Chapter Twenty-Nine: THE NIGHT OF TEARS

The Jade Steps
Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Night of Tears

Malinali looked at each of the men standing silently around her.  Several of them were weeping.  She caught Bernal's eye.  "We mourn for him, Doña Marina," he said quietly to her, "and not just those of us who were unable to protect him from his own people today.  All of us are in sorrow, for he showed such kindness to us."

That she would be holding the hand of an Aztec Emperor as he died, that the Aztecs themselves would murder their King, that these mysterious men from another world who had come to conquer his kingdom would weep openly over his death – these were thoughts she found overwhelming.  She crossed herself and prayed silently to the Virgin Mary for comfort and understanding.

It was Cortez who broke the silence.  "Doña Marina, please select a noble from Montezuma's entourage and have him deliver a message to the people of this city:  He is to tell them that their Lord is dead at their hands, that they have killed their king.  They must now give him the funeral and burial rites he deserves, and after that they must allow us to leave the city in peace. 

"They must know that our hearts are broken over what they have done.  It was only our respect for Montezuma that has prevented us from destroying this city, and now that his own people have killed him, this is what we will do if they refuse to let us depart."

In a short while, six nobles, all relatives of Montezuma, carried his body on their shoulders out of the Palace of Axayacatl and into the great square.  Malinali went with them, accompanied by only a single Spaniard soldier, Bernal.  The four chiefs who had addressed Montezuma as he stood on the roof stepped forward to take the body.  Malinali had one of the nobles with her deliver Cortez's message to them.  Then the noble added:

"This was your doing," he told the chiefs.  "Yours and the impostor Cuitlahuac.  We saw with our own eyes how the Great Montezuma died of the wounds from your stones.  His death is your great shame, the great shame of the impostor Cuitlahuac.  We, his closest family, demand that you renounce him and your choice of him as Huey Tlatoani.  We demand that you choose one among us as the new Huey Tlatoani, as our law and the will of the gods require.  Until you do this, we will not live among you, the killers of our beloved Montezuma."

With that, they all turned, and with Malinali and Bernal, walked back inside the palace.

That night, Malinali and Cortez lay beside each other silently.  "Cuitlahuac will not accept your shame," she said finally.  "He will use Montezuma's death against you and accuse you of it.  The Mesheeka will never accept the truth, that they killed their king, so they will believe him.  Now they will make war upon us more than before.  They will not let us leave their city in peace."

Cortez took a deep breath.  "All that you say is true, my Lady.  I thought my boast that we will ‘destroy their city' could make them hesitate or be more cautious in attacking us.  Yes, we must fight our way out.  But how and where?  I know where – by the shortest causeway, to Tacuba.  But how?  That is what we must find out."

They embraced and fell asleep in each other's arms.

*  *  *  *  *

Well before dawn, Cortez was up and called a meeting with his officers.  "Gentlemen, we must prepare for our departure.  We must clear the way to the Tacuba causeway by destroying all the homes and structures along it, on which our enemies rain stones and arrows upon us.  We must kill so many of them that they may relent in their attack. 

"We shall use the manteletes constructed by Señor Lopez.  Our horsemen will lead the assault to break through the enemy's ranks and spear as many of them to death as possible.  We are being tested, gentlemen.  Have no doubt that we shall prevail.  God did not bring us to this land to fail.  Our faith in Him shall ensure our ultimate success."

As they discussed how this assault was to be conducted, one of Montezuma's entourage entered to speak to Malinali.  She relayed the message to Cortez and the officers.  "It is as suspected.  The Aztecs are more enraged than ever.  They say we shall pay for the death of their king and our insults to their gods.  They vow that none of us will leave this city alive, that our hearts will be eaten by the gods while they will feast upon our cooked arms and legs."

Cortez led the charge out of the gates of Axayacatl Palace with a number of horsemen, followed by several dozen men in three manteletes, then a contingent of crossbowmen and musketmen.  They made straight for the Tacuba causeway under a constant shower of stones and arrows from the Mesheeka.  Four Lombard guns were dragged by some of the remaining Tlaxcalans to bombard houses and buildings along the way.  After managing to destroy and set fire to more than twenty of such houses, the Spaniards had to cut their through masses of attacking Mesheeka on the way back to the palace.

