The Conquistadors (20 page)

Faced with that little group of harsh-visaged, bearded men, all of them armed, Moctezuma not only offered to summon Cualpopoca and his officials from Nautla, investigate the truth of the affair, and, if necessary, have them punished, but he actually dispatched several of his chiefs with the war god's seal, a small stone figure he wore on his arm, to enforce the order. Still Cortés insisted, politely but firmly, that Moctezuma accompany him. ‘I earnestly prayed him', Cortés writes, ‘not to feel pained at this, because he would not be kept a prisoner, but would have entire liberty; that I would place no impediment to his service and authority in his dominions, and that he might choose any room he pleased in the palace where I was, where he should remain at his pleasure, well assured that he should suffer no annoyance or unpleasantness, but rather that, in addition to his own attendants, my companions would also obey his commands.'

In demanding the person of the king, Cortés was walking a tightrope. Moctezuma had only to call out and his guards would rush in; the whole city would rise in arms, and not a Spaniard would escape. After an hour of wrangling, with Moctezuma still refusing to leave his palace, Juan Velázquez became impatient. ‘What is the use of all these words? Either we take him or we kill him.' Doña Marina did not translate this, but instead advised Moctezuma to do as they wished. ‘I know they will treat you honourably as the great prince you are. But if you stay here you will be a dead man.'

Moctezuma went. But not before he had made one final attempt to avert this
personal degradation by offering his legitimate children, one son and two daughters, as hostages. He had been king for nearly eighteen years, absolute lord over all the men of his world, and in all that time no-one had dared look him in the face in public. He was both dictator and religious leader. The absolute power of such an exalted position must inevitably produce a reaction when the man himself is suddenly exposed to the threat of physical violence. Already his will to resist had been slowly whittled away. The inexorable progress of these
teules
from across the sea had been a part of the necromantic nightmare of his superstitious beliefs.

Still, one cannot help feeling that, if he had been faced with any man but Cortés, he would not have yielded his person. The sheer magnetism and determination of the man dominated him, as it had dominated his own men and all the Indian chiefs of the cities through which he had marched. Moctezuma's policy was one of appeasement, but now he must have begun to realize that the road of appeasement is a long one that leads finally to degradation. Once he had moved his quarters voluntarily to the Spanish camp, doubtless justifying himself on the grounds that it was to save his people from ultimate destruction, there was for him no turning back. By that single act, he made himself the willing tool of the invaders.

On Cortés' instructions, he was treated with the utmost deference, and every endeavour was made to ensure that, to all outward appearances, he was no more a captive than he had been in his own palace. But it is impossible to hide the capture of a ruler in the midst of his own city. In the quarters set aside for him, he was still the great lord. But when he went outside the camp, to carry out the ritual worship of his gods or to hunt, he was now accompanied by an armed escort of Spaniards.

Some twenty days later Cualpopoca arrived in Mexico with his son and some fifteen nobles. Incredibly, since he must have known what had happened to his lord and master, he had answered the summons of the emissaries bearing the seal of Huitzilopochtli. He entered the city borne on a richly-decorated litter carried on the shoulders of his servants and vassals. Moctezuma saw him and then handed him over, with his son and his nobles, to Cortés for judgment. Nobody records how Cortés was able to persuade him to such a base abdication of his own jurisdiction. Nor are we now able to judge whether Cualpopoca had been acting on Moctezuma's orders or not in repulsing the Spanish advance into the province of Tuxpan. What we do know is that this abject betrayal of his subordinate, who had come like a dog to his master's call, was a dangerous misuse of his dictatorial powers. It is possible, of course, that he still did not realize the ruthlessness of the man with whom he was dealing. For the whole month Cortés had been in Mexico he had kept a tight rein on himself. On the surface, at any rate, he had maintained good relations with Moctezuma, always friendly, often jocular, courteous, even sympathetic. This was the lawyer in him tempering expediency with diplomacy. Now, Moctezuma's eyes were suddenly opened to the other side of the man.

