The Death Relic

21

Paco was proud of his Aztec ancestry. He stood in the middle of the plaza and urged everyone to gather round. He didn’t care if they were part of his tour group or not. His goal was to educate as many people as possible about the city his ancestors had built, a city so spectacular that conquistadores wept when they saw it because they thought they had found heaven.

‘Imagine a lake,’ he said as he spread his arms out wide, ‘one that stretches farther than your eyes can see. No cathedrals, no palaces, no buildings. Just a lake, hidden from the world by volcanoes and snow-covered mountains. Can you picture such a place?’

Tiffany closed her eyes and nodded. She could see it in her mind.

‘Now imagine an island, no more than a hundred yards wide, in the middle of the vast water. The land is flat and unremarkable. It is surrounded by marshes, thick with vegetation. And yet, as you stare at it from the distant shore, you see potential. For the past hundred years, your people, known as the Mexica, have been wandering through the wasteland, searching for somewhere to live. You are used to deserts, not lakes. Cactuses, not trees. Everything about this island is foreign to you, but you are guided here by a vision: an eagle with a serpent in its beak, sent as a sign from your main god, Huitzilopochtli. Despite cries of protest from your tribe, you choose this island — this tiny island — as the place to build a city.’

Paco paused briefly, just long enough for the crowd to open their eyes and focus on his weathered face. With his words, he was about to create a kingdom.

‘Amazingly, the gods reward your courage with a miracle. As the northern wind howls, the summer rain fades away. Over the course of a week, the waters of the lake slowly recede and your island starts to grow. What was once a pebble becomes a rock. What was once a rock becomes a boulder. And what was once a boulder becomes your home.’

Tiffany shivered as he said it. Goose bumps covered her arms.

‘The city’s name is Tenochtitlan, and it is founded in the shallows of Lake Texcoco. In less than six months, the rains will return and your home will be underwater unless you can defeat nature. Channels are dug to great depths. Levees are built to soaring heights. Fires burn throughout the night to light your workers’ way. If you fail, you will be killed, whether by flood or revolt, but in your heart, you know you will succeed. You have seen the city in your dreams, one of astonishing size and beauty.’

Paco lifted his arms above his head, then wiggled his fingers to indicate rain. The crowd was so transfixed they half-expected the skies to open at that moment.

‘Whooooosh goes the wind! Crash goes the thunder! And the dark waters start to rise. Standing in the middle of a growing lake, you do not know if you will survive. You pray to Huitzilopochtli with all your might, unsure if he will reward your bravery. Eventually, he gives you his response. Whether by fate or fortune, he answers your prayer and the water is held at bay. The year is 1325 AD. The island is underneath our feet. It is time to build an empire.’

Paco pointed towards the northeast, somewhere between the Metropolitan Cathedral and the National Palace. ‘To honour Huitzilopochtli, construction begins on a temple made of earth and wood. To protect it, you build canals to funnel the lake and rainwater away. Before long, your island is interlaced with bridges and canals that allow you to visit every section of the city on foot or canoe. But there is a problem. The water that flows through your city is brown, muddied by runoff from the mountains. To fix the issue, your engineers build a dike that is ten miles long. It separates the spring-fed waters to the west from the dirty waters of the east. Next comes a pair of aqueducts — three miles each and made of terracotta — that pump fresh water into the city from the springs at Chapultepec. But this water is not for drinking. It is for bathing and toilets. Unlike the savages who came from Europe, our ancestors bathed twice a day and went to the bathroom indoors instead of in the woods.’

Tiffany laughed at the description, as did most of the group. She had never heard Europeans described as ‘savages’ before. Normally, the natives were the ‘savages’, and the conquerors were the ‘enlightened’ — not the other way around. But from Paco’s perspective, the roles were reversed. Until that moment, she had never thought of things in a foreign way. Whether right or wrong, she had always viewed things from an American standpoint.

It was probably why so many people hated her countrymen.

Paco was ready to explain a crucial part of Mexico’s history. He waited for the laughter to stop before he continued. ‘In 1428, barely a century after the birth of your kingdom, a pact is made with two neighbouring city-states. Suddenly, three different groups — the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, the Acolhua of Texcoco, and the Tepanec of Tlacopan — are fighting under one name. This Triple Alliance of Nahua tribes is known as the Aztec Empire.’

He spread his arms out wide. ‘For the next hundred years, the Aztecs dominate this valley and beyond. Led by rulers such as Montezuma, Tlacaelel and Ahuitzotl, the Empire stretches from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. And our city — our tiny little island in the middle of the lake — becomes a capital unlike any the world has ever seen.’

Once again, he pointed to the northeast. ‘Remember our temple? The one made of earth and wood? It is no longer suitable for our city. It is rebuilt over and over, seven times in all, until it is an enormous pyramid of stucco and stone. Unlike Egyptian pyramids, the Templo Mayor has no apex. Instead, there is a great platform on top that is over three hundred feet wide. The platform is divided into two shrines — one for Huitzilopochtli, and one for Tlaloc, the god of rain. The shrines are over a hundred feet in height. They house sacred fires that always burn.’

Paco raised his arms while wiggling his fingers to indicate smoke.

‘Surrounding the Templo Mayor is a walled square. It is known as the temple precinct. It is home to more than forty buildings. This includes a temple honouring Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, and several smaller shrines honouring minor gods. We do this to keep them happy. We expand our city even further by building miles of roads upon the water. They stretch west to the mainland and connect us to smaller islands that we have raised in the lake. But these are not normal causeways. They have special bridges that allow boats and people to pass freely. Amazingly, if we are ever attacked, the bridges can be pulled away instantly to protect our city from invading forces.

‘Tenochtitlan was grouped into four zones called campans, which surrounded the temple precinct in the middle. Each campan had twenty districts, and each district was crisscrossed by perpendicular streets that were half land, half water. This allowed boat and foot traffic throughout the city. Each district, or calpulli, had its own marketplace where the Aztecs went to buy products, but they paled in comparison to the main market to the north.

‘By 1492, the year Columbus discovered the Americas, the population of Tenochtitlan is more than three hundred thousand people. That is bigger than London, Madrid, or Rome. On a normal day, more than fifty thousand people work and shop at our marketplace in Tlatelolco. Money is not used there. Goods and services are bartered for. Small trades are made. Differences in price are settled with cacao beans. They are small, brown and practically worthless, just like an American penny.’

He winked at Tiffany, who responded with a smile.

‘There are restaurants and hairdressers. Pharmacies and butchers. Art shops and fruit stands. Everything you can imagine in one immense plaza. Best of all, the marketplace is clean and orderly. No chaos, little crime, no garbage on the streets. More than a thousand men work as cleaners. This includes men in small boats who collect the trash and haul it away.’

Paco lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘Do not get me wrong. Our city is not perfect. At night, half-naked women with heavy make-up and painted teeth — yes, painted teeth — roam the alleys looking for men. To attract attention, they chew Aztec gum called tzictli as loud as they can. The clicking noise echoes throughout the streets. When the noise finally stops, you know their mouths are doing something else, like … talking.’

Everybody laughed at the misdirection. They thought for sure that he was going to say something much dirtier than ‘talking’.

Paco gasped in mock disgust. ‘What you think I going to say? I am a classy tour guide!’