Читать книгу The Discovery of Chocolate: A Novel онлайн | страница 31

Surrounded by this chaos, I searched about the treasury. ‘The king’s fifth’ had already been allotted, and was packed in crates ready for our departure. The friar told me that Cortés had claimed one fifth, and that, after double shares for the captains, horsemen and crossbowmen had been allotted, there was virtually nothing left for the common soldier. At this point I must confess that I was filled with a frenzied covetousness, pulling back boxes, peering in chests, casting treasures aside, until at last, in a dark corner, I found the vase with the cacao beans. This I claimed as mine own.

I had discovered the treasure with which I would return and I, alone among my companions, knew its worth. The other soldiers laughed to see me carrying such an object but knew nothing of its contents, and could not imagine the glory it would bring me when I presented it to my betrothed.

I had succeeded in my quest.

Our captains shouted that we should flee, for to defend our position was hopeless, and our most pressing duty was to remove both ourselves and the treasures that we had secured. Yet when we attempted to make our escape some four thousand Mexican soldiers attacked us.

In the ensuing chaos the city became a place of fear and desperation. It rained heavily, and our horses lost their foothold on the slippery flagstones of the courtyard. Blood and water washed down the streets, and sixteen of our men were killed in the first attack.

In the hell that followed, Montezuma appealed for calm but was stoned to death by his own people. Any attempt at the restoration of order was futile. Cortés returned but had no choice other than retreat. Our horses spurred ahead, fleeing the city, as the Mexicans took to the lake in their canoes, firing at us from all angles, determined that none should live. They broke off sections of the causeway so that we were forced to fight with our bodies chest high in water and could only proceed by holding up our shields, hacking away with the utmost brutality at any who stood in our way. It was a night of blood and rain in which no tactics were effective and the lake slowly filled with the dead, the dying and the terrible remnants of war.