Once again, as the Aztec dead piled up, more Mesheeka warriors would crawl over their bodies to attack the Spaniards in crazed frenzies of rage.  The horses trampled them, the horsemen speared them, the Spaniards shot them down with crossbow bolts and musketballs, and dismembered and gutted them with swords.  The way back to the palace was one of blood and entrails and slaughter.  Somehow, the Spaniards made it back to the palace, many men and horses wounded but all alive.

Cortez was among the wounded.  One of the obsidian-toothed wooden swords of the Aztecs had slashed his left hand and it had to be heavily bandaged.  The rest of the day and into the night was spent by everyone tending to his wounds, fending off the incessant attacks upon the palace walls, and repairing their weapons and equipment.  Malinali went to as many of the men as she could, making sure their wounds were cleaned and taken care of as best she knew.  Both she and Cortez got little sleep that night, and both were up again before dawn. 

"Gentlemen," Cortez announced to his officers, "I propose that we depart this city at midnight this night via the Tacuba causeway.  As the Mesheeka have destroyed two of its bridges, we shall require a number of heavy beams and planking to repair them.  Carpenter Alonso Yañez will oversee whatever in this palace needs to be dismantled.  The hooves of our horses must be muffled with cloth.  Our departure must be carefully organized and quiet.  Do you agree?"

The men all nodded grimly in assent.

"We must spend this day in preparation.  Our silence will only get us closer to the mainland, but at some point we are sure to be discovered and then we must fight to reach safety.  Every man must be prepared to do so."

Gonzalo de Sandoval spoke up.  "Captain Cortez, the Narvaez men never cease to complain of their fate and in the bitterest of terms.  They are most bitter towards you, feeling that you led them here in the promise that they would be welcomed by the people of this city in shall we say a more friendly manner than what has been shown."

Sandoval's comment brought both smiles and sneers from the other officers.  Cortez managed to suppress them from his face but not his eyes.  "Señor de Sandoval, please inform these men that events do not always turn out to one's liking – as they did not when they first came to this land expecting to steal from us what we have achieved here.  Such complaints will not save their lives from the Mesheeka.  Please inform them that their only hope now is to fight like true soldiers of Spain."

Cortez looked around at his officers and gave them a cheerful smile.  "Yet as we prepare, we must also distract.  You may have noticed that next to our quarters here is a temple…" he cast a glance at Malinali, who interjected "The temple of Yopico where the priests store the skins of sacrificial victims."  Cortez continued:

"The Mesheeka have turned this temple into a fortress.  From the top they can look down upon us, and on its steps, they mass their warriors who rain down their arrows and stones upon our quarters.  I propose to lead a small group of a few dozen men to rid ourselves of this annoyance.  None of the senior commanders may accompany me, as they are needed in preparation for tonight.  Who else among you wishes to amuse himself with me in this endeavor?"

Two of the lesser officers stepped forward, Pedro de Villalobos and Gonzalez Ponce de Leon.  Cortez told them to gather twenty men each.  As they turned to leave, he added, "But no Narvaez men.  We wouldn't want to interrupt their complaining."  Everyone laughed.

*  *  *  *  *

There was a small window on the second floor of the Palace of Axayacatl where one could see the Temple of Yopico close by.  Malinali sat nervously as she watched Cortez and his band run out of the palace gates and charge the mass of Mesheeka warriors swarming over the steep temple steps.

He had tried to calm her fears before he left.  "I cannot let the fear of these Narvaez men infect the rest," he explained.  "That is why I asked Gonzalo to raise the subject, to bring this into the open.  By showing absolutely no fear of these Aztecs, by doing something audacious and attacking them, it will give all our men the confidence that we can depart this city with our lives – which we shall, my Lady."

She made no reply, just letting Cortez hold her tightly.  Then he was gone.  She had never worried about him before.  Now she was.  How could he fight without the use of his left hand? she  asked herself.  She tried to calm her heart, but it had a racing, pounding mind of its own, as she watched this little group of Spanish soldiers – about 40 or so – run straight into what had to be over a thousand armed and angry Aztecs.

