Chapter Eleven: THE SPANISH ULYSSES

Chapter Eleven: The Spanish Ulysses

Shortly after Bernal resumed his post as look-out over the sandy dunes of the camp, he spotted five native men walking on the beach. With smiles and bows they approached, and their gestures made it clear they wanted to be taken into the camp. Bernal sent a messenger to bring Do񡠍arina and Aguilar to the tent of Captain Cortez, while Bernal took the five men to the Captain himself.

Bernal had never seen such men. While they cut their hair and wore their loincloths differently than the Mesheeka, it was their lip plugs that distinguished them. They all had a large hole in their lower lips, filled with heavy stone disks of turquoise or covered with thin sheets of gold ? so heavy that they pulled the lip down over the chin exposing the teeth and lower gums. Their ears lobes were also pierced with large holes also filled with turquoise or gold-covered stone disks ? but it was the hideous lip plugs that repelled Bernal.

"Lope Luzio, Lope Luzio!" they cried out as they bowed deeply to Cortez while rubbing dirt on their foreheads as a sign of supplication and respect. Neither Malinali nor Aguilar knew what this meant, so Malinali asked them if they spoke Nahuatl. Two answered yes. After talking with them for a moment, Malinali related to Aguilar and Cortez:

"These men are Totonacs. They were afraid to come while the Mesheeka were still here. Their city of Cempoala is three day’s walk to the north. They call Captain Cortez ?prince and great lord,’ lope luzio in their language. They bring you greetings from their king, Tlacochcalcatl (tla-coach’-kal-cottle), who wishes to invite you and your men to visit his city."

Cortez took off his hat and swept it before him at these words. "Please tell these gentlemen that we are honored by his invitation and will be happy to comply."

"King Tlacochcalcatl wishes you to know," Malinali continued to translate, "that he has heard of Lope Luzio’s great triumph against the Pontochans. He wishes you to know that his kingdom has maintained its independence from Lord Montezuma and the Mesheeka, but at much cost in tribute. There are many other kingdoms forced to pay tribute to the Mesheeka. King Tlacochcalcatl wishes to discuss this with you as his guest in Cempoala."

Cortez ordered cups of wine for the Totonacs. He informed them that their invitation was very timely, as Cempoala was on the way to where he would establish a settlement for his men. "Let us drink to our being friends and neighbors," he offered, raising his wine cup. They did so, and assured him that this was what their king earnestly desired.

Malinali was seized with an inspiration. Without asking for Cortez’s approval, she interjected, "Lope Luzio says his men are greatly burdened with all the supplies and equipment they must carry. It would be a great act of friendship if King Tlacochcalcatl would supply enough load-carriers to transport this burden to Cempoala and the new settlement."

The Totonacs beamed at the suggestion. "We are sure our king will be happy to provide such assistance. When shall we have the load-carriers come?"

When Malinali told Cortez of her request and the response, he looked at her with undisguised fascination. "As soon as possible," he told her to answer.

Two days later, 400 Totonac bearers arrived.

* * * * *

As their loads were being prepared, and the camp broken down for the march north, Malinali was summoned to Cortez’s tent. Inside she found Cortez in conference with his closest confidantes, Don Alonso, Pedro de Alvarado and his brothers, Juan de Escalante, Alonso Avila, Francisco Lugo, Cristobal de Olid, and Gonzalo de Sandoval. "Gentlemen," Cortez announced, "I have requested that Doñ¡ arina join us. She has proven her loyalty to us, and has provided us with invaluable advice. I wish to have her continue to do so now. I have asked Señ¯² Aguilar to assist her Spanish."

They all nodded in assent. Don Alonso looked particularly pleased. "Doñ¡ arina," Cortez addressed her, "All of us know of your father’s dream. Tell us how you think the Totonacs might play a role in it."

Malinali had been anxious when she stepped into Cortez’s tent. Now she found herself calm. She was being treated with respect from these men, the most extraordinary men she had ever known or imagined, who knew she was not a lowly slave but royalty, a Queen! She stood straight and assumed a regal bearing. But just before she spoke, she heard her father’s words. "Ixkakuk! Don’t you dare act haughty and superior! You will treat these men with the utmost respect and appreciation. No acting like a queen ? do you hear me, Ixkakuk?"

Her eyes widened at her father’s words inside her head. She remained erect, but let go of a regal stiffness. She relaxed and focused on simply answering Cortez’s question. "The Totonacs are a rich and powerful people," she explained. "They hate the Mesheeka, who have an army so much larger than theirs they have no choice but to pay whatever tribute is demanded of them."

