I leaned over his shoulder and followed his exposition alertly. Fallon said, ‘Cortes gave up personal direction at that point — he was pulled back to Spain — and the next expedition was led by Francisco de Montejo, who had already explored the coast of Yucatán from the sea. He had quite a respectable force but he found the Mayas a different proposition from the Aztecs. They fought back, and fought back hard, and Montejo was no Cortes — the Spaniards were trounced in the first few battles.
‘With Montejo was Manuel de Vivero. I don’t suppose Vivero was much more than a common foot soldier, but something funny happened to him. He was captured by the Mayas and they didn’t kill him; they kept him alive as a sort of slave and as a mascot. Now, Montejo never did pacify Yucatán — he never got on top of the Mayas. Come to that, nobody ever did; they were weakened and absorbed to some extent, but they were never defeated in battle. In 1549, twenty-two years after he started out, Montejo was in control of barely half of the Yucatán Peninsula — and all this time Vivero was a captive in the interior.
‘This was a rather curious time in the history of the Mayas and something happened which puzzled archeologists for a long time. They found that the Spaniards and the Mayas were living and working together side by side, each in his own culture; they found a Mayan temple and a Spanish church built next to each other and, what is more, contemporaneous — built at the same time. This was puzzling until the sequence of events had been sorted out as I’ve just described.
‘In any event, there the Mayas and the Spaniards were, living cheek by jowl. They fought each other, but not continuously. The Spaniards controlled eastern Yucatán where the great Mayan cities of Chichén Itzá and Uxmal are, but western Yucatán, the modern province of Quintana Roo, was a closed book to them. It’s still pretty much of a closed book even now. However, there must have been quite a bit of trade going on between the two halves and Vivero, captive though he was, managed to write a letter to his sons and smuggle it out. That’s the Vivero letter.’
He dug into his briefcase again. ‘I have a transcription of it here if you want to read it.’
I flipped open the file he gave me — there was quite a lot of it. I said, ‘Do you want me to read this now?’
‘It would be better if you did,’ he said. ‘We’d be able to get on with the rest of our business a little faster. You can’t understand anything until you read that letter.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘But I’ll take it into my study. Can I trust you two not to kill each other in my absence?’
Katherine Halstead said coolly, ‘There will be no trouble.’
I grinned at her cheerfully. ‘I’ll have Mr.s Edgecombe bring you tea; that ought to keep the temperature down — no one kills over the teacups, it would be downright uncivilized.’
II
To my sons, Jaime and Juan, greetings from Manuel de Vivero y Castuera, your father.
For many years my sons, I have been seeking ways by which I could speak to you to assure you of my safety in this heathen land. Many times have I sought escape and as many times I have been defeated and I know now that escape from my captivity cannot be, for I am watched continually. But by secret stratagems and the friendship of two men of the Mayas I am able to send you this missive in the hope that your hearts will be lightened and you will not grieve for me as for a dead man. But you must know, my sons, that I will never come out of this land of the Mayas nor out of this city called Uaxuanoc; like the Children of Israel I shall be captive for as long as it pleases the Lord, our God, to keep me alive.
In this letter I shall relate how I came to be here, how God preserved my life when so many of my comrades were slain, and tell of my life among those people, the Mayas. Twelve years have I been here and have seen many marvels, for this is the Great City of the Mayas, the prize we have all sought in the Americas. Uaxuanoc is to Tenochtitlán which Hernán Cortes conquered as Madrid is to the meanest village in Huelva, the province of our family. I was with Cortes in the taking of Tenochtitlan and saw the puissant Montezuma and his downfall, but that mighty king was as a mere peasant, a man poor in wealth, when put against even the ordinary nobility of Uaxuanoc.
You must know that in the Year of Christ One Thousand, Five Hundred and Twenty Seven I marched with Francisco de Montejo into the Yucatán against the Mayas. My position in the company was high and I led a band of our Spanish soldiers. I had a voice with Cortes when I was with that subtle soldier and I was high in the councils of Francisco de Montejo, and so I know the inner reasons for the many stratagems of the campaign. Since I have lived with the Mayas I have come to know them, to speak their words and to think their thoughts, and so I know also why those stratagems came to naught.
Francisco de Montejo was — and, I hope, still is — my friend. But friendship cannot blind me to his shortcomings as a soldier and as a statesman. Brave he undoubtedly is, but his is the bravery of the wild boar or of the bull of the Basque country which charges straight without deceit or evasion and so is easily defeated. Bravery is not enough for a soldier, my sons: he must be wily and dishonest, telling lies when appearing to speak truth, even to his men when he finds this necessary, he must retreat to gain an advantage, ignoring the ignorant pleadings of braver but lesser soldiers; he must lay traps to ensnare the enemy and he must use the strength of the enemy against himself as Cortes did when he allied, himself with the Tlascalans against the men of Mexico.
Hernán Cortes knew this most well. He spoke pleasantly to all and of all, but kept his counsel and went his own way. It may be that this use of lies and chicanes, the inventions of the Devil, is against the teachings of Holy Church and, indeed, would be reprehensible when fighting fellow Christians; but here we are fighting the Children of the Devil himself and turn his own weapons against him in the assurance that our cause is just and that with the help of our Lord, Jesus Christ, we can bring these ignorant savages to the One and True Faith.
Be that as it may, Francisco de Montejo was — and is — lacking in the qualities I have named and his efforts to subdue the Maya came to naught. Even now, twelve years after we marched so gaily on our Holy Crusade, the Maya is as strong as ever, though some of his cities are lost. Yet I would not lay all blame on Francisco, for this is as strange a land as any I have seen in all my journeyings in the Americas, where many strange and wondrous things are to be seen daily.
This I will tell you: the land of Yucatán is not like any other. When Hernán Cortes defeated the army of the Mayas on his journey to El Petén and the Honduras he was fighting on the uplands of Anahuac where the land is open and where all the noble resources of the art of war in which we are so advanced can be used. When we marched into Yucatán with de Montejo on the central strongholds of the enemy we found a green wilderness, a forest of trees so vast that it would cover all of Old Spain.
In this place, our horses, which so affright the ignorant savages, could not be used in battle; but we were not cast down, thinking to use them as pack animals. To our sore disappointment they were afflicted by disease and began to die, more each day. And those that survived were of little value, for the trees grew thickly and a man can go where a horse cannot, and from being the most valued of our possessions, they stooped to become a hindrance to our expedition.