died, their thighs were cut for broiling and...
But perhaps you will not look so nauseated, lord friars, if I assure you that most of the bodies were without ceremony fed to the animals of the city menagerie...
Very well, my lords, I will return to the less gala events of that night. While we were thanking the gods for the riddance of the outlanders, we were unaware that our mainland armies had not annihilated them. Cortes was still sulking miserably in Tlacopan when he was roused by the noisy approach of his other fleeing forces—the Acolhua and Totonaca, or what was left of them—being chased northward by the Xochimilca and Chalca. Cortes and his officers, with Malintzin no doubt shouting louder than she had ever had to shout in her life, managed to halt the headlong rout and restore some semblance of order. Then Cortes and his white men, some on horseback, some walking, some limping, some in litters, led the reorganized native troops farther on northward before their pursuers caught up. And those pursuers, probably believing that the fugitives would be dealt with by other Triple Alliance forces beyond, or perhaps over-eager to commence their own victory celebrations, let the fugitives go.
Sometime about daybreak, at the northern extremity of Lake Tzumpanco, Cortes realized that he was closely trailing our allied Tecpaneca. And they, still on the trail of his allied Texcalteca, were surprised and displeased to find themselves trudging along between two enemy forces. Deciding that something had gone amiss with the general battle plan, the Tecpaneca also abandoned their pursuit, dispersed sideways off the trail and made their way home to Tlacopan. Cortes eventually caught up to his Texcalteca, and his whole army was again intact, though notably diminished and in dismal spirits. Still, Cortes may have been somewhat relieved that his best native fighters, the Texcalteca—because they were the best fighters—had suffered the fewest losses. I can imagine what went through Cortes's mind then:
'If I go to Texcala, its old King Xicotenca will see that I have preserved most of the warriors he lent me. So he cannot be too angry with me, or account me a total failure, and I may be able to persuade him to give the rest of us refuge there.'
Whether or not that was his reasoning, Cortes did lead his wretched troops on around the northern extent of the lake lands toward Texcala. Several more men died of their wounds during that long march, and all of them suffered greatly, for they took a prudently circuitous route, avoiding every populated place, hence could not beg or demand food. They were forced to subsist on what edible wild creatures and plants they could find, and at least once had to butcher and eat some of their precious horses and staghounds.
Only once in that long march were they again engaged in combat. They were caught in the foothills of the mountains to the east, by a force of Acolhua warriors from Texcoco still loyal to The Triple Alliance. But those Acolhua were lacking in both leadership and incentive to fight, so the battle was conducted almost as bloodlessly as a Flowery War. When the Acolhua had secured a number of prisoners—all Totonaca, I believe—they retired from the field and went home to Texcoco to hold their own celebration of 'victory.' Thus Cortes's remaining army was not further diminished too severely between its flight on the Sad Night and its arrival, twelve days later, in Texcala. That nation's lately converted Christian ruler, the aged and blind Xicotenca, did welcome Cortes's return and gave him permission to quarter his troops and to stay as long as he might wish. All those events I have just recounted, all working to our detriment, were unknown to us in Tenochtitlan when, in the radiant dawn after the Sad Night, we sent the first Spanish xochimiqui to the sacrificial stone at the summit of the Great Pyramid.
Other things happened at the time of that Sad Night which, if not sad, were at least to be wondered at. As I have told, the Mexica nation lost its Revered Speaker Motecuzoma. But also the then Revered Speaker of Tlacopan, Totoquihuaztli, died in that city during the night's battle there. And the Revered Speaker Cacama of Texcoco, who fought with the Acolhua warriors he had lent to Tenochtitlan, was found among the dead when our slaves did the grisly work of clearing the night's detritus from The Heart of the One World. No one much mourned the loss of either Motecuzoma or his nephew Cacama, but it was a disturbing coincidence that all three ruling partners of The Triple Alliance should have died in the one afternoon and night. Of course, Cuitlahuac had already assumed the vacant throne of the Mexica—though he never did get to enjoy the full pomp and ceremony of an official coronation ceremony. And the people of Tlacopan chose as a replacement for their slain Uey-Tlatoani his brother Tetlapanquetzal.
