With her help, Cortés had made a speech to the Totonaca. He told them that the messenger ship would return with his King's commission elevating him in rank. He would anticipate that promotion, and henceforth be entitled not mere Captain but Captain-General. Further anticipating his King's commands, he was giving a new name to Cem-Anáhuac, The One World. The coastal land which he already held, he said, and all the lands he would in future discover, would henceforth be known as the Captaincy General of New Spain. Of course, those Spanish words meant little to us then, especially as the quimichi relayed them to us in his Totonacatl accent. But it was clear enough that Cortés—whether pitiably mad or incredibly bold or, as I suspected, acting on the prompting of his ambitious consort—was arrogating to himself limitless lands and numberless peoples he had not yet even seen, let alone conquered by combat or other means. The lands over which he claimed dominion included ours, and the peoples over whom he claimed sovereignty included us, the Mexíca.
Almost frothing with outrage, Cuitlahuac said, "If that is not a declaration of war, Revered Brother, I have never heard one."
Motecuzóma said uncertainly, "He has not yet sent any war gifts or other tokens of such intention."
"Will you wait until he discharges one of those thunder cannons into your ear?" Cuitlahuac impertinently demanded. "Obviously he is ignorant of our custom of giving due advisement. Perhaps the white men do it only with words of challenge and presumption, as he has done. So let us teach the upstart some good manners. Let us send him our war gifts of token weapons and banners. Then let us go down to the coast and push the insufferable braggart into the sea!"
"Calm yourself, Brother," said Motecuzóma. "As yet, he had bothered nobody in these parts except the paltry Totonaca, and even at them he has only made noise. So far as I am concerned, Cortés can stand on that beach forever, and preen and posture and break wind from both ends. Meanwhile, until he actually does something, we will wait."
I H S
S.C.C.M.
Sanctified, Caesarean, Catholic Majesty, the Emperor Don Carlos, Our Lord King:
Esteemed Majesty, our Royal Patron: from this City of Mexíco, capital of New Spain, this eve of the Feast of the Transfiguration in the year of Our Lord one thousand five hundred thirty and one, greeting.
Since we have received from Your Transcendent Majesty no order to desist in the compilation of this chronicle, and since with the following pages it now at last seems to us complete, and since even the narrating Aztec himself declares that he has no more to say, we herewith annex the final and concluding segment.
Much of the Indian's relation of the Conquest and its aftermath will already be familiar to Your Omnilegent Majesty, from the accounts sent during those years by Captain-General Cortés and other officers chronicling the events in which they took part. However, if nothing else, our Aztec's account rather repudiates the Captain-General's tediously repeated boast that only "he and a handful of stout Castilian soldiers" conquered this whole continent unaided.
Beyond any doubt, now that we and you, Sire, can contemplate this history entire, it is nothing like what Your Majesty must have envisioned when your royal cédula commanded its commencement. And we hardly need reiterate our own dissatisfaction with what it proved to be. Nevertheless, if it has been in the least informative to our Sovereign, or to any extent edifying in its plethora of bizarre minutiae and arcana, we will try to persuade ourself that our patience and forbearance and the drudging labors of our friar scribes have not entirely been a waste. We pray that Your Majesty, imitating the benign King of Heaven, will consider not the trivial value of the accumulated volumes, but the sincerity with which we undertook the work and the spirit in which we offer it, and that you will regard it and us with an indulgent aspect.
Also, we would inquire, before we terminate the Aztec's employment here, might Your Majesty desire that we demand of him any further information or any addenda to his already voluminous account? In such case, we shall take care to see to his continued availability. But if you have no further use for the Indian, Sire, might it be your pleasure to dictate the disposition now to be made of him, or would Your Majesty prefer that we simply relinquish him to God for the determination of his due?
Meantime, and at all times, that God's holy grace may dwell continuously in the soul of our Praiseworthy Majesty, is the uninterrupted prayer of Your S.C.C.M.'s devoted servant,
(ecce signum)Zumárraga
ULTIMA PARS
As I have told you, reverend scribes, the name of our eleventh month, Ochpaniztli, meant The Sweeping of the Road. That year, the name took on a new and sinister import, for it was then, toward the close of that month, when the rains of the rainy season began to abate that Cortés began his threatened march inland. Leaving his boatmen and some of his soldiers to garrison his town of Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz, Cortés headed westward to the mountains, with about four hundred fifty white troops and about one thousand three hundred Totonaca warriors, all armed and wearing fighting garb. There were another thousand Totonaca men serving as tamémime to carry spare arms, the dismantled cannons and their heavy projectiles, traveling rations, and the like. Among those porters were several of Motecuzóma's mice, who communicated with other quimichime posted along the route, thereby keeping us in Tenochtítlan informed of the procession's composition and its progress.
Cortés led the march, they said, wearing his shining metal armor and riding the horse he derisively but affectionately called She-Mule. His other female possession, Malintzin, carried his banner and walked proudly beside his saddle at the head of the company. Only a few of the other officers had brought their women, for even the lowest-ranking white soldiers expected to be given or to take other women along the way. But all the horses and dogs had been brought, though the quimichime reported that the mounts became slow and clumsy and troublesome when they were on the mountain trails. Also, in those heights Tlaloc was prolonging his rainy season, and the rain was cold, windblown, often mixed with sleet. The travelers, soaked and chilled, their armor a clammy weight on them, were hardly enjoying the journey.
"Ayyo!" said Motecuzóma, much pleased. "They find the interior country not so hospitable as the Hot Lands. I will now send my sorcerers to make life even more uncomfortable for them."
Cuitlahuac said grimly, "Better you let me take warriors and make life impossible for them."
Motecuzóma still said no. "I prefer to preserve an illusion of amiability as long as the pretense may serve our purpose. Let the sorcerers curse and afflict that company until they turn back of their own accord, not knowing it was our doing. Let them report to their King that the land is unhealthy and impenetrable, but give no bad report of us."
So the court sorcerers went scurrying eastward, disguised as common travelers. Now, sorcerers may be capable of doing many strange and wonderful things beyond the power of ordinary folk, but the impediments they put in the way of Cortés proved pitifully ineffectual. First, in the trail ahead of the marching company, they stretched between trees some thin threads on which hung blue papers marked with mysterious designs. Although those barriers were supposed to be impassable by any but sorcerers, the horse She-Mule, leading the train, unconcernedly broke through them, and probably not its rider Cortés nor anyone else even noticed the things. The sorcerers sent word back to Motecuzóma, not that they had failed, but that the horses possessed some sorcery which defeated that particular stratagem.