled with gardens and pools, flower-covered lanes, groves of fruit trees, and animals and birds of many kinds that walked unafraid among them.

Here Cortes spent three days to rest his men and animals. They were close to their destination now, and he wanted his men to beat their best when they met Moctezuma. He didn't notice that a new arrival was in his ranks, marching with the foot soldiers, his face covered most of the time by a scarf. Casca had rejoined the Spaniards, but he didn't speak even to Juan, who passed him riding on his horse. From Juan's posture, Casca knew that the young man had given himself over completely to the ideology of the Castilian conquistadors. He turned his face away from his one-time friend. This was not the time for questions. Twice he had seen Marina. She'd spotted him easily but had said nothing. The ways of gods were not hers to question.

They could smell the lakes from Culhuacan, and from its temple in the distance they could make out easily the white structures on the island where Moctezuma resided. Cortes was led by Cacama to Ixtapalpa, which was connected with Mexico by means of another long causeway like the one Casca had taken from Chapultepec.

Marching in good order on the causeway, they came to a stone bastion between them and Tenochtitlan. It was two fathoms high, with towers at both ends between crenellated bastions. There, four thousand richly dressed gentlemen of the city waited to greet him. As Cortes neared, they each in turn bent over, touched the earth with a hand, and kissed it before moving on. Such was their manner of welcome. It took over an hour for the ceremony to be completed, and Cortes and his men waited impatiently for what came next. Past the battlement, they continued on the causeway. The waters on either side were bright and sparkling in the early sun. Before the causeway reached the main walls of Tenochtitlan, it was broken by a wooden drawbridge ten paces in length where the waters from one lake flowed into the other.

Suddenly Cortes saw what he had come to this place for.
At the far end of the bridge stood Moctezuma under a pallium of green feathers strung with beads of silver. The pallium was carried by four men of noble blood to shield their lord from the elements. Moctezuma came forward. Macama and Cuitlahuac, both members of his family, supported each of his arms.

Cortes's first impression of the master of the Aztecs was of a dark, handsome man of great dignity and bearing, wearing golden sandals set with gems and a few articles of jewelry in the likeness of birds or beasts, made with incredible delicacy. Servants walked ahead of him, taking off their mantles and laying them down so that their master would not have to walk on the bare earth. Two hundred lords came next. Some of them Cortes had seen earlier. All were barefoot but dressed more richly than those who had greeted him first on the causeway. Moctezuma walked in the center of the street, and the rest of his retinue followed, hugging the walls and keeping their faces downcast
so that they might not look directly into the face of their lord, for that would have shown irreverence.

Cortes dismounted from his horse and stepped forward by himself to greet Moctezuma. He started to embrace the king but stopped when Moctezuma withdrew as if a bit frightened. Gifts were exchanged. Cortes gave Moctezuma a necklace of cut glass, and Moctezuma presented Cortes with a necklace of gold, hung with finely worked images of shrimps an inch long, which he put around the neck of the conquistador with his own hands. It was an act which awed those of the Aztec party, for it was a sign of great favor and honor for the king to actually touch another man.

If those in the city had known of the way their king regarded the newcomers, they would have understood his manner of deference, but only a few of his closest advisers knew his secret – that these men were indeed the god in his many manifestations returning to claim the land. Not all with whom he had spoken agreed with him. To them the strangers were only that and no more. They were men with strange weapons and faces but certainly not gods, though the more superstitious called them such.

Together, Moctezuma and Cortes entered the city of Tenochtitlan passing tall houses on either side of the street. The roofs were covered with the people of the city, who gazed in amazement at the strangers with fair skin and hair, their beards, horses, and weapons of steel. Moctezuma led them a short distance to the courtyard of the house of Axayacatl, where the most sacred idols were kept for special festivals. At the door, Marina translated Moctezuma's words for Cortes to hear.

"Our lord, you are weary. The journey has tired you, but now you have arrived on the earth. You have come to your city, Mexico. You have come here to sit upon your throne, to rest under its canopy.

"The kings who have gone before have guarded it and preserved it for your coming. The kings Itzicoatl, Moctezuma the Elder, Axayacatl, Tizoc, and Ahuitzol ruled for you in the city of Mexico. The people were protected by their swords and sheltered by their shields.

"This was foretold by the kings who governed your city, and now it has taken place. You have come back to us. You have come down from the sky. Rest now and take possession of your royal house. Welcome to your land, my lord!

"You are now in your house. Eat, rest, and enjoy yourself, and I shall return later."

Cortes responded through Marina, speaking loudly and firmly so that no one would hear the quiver of nervous excitement in his voice: "Tell the king that we are come as his friends. There is nothing to fear. We have wanted to see him for a long time, and now we have seen his face and heard his words, and it is good. Tell him that we love him and that our hearts are content to be in his presence."

Thus it was that Cortes had at last come to the city of Mexico and met with the king Moctezuma on November 8, 1519. He did not notice that as he spoke, Moctezuma's eyes often went to the commonly dressed soldier behind him, a soldier with a scarred face.

Casca found a place in the courtyard where he could keep some distance between himself and the other infantry men. It was well that he had kept his own counsel and company during the time he had been with the forces of Cortes. Because of that, he could lose himself among them and if questioned could always say that he was with another unit. His only regret was having to walk now, for he could not claim his horse without making his return known.

A request for Cortes to dine with the king that evening came shortly after the Spaniards had settled down. Even with the words of welcome, Cortes did not relax his vigilance. Guards were posted as they always were.