She saw Bernal next to Cortez.  He had smiled at her before they left, trying to reassure her as well.  She saw them start to cut their way up the temple steps in a wedge, their swords slashing and slicing Aztecs who fell down the steps in the dozens, then hundreds.  Within minutes, the point of the Spanish wedge led by Cortez reached the top platform of the temple.  The thatch roofs of the shrines were set on fire, statues of Aztec gods pushed over to tumble down the steps and crush Aztecs in their way. 

Malinali was surprised to see so many black-robed priests on the temple platform.  As they resisted the Spaniards, they found themselves being thrown off the summit.  Malinali saw Gonzalez Ponce de Leon grabbing a number of them and hurling them into space.  They look like black ants, she thought, bouncing down the steps to their death.

With the temple shrines destroyed and most of the priests killed, Cortez signaled to start back down.  Along the entire length of the steps there was the most vicious hand-to-hand fighting.  She saw several Spaniards overwhelmed and butchered into pieces.  Cortez and Bernal were not among them, although by the time all the Spaniards reached the bottom of the steps, everyone of them had wounds streaming with blood.

Fighting off the still-attacking Aztec horde and carrying the most severely wounded, Cortez's band finally made it back inside the palace gates.  Malinali grasped the cross she always carried with her to thank the Virgin Mary and her Savior who had answered her prayers.

*  *  *  *  *

Once more, so many wounds had to cleaned and bandaged.  As she cared for them, Malinali learned that over a dozen Spaniards had been killed on the steps of Yopico.  She hoped they had been, for if any had been captured alive, they would soon be watching, their spines snapped and paralyzed, their beating hearts torn out of their chests in sacrifice.

How Cortez had survived with only a few bloody yet shallow cuts she did not know.  Bernal told her that during the fighting on the platform, two Aztec warriors managed to grab Cortez and were just about to throw him off to his death when Bernal was able to slice through the back of the Aztecs' knees with his sword.  As she was cleaning a gash in Gonzalez Ponce de Leon's neck, he smiled at her and said, "This was no day to be in bed, Doña Marina."

In wonderment, she realized that the men were now cheerful, even joking about their battle.  Cortez had been right again.

For the rest of the day, everyone focused on preparations for the midnight departure.  Cortez paid particular attention to the all the gold and jewels that had been accumulated, including the Treasure of Axayacatl discovered in the secret palace room.[1]  Some time before, a soldier named Alonso de Benavides trained in smelting, had been tasked by Cortez to melt most of the Aztec gold down into hundreds of small flat bars.[2] 

Now Cortez ordered an aide, Cristobal de Guzman, to have all the gold bars, all the silver, all the gold chains and jewelry, all the precious jewels and pieces of jade, all the robes and quetzal feathers, brought together in the great hall of the palace.

He portioned off the "King's Fifth" with Alonso de Avila and Gonzalo Mejia, King Don Carlos' official notaries.  With the Talxcalans carrying the bars, the King's Gold was placed in over a dozen straw and wooden boxes and loaded on to two large mare horses.

Then another horse was loaded with Cortez's portion, and a fourth loaded with that of the officers.

With this done, there still remained a tremendous pile of treasure in the room.  Cortez had Malinali tell the Tlaxcalans – of whom there were only about 100 now – that all the embroidered robes and quetzal feathers were theirs.  The Tlaxcalans whooped with loud glee, for "the plumes of the quetzal are more valuable to them than gold," explained Malinali.

Cortez then called for every soldier to assemble in the great hall.  "Within a few hours," he addressed them, "we shall depart this city.  I promise to you that we shall soon return to rid this city of people who murder their own king, to liberate this land of butchers who kill in worship of their evil gods, and to replace this slaughter with the blessings of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Upon my honor, this we shall do.

"With His Majesty King Don Carlos' notaries, Señor de Avila and Señor Meija, as witnesses and under their supervision, the Royal Fifth of the treasure we have acquired has been apportioned.  The same has been done with the portion due me and your officers.  Now you see before you what remains.  It is worth many tens of thousands of pesos.  Take what you will of it.  Better for you to have it than these Aztec dogs."

The soldiers stood motionless, stunned by Cortez's words and the dazzling, shimmering sight of the enormous treasure before them.  Before any of them moved towards it, Cortez added, "But – I must warn you not to overload yourselves.  He travels safest in the dark night who travels lightest."