The choice of a new Revered Speaker for Texcoco was less easy. The legitimate claimant was the Prince Black Flower, who should rightly have been the ruler anyway, and most of the Acolhua people would have welcomed him to the throne—except that he had allied himself with the hated white men. So the Speaking Council of Texcoco, in consultation with the new Revered Speakers of Tenochtitlan and Tlacopan, decided to appoint a man of such nonentity that he would be acceptable to all factions, yet could be replaced by whatever leader finally emerged as the strongest among the fragmented Acolhua. His name was Cohuanacoch, and I think he was a nephew of the late Nezahualpili. It was because of that nation's uncertainty and division of loyalties and frailty of leadership that the Acolhua warriors attacked the fleeing forces of Cortes so halfheartedly, when they could have destroyed them utterly. And never again did the Acolhua manifest the warlike ferocity that I had admired when Nezahualpili led them—and me—against the Texcalteca those many years ago.
Another curious occurrence of the Sad Night was that, sometime during that night, the dead body of Motecuzoma disappeared from the palace throne room in which it last lay, and was never seen again. I have heard many suppositions as to what became of it—that it was viciously dismembered and chopped and minced and scattered by our warriors when they overran the palace; that his wives and children spirited the corpse away for more respectful disposition; that his loyal priests treated the cadaver with preservatives and hid it away, and will bring it magically to life again, someday when you white men have gone and the Mexica reign once more. What I believe is that Motecuzoma's body got mixed in with those of the Texcalteca knights who were slain in that palace and, unrecognized, went where theirs did: to the animals of the menagerie. But only one thing is certain. Motecuzoma departed this world as vaguely and irresolutely as he had lived in it, so his body's resting place is as unknown as the whereabouts of the treasure which vanished during that same night.
Ah, yes, the treasure: what is now called 'the lost treasure of the Aztecs.' I wondered when you would ask me about it. In after years, Cortes often called me in to help Malintzin interpret while he interrogated many persons, each of them many times and in many interestingly persuasive ways, and he often demanded to know what I might know about the treasure, though he did not subject me to any of the persuasions. Many other Spaniards besides Cortes have repeatedly asked me and other former courtiers to tell them: of what did the treasure consist? and how much was it worth? and above all, where is it now? You would not believe some of the inducements I am still being offered to this day, but I will remark that some of the most persistent and more generously inclined inquirers are highborn Spanish donas.
I have already told you, reverend friars, of what the treasure consisted. As to its worth, I do not know how you would appraise those innumerable works of art. Even considering the gold and gems simply in bulk, I have no way of reckoning their value in your currency of maravedies and reales. But, from what I have been told of the great wealth of your King Carlos and your Pope Clemente and other rich personages of your Old World, I think I can declare that any man possessing 'the lost treasure of the Aztecs' would be by far the wealthiest of all wealthy men in your Old World.
But where is it? Well, the old causeway still stretches from here to Tlacopan—or Tacuba, as you prefer to call it. Though the span is shorter now than it used to be, the farthest west canoe passage is still there, and that is where many Spanish soldiers sank from the weight of gold in their packs and doublets and boots. Of course, they must have sunk far into the ooze of the lake bottom in the past eleven years, and been even deeper buried by the silt deposited in those same years. But any man sufficiently greedy and sufficiently energetic to dive down and dig there should find many bleached bones, and among them many jeweled golden diadems, medallions, figurines, and such. Perhaps not enough to make him rank with King Carlos or Pope Clemente, but enough that he need never feel greedy again.
Unfortunately for any really greedy treasure seekers, the greater part of the plunder was thrown into the lake, on Cortes's orders, at the causeway's first acali passage, the nearest to the city here. The Revered Speaker Cuitlahuac could have sent divers down to recover it afterward, and perhaps he did so, but I have reasons for doubting that. Anyway, Cuitlahuac died before Cortes could ask him, either politely or persuasively. And if any Mexica divers did bring up from the lake the treasury of their nation, either they too have died or they are men of dedicated and exceptional reticence.
I believe the bulk of the treasure still lies there where Cortes had it jettisoned on that Sad Night. But when Tenochtitlan was later razed to the very ground and, after that, when the rubble was cleared for the city's rebuilding in the Spanish style, the unusable remains of Tenochtitlan were simply scraped to the sides of the