Cualpopoca, his son and nobles, were at once subjected to interrogation.
Gómara states quite categorically that, after Cortés had seen them, ‘they were more severely questioned'. And since this further questioning extracted from them a confession that they had acted on the express orders of Moctezuma, it is reasonable to assume that Cortés borrowed his methods from those of the Inquisition and that they were tortured. Certainly his harsh sentence stems from the Holy Office. He ordered them to be burned alive at the stake, publicly in the great square. Then he told Moctezuma that he was implicated, and had him put in chains. To add to this indignity, and to drive the lesson home, Cortés had the stakes and faggots set up outside Moctezuma's own quarters.

For such a novel form of execution the whole city would have turned out. The fires were lit, the sentence carried out, and Gómara says the people ‘looked on in complete silence'. Life was cheap in Mexico, cheaper even than in the Spain of those days, but though they were inured to death by sacrifice, to the scattering of blood on the altars of their gods and the ritual consumption of human flesh, this novel, and to them barbarous, form of killing came as a great shock. After the event, the news of it ran like wildfire through the Valley and over the mountain passes to the most distant provinces. Not only the Mexicans, but the whole Indian world was paralysed with shock. Worse, the involvement of their king, his apparent acquiescence, struck at the very roots of their submission to the chosen leader.

Cortés had calculated what that effect would be. He now had the fetters struck from Moctezuma's wrists and ankles, spoke to him kindly, even affectionately, promising him that he would make him lord of an even greater empire that would include all the Indian people that the Mexicans had not yet been able to conquer. Finally, he offered him his freedom. He could go back now to his own palace, if he wished …
if he dared
would have been a better way of putting it.

Moctezuma, with tears in his eyes, declined. He did not dare, for it would look as though he had purchased his own liberty at the price of Cualpopoca's terrible death. He was afraid, he said, that if he went back to his palace the Spaniards would take the opportunity to set up a puppet king in his place, and this would lead to civil war, which he wished to avoid at all costs. In any case, the war god had instructed him to remain their prisoner. With these specious arguments he did his best to save his face and to cover up the shame he must have felt at being so abominably used. The man he had once respected, he now feared. His world was crumbling. The Fire Sun era had now revealed itself as more likely to end in the flames of war than in volcanic eruption. But the door of appeasement, once opened, is not easily shut. His only hope was to buy time and wait upon events.

Now begins the second interlude. The Spaniards are no longer just privileged visitors; they are puppet-masters manipulating the strings of power.

There is a sort of deadly unreality about the whole situation. Cortés and Moctezuma
play
totoloque,
a Mexican game involving the throwing of pellets and plaques of gold, the stakes being gifts to the soldiers of the one and the favourites of the other. Moctezuma is attended everywhere by the Spanish page, Orteguilla, to whom he has taken a fancy. There is an air of forced gaiety, with much joking together between the two leaders. The old soldier, Bernal Díaz, finds time in his accounts to give a couple of amusing sidelights on guard duties. One of the guards set over Moctezuma relieves himself noisily in the king's presence. True to form, Moctezuma tries to persuade the man to improve his manners by the gift of a gold jewel worth 5 pesos. The next time the man is on duty, he deliberately pisses again, in the hopes of a further ‘reward' for his endeavours. Instead he is replaced by the captain of the guard and severely reprimanded. Another guard, a big crossbowman, says in Moctezuma's presence: ‘To hell with the dog. I'm sick to death of guarding him.' He is flogged, and thereafter Cortés orders that the guards carry out their duties ‘silently, with good manners'. There is also the problem of communion wine, ‘for as Cortés and some other captains and a friar had been ill during the Tlaxcalan campaign, there had been a run on the wine that we kept for Mass'. The atmosphere is peculiarly relaxed, and even when two sloops have been built they are used, not for guard duty, but to take Moctezuma and his nobles hunting on a rocky island in the middle of the lake, the picnic party rounded off by a demonstration from the cannon mounted in the bows.

