To conclude, the priest chanted over all of us another short speech in that Latin, and told us that henceforth all of us males were named Juan Damasceno and all the women Juana Demascena, and the ceremony was over. As best I can recollect, it was the first new name I had acquired since that of Urine Eye, and the last new name I have acquired to this day. I daresay it is a better name than Urine Eye, but I must confess that I have seldom thought of myself as Juan Damasceno. However, I suppose the name will endure longer than I do, because I have been thus inscribed on all the head-count rolls and other official papers of all the government departments of New Spain, and the last entry of all will no doubt say Juan Damasceno, deceased.
During one of my secret nighttime conferences with the other Mexíca lords, in the flapping cloth house that had been erected for their quarters, they told me:
"Motecuzóma has wondered much, whether these white men might be gods or the Toltéca followers of gods, so we decided to make a test. We offered to sacrifice to the leader Cortés, to slay for him a xochimíqui, perhaps some available lord of the Totonaca. He was highly insulted at the suggestion. He said, 'You know very well that the benevolent Quetzalcoatl never required or allowed human sacrifices to him. Why should I?' So now we do not know what to think. How could this outlander know such things about the Feathered Serpent, unless—?"
I snorted. "The girl Ce-Malinali could have told him all the legends of Quetzalcoatl. After all, she was born somewhere along this coast from which the god made his departure."
"Please, Mixtzin, do not call her by that common name," said one of the lords, seeming nervous. "She is most insistent that she be addressed as Malintzin."
I said, amused, "She has risen far, then, since I first met her in a slave market."
"No," said my fellow envoy. "Actually, she was a noble before she was a slave. She was the daughter of a lord and lady of the Coatlicamac. When her father died and her mother remarried, the new husband jealously and treacherously sold her into slavery."
"Indeed," I said drily. "Even her imagination has improved since I first met her. But she did say that she would do anything to realize her ambitions. I suggest to all of you that you be most guarded in the words you speak within hearing of the Lady Malinali."
I think it was on the next day that Cortés arranged for the lords a demonstration of his marvelous weapons and his men's military prowess, and of course I was present, among the crowd of our porters and the local Totonaca who also gathered to watch. Those commoners were awe-stricken by what they saw; they gasped at intervals and murmured "Ayya!" and called often upon their gods. The Mexíca envoys kept they faces impassive, as if they were unimpressed, and I was too busy memorizing the various events to make any exclamations myself. Nevertheless, the lords and I several times flinched at the sudden claps of noise, as startled as any commoners.
Cortés had had his men build a little mock house of driftwood and some leftover ship's timbers, so far up the beach that it was only just visible from where we stood. On the beach before us, he had positioned one of the heavy yellow-metal tubes on high wheels....
No, I will call things by their proper names. The wheel-mounted tube was a brass cannon whose muzzle pointed toward the distant wooden house. Ten or twelve soldiers led horses into a row on the hard-packed damp sand between the cannon and shoreline. The horses wore some of that equipment I had earlier been unable to comprehend: the leather chairs which were saddles for sitting on, leather reins for the animals' guidance, skirts of quilted material very like our people's fighting armor. Other men stood behind the horses, with the giant staghounds straining against the leather straps that held them in check.
All the soldiers were in full fighting garb, and very warlike they looked, with shining steel helmets on their heads and shining steel corselets over leather doublets. They carried swords sheathed at their sides, but when they mounted to their saddles, they were handed long weapons resembling our spears, except that their steel blades, besides being pointed, had protrusions at either side to deflect the blows of any enemies they rode against.
Cortés smiled with proprietorial pride as his warriors got into position. He was flanked by his two interpreters, and Ce-Malinali was also smiling, with the mildly bored superiority of having seen the performance before. Through her and Aguilar, Cortés said to our Mexíca lords, "Your own armies are fond of drums. I have heard their drums. Shall we commence this spectacle with a drum beat?"
Before anyone could answer, he shouted, "For Santiago—now!" The three soldiers tending the cannon did something that flashed a small flame at the rear of the tube, and there came a single drumbeat, as loud as any noise ever made by our drum which tears out the heart. The brass cannon jumped—and so did I—and from its mouth came a smoke like stormclouds, and a thunder to rival Tlaloc's, and a lightning brighter than any of the forked sticks of the tlalóque. Then, after my blink of surprise, I saw a small object hurtling away through the air. It was of course an iron cannon ball, and it hit the faraway house and smashed it into its separate pieces of wood.
The cannon's sudden crash of thunder was prolonged, as Tlaloc's often is, into a rumble of lesser thunder. That was the sound the horses' iron-shod feet made, pounding on the sand flats, for the riders had put their mounts to a full gallop at the moment the cannon had bellowed. They went off along the beach, side by side, as fast as any unencumbered deer could run, and the great dogs, let loose at the same time, easily kept up with them. The horsemen converged on the ruins of the house, and we could see the glint of their flourished spears, as they pretended to cut down any survivors of the demolition. Then they all turned their mounts and came pounding back down the beach toward us again. The dogs did not immediately accompany them, and, although my ears were ringing, I could distantly hear the staghounds making ravenous roaring noises, and I thought I heard men shrieking. When the dogs did return, their fearsome jaws were smeared with blood. Either some of the Totonaca had chosen to hide near that mock house to watch the proceedings, or Cortés had deliberately and callously arranged for them to be there.
Meanwhile, the approaching horsemen were no longer keeping in a line abreast. They were weaving their horses back and forth among each other, in intricate movements and crossings and patterns, to show us what perfect control they could maintain even at that headlong speed. Also, the big red-bearded man, Alvarado, did an even more amazing performance all his own. At full gallop, he swung off his saddle and, holding to it with just one hand, ran alongside his thundering animal, easily keeping pace with it, and then somehow, without slowing speed, vaulted from the ground back onto the leather seat. It would have been an exploit of admirable agility even for one of the Fast of Feet Rarámuri, but Alvarado did it while wearing a costume of steel and leather that must have weighed as much as he did.
When the horsemen had finished displaying the speed and surefootedness of their massive animals, a number of foot soldiers deployed on the beach. Some carried the metal harquebuses as long as the men were tall, and the metal rods upon which those things must be rested for taking aim. Some carried the short bows mounted crossways on heavy stocks which are held braced against the shoulder. A number of adobe bricks were brought by some Totonaca laborers and stood on end a good arrow's flight distant from the soldiers. Then the white men knelt and alternately discharged the bows and the harquebuses. The bowmen's accuracy was commendable, hitting perhaps two of every five bricks, but they were not very quick with their weapons. After propelling an arrow, they could not just pull the bowstring back again by hand, but had to draw it taut along the stock by means of a small turning tool.