Aztec

It may be that Motecuzóma meant exactly what he said, that he was willing to capitulate to the extent of granting audience to the white men while he pondered what to do next. I do not know. He did not then confide his plans to me or to any of his Speaking Council. But this I do know. If I had been Cortés, I should have laughed at such an invitation, especially with the sly Malintzin standing by to interpret it more plainly and succinctly:

"Detested enemy: Please to dismiss your new-won allies, throw away the additional forces you have acquired, and do Motecuzóma the favor of walking stupidly into a trap you will never walk out of."

But to my surprise, since I did not then know the man's audacity, Cortés sent the messenger back with an acceptance of the invitation, and he did march south to pay a courtesy call on Chololan, and he was received there like a notable and welcome guest. He was met on the city's outskirts by its joint rulers, the Lord of What Is Above and the Lord of What Is Below, and by most of the civilian population, and by no armed men. Those lords Tlaquiach and Tlalchiac had mustered none of their warriors, and no weapons were in evidence; all appeared as Motecuzóma had promised, peaceable and hospitable.

Nevertheless, Cortés had naturally not complied with all of Motecuzóma's suggestions; he had not divested himself of his allies before coming to Chololan. In the interim, old Xicotenca of the defeated Texcala had accepted Cortés's offer of making common cause, and had given into his command fully ten thousand Texcalteca warriors—not to mention many other things: a number of the most comely and noble Texcalteca females to be divided among Cortés's officers, and even a numerous retinue of maids to be the personal serving women of the Lady One Grass, or Malintzin, or Doña Marina. So Cortés arrived at Chololan leading that army of Texcalteca, plus his three thousand men recruited from the Totonaca and other tribes, plus of course his own hundreds of white soldiers, his horses and dogs, his Malintzin and the other women traveling with the company.

After properly saluting Cortés, the two lords of Chololan looked fearfully at that multitude of his companions and meekly told him, through Malintzin, "By command of the Revered Speaker Motecuzóma, our city is unarmed and undefended by any warriors. It can accommodate your lordly self and your personal troops and attendants, and we have made arrangements to accommodate all of you in comfort, but there is simply no room for your countless allies. Also, if you will excuse our mentioning it, the Texcalteca are our sworn enemies, and we should be most uneasy if they were let to enter our city..."

So Cortés obligingly gave orders that his greater force of native warriors stay outside the city, but camping in a circle that would entirely surround it. Cortés surely felt secure enough, with all those thousands so near and on call if he should need help. And only he and the other white men entered Chololan, striding as proudly as nobles or riding their horses in towering majesty, while the gathered populace cheered and tossed flowers in their path.

As had been promised, the white men were given luxurious lodgings—every least soldier being treated as obsequiously as if he were a knight—and they were provided with servants and attendants, and women for their beds at night. Chololan had been forewarned of the men's personal habits, so no one—not even the women commanded to couple with them—ever commented on the dreadful smell of them, or their vulturine ma

We got the news in Tenochtítlan, probably before the harquebus smoke had cleared from the city, by way of our mice who flitted in and out of Cortés's own ranks. According to them, the slaughter was done at the instigation of the woman Malintzin. She came one night to her master's room in the Chololan palace, where he was swilling octli and disporting himself with several women. She snapped at the women to begone and then warned Cortés of a plot in progress. She had learned of it, she said, by mingling and conversing with the local market women, who i

Cortés burst from the palace, with his under-officers who had also been lodged there, and their shouts of "Santiago!" brought their troops converging from other lodgings in the city, throwing aside their women and their cups and seizing up their weapons. As Malintzin had warned, they found the plaza packed with people, many of them bearing feather ba

When the smoke cleared a bit, perhaps the white men saw that the plaza contained women and children as well as men, and they may even have wondered if their precipitate action had been warranted. But the noise of it brought their Texcalteca and other allies swarming from their camps into the city. It was they who, more wantonly than the white men, laid waste the city and slew its populace without mercy or discrimination, killing even the lords Tlaquiach and Tlalchiac. Some of the men of Chololan did run to get weapons with which to fight back, but they were so outnumbered and encircled that they could only fight a delaying action as they retreated upward along the slopes of Chololan's mountain-sized pyramid. They made their last stand at the very top of it, and at the end were pe

That was nearly twelve years ago, reverend friars, when that temple was burned and leveled and its rubble scattered. There remained nothing but trees and shrubs to be seen, which is why so many of your people have since been unable to believe that the mountain is not a mountain but a pyramid long ago erected by men. Of course, I know that it now bears something more than greenery. The summit where Quetzalcoatl and his worshipers were that night overthrown has lately been crowned with a Christian church.

When Cortés arrived at Chololan, it was inhabited by some eight thousand people. When he departed, it was empty. I say again that Motecuzóma had confided to me none of his plans. For all I know, he did have Mexíca troops moving stealthily toward that city, and he had instructed the people to rise up when the trap was sprung. But I beg leave to doubt it. The massacre occurred on the first day of our fifteenth month, called Panquetzaliztli, which means The Flourishing of the Feather Ba