Pastwatch: The Redemption Of Christopher Columbus

Chapter 11 -- Encounters

Chipa was frightened when Guacanagari's women brought her forward. Hearing about the bearded white men was different from coming into their presence. They were large men, and they wore the most fearsome clothing. Truly it was as if each of them wore a house on his shoulders -- and a roof on his head! The metal of the helmets shone so brightly in the sunlight. And the colors of their banners were like captured parrots. If I could weave a cloth like that, thought Chipa, I would wear their banners and live under a roof made of the metal they put on their heads.

Guacanagari was busy plying her with last-minute instructions and warnings, and she had to pretend to listen, but she already had her instructions from Sees-in-the-Dark, and once she was speaking Spanish with the white men, it would hardly matter what Guacanagarl's plans might be.

"Tell me exactly what they really say," said Guacanagari. "And don't add a single word to what I say to them beyond what I tell you. Do you understand me, you little snail from the mountains?"

"Great Cacique, I will do all that you say."

"Are you sure you can really speak their awful language?"

"If I can't, you'll soon see it by their faces," Chipa answered.

"Then say this to them: The great Guacanagari, cacique of all of Haiti from cibao to the sea, is proud to have found an interpreter."

Found an interpreter? Chipa was not surprised by his attempt to cut Sees-in-the-Dark out of things, but she was disgusted by it. Nevertheless, she turned to the white man in the most flamboyant costume and started to speak. But she had hardly got a sound from her mouth when Guacanagari pushed her from behind with his foot, throwing her facedown on the ground.

"Show respect, mountain slug!" shouted Guacanagari. "And that's not the chief, anyway, stupid girl. It's that man, the white-haired one."

She should have known -- it wasn't by the volume of his clothing, it was by his age, by the respect his years had earned, that she could recognize the one that Sees-in-the-Dark had called Colўn.

Lying on the ground, she began again, stammering a bit at first, but still making the Spanish words very clearly. "My Lord Cristobal Colўn, I have come here to interpret for you."

She was answered by silence. She raised her head to see the white men, in wide-eyed astonishment, conferring among themselves. She strained to hear, but they spoke too rapidly.

"What are they saying9" asked Guacanagari.

"How can I hear when you're talking?" answered Chipa. She knew she was being impudent, but if Diko was right, Guacanagari would soon have no power over her.

Colўn finally stepped forward and spoke to her.

"How did you learn Spanish, my child?" he asked.

He spoke rapidly, and his accent was different from Sees-in-the-Dark, but this was exactly the question that she had been told to expect.

"I learned this language so that I might learn about Christ."

If they had been flustered before by her command of Spanish, these words brought consternation upon the white men. Again there was a flurry of whispered conversation.

"What did you say to him?" demanded Guacanagari.

"He asked me how I came to speak his language, and I told him."

"I told you not to speak of Sees-in-the-Dark! " Guacanagari said angrily.

"I didn't," she said. "I spoke of the God they worship."

"I think you're betraying me," said Guacanagari.

"I'm not," said Chipa.

Now when Colўn stepped forward, the man in the voluminous clothing was beside him.

"This man is Rodrigo Sanchez de Segovia, the royal inspector of the fleet," said Colўn. "He would like to ask you a question."

The titles meant nothing to Chipa. She had been told to talk to Colўn.

"How do you know of Christ?" asked Segovia.

"Sees-in-the-Dark told us to look for the coming of a man who would teach us about Christ."

Segovia smiled. "I am that man."

"No sir," said Chipa. "Colўn is the man."

It was easy to read the expressions on the white men's faces -- they showed everything they were feeling. Segovia was very angry. But he stepped back, leaving Colўn alone in front of the other white men.

"Who is this Sees-in-the-Dark?" asked Colўn.

"My teacher," Chipa answered. "She sent me as a gift to Guacanagari, so he would bring me to you. But he is not my master."

"Sees-in-the-Dark is your mistress?"

"No one is my master but Christ," she said -- exactly the statement that Sees-in-the-Dark had told her was the most important she could make. And now, with Colўn looking at her, speechless, she said the one sentence that she did not understand, for it was in another language. The language was Genovese, and therefore only Cristoforo understood her as she said words that he had heard before, on a beach near Lagos: "I saved you alive so you could carry the cross."

He sank to his knees. He said something that sounded like the same strange language.

