It was the god who woke me. Tezcatlipoca who breathed an icy chill through my bedchamber and caressed my flesh with his cold fingers. In the darkest hour of that night, he whispered in my ear.

I did his bidding.

I went to the palace.

The streets are deserted when dark, for it is a time of dread. The sun battles in the underworld, and who knows if it will win its fight and rise once more? In the night demons are abroad, and the gods are at their most fearsome: they wear the aspects of their dark sides and will violate and murder any who cross their path.

It was with trepidation that I set forth, barefoot so I would make no noise. Eve walked beside me, her claws clacking on the stones, the sound magnified in the still blackness. A fine drizzle streamed steadily from the sky, obscuring the brightness of the moon.

On nearing the palace, I was surprised to hear movement. At this late hour there should be nothing but Eve’s paws and my own breathing. Yet now, whispered though they were, I caught hurried conversations, urgent commands, desperate questions.

The doors to the palace were wide open.

I shrank back into the shadows to watch. A horse was led forth, heavily laden. What it bore on its back was ill packed and poorly tied as though done in great haste. Through the gaps in the cloth I could see the glint of gold.

Gold. The metal that had drawn them here. The metal that – though their lives were in peril – they would not leave without.

For they were leaving, of that there could be no doubt. The first horse was followed by a line of men. Then more horses, their hooves bound in cloth to muffle their sound. The dogs’ jaws were tied to prevent their barking, and some men walked barefoot as I did to avoid detection.

How different a procession it was to the one I had watched in awe just a few months ago! Then they had arrived with jangling armour, splendid and shining, like gods. Now they left like thieves. Cowards. Fleeing furtively from the city whose wealth they had plundered. Whose people they had slaughtered. Whose ruler they had destroyed.

They should not go unpunished.

I would give our people warning. Rouse the warriors. A yell erupted from my breast. “They are running away! Come quickly!”

At my sudden shout, the soldiers turned. One ran, sword drawn, to stop my noise. I did not move. As he came, I continued to cry aloud.

“They are fleeing the city! The Spanish are escaping!”

He raised his sword high as Eve barked a warning. But before he could reach me, people from nearby houses spilt into the square. Seeing them, the Spaniard turned and fled.

And now my shouts were taken up by others and carried to the temple. A drumbeat pounded from the top of the pyramid, waking all who still lay sleeping. Men and women tumbled through the doors of every house, and soon their running feet slapped loudly on the streets. Canoes glided swiftly through the canals towards the causeway. Many torches lit the night sky as brightly as the burning flame had done so long ago. Shouts of men – the warlike howls of warriors – rent the air.

With this, every trace of discipline in the Spanish force crumbled. Bearing planks of wood they had ripped from the palace, they attempted to make bridges on the causeway across which they could pass. Had they not been observed, they might perhaps have succeeded and made an orderly retreat. But thrown into panic and confusion as they were, all was chaos.

Those at the rear hastened forward, desperate to escape the onslaught of our warriors. They did not know – they could not – that the weight of their numbers forced those ahead into the canal before the planks could be laid down.

Men fell into the water and were drowned, dragged to the lake floor by the gold they had stuffed into their tunics. Horses, heavily laden with the stolen blocks of metal, screamed in terror before they too were pulled beneath the water. Others were pushed from the causeway as fear made men cruel. Tlaxcalan warriors. Tlaxcalan courtesans. Their bodies made the first bridge the Spanish stumbled across.

The causeway was long with many burnt bridges to cross before they reached solid land. They fled heedless of others, each man caring only to save his own skin. And as they fled, our canoes came at them from both sides. The sky rained arrows.

Three quarters of the Spanish force was lost that night. In the cold grey light of the following dawn their bodies choked the clear lake, hanging in the water like a frenzied, monumental offering to the god Tlaloc.

Their leaving had been hastily arranged, so suddenly done that those who were lodged in the slaves’ quarters had not heard word of it. Some hundred men had been left behind. Their capture took little effort on the part of our warriors. They were made to dance, naked, on top of the city’s principal temple before their sacrifice. And with no mushrooms to dull the senses, their screams were loud and dreadful.

As I dressed in crisp, clean clothing, the ancient steps ran red with Spanish blood.