I should mention that, obviously to monitor the truthfulness of my own translating along the way, Cortés had brought along a second interpreter. For a change, it was not Malintzin, since she was at that time still nursing her infant Martin Cortés, and I almost regretted her absence, for she was at least comely to look at. Her replacement was likewise a female, but a woman with the face and whine and disposition of a mosquito. She was one of those upstarts from the lowest class, who had become an imitation white by learning to speak Spanish and taking the Christian name of Florencia. However, since her only other language was Náhuatl, she was of no use in those foreign parts, except each night to service however many of the Spanish soldiers who had not been able to entice to their pallets, with gifts and the lure of curiosity, younger and more desirable local sluts.
One night in early spring, after having spent the day slogging through a particularly nasty and noisome swamp, we camped on a dry piece of ground in a grove of ceiba and amatl trees. We had eaten our evening meal and were resting around the several campfires, when Cortés came and squatted beside me and put a comradely arm about my shoulders and said:
"Look yonder, Juan Damasceno. That is a thing to be marveled at." I raised my topaz and looked where he pointed: at the three Revered Speakers sitting together, apart from the rest of the men. I had seen them sit like that many times on the journey, presumably discussing whatever is left to be discussed by rulers with nothing left to rule. Cortés said, "That is a sight infrequent enough in the Old World, believe me—three kings seated peaceably together—and it may never again be seen here. I should like a memento of it. Draw me a portrait of them, Juan Damasceno, just as they are, with their faces inclined toward each other in serious conversation."
It seemed an innocuous request. Indeed, for Hernán Cortés, it seemed unusually thoughtful, his recognition of a moment worth recording. So I willingly complied. I peeled a strip of bark from one of the amatl trees, and on its clean inner surface I drew, with a charred and pointed stick from the fire, the best picture I could make with such crude materials. The three Revered Speakers were individually recognizable, and I caught the solemnity of their faces, so that anyone looking at the picture could divine that they spoke of lordly things. It was not until the next morning that I had cause to lament having broken my long-ago oath never to draw any more portraits, lest I bring ill fortune upon those portrayed.
"We will not march today, my boys," Cortés announced, at our arising. "For this day we have the unhappy duty of convening a martial court."
His soldiers looked as startled and bewildered as I and the Revered Speakers did.
"Doña Florencia," said Cortés, with a gesture toward the smirking woman, "has taken care to overhear the conversations between our three distinguished guests and the chiefs of the villages through which we have passed. She will testify that these kings have been conniving with the peoples hereabout to mount a mass uprising against us. I also have, thanks to Don Juan Damasceno"—he waved the piece of bark—"a drawing which is incontrovertible proof of their being deep in conspiracy."
The three Speakers had thrown only a glance of disgust at the contemptible Florencia, but their look at me was full of sadness and disillusion. I leapt forward and cried, "This is not true!"
Instantly, Cortés had his sword out, the point of it against my throat. "I think," he said, "for these proceedings, your testimony and translation might not be entirely impartial. Doña Florencia will serve as interpreter, and you—you will keep silent."
So six of his under-officers sat as the tribunal, and Cortés presented the charges, and his witness Florencia provided the spurious supporting evidence. Perhaps Cortés had tutored her in advance, but I do not think that would have been necessary. Persons of her base sort—resentful that the world neither knows nor cares if they even exist—will grasp any chance to be recognized, if only for their egregious malignity. Thus Florencia seized that one opportunity to be noticed: by reviling her betters, and with seeming impunity, and before an apparently attentive audience which pretended to believe her. Dredging up her lifelong indignation at her own nonentity, she spewed a torrent of lies and fabrications and accusations intended to make the three lords seem creatures more despicable than she was.
I could say nothing—not until now—and the Revered Speakers would say nothing. In their disdain for the mosquito posturing as a vulture, they did not refute her vituperation or defend themselves or let their faces show what they thought of that sham trial. Florencia would probably have gone on for days, inventing even evidence that the three were Devils from Hell, if she had had the intellect to think of it. But the tribunal finally wearied of listening to her rant, and they summarily commanded her to desist, and then they just as summarily pronounced the three lords guilty of conspiring to revolt against New Spain.
Without protest or expostulation, only exchanging ironic farewells with each other, the three let themselves be stood in a row under a massive ceiba tree, and the Spaniards threw ropes over a convenient limb, and the three were hauled up together. In that moment, when the Revered Speakers Cuautemoc and Tetlapanquetzal and Cohuanacoch died, there also ended the last remaining trace of the existence of The Triple Alliance. I do not know the exact date of the year, because on that expedition I had not been keeping a journal. Perhaps you reverend scribes can calculate the date, for when the execution was concluded, Cortés shouted merrily:
"Now let us hunt, my boys, and kill some game and make a feast! Today is Meat Tuesday, the last day of Carnival!"
They caroused throughout the night, so I had no difficulty in slipping away from the camp unnoticed, and back the way we had come. In much less time than we had taken outbound, I returned to Quaunahuac and to Cortés's palace. The guards were accustomed to my comings and goings, and they indifferently accepted my off hand remark that I had been sent home in advance of the rest of the expedition. I went to Béu's room and told her of all that had happened.
"I am now an outcast," I said. "But I believe Cortés is totally unaware that I have a wife, or that she is in residence here. Even if he were to find out, it is unlikely that he would wreak my deserved punishment on you. I must flee, and I can best hide among the crowds of Tenochtítlan. Perhaps I can find an empty hut in the laborers' low quarter. I would not wish you to live in such squalor, Waiting Moon, when you can stay and be comfortable here—"
"We are now outcasts," she interrupted, her voice husky but determined. "I may even be able to walk to the city, Záa, if you will lead me."
I argued and pleaded, but she would not be dissuaded. So I made a pack of our belongings, which were not many, and I called for two slaves to bear her in a litter, and we traveled over the mountain rim, back into the lake lands, and across the southern causeway into Tenochtítlan, and here we have been ever since.
* * *
I bid you welcome once again, Your Excellency, after such long absence. Do you come to hear the conclusion of my narrative? Well, I have told it all, except for a little bit.