"I don't speak that language, sir," she said.

"What's happening?" demanded Guacanagari.

"The cacique is angry at me," said Chipa. "He will beat me for not saying what he told me to say."

"Never," said Colўn. "If you give yourself to Christ, then you are under our protection."

"Sir, don't provoke Guacanagari for my sake. With both your ships destroyed, you need to keep his friendship."

"The girl is right," said Segovia. "It won't be the first time she's been beaten."

But it would be the first time, thought Chipa. In the white men's land, were they accustomed to beating children?

"You could ask for me as a gift," said Chipa.

"Are you a slave, then?"

"Guacanagari thinks so," said Chipa, "but I never was. You won't make me a slave, will you?" Sees-in-the-Dark had told her that it was very important that she say this to Colўn.

"You will never be a slave," said Colўn. "Tell him that we are very pleased, and we thank him for his gift to us."

Chipa had expected him to ask for her. But she saw at once that his way was much better -- if he assumed that the gift was already given, Guacanagari could hardly take it back. So she turned to Guacanagari and prostrated herself before him as she had done only yesterday, when she first met the cacique of the coastlands. "The great white cacique, Colўn, is very pleased with me. He thanks you for giving him such a useful gift."

Guacanagari showed nothing on his face, but she knew that he was furious. That was all right with her -- she didn't like him.

"Tell him," said Colўn behind her, "that I give him my own hat, which I would never give to any man but a great king."

She translated his words into Taino. Guacanagari's eyes widened. He reached out a hand.

Colўn took the hat from his head and, instead of putting it in the cacique's hand, placed it on Guacanagari's head himself. Guacanagari smiled. Chipa thought he looked even stupider than the white men did, wearing such a roof on his head. But she could see that the other Tainos around Guacanagari were impressed. It was a good exchange. A powerfully talismanic hat for a troublesome disobedient mountain girl.

"Rise to your feet, girl," said Colўn. He gave her his hand to help her up. His fingers were long and smooth. She had never touched such smooth skin, except on a baby. Did Colўn never do any work? "What is your name?"

"Chipa," she said. "But Sees-in-the-Dark said you would give me a new name when I was baptized."

"A new name," said Colўn. "And a new life." And then, quietly, so only she could hear: "This woman you call Sees-in-the-Dark -- can you lead me to her?"

"Yes," said Chipa. Then she added something that perhaps Sees-in-the-Dark didn't mean for her to say. "She told me once that she gave up her family and the man she loved so that she could meet you."

"Many people have given up many things," said Colўn. "But now would you be willing to interpret for us? I need to have Guacanagari's help in building shelters for my men, now that our ships have been burnt. And I need him to send a messenger with a letter for the captain of my third ship, asking him to come here to find us and carry us home. Will you go back to Spain with us?"

Sees-in-the-Dark had said nothing about going to Spain. In fact, she had said that the white men would never leave Haiti. But she decided this was not a good time to mention this particular prophecy. "If you go there," she said, "I'll go with you."

Pedro de Salcedo was seventeen years old. He might be page to the Captain-General of the fleet, but this never made him feel superior to the common seamen or the ship's boys. No, what made him feel superior was the way that these men and boys lusted after these ugly Indian women. He could hear them talking sometimes -- though they had learned not to try to engage him in these conversations. Apparently they couldn't get over the fact that the Indian women went about naked.

Not the new one, though. Chipa. She wore clothing, and spoke Spanish. Everyone else was amazed by this, but not Pedro de Salcedo. Clothing and Spanish were to be expected from civilized people. And she was certainly civilized, even if she wasn't yet a Christian.

Indeed, she wasn't a Christian at all, as far as Pedro could tell.

He had heard all her words to the Captain-General, of course, but when he was assigned to provide her with safe quarters, he took the opportunity to converse with her. He quickly found that she hadn't the faintest idea who Christ was, and her idea of Christian doctrine was pathetic at best. But then, she did say that this mystical Sees-in-the-Dark had promised that Colўn would teach her about Christ.

Sees-in-the-Dark. What kind of name was that? And how did it happen that an Indian woman had received a prophecy telling of Colўn and Christ? Such a vision must have come from God -- but to a woman? And not a Christian woman, either.

Though, come to think of it, God spoke to Moses, too, and he was a Jew. That was back when Jews were still the chosen people instead of being the filthy vile thieving Christ-killing scum of the earth, but still, it made you think.

