With the monarch and his court installed in Lord Face of Water’s palace, the Spaniards were able to observe at close quarters the state he kept. The way his meals were served seemed very lavish. At each meal there were thirty courses. The dishes were kept warm over pottery braziers on a side table. Bernal, who knew that Montezuma sometimes ate the flesh of young boys, made a point of looking carefully at the dishes to see if he could detect an arm or a leg, but could never be sure because of the quantities of turkey, pheasant, partridge, quail, duck, venison, wild boar and rabbit which were served. Montezuma sat on a soft low stool at a table which was spread with a white cloth. He always used a napkin and, when he began to eat, a screen was placed so that he could not be seen, except by the women who waited on him and some old lords who stood close behind his seat. With these he conversed and now and then gave them snacks from his plate. His drink was the chocolate they prepared as a stimulant. After dinner he would watch dancers and contortionists, smoke a pipe or cigar, and take a nap. His harem was large, the women beautifully dressed. Cortés encouraged him to maintain the full etiquette of audience. Even the greatest lords were not allowed into his presence until they had covered their embroidered cotton mandes with rough cloaks woven from the cactus leaf. They came in barefoot and did not dare raise their eyes; and they went out backwards, making him obeisances. ‘Whenever we passed before him,’ says Bernal, ‘we doffed our mailed caps. The flattery and attention we paid him and the conversations he had with us gradually made him fairly contented.’ In all this Cortés’ object was to have him as a puppet ruler, draped in royal splendour but ready to do what he was told.
Montezuma’s willingness to serve as Cortés’ lieutenant was put to sharp test as time went on. It will be recalled that the most prominent man at court was his nephew, the young Cacamatzin (Lord Maize Cobs), ruler of Tetzcuco, a city on the east shore of the lake. The citizens of Tetzcuco were not Mexicans, but a different clan of the same language group. They had settled by the lake earlier than the Mexicans, and fancied themselves to be more advanced than them, in spite of having become in the previous century their vassals. Lord Maize Cobs, therefore, though his mother was Montezuma’s sister, headed a population which did not always see eye to eye with the Mexicans. They had their own ecclesiastical colleges and their own interpretations of the magical books. Prompted, no doubt, by his priesthood, Lord Maize Cobs had not been altogether sure that to resist Cortés would be catastrophic. There is evidence that he advised Montezuma to resist him at the time of the Spanish march on the city. Moreover, it seems, as is explained on a later page (p. 224) that a period of eight days would soon arrive when, astro-magically, it would be an especially propitious moment to attempt to drive Cortés-Quetzalcoatl away. So it was natural that he was less inclined than some others of the lords to look on Montezuma’s detention as inevitably fated. An ambitious man, he thought he saw in what amounted to the deposition of the First Speaker an opportunity of making himself First Speaker, thereby raising Tetzcuco to its former position as the leading town in the valley. He hatched a conspiracy with the ruling lords of four of the principal lake cities and secretly assembled a large army. Montezuma’s informers brought him the news and he immediately told Cortés. A counter strategem was devised. Lord Maize Cobs was enticed into a Tetzcuco building which stood over the lake. Some canoes full of armed men were moored under the room where he was in conference. He was dragged down into one of them and paddled the fifteen miles across to Mexico. There they carried him in a litter to Lord Face of Water’s palace. Cortés did not put him to death but locked him up. A heavy iron chain belonging to the ships had been sent from Vera Cruz and his neck was inserted into one of the links. His accomplices, the ruling lords of the four lake cities, were subsequently arrested and their necks also were put through the chain. Years later when Cortés, become a marquess, was designing his coat of arms he encircled the quarterings with a chain embedded in which were the heads of these deposed rulers. Their suppression was an important step towards his control of the country, for he placed in their stead puppet rulers. The man he appointed to Tetzcuco was Lord Swallow, who became a Christian and took the name of Don Carlos.
We are dealing here with the events which occurred in Mexico city between the seizure of Montezuma on 14th November 1519 and Cortés’ departure from the city at the end of April 1520. Their precise order is uncertain, but it seems that soon after the collapse of Lord Maize Cob’s conspiracy, which gave Cortés so much firmer a hold on the administration, he decided to call on Montezuma to swear fealty to Charles V. If this were formally done before a notary, his own legal position would be strengthened. He had as yet had no word from the Emperor. His bloodless conquest of Mexico, which he had effected in his capacity as commander of troops entrusted to him by the municipality of Vera Cruz, had received no sanction. But if Montezuma took the oath of allegiance in the proper form, it would be well nigh impossible for Charles to repudiate Cortés and the conquest.
Further back the question was asked what Montezuma understood when Charles V was mentioned, and various suggested answers were given. With Montezuma in Lord Face of Water’s palace, there had been daily conversations between him and Cortés. Sometimes they played gambling games together; sometimes Cortés explained Christianity; sometimes he enlarged on the greatness of Charles. One must suppose that after a while Montezuma got it clear that the Emperor was not Cortés’ alter ego, but a distinct personage, the real sovereign of a real country, and probably not a divinity. If he came to that conclusion—and I am forced to believe that eventually he did —we are again confronted with the difficulty of determining how he explained the fact that Cortés, whose identification with Quetzalcoatl he never doubted, alleged himself to be the subject of such a mortal Emperor. Puzzling though this question is, an answer can be found. Quetzalcoatl, during part of his previous incarnation, is represented in the histories as living as a teacher under a Toltec sovereign, whom he later succeeded. Montezuma had precedent, therefore, for supposing him to live now under an earthly sovereign. It became a reasonable explanation that Charles, after profiting by his religious teaching and hearing from him of lands in the far west, where he had once preached before, had sent him back to teach his religion there again. In such a view Charles became the protector of a dispensation which it had been prophesied would come a second time to Central America. As such he was worthy of the greatest respect.
Montezuma accordingly sent for his councillors and sought their agreement to Cortés’ request. It may seem strange that councillors who had acquiesced in Montezuma’s captivity by Cortés should feel that an open acknowledgment of vassalage to Charles V was any great matter. But here the answer must be that what Montezuma had done so far was to acknowledge a god, while now he was asked to acknowledge a man. Charles in their eyes was less than Cortés.
The lords were much distressed, but found it impossible to refuse Montezuma. ‘They replied that they would do as he had ordered them,’ says Bernal, though they could not disguise their bitter grief. The ceremony was fixed for the following day. Cortés’ secretary acted as notary. The swearing away of the country’s independence was a cruel ordeal for the Mexicans. ‘They showed much emotion in doing so and Montezuma could not restrain his tears. He was so dear to us and we were so much affected at seeing him weep, that our own eyes were melting. One soldier wept as openly as Montezuma, such was the affection we had for him.’
This tender scene belongs to high comedy. From the moment the Spaniards had entered the city it had only needed a word from Montezuma to ensure their destruction. But he had never spoken the word, and now rather than speak it submitted to a fate, which he deemed unavoidable, though it was entirely imaginary. So strange a scene contains too many subtleties ever to be entirely comprehensible. We peer at the figures, dimly seen across the centuries. But strain our eyes as we may, something escapes us.