Malinali noticed it was the Narvaez men who moved first.  They fell upon the hoard, wrapping gold chains around their necks, and stuffing as many of the gold bars inside their cotton armor as they could.  Cortez's men were far more cautious. 

She saw Bernal pick up a few light chalchihuite jade pieces and nothing more.  Most of the others took but one or two gold bars, a few jewels, or a light gold breastplate.  Cortez knows his men well, she thought, and knows who among them valued their lives more than money.

Shortly after midnight,[3] after a Mass was performed for the expedition by Father Olmedo, the gates of the Palace of Axayacatl quietly swung open.  Earlier, Malinali had sent Tlaxcalan spies out who came back to confirm the city was asleep with no Mesheeka warriors or sentries in sight.  One reason may have been the unusual cloudy mist that shrouded the city and a cold drizzly rain.

Cortez had carefully planned the order of march.  First out were sixty soldiers under the command of Francisco Magariño, carrying a portable bridge made from palace ceiling beams.  They quickly carried it to cover the Tepantzinco canal in the Tacuba causeway.

Next to follow was a vanguard of some 200 men whom Cortez said must be "valiant and young," led by Gonzalo de Sandoval, Diego de Ordaz, Francisco Acevedo, and Andres de Tapia.  They were carrying additional planking and beams for the causeway breaks, and were charged with protecting Malinali and Fathers Olmedo and Diaz.  "You shall be first to reach safety, my love," Cortez told her.  "I shall follow.  Have no fear."

After the vanguard, came Cortez leading several hundred soldiers composed of detachments commanded by Cristobal de Olid, Francisco de Morla, and Alonso de Avila.  Just behind Cortez rode his aide Cristobal de Guzman with the horses carrying the gold.  In the center of this group were Montezuma's son Chimalpopoca and other Mesheeka nobles.

The rearguard of the rest of the soldiers, several hundred strong, was commanded by Pedro de Alvarado and Velasquez de Leon.  At its tail were most of the remaining Tlaxcalans pulling the wheeled Lombard guns.

The expedition of well over a thousand men marching a dozen or so abreast snaked across the deserted great square and through the empty streets to the Tacuba causeway as silently as it could.  The muffled tramp of the horses softly echoed into the mist, as did the light footfalls of the men.

The vanguard crossed the Tepantzinco canal with Magariño's bridge, then the Toltec canal thanks to Sandoval's planking, and reached the safety of the first village on the mainland, Popotla.  There was now a hint of the summer's early dawn, and Malinali could barely make Cortez's mounted figure out of the swirling drizzling mist as he and his men began crossing the Toltec gap of the causeway.

All was quiet.  All she could hear was her heart.  Then she heard shouts – loud and in Nahuatl.  The Spaniards had been seen.  Suddenly, the priests' atecocoli conch shell horns were sounding the alarm from the tops of temples, as were the deep pounding thuds of the priests' huge war drums. 

Cortez and the other horsemen immediately spurred their horses forward and called upon his soldiers to run.  Reaching the vanguard at Popotla, Cortez placed it under the command of a minor officer, Juan Jaramillo, and told him to guard Doña Marina with his life.  He then told five horsemen, Sandoval, Olid, Ordaz, Morla, and Avila to follow him.  Together they raced back to the causeway.

It was a murky chaos.  The lake on either side of the causeway was thick with canoes full of Aztec warriors, who were crashing them into the rocky sides of the causeway, then swarming upon it to attack the Spaniards.  At least their white cotton armor made them easier to see in the drizzling gloom.  The planks Sandoval had put down to bridge the Toltec gap were broken, Spaniards by the dozen, then hundreds, were floundering in the water trying to cross.  Aztecs in canoes were surrounding them and clubbing them to death.

Cortez and his captains drove their horses into the water and began attacking the canoes.  They quickly discovered how to get their horses to overturn them.  The chaos was made worse by the noise, the din of shouts, yells, war-cries, and horrible gurgles of dying men.  Dying in the hundreds, Aztec and Spaniard. 

The mist was now lifting with the early grey of the morning, and Cortez could see the battle was raging along the entire length of the causeway.  The flash of the Lombards would briefly light up the rear of the battle, but no matter how many Aztecs were blown apart by the canons, still more followed until they fell silent.  In those flashes, Cortez could see how hopeless the struggle of the rearguard had become.