Pedro was thinking about a lot of things. Anything to keep him from thinking about Chipa. Because those thoughts were the ones that disturbed him. Sometimes he wondered if he wasn't just as low and vulgar as the seamen and the ship's boys, so hungry for venery that even these Indian women could become attractive to him. But it wasn't that, not really. He didn't particularly lust after Chipa. He could still see that she was ugly, and for heaven's sake, she didn't even have a woman's shape, she was a child, what kind of pervert would he have to be to lust after her? Yet he also saw something in her voice, her face, that made her beautiful to him.

What was it? Her shyness? The obvious pride she felt when she said difficult sentences in Spanish? Her eager questions about his clothing, his weapons, the other members of the expedition? Those sweet little gestures she made when she was embarrassed at making a mistake? The sheer translucence of her face, as if a light shone through from beneath the skin? No, that was impossible, she didn't really glow. It was an illusion. I've been lonely too long.

Yet he found that the only part of his duties that he looked forward to these days was tending to Chipa, watching over her, conversing with her. He lingered with her as long as possible, and sometimes neglected his other tasks. Not that he meant to; he simply forgot anything but her when he was with her. And it was useful for him to spend time with her, wasn't it? She was teaching him the Taino language, too. If he learned it well, then there would be two interpreters, not just one. That would be good, wouldn't it?

He was also teaching her the alphabet. She seemed to like that most of all, and she was very clever about it. Pedro couldn't think of why she wanted it so much, since there was nothing in a woman's life that made reading necessary. But if it amused her and helped her understand Spanish better, why not?

So Pedro was making letters in the dirt, and Chipa was naming them, when Diego Bermudez came looking for him. "The boss wants you," he said. At twelve, the boy had no sense of propriety. "And the girl. He's going on an expedition."

"Where?" asked Pedro.

"To the moon," said Diego. "We've been everywhere else."

"He's going to the mountain," said Chipa. "To meet Sees-in-the-Dark. "

Pedro looked at her in consternation. "How would you know that?"

"Because Sees-in-the-Dark said he would come to her."

More of that mystical claptrap. What was Sees-in-the-Dark, anyway, a witch? Pedro could hardly wait to meet her. But he'd have his rosary triple-wrapped around his wrist and hold the cross in his hand the whole time. No sense taking chances.

Chipa must have done well, Diko decided, for runners had been coming up the mountain all morning, telling of the coming of the white men. The most annoying messages were from Guacanagari, full of half-veiled threats about any attempt by an obscure mountain village like Ankuash daring to interfere with the great cacique's plans. Poor Guacanagari -- in the prior version of history, he had also had the illusion that he was in control of relations with the Spanish. The result was that he ended up being a quisling, betraying other Indie leaders until he, too, was destroyed. Not that he was any stupider than others who have fooled themselves into thinking that they've got the tiger under control just because they're holding on to its tail.

It was midafternoon when Cristoforo himself came into the clearing. But Diko was not outside to meet him. She listened to the noise from inside her house, waiting.

Nugkui made a great show of greeting the great white cacique, and Cristoforo for his part was gracious. Diko listened with pleasure at the confidence in Chipa's voice. She had taken to her role and did it well. Diko had dear memories of Chipa's death in the other history. By then she was in her twenties, and her children were murdered in front of her before she was raped to death. She would never know that horror now. It gave Diko confidence, as she waited in her house.

The preliminaries ended, Cristoforo was now asking for Sees-in-the-Dark. Nugkui of course warned him that it was a waste of tirne talking to the black giant, but this only intrigued Cristoforo all the more, as Diko had expected. Soon he was in front of her door, and Chipa ducked inside. "Can he come in?" she asked in Taino.

"You're doing well, my niece," said Diko. She and Chipa had spoken only in Spanish for so long that it felt odd to Diko to revert to the local language with her. But it was necessary, for the moment, at least, if Cristoforo was not to understand what they said to each other.

Chipa smiled at that, and ducked her head. "He brought his page with him. He's very tall and fine and he likes me."

"He'd better not like you too well," said Diko. "You're not a woman yet."

"But he's a man," said Chipa, with a laugh. "Should I let them in?"

"Who is with Cristoforo?"

"All the big-house people," said Chipa. "Segovia, Arana, Gutiftrez, Escobedo. Even Torres." She giggled again. "Did you know that they brought him along to be an interpreter? He doesn't speak a word of Taino."