"What does this tribute consist of?" Cortez wanted to know.

"Many lengths of cotton cloth, skins of jaguars, green chalchihuite stones which you call ?jade’, maize and other food ? but most of all many, many men and boys for sacrifice to Huitzilopochtli."

Don Alonso spoke. "As we understand it, Do񡠍arina, your father said that no one kingdom could resist the Mesheeka, but many could together. He said there were many kingdoms like his who wished they could resist but felt alone. Is the Totonac kingdom such a one? Is that why their king is so friendly to us? He wants our help against Montezuma?"

She had no doubt this was so.

"But," Don Alonso continued, "how dependable are the Totonacs as allies and friends? Your father would have known of them, yes? We noted that the Totonacs knew of the Pontochans and our experience with them, so we take it that these various kingdoms know of each other."

Malinali thought about this for a few seconds. "My father taught me about many kingdoms. I am trying to remember what he said about the Totonacs. There are people known for their trickery, whom you cannot trust, like those of Cholula. But I do not recall him saying anything like that about the Totonacs." She stopped for a moment as she again heard her father’s voice. "Speak for yourself, Ixkakuk?" it said.

She looked around at the men who were all listening intently to her. "I think? I think, though, that you want to know my thoughts, not just my father’s."

As several pairs of eyebrows raised, Don Alonso smiled and said, "Yes, Do񡠍arina, that is just what we want!"

"Then my thought is that it is possible that the Totonacs could be good friends, that it is possible that they could be the first of many allies against Montezuma, but that it is also possible they are so afraid of Montezuma that they could turn against you. My advice that you ask for is to make them friends, but to watch and be very careful in doing so."

A dozen heads nodded, a dozen voices murmured in agreement. Cortez, in a very formal manner, thanked her, she bowed to them all, stepped outside the tent and breathed deeply, finding herself shaking and breaking out in sweat.

* * * * *

After three days’ march, the Spaniards were within a league of Cempoala. Cortez’s scouts had been sent ahead and came back excitedly exclaiming the walls of the city and its houses were all made of silver! Malinali couldn’t restrain herself from laughing, and quickly told Cortez it was because the walls were lime-whitewashed and shone so brightly in the sun. Soon all the Spanish officers were laughing and poking fun at the scouts.

But the laughing stopped when they entered Cempoala, the first real city they had seen in this New World. Tens of thousands of Cempoalans were there to greet them. Hundreds were blowing atecocoli, perforated conch shells, as trumpets in welcome. Dozens of Totonac nobles in their finest robes and feather headdresses received them at the city’s gates with food and roses.

The city had beautiful gardens everywhere, the streets were well laid out, shops brimming with products and produce. When they entered the large central plaza, they were told here the soldiers could camp, while the officers were given the use of an adjoining palace. More food, turkeys, plums, and maize, was brought and everyone had their fill. Cortez gave strict instructions that no soldier was to leave the plaza, nor to give any sort of offense to the Indians.

The Totonac King arrived, borne on a large litter carried by a number of servants. They carried quite a load, for King Tlacochcalcatl was so fat Cortez nicknamed him, under his breath to Alonso Puertocarrero, "the Fat Cacique" (cacique being a word for "chief" among tribes in Cuba). A presentation of gold objects, jewels, robes, and feathers were laid out, with the King proclaiming to Cortez, "Lope Luzio! Please accept these small gifts ? if I had more I would give it to you!"

Cortez bade Malinali to thank the King, and to tell him: "We appreciate your friendship and will repay it by our good works on your behalf ? for that is what our King, the great Don Carlos, has asked us to do. He wishes us to protect you from evil and to end human sacrifice."

With that the Fat Cacique sighed and poured forth a litany of grievances against Montezuma. "The Totonacs are a rich and powerful people. Ours is an ancient kingdom. The kingdom of the Mesheeka has just appeared ? in my grandfather’s day. Their armies are too strong for us, their soldiers countless. The Mesheeka take all our gold, much of our food, and so many, many of our people for slaves and sacrifice."

Cortez nodded in sympathy. "Do񡠍arina, you may tell him that we are to be neighbors. We go to build our city on the coast nearby. When we are settled, I will consider how best to help him."

With this news, Tlacochcalcatl’s mood instantly brightened, and said he was overjoyed to have the Lope Luzio as his neighbor. Cortez then told Malinali that he had a question for him:

"You are right to complain that Montezuma takes your people to be sacrificed to his gods. Why then do you sacrifice your own people to your gods? We passed by temples in small towns on the way here. In each, there were temples splashed with blood and littered with the carcasses of dismembered sacrificial victims. The gods you worship are just as evil as those of the Mesheeka. You cannot ask us to protect you from the Mesheeka until you stop believing in evil gods yourselves."

