The Surrender of Tabscoob – Nahuatl VII

CHAPTER VIII

SURRENDER OF TABSCOOB AND THE SIGNING OF THE REQUERIMIENTO

After the battle, the Spaniards began to transform the Maya city of Potonchán into something of their own, and the first thing they did was adapt the main house, the Tecpan, to their needs. That building, which had been Tabscoob's residence and where Cortés had installed himself after the surrender, stood beside the great ceiba, the sacred tree of the Maya, with its imposing trunk and leafy crown that shaded the central plaza. The house was richly built of stone and lime, upon terraces of earth coated with lime and plaster, reached by stairways; its flat roofs, with beams and covered in mortar, protected wide galleries that the Spaniards reused as a field hospital. There lay the wounded, wrapped in cotton bandages that the Maya women, with trembling gestures, had provided them, while the groans mingled with the murmurs of fray Bartolomé de Olmedo's prayers, as he mumbled his devotions as if they could stop the gangrene in the pike and arrow wounds.

However, the Maya defeat was not measured solely by the groans in the Tecpan. On the outskirts, beside the main temple, the corpses of the Maya warriors were piled up. Aguilar watched the priests, in their black capes and hair matted with blood, gather them at dusk to cremate them in the forest. The smoke from the pyres rose toward the sky like an unanswered question. The wounded who still breathed had no one to gather them. Many fled into the jungle; others crawled through the streets, and those who remained hid in the corners, looking at the conquerors with the fear of those who have nothing left to lose.

Cortés ordered that those who offered no resistance be respected, but the order was more theory than practice. The tension meant that any sudden gesture could trigger a new confrontation. The Spaniards moved in groups, with their swords drawn, and the Maya stepped aside as they passed.

Aguilar walked through the city's streets, straight and well-laid-out, until he reached the central plaza. There stood the stepped temple, dedicated to Kukulkán, the Feathered Serpent. It was not as tall as those he had seen during his captivity on the coast, but its limestone walls were decorated with reliefs of intertwined serpents and warriors holding decapitated heads. At the top, two stone altars, stained with sacrificial blood, faced east. Fray Bartolomé de Olmedo saw them as soon as he set foot in the city. His face, furrowed by the sun and penitence, hardened. And then he did what the Spaniards always did: erase one god to put another in his place. With the help of two soldiers, he tore the serpent figures from the main altar and placed a large wooden cross that the ship's carpenters had hastily assembled. The cross, rough and unpolished, rose above the temple, and its shadow fell at dusk over the houses of the Maya.

Aguilar had spent too long among the Maya to ignore that he seemed to recognize the cross in the temple's bas-reliefs, in the paintings on the vessels, in the drawings of the codices, like a sign that time had carved into the stone long before the Spaniards arrived. Perhaps it was just his imagination, or perhaps fatigue and years of captivity were playing tricks on him, but he could not get it out of his head. Fray Bartolomé said it was the work of the devil, that he had imitated the true cross to deceive the Indians. Aguilar was not so sure. But he said nothing.

While the soldiers searched every house and every temple for plunder, gold and jade accumulated in coffers, but it was not all calculated greed; one soldier tore a stucco mask with obsidian eyes from a wall and smashed it against the ground to make sure it was not hollow, and among the broken pieces, the beaded necklaces and the plaques with the faces of gods, they also found cotton blankets so fine they seemed made of clouds and baskets of quetzal and macaw feathers, which the soldiers piled up without distinguishing them from chicken feathers. The sailors, more practical, took the clay vessels and the gourd containers for the camp. Everything that could be used, sold, or traded was requisitioned.

But something troubled Aguilar. At the entrance to the city, the wounded Maya who could still move dragged themselves over to sit beside their dead, knees drawn up to their chests, and waited. They carried no water, no food, no weapons. They just waited. The guards on duty murmured that they had seen messengers emerge from the jungle at dusk, and that the wounded, upon hearing them, had lifted their heads like those who recognize a signal. Aguilar did not know whether to believe it. With each passing hour, not knowing what they were waiting for hurt a little more.

The mystery was solved at dawn, when the sentries raised the alarm. The sunlight, golden and warm, filtered through the treetops and bathed the packed-earth streets in a tepid glow. From the jungle, a procession approached. At the front, Tabscoob, erect on a litter adorned with feathers, surrounded by chieftains in cotton mantles with red and black geometric patterns, and warriors with leather breastplates and cane shields. They carried no raised weapons. They brought offerings: baskets of flowers, clay vessels, folded blankets, quetzal feathers of a green so intense that it seemed to burn amidst the ashes that still covered the streets.

