It may be that the woman Malintzin had never before attended an observance of that festival. She may genuinely have believed, or mistakenly assumed, that the people were massing with battle flags. Or she could have invented the "plot," perhaps from her jealous resentment of Cortés's attentions to the local women. Whether she was moved by misunderstanding or malice, she effectually moved Cortés to make a desert of Chololan. And if he regretted that at all, he did not regret it for long, because it advanced his fortunes more than even his defeat of the Texcalteca had done. I have mentioned that I have visited Chololan, and found the people there to be rather less than lovable. I had no reason to care if the city went on existing, and its abrupt depopulation caused me no grief, except insofar as that added to Cortés's increasingly fearsome reputation. Because, when the news of the Chololan massacre spread by swift-messenger throughout The One World, the rulers and war chiefs of many other communities began to consider the course of events to date, no doubt in some such words as these:

"First the white men took the Totonaca away from Motecuzóma. Then they conquered Texcala, which not Motecuzóma nor any of his predecessors ever could do. Then they obliterated Motecuzóma's allies in Chololan, caring not a little finger for Motecuzóma's anger or vindictiveness. It begins to appear that the white men are mightier even than the long-mightiest Mexíca. It may be wise for us to side with the superior force... while we still can do so of our own volition."

One powerful noble did so without hesitation: the Crown Prince Ixtlil-Xochitl, rightful ruler of the Acolhua. Motecuzóma must have bitterly regretted his ouster of that prince, three years before, when he realized that Black Flower had not just spent those years sulking in his mountain retreat, that he had been collecting warriors in preparation for reclaiming his Texcóco throne. To Black Flower, the coming of Cortés must have seemed a god-sent and timely help to his cause. He came down from his redoubt to the devastated city of Chololan, where Cortés was regrouping his multitude in preparation for continuing their march westward. At their meeting, Black Flower surely told Cortés of the mistreatment he had suffered at Motecuzóma's hands, and Cortés presumably promised to help him redress it. Anyway, the next piece of bad news we heard in Tenochtítlan was that Cortés's company had been augmented by the addition of the vengeful Prince Black Flower and his several thousand superbly trained Acolhua warriors.

Clearly, the impulsive and perhaps unnecessary massacre in Chololan had proved a master stroke for Cortés, and he had his woman Malintzin to thank, whatever had been her reason for provoking it. She had demonstrated her wholehearted dedication to his cause, her eagerness to help him achieve his destiny, even if it meant trampling the dead bodies of men, women, and children of her own race. From then on, though Cortés still relied on her as an interpreter, he valued her even more as his chief strategic adviser, his most trusted under-officer, his staunches! of all his allies. He may even have come to love the woman; no one ever knew. Malintzin had achieved her two ambitions: she had made herself indispensable to her lord; and she was going to Tenochtítlan, her long-dreamed-of destination, with the title and perquisites of a lady.

Now, it may be that all the events I have recounted would have come to pass even if the orphan brat Ce-Malinali had never been born to that slave slut of the Coatlicamac. And I may have a personal motive in so contemptuously reviling her groveling devotion to her master, her shameful disloyalty to her own kind. It may be that I nursed a special loathing of her, simply because I could not forget that she had the same birth-name as my dead daughter, that she was the same age Nochipa would have been, that her despicable actions seemed, to my mind, to cast obloquy on my own Ce-Malinali, blameless and defenseless.

But, my personal feelings aside, I had twice encountered Malintzin before she became Cortés's most wicked weapon, and either time I could have prevented her becoming that. When we first met at the slave market, I could have bought her, and she would have been content to spend her life in the great city of Tenochtítlan as a member of the household of an Eagle Knight of the Mexíca. When we met again in the Totonaca country, she was still a slave, and the property of an officer of no consequence, and a mere link in the chain of interpreting of conversations. Her disappearance then would have occasioned only a minimum of fuss, and I could easily have arranged her disappearance. So twice I might have changed the course of her life, I might perhaps have changed the course of history, and I had not. But her instigation of the Chololan butchery made me recognize the menace of her, and I knew that I would eventually see her again—in Tenochtítlan, whither she had been traveling all her life—and I swore to myself that I would arrange for her life to end there.

Meanwhile, immediately after receiving news of the massacre at Chololan, Motecuzóma had made another of his irresolute shows of resolute action, by sending there another delegation of nobles, and that embassy was headed by his Snake Woman Tlacotzin, High Treasurer of the Mexíca, second in command only to Motecuzóma himself. Tlacotzin and his companion nobles led a train of porters again laden with gold and many other riches—not intended to provide for a repopulation of the unfortunate city, but for the cajoling of Cortés.

In that one move, I believe, Motecuzóma revealed the ultimate hypocrisy of which he was capable. The people of Chololan had either been totally innocent and undeserving of their annihilation, or, if they had been planning to rise up against Cortés, they could only have been obeying secret orders from Motecuzóma. However, the Revered Speaker, in the message conveyed to Cortés by Tlacotzin, blamed his Chololan allies for having contrived the dubious "plot" entirely on their own; he claimed to have had no knowledge of it; he described them as "traitors to both of us"; he praised Cortés for his swift and complete extinction of the rebels; and he hoped the unhappy occurrence would not imperil the anticipated friendship between the white men and The Triple Alliance.

I think it was fitting that Motecuzóma's message was delivered by his Snake Woman, since it was a masterpiece of reptilian squirming. It went on, "Nevertheless, if Chololan's perfidy has discouraged the Captain-General and his company from venturing any farther through such hazardous lands and unpredictable people, we will understand his decision to turn and go homeward, though we will sincerely regret having missed the opportunity of meeting the valiant Captain-General Cortés face to face. Therefore, since you will not be visiting us in our capital city, we of the Mexíca ask that you accept these gifts as a small substitute for our friendly embrace, and that you share them with your King Carlos when you have returned to your native country."

I heard later that Cortés could hardly contain his mirth when that transparently devious and wishful message was translated to him by Malintzin, and that he mused aloud, "I do look forward to meeting, face to face, a man with two faces." But he then made reply to Tlacotzin:

"I thank your master for his concern, and for these gifts of amends, which I gratefully accept in the name of His Majesty King Carlos. However"—and here he yawned, Tlacotzin reported—"the recent trouble here at Chololan was no trouble at all." And here he laughed. "As we Spanish fighting men account trouble, this was no more than a fleabite to be scratched. Your lord need not worry that it has lessened our determination to continue our explorations. We will keep on traveling westward. Oh, we may digress here and there, to visit other cities and nations which may wish to contribute forces to our retinue. But eventually, assuredly, our journey will bring us to Tenochtítlan. You may give your ruler our solemn promise that we will meet." He laughed again. "Face to face to face."