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Mestizo
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A supposed descendant of Hernán Cortés and La Malinche asks the author to examine a family manuscript presented as the memoir of their son, Martín Cortés Malintzín. The reconstructed narrative follows Martín from his divided inheritance into the court of Charles V and the household of the future Philip II. Trained as a page, knight and soldier, he takes part in the wars of the Spanish monarchy, including the Battle of Ceresole, while attempting to define himself outside the reputations of his famous parents.
Martín later returns to New Spain, where his service and membership of the Order of Santiago cannot remove suspicion from a man whose ancestry connects conquest, Indigenous nobility and the Cortés estate. Court ambition and colonial resentment draw him towards the 1566 conspiracy associated with the sons of the conquistadors, followed by arrest and torture. The novel uses a fictional memoir framework to explore identity, legitimacy and loyalty across the court of Habsburg Spain and the society created after the conquest of Mexico.
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