---

CHAPTER IX

THE SIGNING OF THE REQUERIMIENTO AND THE DIVISION OF THE WOMEN

From the central plaza, Aguilar was the first to see them. He watched them approach with the ceremonial slowness of those who know that every gesture will be observed. He recognized Tabscoob at the front, the cacique, coming to prostrate himself before Hernán Cortés wearing a mantle of white cotton, so pure it seemed to shine under the first rays of the sun, and a headdress of quetzal feathers that rose majestically above his head, the long, brilliant feathers falling over his back like a cascade of green light. Necklaces of jade and shell covered his chest, and on his arms he wore bracelets of gold and green stones. His face, which in battle had shown a fierce determination, now displayed a serene dignity, that of the vanquished who accepts his fate without losing his pride, and who presents himself before his victors with the grandeur of one who offers his treasures not as a plea, but as an act of acknowledgment.

Among the chiefs who accompanied him, Aguilar recognized one he had seen fighting on the beach during the landing. He remembered him well: then his body had borne war paint, red and black stripes that traced spirals and jaguar figures, and his face was crossed by black lines that gave him a fierce, almost supernatural air. He had brandished his obsidian macana with a courage Aguilar had not forgotten, as if death itself danced around him. Now, however, his body displayed new paintings: red and black stripes that ran across his arms and chest. It was a code of honor that erased defeat by showing valor, for the appearance before the new lord.

But Aguilar noticed something else. A few steps behind, twenty women walked. They carried no loads. They kept their hands crossed over their bellies, fingers interlaced in a gesture of restraint, as if clinging to something invisible. Their gazes, though lowered, moved quickly, registering everything around them with the silent fear of those who know their lives are about to change forever. They wore embroidered huipiles with colored threads that gleamed in the sun, and in their hair they wore white cacaloxóchitl flowers, whose intense whiteness contrasted with the darkness of their braids. They were young, most of them, with serene but restless faces. Aguilar understood that they had not come to offer anything, but to be offered.

He felt a knot in his throat. Then, without quite knowing why, he turned and ran toward Tabscoob's residence, where Cortés had set up his headquarters. The old house of the Maya cacique, the largest and best-built in the city, had become the Spaniards' operations center. Its wide rooms, with lime walls and wooden beam ceilings, now housed the command tables, the coffers full of plunder, and the royal standard that flew at the entrance.

In one of those rooms, Cortés's chamber had the austere look of a headquarters. In one corner, the campaign bed, still unmade, recalled the precariousness of the journey; facing it, a silver crucifix presided over the bare wall, the only nod to the faith that sustained him. But the nerve center of the chamber was a large wooden table, on which rested, unfolded, the map of the coast that Alvarado had given him and a logbook. There, among drafts and annotations, Cortés recorded each night the events of the day, accumulating a record of each journey for the moment when the Crown would demand explanations.

Aguilar burst in without much announcement, and the bang of the door opening startled the scribe, who jumped with his quill. The soldier was panting, his chest still heaving from the run.

"Señor," he said. "They are coming. The Maya. They come with offerings."

Cortés looked up. He was going over the accounts with the scribe, counting the gold and jade pieces they had found in the city.

"Tabscoob?"

"Yes, señor. He comes with his nobles and wounded warriors. They carry no weapons. And they bring women, señor. Twenty young women." He said it in a tone that did not entirely hide his discomfort.

Cortés set down his quill on the table, rested his elbows on the arms of the chair, and interlaced his fingers. A faint smile, more of satisfaction than joy, formed on his lips upon hearing about the women.

"Twenty women," he repeated, as if savoring the words. "And what else?"

"Gold, señor. Cotton. Blankets. Feathers. And the women, señor. Those twenty women I told you about."

"They have already told me about them," said Cortés, and the smile widened a little more. "But the gold and the blankets count too."

Cortés stood, adjusted his sword, and headed for the door.

"Then let us receive them as they deserve."

---

Cortés went out to meet them in the main plaza, the same packed-earth space where the Maya held their ceremonies. He was accompanied by his captains Alvarado, Ávila, Montejo, Escalante, and Aguilar, who would act as interpreter. The Spanish soldiers formed a corridor, with their swords drawn and their harquebuses ready, though not aimed. It was a show of force, but also a warning.

Tabscoob stopped a few paces from Cortés. The two men looked at each other in silence. The rising sun tinged the sky with gold and blue, and the shadows shortened over the packed-earth plaza. The breeze carried the smell of smoke and damp vegetation, and from the jungle came the song of birds greeting the new day. It was a moment of tense stillness, as if time itself had stopped to witness that encounter.