As could Malinali.  A torrent of Aztecs was flooding over the rearguard, who were jumping into the lake to save themselves.  They were drowning.  They could not keep themselves above water.  The Narvaez men, she thought, with all that heavy gold so safely placed under their armor. 

She saw Cortez placing himself and two horsemen on one side of the Toltec canal, and three more on the other side, the water up to the horses' bellies.  Urging the men fleeing and fighting on the causeway to ford the gap, they fought to protect them as the men did so, cutting down Aztecs trying to get through.

Malinali could not take her eyes away from the slaughter, nor could she prevent the tears pouring down her face.  The sight of all these men whom she had come to care for so much were dying right in front of her, screaming, struggling, clubbed, speared, drowned – and her Cortez in desperation trying to save them, swinging his sword tirelessly, Aztec after Aztec falling before him and yet they came in endless numbers.

Then she saw him.  Alone and being chased by a crazed Aztec horde, all of the men under his command escaped or killed, Pedro de Alvarado was running for his life down the causeway.  She saw Cortez yelling at him, but with his horse in the water that was all he could do. 

Alvarado was running towards the Toltec gap, he could see he was trapped, for if he jumped in the water, the Aztecs would follow and he would be theirs.  He grabbed a long lance lying by the side of one of his slain companions.  Everything suddenly seem to stop.

Every Aztec recognized Tonatio, the golden Child of the Sun.  The battle ceased for this moment, as every eye turned to him, seeing that he was about to die.  The Aztec horde chasing him stopped.  The Aztecs attacking in the canoes stopped.  Cortez became silent.  All that could be heard was the wretched sounds of men dying and drowning. 

Alvarado looked back at his pursuers.  Then he burst forward towards the canal, jumping into it as far as he could.  As he reached the top of his arc, he jammed the lance into the mass of bodies that had piled up in the middle of the gap, to vault all the way over to the other side.

He sprung to his feet and looked back in triumph to his pursuers.  The Aztecs began chanting, "Tonatio! Tonatio!"  And just like that, the battle was over.  The rage and frenzy of the Mesheeka was dispelled, and now they noticed that all around them were wounded Spaniards whom they would rather capture for sacrifice than kill.  They focused upon them as Cortez was able to get the rest of the men to the safety of Popotla.

 In the early morning light, Cortez surveyed the disaster.  After confirming that Malinali was untouched, he asked about Martin Lopez.  Assured he was wounded but would surely live, Cortez said, "Of all those among us, it is that skillful and clever man who will gain us victory over these rebellious Aztecs."

The reports were calamitous.  Some 400 men and 30 horses were accounted for, which meant that some 60 horses were killed and close to 800 men dead or captured.  Among the dead were Velazquez de Leon, Francisco de Morla,  Francisco "Dandy" Saucedo, Montezuma's son Chimalpopoca and the rest of the Mesheeka nobles in their protection.

The Lombard canons were lost,  The musketmen had lost all their guns and gunpowder.  Every man among them was wounded, many horribly.  Then came news of the final blow:  the horses carrying the gold were lost.  The great treasure of the Aztecs was gone, sunk into the mud of the lake.

The remains of the expedition assembled underneath a huge ceiba tree  in Popotla.  "We shall call this terrible night La Noche Triste," Cortez announced, "The Night of Tears.  We shed these tears in the loss of our beloved countrymen and friends, so many of whom perished this night. 

"Yet their deaths shall not be in vain, for we have no fear of the Mesheeka.  We know that the One True God will enable us to vanquish them and their evil gods in the end.  Have faith that this is so, have faith that our Savior brought us here not to die but to save this land."

Cortez looked out among the shattered remnant of his forces, defeated, wounded, oozing blood and sorrow.  "Vamos, que nada nos falta," he said.  "Let us go forward, for we lack nothing."

[1]   See Chapter 25.

[2]   Roughly about a foot long, two inches wide, and a half-inch thick – weighing about 5 pounds of solid gold each.  As this would weigh about 72 troy ounces (a troy ounce is about 10% heavier than an avoirdupois ounce), at a current price of $600 per ounce, each bar would have a present-day value of over $43,000.

[3]  The night of June 29-30.  Taking place after midnight, the date of La Noche Triste, the Night of Tears, is June 30, 1520.