Part 1: A Sign From Above
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Part 1: A Sign From Above
Part 1: A Sign From Above
Palace of Axayacatl, Tenochtitlan
May 20, 1520 A.D.
May 20, 1520 A.D.
Moctezuma sat, lonely and silent, in one of the many rooms of his father's palace. Though several hours had passed since the sun vanished into the horizon, the tlatoani's body refused to sleep as his mind thought over and over about the terrible mistake he committed many months ago, when he welcomed the Tlaxcalans and the strange light-skinned men who came along with them as guests into Tenochtitlan an attempt to know them better, even though the destruction of Cholula showed how dangerous they were. He then tried to convince the newcomers, whose leader was named Hernán Cortés, to join his side by giving them vast gifts of gold and silver, and how did they repay his generosity?
By turning him into a hostage so that they could satisfy their insatiable greed and, worst of all, interfere with the rituals that ensured the stability of the world since time immemorial (1) without having to face the people's wrath. He should've seen this coming, much like how his younger brother Cuitláhuac did. But Moctezuma was powerless now, destined to die a prisoner under the custody of a hated enemy and their new allies. What had he done for the gods to bestow such a humiliating fate upon him? There were several possible answers, but none of them mattered in the end: all he could do at this point was hope that Tenochtitlan would be spared from their wrath. But even that seemed like an increasingly remote prospect, since although his captors did their best to isolate him from the rest of the world, the tlatoani knew the population groaned under their harsh rule.
War was inevitable, and he was an asset to the enemy.
That made Moctezuma stand up. The gods' will was absolute, of course, but maybe there was something more to his current predicament, something they wanted him to do to make everything worth it? The monarch began to wander around in the palace in the hopes of calming his mind, the usual bustling of courtiers, servants and guards which dominated it in daytime replaced by a heavy, oppressive silence which made him feel even more alone. His curiosity was piqued: how alone was he, really?
Moctezuma made his way to one of the palace's exits as quietly as he could, and froze after encountering one of those "Spaniards" - as the foreign, light-skinned men called themselves - assigned to keep him captive, his metal armor glistening under the moon's light. But the stranger didn't react to his presence, something that made the prisoner realize he was asleep. So he continued onward, even more silently than before, and no one stopped him. A few minutes later, the liberating sight of one of Tenochtitlan's many streets greeted his eyes. The gods hadn't given up on him just yet (2).
The tlatoani knew he had to act quickly to seize the opportunity before him: Cortés had left a few days ago with a handful of soldiers to fight an army sent to capture him, leaving an even smaller contingent of Spaniards and Tlaxcalans under the command of Pedro de Alvarado, his trusted lieutenant.
It was time to pay them a visit.
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A few hours later...
A few hours later...
Pedro de Alvarado was woken up by what sounded like thousands of people surrounding the palace of Axayacatl. The young captain wasn't too worried at first, for he had witnessed several of these incidents during his stay in Tenochtitlan and they were all resolved amicably thanks to the timely intervention of Moctezuma, whose speeches always calmed his subjects down. All it took was a brief peek outside for him to realize how much danger he and his compatriots were in: these weren't angry commoners, but warriors brandishing macuahuitls, quauholollis and other weapons, massing for an assault. Where the hell was Moctezuma to deal with these people? Were they revolting against his authority?
The invaders searched every corner of the building, but their prisoner was nowhere to be found.
Everyone in the palace knew that, without the tlatoani under their control, it was only a matter of time before they were all killed or, worse, sacrificed. That grim reality only hardened the resolve of the Spaniards and their Tlaxcalans allies, for although death was a certainty, they would bring down as many Aztecs as they could with them. With that in mind, Alvarado ordered the men under his command to use what little time they had left to barricade themselves as much as possible.
The attack began a few minutes later, and the Mexica warriors quickly overran most of the palace through sheer weight of numbers, while the defenders fought with increasing ferocity the more they were driven back and cornered. But there could be only one possible result, and even though the Tlaxcalans' courage was boosted by despair and the Spaniards' heavy cuirasses withstood multiple blows, they fell, one by one, as time went by.
Many hours later, in the morning of March 21, the Aztecs finally won the battle, but not before suffering many more casualties than expected. Nearly all of the palace's defenders were killed, Alvarado among them, while the few who unlucky enough to survive were taken to the Great Temple and sacrificed as offerings to Huitzilopochtli. The capital of the Mexica was free, for now at least, but it wouldn't be completely safe until Cortés and especially Tlaxcala were defeated for good.
And they would have to be fought in a battlefield much more favourable to them and their tactics, since it would be impossible to trap them inside Tenchtitlan again.
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Notes:
(1) Human sacrifices, of course.
(2) There are two PODs here. The first is that Moctezuma escapes the house arrest he was under since November 1519, the second is that he does so after Cortés departs to deal with Narváez and before Alvarado kills most of the Aztec nobility.
The invaders searched every corner of the building, but their prisoner was nowhere to be found.
Everyone in the palace knew that, without the tlatoani under their control, it was only a matter of time before they were all killed or, worse, sacrificed. That grim reality only hardened the resolve of the Spaniards and their Tlaxcalans allies, for although death was a certainty, they would bring down as many Aztecs as they could with them. With that in mind, Alvarado ordered the men under his command to use what little time they had left to barricade themselves as much as possible.
The attack began a few minutes later, and the Mexica warriors quickly overran most of the palace through sheer weight of numbers, while the defenders fought with increasing ferocity the more they were driven back and cornered. But there could be only one possible result, and even though the Tlaxcalans' courage was boosted by despair and the Spaniards' heavy cuirasses withstood multiple blows, they fell, one by one, as time went by.
Many hours later, in the morning of March 21, the Aztecs finally won the battle, but not before suffering many more casualties than expected. Nearly all of the palace's defenders were killed, Alvarado among them, while the few who unlucky enough to survive were taken to the Great Temple and sacrificed as offerings to Huitzilopochtli. The capital of the Mexica was free, for now at least, but it wouldn't be completely safe until Cortés and especially Tlaxcala were defeated for good.
And they would have to be fought in a battlefield much more favourable to them and their tactics, since it would be impossible to trap them inside Tenchtitlan again.
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Notes:
(1) Human sacrifices, of course.
(2) There are two PODs here. The first is that Moctezuma escapes the house arrest he was under since November 1519, the second is that he does so after Cortés departs to deal with Narváez and before Alvarado kills most of the Aztec nobility.
