The Conquistadors by Hammond Innes

on his way to visit Moctezuma, he was still far from ready for such a dangerous expedition. He needed allies. He needed also the support and authority of his king for what he was doing. In addition, there was the persistent problem of dissension in his own ranks; seven soldiers had already tried to desert in a stolen boat.
    When he heard that the Culhúans were attacking the town of Cingapacinga twenty-five miles away, Cortés marched at once with his entire force, supported by two thousand Totonac warriors. But the Zempoalans had lied. There was a feud between Zempoala and Cingapacinga, and they were simply using the Spaniards as a front for looting. Cortés was furious. He made them hand back all they had stolen, and having thus ingratiated himself with the Cingapacingans, he lectured them on the true faith and had them swear allegiance to the Spanish crown.
    On the way back one of his own soldiers was caught looting. He had him strung up as a lesson to the others, for if his men looted he knew he would lose the support of the Indians, and that would mean ultimate disaster. But he could ill afford even the loss of a single Spanish soldier and he was probably relieved when Alvarado, of his own accord, cut the fool down just before he choked to death.
    Cortés’ anger at the behaviour of the Zempoalans seems to have seriously alarmed them, for on his return to the city he was presented with eight girls, each with a golden collar round her neck and gold ear-rings. They were the daughters of chiefs, and they were offered in the usual Indian fashion to cement the alliance by bearing his captains children. The time had come for Cortés to destroy their last link with Mexico. He said that if they accepted the girls they would become the Indians’ blood-brothers, and this they could not do unless the girls became Christians and the Indians ceased sacrificing human beings and gave up sodomy. At that time they were regularly sacrificing anything up to five humans a day, offering up their hearts to the idols and eating the arms and legs. They also had boy prostitutes dressed as girls.
    The Indians at once became extremely menacing, prepared to defend their idols and their beliefs. But when Cortés threatened to abandon them to the wrath of Moctezuma, official opposition suddenly collapsed and most of the people stood apathetically by whilst some fifty Spanish soldiers threw the idols down the steps of the temples. But at the sight of this desecration some of the warriors would have attacked if Cortés had not seized the cacique and half a dozen of the priests, threatening them with death if a single arrow was loosed. Finally, on the instructions of the cacique, the priests in charge of the temples took the broken idols away and burned them. The description of these priests is quite horrific: ‘They wore black cloaks like those of canons, and other smaller hoods like Dominicans. They wore their hair very long, down to their waists, and some even down to their feet, and it was all so clotted and matted with blood that it could not be pulled apart. Their ears were cut to pieces as a sacrifice and they smelt of sulphur. But they alsosmelt of something worse – of decaying flesh.’ These priests were unmarried, but practised sodomy.
    Next day, when the whole place had been cleaned and the walls white-washed, an altar was set up and four of the priests, their hair washed and cut and with clean white robes, were put in charge of it. They were shown how to make candles from a local wax and ordered to keep them burning before the image of the Virgin and the Holy Cross. It was religious showmanship, but its effect was powerful, particularly when mass was said and the Indian girls were baptized. Moctezuma, two hundred miles away and getting accounts of it by spies, perhaps at second or third hand, must have found it very confusing. These
teules
with their cannon, their horses and their ships, armed for battle and