He didn't speak Mandarin either, or Japanese or Cantonese or Hindi or Malay or any of the other languages he would have needed if Cristoforo had actually reached the Far East as he intended. The poor myopic Europeans had sent Torres because he could read Hebrew and Aramaic, which they considered to be the matrices of all language.

"Let the Captain-General come in," said Diko. "And you can bring in your page, too. Pedro de Salcedo?"

Chipa did not seem surprised that Diko knew the name of her page. "Thank you," she said, and then stepped outside to bring in the guests.

Diko could not help feeling nervous -- no, why quibble? She was terrified. To finally meet him, the man who had consumed her life. And the scene they would play would be one that had never existed before in any history. She was so used to knowing what he would say before he said it. What would it be like, now that he had the capacity to surprise her?

No matter. She had a far greater ability to surprise him, and she used it immediately, speaking to him first in Genovese. "I've waited a long time to meet you, Cristoforo."

Even in the darkness inside her house, Diko could see how his face flushed at her lack of respect. Yet he had the good grace not to insist that she call him by his titles. Instead, he concentrated on the real question. "How is it that you speak the language of my family?"

She answered in Portuguese. "Would this be the language of your family? This is how your wife spoke, before she died, and your older son still thinks in Portuguese. Did you know that? Or have you spoken to him often enough to know what he thinks about anything?"

Cristoforo was angry and frightened. Just what she was hoping for. "You know things that no one knows." He was not speaking of family details, of course.

"Kingdoms will fall at your feet," she said, imitating as much as possible even the intonation of the voice in Cristoforo's vision from the interveners. "And millions whose lives are saved will call you blessed."

"We don't need an interpreter, do we," said Cristoforo.

"Shall we let the children go?" said Diko.

Cristoforo murmured to Chipa and Pedro. Pedro got up at once and went to the door, but Chipa didn't move.

"Chipa is not your servant," Diko pointed out. "But I will ask her to leave." In Taino she said, "I want the Captain-General to speak about things that he won't want anyone else to hear. Would you go outside?"

Chipa got up at once and headed for the door. Diko noticed with pleasure that Pedro held the flap open for her. The boy was already thinking of her, not just as a human, but as a lady. It was a breakthrough, even if no one was aware of it yet.

They were alone.

"How do you come to know these things?" asked Cristoforo at once. "These promises -- that kingdoms would fall at my feet, that--"

"I know them," said Diko, "because I came here by the same power that first gave those words to you." Let him interpret that how he would -- later, when he understood more, she would remind him that she hadn't lied to him.

She pulled a small solar-powered lantern from one of her bags and set it between them. When she switched it on, he shielded his eyes. His fingers also formed a cross. "It isn't witchcraft," she said. "It's a tool made by my people, of another place, where you could never voyage in all your traveling. But like any tool, it will someday wear out, and I won't know how to make another."

He was listening, but as his eyes adjusted, he was also looking at her. "You're as dark as a Moor."

"I am an African," she said. "Not a Moor, but from farther south."

"How did you come here, then?"

"Do you think you're the only voyager? Do you think you're the only one who can be sent to faraway lands to save the souls of the heathen?"

He rose to his feet. "I can see that after all my struggles, I have only now begun to face opposition. Did God send me to the Indies only to show me a Negress with a magic lamp?"

"This is not India," said Diko. "Or Cathay, or Cipangu. Those lie far, far to the west. This is another land entirely."

"You quote the words spoken to me by God himself, and then you tell me that God was wrong?"

"If you think back carefully, you will remember that he never said Cathay or Cipangu or India or any other such name," said Diko.

"How do you know this?"

"I saw you kneeling on the beach, and heard you take your oath in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost."

"Then why didn't I see you? If I could see the Holy Trinity, why were you invisible?"

"You dream of a great victory for Christianity," said Diko, ignoring his question because she couldn't think of an answer that would be comprehensible to him. "The liberation of Constantinople."

"Only as a step along the way to freeing Jerusalem," said Cristoforo.

"But I tell you that here, in this place, there are millions of souls who would accept Christianity if only you offer it to them peacefully, lovingly."

"How else would I offer it?"

"How else? Already you have written in your logbooks about how these people could be made to work. Already you talk about enslaving them."

He looked at her piercingly. "Who showed you my log?"

