were thirty thousand people here, each in search of new delights. The method of buying and selling was to change one ware for another; one gave a hen for a bundle of maize, others offered mantles for salt. But everything was priced, and for money they used the strange brown almonds I had seen one of the natives spill in his canoe when we first arrived. These, we were told, were the beans of the cacao tree, and were held in great regard. One of them could buy a large tomato or sapota; a newly picked avocado was worth three beans, as was a fish, freshly prepared on a stall and wrapped in maize. A small rabbit would sell for thirty beans, a good turkey hen might cost a hundred, and a cock twice that amount.
From another corner of the marketplace rose the smell of cooked food: roasted meat in various sauces, tortillas and savoury tamales, maize cakes, dishes of fish or tripe and toasted gourd seeds sprinkled with salt or honey.
And then I saw the lady who had served me the previous evening, sitting at a stall, carefully grinding cacao beans on a low basalt table. I was lost in amazement, realising that this drink must surely be one of the greatest of delicacies, for she was destroying the actual coinage of the realm in order to create it. If one could only find the source of these beans, and the flower in which they grew, one might perhaps find the secret of all future wealth.
By the lady’s side stood a man whom I took to be her father, roasting beans over a fire, sweeping them backwards and forwards with a fan made from rushes. He then sieved them, removed the husks, and poured them onto the lady’s table.
Here she crushed the beans with a roller, creating a thick, dark-brown paste which was scraped away into a large gourd and given to a second woman, who now added a little water.
My lady then took the heart of a sapota seed, and began to grind it. This too was added to a small quantity of water, and passed to the second woman.
Then she took some maize, ground it in a gourd and mixed it in the same manner, until the time came to combine all three pastes, which were aerated by vigorous whisking and the slow addition of more water.
And, at last, my lady stood on a chair and poured the finished mixture of cacao, sapota seed and maize down from a great height into a new, larger bowl, where it was whisked into a foaming liquid, and poured into a richly decorated calabash gourd which she held out for me to taste.
I drank of the heady concoction, the foam stretching up towards my nose. It was a strange, almost bitter drink, more spicy in nature than the previous evening. I reached into my knapsack for one of the small sets of bells I had brought with me for barter and the lady smiled so invitingly that I found I could not but meet her gaze.
But then: disaster.
Aguilar, the interpreter, tried to pull me away, arguing that I was neglecting my duties by indulging in flirtation. He told me that I must rejoin Cortés immediately, and keep a note of the sights we saw.
‘What is your name?’ I asked the lady as Aguilar attempted to remove me from this prospect of paradise.
She did not understand me, saying again the strange word for the drink she had given me, although this time it sounded different – chocolatl.
I pointed to my breast.
‘Diego. Diego de Godoy.’
She repeated my words, as if I had two Christian names. ‘Diego – Diego de Godoy.’
‘Diego,’ I insisted, and then stretched out my arm to point to her.
She took my hand in hers and placed it on her breast. ‘Quiauhxochitl.’
‘It means Rain-Flower.’
The wife of Cortés had appeared by my side.
‘You will never be able to pronounce it,’ she said dryly. ‘Call her Ignacia.’
‘After Ignatius of Antioch,’ added the priest who accompanied Doña Marina, looking at the girl intently. ‘Ignis is Latin for fire, you know. You must burn with love of the Lord …’
‘And with love for his creation …’ Doña Marina added tartly, inspecting the girl’s body with wry, almost competitive amusement.
Our peace was broken.
‘Ignacia,’ I said.
‘Ignacia.’
She smiled and returned to her work, serving Ortiz, the musician, who began to ingratiate himself immediately. I was convinced that he received the same look that I had accepted myself when first arriving at her stall, and a second violent emotion overcame me, as I moved, in an instant, from incipient passion to total jealousy. I had never known such volatility of heart and felt in such torment that I could have killed Ortiz on the spot.
‘Come on,’ said Doña Marina, taking my arm. ‘We have work to do.’
Lost in thought, I walked through courtyards filled with citrus and jasmine until we arrived before an enormous temple. It was square, and made of stone, raised as high as the reach of an arrow shot from a crossbow. One hundred and fourteen steps stretched up towards two great altars and priests in white robes made their way up and down in ceaseless movement. From the top one could see over the entire city, the lake and the three giant causeways. Although it was one of the most incredible sights we had witnessed thus far, it meant nothing.
I had met Ignacia.
Attempting to write my dispatches that night, I found that no words fell from my pen. I was completely distracted. Whether this was infatuation, desire or love, I knew not; all I did know was that I could not live without seeing that woman again, for what else could account for the sickness in my stomach and the raging in my heart? My only hope lay in Doña Marina. I would have to swallow my pride and confess my love that very night.
‘I must see the lady who sells the chocolatl. I must discover where she lives,’ I declared in as bold a fashion as I could muster.
‘Of course we can bring her to you,’ she answered abstractedly.
I did not want anything to be done by force.
‘No,’ I replied. ‘I would like to see where she lives.’
‘It would not be safe to go there. You would be surrounded by these people, and could be put in danger …’
‘But they surround us now.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You have seen the walls that border our quarters, the causeways, the bridges, and the lake that circles this city. They are like the lattice of a spider’s web. We are already trapped and it makes no difference whether I am contained here or with my lady.’
‘My lady?’ Doña Marina smiled at me, but then stopped for a moment, as if she had not realised the true import of my observation. Lost in thought, she seemed to abandon her concentration.
‘I have to see her,’ I insisted. ‘Will you help me speak with her?’
‘Another time.’ Still Doña Marina seemed distracted. ‘I can summon her, but you cannot visit. My Lord would forbid such a thing. You are needed here. Talk to me again if you require my help, but do not ask me to disobey our General.’
Later
