"Speaking of pulque," I said, to change the subject, "it is made from the metl, or maguey. And while we have been translating this newest text, Cuatl Alonso, I heard you speak of the maguey as a cacto.It is not. The maguey has spines, yes, but every cactus also has an internal woody skeleton, and the maguey does not. It is a planta,the same as any bush or grass."
"Thank you, Cuatl Juan. I am making a note. So—let us get on with our work, then."
I continued to sleep every night and to take my morning and evening meals at the Mesón de San José, while I passed my free Sundays in the several city markets, asking stallkeepers and passersby if they knew any persons named Netzlin and Citláli, formerly of the town of Tépiz. For a long while, my search was unsuccessful. But I was not wasting what time I spent, either at that endeavor or at the mesón.
Mingling with the city folk in the markets helped me refine my old-fashioned way of speaking Náhuatl and acquire the more modern vocabulary of the Mexíca. Also I associated as much as possible with those prosperous, far-traveled pochtéca who had brought goods from the south to sell in the city—and with the burly tamémime who had actually carried those goods—and thereby learned a useful number of words and phrases of the southern tongues: the Mixtéca language of the people who call themselves Men of the Earth, and the Tzapotéca of those who call themselves the Cloud People, even many words of the tongues spoken in the Chiapa and Quautemálan lands.
At the mesón, every night I was in the company of foreigners from the north, as I have said. Of those, as I have also said, the Chichiméca lodgers spoke a Náhuatl about as archaic as my own, but understandable. So I consorted mainly with foreigners of the Otomí and Purémpecha and the so-called Runner People, thereby learning useful fragments of the Otomíte and Poré and Rarámuri languages. I had never before had any occasion, back home in my own land, to discover my considerable facility for learning other tongues, but now it was evident to me. And I supposed that I must have inherited the ability from my late father, because hemust have acquired it during his extensive travels throughout The One World. I will say this, however: the languages of our peoples, though they might be very different from Náhuatl, and sometimes difficult for me to enunciate, none was so verydifferent and difficult as the Spanish, or took me as long to gain fluency in.
At the mesón, also, on any night I could engage in conversation that long-time city dweller, the former jewelsmith Pochotl, who obviously haddetermined to spend the rest of his life battening on the hospitality of the San José friars. Some of our talks consisted of my merely listening, and trying not to yawn, as he recited his innumerable grudges and grievances against the Spanish, against the tonáli that from his birth had predestined his present misery, and against the gods who had laid that tonáli on him. But more often I listened more attentively, for he had really informative things to tell. For example, Pochotl provided my first knowledge of the orders and ranks and authorities by which New Spain was ruled and governed.
"The very topmost personage," he said, "is a certain man named Carlos, who resides back in what the Spaniards call the Old World. He is sometimes referred to as 'king,' sometimes as 'emperor,' sometimes as 'the crown' or 'the court.' But clearly he is the equivalent of a Revered Speaker, such as we Mexíca once had. A good many years ago, that king sent ships full of warriors to conquer and colonize a place called Cuba, which is a very large island in the Eastern Sea, somewhere beyond the horizon."
"I have heard of it," I said. "It is now populated by varicolored mongrel bastards."
He blinked and said, "What?"
"No matter. Go on, please, Cuatl Pochotl."
"From that Cuba, about twelve or thirteen years ago, came hither that Carlos's captain-general Hernán Cortés, to lead the conquest of our One World. Cortés naturally expected that the king would make him lord and master of all he conquered. However, it is now common knowledge that there were many dignitaries in Spain, and many of his own officers, who were jealous of Cortés's presumption. They persuaded the king to clamp a firm restraining hand on him. So now Cortés holds only the grand but empty title of Marqués del Valle—of this Valley of Mexíco—and the real rulers are the members of what they call the Audiencia,or what in the old days would have been a Revered Speaker's Speaking Council. Cortés has retired in disgust to his estate south of here, in Quaunáhuac—"
I interrupted. "I understand that place is no longer called Quaunáhuac."
"Well, yes and no. Our name for it, Surrounded by Forest, is pronounced by the Spaniards Cuernavaca,which is ridiculous. It means 'Cow's Horn' in their tongue. Anyway, Cortés now sits sulking on his fine estate there. I do not know why he should sulk. His herds of sheep and his plantations of the sugar-yielding cane and the tribute he still receives from numerous tribes and nations—all of that has made him the wealthiest man in New Spain. Perhaps in allthe dominions of Spain."
"I am not much interested," I said, "in the intrigues and exploitations that the white men concoct and inflict among themselves. Nor in the riches they have laid up for themselves. Tell me the details of the hold they have on us."
"There are many who do not find that grip too onerous," said Pochotl. "I mean those who have always been the lower classes. Peasants and laborers and such. They so seldom raise their eyes from their toil that they may not yet have noticed that their masters have changed color."
He went on to elaborate. New Spain was governed by the councilmen of the Audiencia, but, every so often, their King Carlos would send across the sea a royal inspector called a visitador,to make sure the Audiencia was properly attending to its business. The visitadores reported back to a council in Old Spain, the Consejo de los Indios.That council was purportedly responsible for protecting the rights of all in New Spain, natives and Spaniards alike, so it could change or amend or overrule any laws made by the Audiencia.
"I personally believe, though," said Pochotl, "that the Consejo exists mainly to make sure that the quintogets paid."
"The quinto?"
"The King's Fifth. Every time a quill measure of gold dust or a handful of sugar is extracted from our land—or cacao beans or cotton or anything else—one fifth of it is set aside for the king, before any others get their share of it."
The Audiencia's laws and regulations made in the City of Mexíco, Pochotl continued to explain, were passed along for enforcement by Spanish officials called corregidores,posted in the major communities throughout New Spain. And those officials, in turn, enjoined the encomenderosresiding in their districts to abide by those laws and see that they were obeyed by the native population.
"The encomenderos, of course, are usually Spanish," he said, "but not all of them. Some are the survivors or descendants of our own onetime overlords. The son and two daughters of Motecuzóma, for instance, as soon as they converted to Christianity and took Spanish names—Pedro, Isabel and Leónor—they were given encomiendas.So was Prince Black Flower, the son of Nezahualpíli, the late, great and sincerely lamented Revered Speaker of Texcóco. That son fought on the side of the white men during their conquest, so he is now HernandoBlack Flower, and a wealthy encomendero."