La Malinche: a mother to the people of modern Mexico, a symbol of betrayal, a feminist icon, and quite simply, one of the more fascinating figures in all of history.

Behind every great man stands a woman, in the shadows. History remember the man, who goes down with fanfare in the annals, but the woman is often erased, forgotten... vanished back into the gloom. La Malinche is one such woman. Slave, interpreter, advisor, diplomat, and spy, she was instrumental to the famous 16th-century conquistador Hernan Cortès and his conquest of Mexico and the Aztec empire. Without her, he'd have quite simply died en route. La Malinche, a name pivotal to the fall of the Aztec empire, and one too often effaced.