The men accompanying Tabscoob, barely half a dozen nobles and wounded warriors, some leaning on canes or on the shoulders of others, knelt and prostrated their faces to the ground, in a sign of absolute submission. But Tabscoob did not kneel. He remained standing, his back straight and his gaze fixed on Cortés's. The others waited in silence, their heads bowed without quite touching their foreheads to the ground.

The twenty women, however, remained a few steps behind, hands crossed over their bellies and fingers interlaced. They had placed the baskets with offerings on the ground, and now they waited, motionless, without raising their eyes. Aguilar watched them out of the corner of his eye. One of them, the youngest, wore a huipil different from the others, embroidered with red threads that traced serpent figures. He did not know why, but that woman caught his attention.

Behind Cortés, Alvarado shifted restlessly. His fingers drummed on the hilt of his sword, and his eyes scanned the Maya retinue with distrust. He leaned toward Cortés and murmured, barely loud enough for the captain to hear:

"Señor, I do not trust them. They could be feigning. In Champotón, the Indians also came with offerings, and then they forced us to weigh anchor."

Cortés did not turn his head. His gaze remained fixed on Tabscoob.

"Silence, Pedro," he replied in a low voice, barely moving his lips.

Alvarado fell silent, but his hand did not leave his sword.

Tabscoob spoke first, in Maya. His voice was deep, serene, although weariness showed in his words.

"I have come to prostrate myself before you and to acknowledge my defeat."

Aguilar translated:

"Señor, he says he has come to surrender."

Cortés showed no emotion. Tabscoob continued, pausing after each phrase for Aguilar to translate his words before he went on.

"I have seen my warriors fall. I have seen my sons die. I have seen my women flee. I cannot go on fighting. I have no strength. I have no men. I acknowledge that you are the lord of this land now."

Aguilar translated:

"He says he has seen his warriors fall, señor. That he has seen his sons die and his women flee. He says he cannot go on fighting, that he has no strength nor men. And that he acknowledges that you are the lord of this land."

Tabscoob paused. His eyes swept the plaza, the buildings that had been his home, the temple where he had performed ceremonies. Then he spoke again.

"I have brought offerings. Gold, quetzal feathers, precious stones. It is all we can offer."

Aguilar translated:

"He says he has brought offerings, señor. Gold, quetzal feathers, precious stones. That it is all they can offer."

The Spanish soldiers opened the baskets and showed their contents: small gold figures, some in the shape of men, others of jaguars and serpents, necklaces of jade beads, headdresses of quetzal feathers of a green so intense they seemed to glow with their own light. Alongside the gold pieces were jade stones of various sizes, some the size of a fist, which the Maya valued more than gold itself.

Cortés examined the offerings without touching them. His eyes stopped on one piece in particular: a gold disc the size of a hand, decorated with the figure of a man emerging from the mouth of a serpent. It was a work of such delicacy and precision that it surprised even the most veteran soldiers.

"I accept your offerings," said Cortés at last. "But before we can speak of peace, there is a matter of the crown of Spain to settle."

He gestured to the scribe, who stepped forward with a parchment in his hands. It was the same requerimiento that Cortés had had read on the boat, before the attempt to sail up the river. The same document the Maya had rejected with mockery. Now, the scribe held it again.

"This document," explained Cortés, while Aguilar translated, "establishes that you and your people recognize the authority of His Majesty King Charles of Spain. And that you accept the Christian faith and the protection of the Crown. It is the same one we read to you before the battle. The one you rejected."

Tabscoob looked at the parchment without understanding its content. But he understood what it meant: submission, the recognition of an authority that was not his own. He remembered that day on the river, when the white men had read a document no one understood, and the warriors had laughed. Now, laughter had turned to silence, and silence to defeat.

"If you sign," Cortés continued, "the war will end. You will be a vassal of the king of Spain, but you will keep your title and your lands. You will be governor of your people under the authority of the Crown. And there will be no more deaths."

Tabscoob kept his gaze fixed on the parchment for a long moment. The seconds stretched. Aguilar watched in silence, his heart tight. He knew Tabscoob could not read the words, but he understood the gesture.

Finally, the Maya cacique nodded. The weight of defeat showed in his shoulders, which sagged slightly.

The scribe offered him a goose quill and an inkwell. Tabscoob took the quill with a firm hand, though trembling. For an instant, the quill hesitated over the parchment, and Aguilar saw how the cacique closed his eyes. Then, opening them, he traced a careful sign on the parchment: a circle with a dot in the center, accompanied by a wavy line. It was the glyph of his name.