Malinali translated these words flatly and calmly, knowing how stunned the King would be to hear them. At first he was speechless at Cortez’s audacity and the inescapable contradiction in which he was caught. He struggled to control his anger, his eyes darting between Cortez and Malinali. Something in Malinali’s eyes, something in the way she moved her head and looked at him made him freeze. He realized she was signaling to him that it would be very unwise to get mad at the Lope Luzio. Instead of lashing out, he decided to say quietly, "Our gods give us no choice."

Cortez smiled gently, said that he understood, once again thanked Tlacochcalcatl for his friendship, and looked forward to further discussions. The Fat Cacique seemed quite relieved.

Underway early the next morning, they reached the small harbor Montejo had told them about before noon, and found there was an impressively fortified Totonac town above it amidst towering rocks and cliffs. Malinali had learned the town was named Quiahuitztlan (qwee-ah-weets’-tlan). Climbing up the steep path into the town, when they reached the central plaza they were greeted by feather-cloaked town elders with braziers, who proceeded to ceremonially engulf the Spanish officers with incense smoke. There was much bowing and gestures of friendship, food was brought, glass beads distributed. The Spaniards had barely finished eating when there was a loud commotion, and through the crowd of Indians, a litter bearing the Fat Cacique emerged. There was fear and panic in his eyes.

"Montezuma’s tax-men, the calpixque, have come!" he announced. "Lope Luzio, I have come for your help!" he pleaded. "There are thirty towns in our land where the Totonac language is spoken. I told you yesterday how every one is made to provide slaves and sacrifices to the Mesheeka, how in every one the Mesheeka select the most beautiful of our wives and daughters to rape and do what they will to them. Just after you left Cempoala this morning, the tax-men came to tell us we must be punished for being friendly with you, that we must immediately give them twenty young men for sacrifice, and many more from now on." He broke down, and tears began streaming down his face.

As Cortez began to console him, telling him he would prevent these "robberies and offenses," there came another commotion. Cortez glanced at Malinali, who explained, "They are yelling that the calpixque followed Tlacochcalcatl here and are about to arrive." The Fat Cacique’s face turned ashen, and immediately began ordering a reception room prepared with flowers, food, and cacao to drink.

There were five of them. The Aztec tax-men marched through the plaza with a conscious display of contempt and arrogance. Their cloaks and loin cloths were richly embroidered, their hair shining and tightly tied back. Each carried the particular kind of rose only the Aztec nobility were allowed to possess, and each made a conspicuous display of smelling them. They purposely walked right past Cortez and his officers without speaking or noticing them in any way, pretending the Spaniards were invisible.

King Tlacochcalcatl was summoned to the room prepared for the tax-men, and visibly shook and quavered during the barrage of threats and demands they issued. When Malinali explained what was happening to Cortez, he whispered, "This is a most fortunate day." She could hardly wait to find out why. When Tlacochcalcatl emerged from his berating in a state of almost mental collapse, Cortez and Malinali escorted him to a quiet place to talk. Malinali arranged for cacao to be brought, which, together with Cortez’s soothing words, calmed him down. But not for long.

"I told you that I was sent here by the Great King Don Carlos to punish those who do evil, that I will not permit either sacrifice or robbery," Cortez had Malinali say. "I will not allow these tax-men to carry off your wives and children, and commit violence upon you. Therefore, I command you to arrest these tax-men and put them in a prison."

Malinali could not believe her ears, but she translated the words anyway. The Fat Cacique could not believe his ears either, and simply dissolved into a puddle of fright. "I will take responsibility for them. I wish that you seize and arrest them now, immediately," Cortez said in a demanding yet reassuringly tranquil manner.

It was almost as if the King were hypnotized. He called in his assistants and the Quiahuitztlan town chiefs, and gave them the order. Overcoming the initial shock, the order was quickly carried out with great enthusiasm. Quiahuitztlan soldiers roughly seized the tax-men, dragged them into a jail, where they were tied to long poles and collars placed around their necks chained to the poles. Any of the tax-men who resisted were whipped with a stinging lash.

This completed, Cortez gathered the Quiahuitztlan chiefs around him with King Tlacochcalcatl at his side. Through Malinali, he announced, "From this day onward, the Totonacs will pay no more tribute or obedience of any kind to Montezuma and the Mesheeka. Any Mesheeka tax-men who appear in any Totonac town are to be arrested as they are here. I ask that your King send messengers to all Totonac towns to inform them of this."

