This is the history of the Spanish invasion of Mexico in 1519 when a woman was given to Cortes as a slave after his first battle with the local indigenous warriors. Malinalli of Tenepal, still in her teens, had been sold in to slavery by her mother after the chief of the city, her father, died. Malinalli should then have become chief with the passing of her father, but her mother wished to take up that role and got the local wandering merchants to take Malinalli away after which she was sold in the slave market in the Tabasco region near the lands of the Maya. She was then given to Cortes, was baptized as "Marina", and given as a "wife" to a young Spanish aristocrat, Humberto Puertocarrero. Humberto Puertocarrero promptly raped her, on the deck of Cortes' ship which was sailing north to meet representatives of Montezuma. Marina would arrange for Puertocarrero's removal from the Cortes team later on. Despite all this Marina learned Spanish very quickly, and became Cortes' translator thus effectively allowing the Spaniards to overthrow the cruel and bloody empire of Montezuma which, indeed, had been Marina's goal from the very beginning of the story.