Afterward, the nobles who accompanied him, two of them, the only ones who still wore decorated cotton mantles, did the same, tracing their own glyphs beneath their cacique's signature. They were signs that to them meant lineage, power, and commitment.

The scribe took the parchment and inspected it.

"It is signed, señor," he said to Cortés.

Cortés took the document and read it. Then he smiled, satisfied. He raised the parchment for all to see.

"With this signature," he said, in a clear, authoritative voice, "you and yours become subjects of His Majesty King Charles, and I, in his name, take you under his protection. From this day, Potonchán is land of the Crown, and your people will obey the king, pay the tributes assigned to you, and receive the word of God."

And after his words were translated, Cortés extended his hand toward Tabscoob. The Maya cacique hesitated for a moment, then took the Spaniard's hand. It was a strange gesture for both: the firm grip of a conqueror and the hand of a vanquished man. The two men looked into each other's eyes. In Tabscoob's gaze there was no hatred, but a deep sadness. In Cortés's, satisfaction, but also a flash of something that might have been respect.

"Let provisions be prepared for these men," Cortés ordered his captains. "And let the wounded receive care. They are now vassals of the king of Spain."

The soldiers moved to carry out the order. The wounded Maya were led to the outskirts of the plaza, where they received bandages and ointments. Tabscoob and his men withdrew slowly, without looking back. The ceremony was over.

---

No sooner had Tabscoob and his retinue disappeared than Cortés turned to Aguilar.

"Father," he said, with a firm voice. "The women. The twenty women they have given us. Take charge of them: give them water and food, and then separate them and distribute them among the captains and the troops."

At that moment, fray Bartolomé de Olmedo, who had remained silent throughout the ceremony, stepped forward. The friar's face was furrowed by the sun and penitence, and his pale blue eyes shone with the intensity of one who has spent too many sleepless nights praying. His Franciscan habit, worn and patched, contrasted with the mail coats and swords of the soldiers surrounding him. He crossed himself slowly, with a trembling hand, before speaking.

"Señor Cortés," said the friar. "Before dividing up these women, should we not first baptize them? They have lived in idolatry. If we hand them over like this, without the grace of baptism, their souls could be lost forever."

Cortés looked at him with contained exasperation.

"Fray Bartolomé, we will have time to baptize them. What matters now is the morale of the troops. The men have bled, they have seen their companions die. They need something to remind them why they are here."

The friar insisted, with a firmer voice although his fingers kept tangling in the cord of his habit.

"But the salvation of those souls cannot wait, señor. The devil has woven his nets in these lands for centuries. Every lost soul is a victory for him."

Cortés sighed and brought his hand to his face, rubbing his forehead as if trying to erase his weariness. When he spoke, his voice had a cutting edge.

"Fray Bartolomé, I tell you with all the respect your investiture deserves: they are part of the tribute. They will be distributed among my captains and the troops. They will know what to do with them. And if they need to be baptized, they will do so when they deem it appropriate."

The friar opened his mouth to retort, but Cortés raised a hand, cutting off any attempt at argument. His eyes fell on the interpreter, who remained standing by the entrance, watching the scene.

"Aguilar," said Cortés, pointing at him with a gesture. "You understand the language of these Indians. You will take charge of the women. Give them water and food, and then separate them. The youngest for the captains. The rest for the troops. And let Melchor help you. He understands the language of Cuba and something of the language of these Indians."

The man in question felt a knot in his stomach. Fray Bartolomé's gaze fixed on him, heavy with reproachful silence. The friar said nothing more, but his lips moved in a prayer only he could hear. Then he withdrew a few paces, hands clasped, as if praying for those women who had just been delivered to the soldiers' lust.

"Take Melchor," Cortés added. "He will help you. You understand his language. He understands the language of Cuba. Together, you will separate them."

Melchor was an Indian from Cuba whom the Spaniards had brought as an interpreter. He spoke Maya with difficulty, the Chontal Maya of Potonchán, but he understood enough to help. The former captive sought him out and together they went to where the women waited.

As they walked away, he heard behind him the soft voice of fray Bartolomé de Olmedo, murmuring a prayer in Latin. The words were lost in the wind, but the tone was that of one pleading for souls not yet saved.

The twenty women remained seated on the ground, in the same corner of the plaza, under the shade of the ceiba. Barely an hour had passed since Tabscoob had left. They had not eaten. They had not drunk. They had not wept.