Still in a daze, the King explained to his sub-chiefs, "What you have just seen today, the words you have just heard, are so wondrous no human being could do or say them. They can only be the work of teules ? gods." He cast an anxious, awe-struck look at Cortez. "The commands of the teules must be obeyed. Send out the messengers."

As word spread in Quiahuitztlan, the townspeople celebrated with a curious mix of joy and rage. It was not long before there arose a vociferous clamor that the Mesheeka tax-men be killed and eaten. The instant Cortez learned of this, he sent a detachment of his soldiers to guard the Mesheeka captives. "The Mesheeka are not to be killed. I told you I will not tolerate any more sacrifices," Cortez angrily admonished the Fat Cacique. "My men will guard them, to see they do not escape nor come to any harm." The King meekly complied.

So did the townspeople. By midnight, they had exhausted themselves, and all were asleep. Cortez sent for Gonzalo de Sandoval. "Appraise these five prisoners, select the two who appear to you the most intelligent, and bring them to me with no one in the town seeing you," he directed. A few minutes later, two confused Mesheeka were standing in front of Cortez and Malinali. "Ask them who they are, what country they are from, and what has happened to them," he requested of Malinali.

When they explained who they were, Cortez feigned ignorance of Montezuma and his empire; when they complained of being arrested, Cortez answered that why the Totonacs had done so was a mystery to him, that he regretted their treatment, and had food and cacao brought for them. He assured them that he was their friend and at their and Montezuma’s service. He had now managed to free them and promised he would protect their companions, freeing them when he could. In the meantime, they should escape now while there was a chance.

Malinali wasn’t sure of the game Cortez was playing, but she was enjoying it nonetheless. There was no trace left of the insufferable arrogance these calpixque displayed earlier. Now they were humbly grateful to Cortez, thanking him for his mercy, and fearful if in their escape they should be caught. Cortez ordered six sailors to row the two Mesheeka in a small boat four leagues up the coast beyond the frontier of Cempoala. As they departed, bowing and thanking him again, Cortez reminded them to relay to Montezuma that he was his friend.

* * * * *

When at sunrise the Totonacs and their king discovered two of their prisoners had escaped, they ran to Cortez in a rage. Cortez pretended to be even madder than they, saying that his guards would be severely punished. He ordered a heavy chain brought from his ship, had the three remaining prisoners bound to it, and with a great flourish, announced that he himself would take the prisoners along with his guards who allowed the escape to his ship and have them all put in irons there.

Once on the ship, Cortez at once unbound them all, explained the show to the guards and bade them take good care of the three Mesheeka. By gestures, as Malinali was not with him, he made them understand he was their friend and would soon send them safely home.

Returning ashore to find the Totonacs mollified, Cortez was asked by the Fat Cacique and an assemblage of his sub-chiefs how the Lope Luzio would protect them from death and destruction from the vengeful armies of Montezuma. Cortez cheerily responded:

"Please know that I and my brothers will defend you and will kill anyone who attacks you. Just one of my warriors armed with a lightning-tube can destroy a host of Aztecs. If your warriors will fight with us, we will defeat all efforts of Montezuma."

King Tlacochcalcatl and his sub-chiefs quickly vowed to do so. Cortez immediately called for Padre Diego de Godoy to witness, as the King’s Notary, the Fat Cacique’s pledge. Malinali was asked to make clear to Tlacochcalcatl that he and the Totonac leaders were about to participate in a solemn ceremony, whereby in exchange for protection by Captain-General Cortez and the men of Spain, they would vow allegiance to His Majesty King Don Carlos. A contingent of Spanish soldiers was drawn up and made to stand at stiff attention, adding to the aura of seriousness.

Impressed with the gravity Cortez had created, the King and the entire array of Totonac chieftains swore their allegiance to a king and country of whom they knew nothing ? meaning they swore a personal allegiance to Cortez. The Captain-General then asked how many warriors the Totonacs could supply against Montezuma. "Over one hundred thousand," came the reply. Malinali saw the flicker of thought passing through Cortez’s eyes.

Later that morning, she found Bernal. With a smile, he said, "I told you he was a genio."

"He is beyond words," she replied.

"Actually, there are words," was Bernal’s response. "They were words written long, long ago. Thousands of years ago in a place called Ellada (1), there was a poet named Homero (2). He wrote a poem about a heroic captain and warrior named Ulises (3). I wish I had the book of Homer’s poem, Doñ¡ arina, for I would teach you to read it. Then you would understand who Captain Cortez is. He is the Spanish Ulises."

NOTES:

1. Hellas ? Greece.
2. Homer.
3. Ulysses.