Free The Conquistadors by Hammond Innes Page B

his captains. He did not realize it at the time, but this gift of women was of far greater value to him than gold, for it included one who was ‘a great lady and a cacique over towns and vassals since her childhood’. She was christened Marina, and because of her high birth, she is always referred to as Doña Marina. Since she was good-looking and a princess, Cortes gave her to his friend Alonso Hernandez Puerto-carrero. Throughout the campaign Cortés strictly adhered to the letter of his instructions regarding cohabitation with native women. They must first bebaptized and they then acquired the status of
barragana,
a peculiarly Spanish institution that amounted to legal concubinage. Thus Doña Marina became Puertocarrero’s wife in the eyes of all but the Church. This energetic and intelligent woman, who quickly learned Spanish, was to have a remarkable influence on the Conquest, for she spoke Náhuatl, which was the language of the Aztecs of both Culhúa and Mexico. Aguilar only spoke Tabascan, so that as the expedition marched inland, she soon replaced him as the ‘tongue’ of Cortés.
    The fleet sailed on the Monday before Easter, and four days later it arrived at San Juan de Ulúa, where Alaminos anchored the ships close under the island safe from northerly gales. Two pirogues put out from the shore and made straight for the flagship. To the Indians the scene must have been utterly fantastic: the great high-sterned carracks riding in the quiet waters that, except for Grijalva’s visit, had remained empty down the centuries, and, in the centre, Cortées’ ship with the royal standard and pennants streaming in the sunlight.
    From these Indians Cortés heard for the first time the dread name of Moctezuma. Their lord, they said, was a servant of this great king and he had sent them to discover the purpose of their visit and to supply whatever they needed. Unlike the Tabascans they came in peace, which augured well, though Cortés must have been aware that this embassy was concerned less with establishing friendly relations than with probing the strength of the invading force.
    By Good Friday the Spaniards were all ashore with their horses and guns. Having set up an altar, mass was said in the blistering heat of the sand dunes, and after that they set to work cutting wood and establishing a hutted camp. On the Saturday, they had the assistance of large numbers of Indians, who came into the camp with a gift of provisions – fowls, maize-cakes, plums which were then in season – and also some gold jewels. They had been sent by Cuitlalpitoc, who governed the province for Moctezuma and was the same man who had visited Grijalva the year before. He and Teudilli, another of Moctezuma’s officials, came into the camp on Easter Sunday with more gifts of food, including this time vegetables. In those days scurvy was regarded as an infectious disease, rather like the plague or leprosy. Thousands of sailors were to die in agony during the nexttwo hundred and fifty years because of a vitamin C deficiency in their diet, but in Mexico fruit and vegetables were always available, so this was one hazard with which Cortés and his men did not have to contend.
    Since it was Easter Sunday, Fray Bartolomé, assisted by the padre, Juan Díaz, chanted mass whilst the Indians looked on in amazement. Afterwards Cuitlalpitoc and Teudilli dined with Cortés and his captains. Since they were Mexicans, and Aguilar did not then understand the Náhuatl language, Doña Marina was brought in to act as interpreter. It was a clumsy arrangement, Aguilar interpreting into Tabascan and Doña Marina from Tabascan to Náhuatl. But by the end of the meal Cortés had learned that Moctezuma was not only lord of the great city of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, but also supreme overlord of Culhúa, a confederacy of city-states that lay several days’ march beyond the mountains, and that his power