He stopped before them. He looked at them one by one. They were young, most of them. Some barely girls, fifteen or sixteen years old. They wore white cotton huipiles, embroidered with red and blue flowers. Some wore shell necklaces and jade beads. Their eyes were dry. Their faces, empty.

He knew they would not weep. The Maya did not weep before their enemies.

"Melchor," he said in a low voice. "We are going to separate them. The youngest for the captains. The rest for the troops."

Melchor nodded. Together, they walked among the women. The friar spoke in Maya, in the Chontal language he had learned during his captivity. He asked their names, their ages, where they came from. Some answered in barely audible voices. Others remained silent. Melchor pointed and nodded. They separated the women into two groups: those of nobler appearance, the youngest, for the captains; the rest, for the soldiers.

"That one," said Melchor, pointing to a young woman with dark hair and fine features. "She is the most beautiful. Captain Alvarado..."

"We set her aside for the captains," he replied. "But not for Alvarado. For Cortés."

Melchor looked at him in surprise.

"Cortés?"

"Yes. He will accept her."

---

CHAPTER X

MALINTZIN

He turned to continue with the distribution, but one of the women, the youngest, grabbed his arm. She spoke in a low voice, in a language he did not recognize. It was not Chontal Maya. It was something else.

"Melchor," he said. "Do you understand this?"

Melchor listened. His face changed.

"It is not Maya," he said. "It is Nahuatl. The language of the empire. From the highlands."

The interpreter felt a chill.

"Nahuatl? Are you sure?"

"Yes, father. I have heard it from the merchants. It is the language of the great lord."

He turned toward the woman. He looked into her eyes. She did not look away.

"Ask her what her name is," he said.

Melchor spoke with her. The woman answered in her language, with a firm voice. Then Melchor translated:

"She says her name is Malintzin. But she says her name does not matter. She says that if the white men want to reach the empire, they will need someone who speaks like her."

The friar fell silent. The young woman did not let go of his arm. Her eyes were not looking at the ground. They were looking at him.

"Where does she come from?" he asked.

Melchor spoke with her again. The woman pointed east, toward the mountains, and said something more. Melchor translated:

"She says she comes from very far away. From the interior. From where the great lord lives. The one they call Moctezuma."

He felt the ground move beneath his feet.

"Moctezuma?"

"Yes, father. She says she was taken by merchants. That she was sold to the Maya. But that she speaks the sacred language. The language of the priests."

He looked at her for a long moment. Then he made a decision.

"Come with me," he said in Maya.

The young woman followed him. He led her back to Cortés's tent. When he entered, the captain looked up.

"Señor," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "This woman speaks the language of the empire. The language of Moctezuma. Her name is Malintzin."

Cortés leaped to his feet. His face, which moments before had shown weariness, transformed into an expression of alertness and greed.

"Are you sure?"

"Melchor has confirmed it. He says she comes from the highlands. That she was sold to the Maya."

Cortés approached the young woman. He examined her from head to toe. She did not lower her gaze.

"Bring her to me," he said. "And let no one touch her. She is worth more than gold."

The friar felt a knot in his stomach. He knew what was coming.

"Señor," he said. "And the other women?"

Cortés looked at him with impatience.

"The others are for the troops. Distribute them among the captains and the soldiers. They are part of the booty."

He wanted to say something. That they were not booty. That they were people. But the words would not come. He watched as the soldiers lunged at the women, heard their laughter, and stepped back.

Malintzin, meanwhile, walked behind Cortés toward the tent. Before entering, the captain turned to the interpreter:

"Father, tonight I will spend the night with her. But not for what you think. To talk. To learn. So that she teaches me her language. Understood?"

"Understood, señor."

Cortés entered. The door closed behind him.

He remained outside, listening to the murmur of the tent, the voices of the soldiers, the groans of the women. He did not know if what he felt was shame, guilt, or fear. Perhaps all three.

Behind him, fray Bartolomé de Olmedo remained standing beside the temple, contemplating the scene with narrowed eyes. The afternoon sun cast long shadows over the plaza, and the wind moved his worn habit as if trying to tear it from his shoulders. His lips moved in silence, tracing a prayer only the wind could hear. In his hand, a worn wooden rosary turned between his fingers, bead by bead, as if each Hail Mary could wash away the guilt that was already beginning to accumulate over that newly conquered land. But his eyes, fixed on Cortés's tent, expressed not pity. They expressed a cold certainty, that of one who knows that the Evil One lurks in every corner of those lands, and that the only way to defeat him is with fire and sword, with the cross held high and the word of God on his lips, even if the souls that are saved must pay the price of their salvation with their own flesh.

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