One of these younger brothers, Ixtlilxochitl (Eesh-tlil-SHO-cheet), an extremely successful warrior, decided to seize the day and ally with the strangers in order to oust Moctezuma’s favorite, Cacama, and unite Texcoco under his own and his full brothers’ control. Cortés was delighted with him, calling him “a very valiant youth of twenty-three or twenty-four years” who worked hard to bring along “many chiefs and brothers of his.”