Only those who have travelled amongst primitive peoples will fully understand the strange behaviour of Moctezuma during this interlude, the living for the day, the fatalism, the almost animal willingness to be led; or that of his people – their subservience to despotism, their acceptance of cruelty as an integral part of life, their admiration of cunning as one of the finest qualities of leadership. Thus, Cacama, who, as lord of Texcoco, was the natural focal point of insurrection, was destroyed without the Spaniards having to fire a shot. Politics were involved, for it was reported to Moctezuma that Cacama intended to seize power for himself. Cacama was the young man who had first welcomed Cortés on the Cuitlahuac causeway. He was Moctezuma's nephew, and he had the support of the lords of Tacuba and Coyoacán, and also of Moctezuma's brother, Cuitlahuac, lord of Iztapalapa. With Texcoco, these cities were four of the most important of the Culhúan confederacy. It was a dangerous situation for Cortés, and his immediate reaction was to attack the insurrection at its centre. But when he asked for an auxiliary force of Mexican warriors for an assault on Texcoco, Moctezuma pointed out that the city would be difficult to take. It was strongly fortified and surrounded by water; also, it would be supported by the vassal cities of Culhuacán and Otumba, both of them built like fortresses. Cortés then tried to bluff Cacama into submission. Emissaries went back and forth, Moctezuma himself summoned Cacama to his capital to make friends with the Spaniards. Instead of replying, Cacama announced publicly that he would kill every Spaniard within four days, and accused his uncle of being a coward.

Time passed in these exchanges, and time was not on Cacama's side. The inability of the Indians to combine together, except at the command of an absolute ruler, is clearly revealed in the council of war convened in Texcoco. The assembled nobles were eager enough to fight, but first Moctezuma must be informed of their intention, and if he agreed, then, and only then, would they attack. Cacama was young and headstrong. He had three of the nobles arrested and sent a message to Moctezuma saying that ‘he ought to be ashamed of himself for commanding him to make friends with men who had done him so much harm and dishonour as to keep him a prisoner'. He asserted that the Spaniards had robbed him of his great strength and courage by witchcraft or because their gods, particularly the ‘great woman of Castile' (by which he meant the Virgin), had given them strength, and that, whatever his uncle said, he intended to attack them.

It amounted to civil war, the very thing Moctezuma was determined to avoid. He summoned six of his most trusted war chiefs, and once again the seal of Huitzilopochtli was used to maintain Spanish domination. They left for Texcoco immediately. Unfortunately for Cacama, his high-handed behaviour had made him enemies amongst his own nobles. The seal was shown to several disaffected chiefs, who seized him in his own palace, with five of his captains, bundled him into a pirogue and brought him in state to Mexico. Moctezuma dealt with him as he had done with Cualpopoca, handing him over to Cortés, who imprisoned him, but set his captains free. Cortés then made Moctezuma arrange for the arrest of Cacama's fellow-conspirators, the kings of Tacuba, Coyoacán and Iztapalapa. All three of them were put in chains. Finally, he arranged for the appointment of Cacama's brother as lord of Texcoco. He was a pleasant and ineffectual youth, who had fled to Mexico. Later he was baptized and took the name of Don Carlos.

Peace having been re-established, Cortés now gave his attention to the consolidation of his position. If he were to be confirmed as governor-general of Mexico, it was necessary that the Indians became vassals of the Emperor Charles and paid tribute. At his insistence Moctezuma called a council of his Indian chiefs. The wretched king was now so deeply involved with the Spaniards that he was apparently willing to buy peace at any price.

In his speech to his lords in council he repeated the history of Quetzalcoatl, telling them that the Emperor Charles was the king they had been expecting. ‘I hold it to be certain, and you must hold it so.' And he went on, ‘Since our predecessors did not act justly towards their sovereign lord let us do so, and let us give thanks to our gods, because that which they looked for has come to pass in our times. I heartily pray you, inasmuch as all this is well known to you, that, as you have obeyed me as your sovereign, henceforward you will regard and obey this great king, because he is your rightful sovereign, and, in his place, you must hold this, his Captain; also that all the tributes and services, which until now you have paid to me, you do give to him, because I also shall pay tribute, and serve in all that he may command me. In so doing, you will do your duty as you
are obliged to do, and you will, moreover, in doing this, give me great pleasure.'

Despite his imprisonment, despite the burning of Cualpopoca and the incarceration of Cacama and three other kings, including his own brother, Moctezuma's word was still law. The habit of absolute obedience dies hard. Cortés, describing the scene, says, ‘All this he told them, weeping the greatest tears, and the greatest sighs a man can give vent to; and all those lords who had heard him were likewise weeping so much, that, during a considerable time, they were unable to answer. And I assure Your Sacred Majesty, that there was not one among the Spaniards who heard this discourse who did not feel great compassion.'