"You are not yet fit to teach these people Christianity, Cristoforo, because you are not yet a Christian."

He reached back his hand to strike at her. It surprised her, because he was not a violent man.

"Oh, will hitting me prove how Christian you are? Yes, I remember all the stories about how Jesus whipped Mary Magdelene. And the beatings he gave to Mary and Martha."

"I didn't hit you," he said.

"But it was your first desire, wasn't it?" she said. "Why? You are the most patient of men. You let those priests badger you and torment you for years, and you never lost your temper with them. Yet with me, you felt free to lash out. Why is that, Cristoforo?"

He looked at her, not answering.

"I'll tell you why. Because to you I'm not a human being, I'm a dog, less than a dog, because you would not beat a dog, would you? Just like the Portuguese, when you see a black woman you see a slave. And these brown people -- you can teach them the gospel of Christ and baptize them, but that doesn't stop you from wanting to make slaves of them and steal their gold from them."

"You can teach a dog to walk on its hind legs, but that doesn't make it a man."

"Oh, that's a clever bit of wisdom. That's just the kind of argument that rich men make about men like your father. Oh, he can dress in fine clothing, but he's still a country bumpkin, not worth treating with respect."

Cristoforo cried out in rage. "How dare you speak of my father that way!"

"I tell you that as long as you treat these people even worse than the rich men of Genova treated your father, you will never be pleasing to God."

The flap of the door opened wide, and Pedro and Escobedo stuck their heads into the house. "You cried out, my lord!" said Escobedo.

"I'm leaving," said Cristoforo.

He ducked and walked through the door. She turned off her lamp and followed him out into the afternoon light. All of Ankuash was gathered around, and the Spaniards all had their hands on their sword hilts. When they saw her -- so tall, so black -- they gasped, and some of the swords began to rise out of their sheaths. But Cristoforo waved the weapons back into place. "We're going," he announced. "There's nothing for us here."

"I know where the gold is!" cried Diko in Spanish. As she expected, it brought her the complete attention of all the white men. "It doesn't come from this island. It comes from farther west. I know where it is. I can take you there. I can show you so much gold that stories of it will be told forever."

It wasn't Cristoforo, but Segovia, the Royal Inspector, who answered her. "Then show us, woman. Take us there."

"Take you there? Using what boat?"

The Spaniards remained silent.

"Even when Pinzўn returns, he won't be able to take you back to Spain," she said.

They looked at each other in consternation. How did this woman know so much?

"Colўn," she said. "Do you know when I will show you that gold?"

He was with the other white men now, as he turned to face her. "When is that?"

"When you love Christ more than gold," Diko answered.

"I already do," said Cristoforo.

"I will know when you love Christ more than gold," said Diko. She pointed to the villagers. "It will be when you look at these and see, not slaves, not servants, not strangers, not enemies, but brothers and sisters, your equals in the eyes of God. But until you learn that humility, Cristobal Colўn, you will find nothing but one calamity after another."

"Devil," said Segovia. Most of the Spaniards crossed themselves.

"I do not curse you," she said. "I bless you. Whatever evil comes upon you comes as a punishment from God, because you looked at his children and saw only slaves. Jesus warned you: Whoever harms one of these little ones, it would be better for him to tie a millstone around his neck and throw himself into the sea."

"Even the devil can quote scripture," said Segovia. But his voice didn't sound very confident.

"Remember this, Cristoforo," Diko said. "When all is lost, when your enemies have brought you down to the depths of despair, come to me in humility and I will help you do the work of God in this place."

"God will help me do the work of God," said Cristoforo. "I need no heathen witch when I have him on my side."

"He will not be on your side until you have asked these people to forgive you for thinking that they were savages." She turned her back on him and went back into her house.

Outside, she could hear the Spaniards shouting at each other for a few moments. Some of them wanted to seize her and put her to death on the spot. But Cristoforo knew better. Angry as he was, he knew that she had seen things that only God and he had known.

Besides, the Spanish were outnumbered. Cristoforo was nothing if not prudent. You don't commit to battle until you know that you'll win -- that was his philosophy.

When they were gone, Diko emerged again from her house. Nugkui was livid. "How dare you make these white men so angry? Now they'll be friends with Guacanagari and never visit us again!"

"You don't want them as friends until they learn how to be human," said Diko. "Guacanagari will beg for them to be friends with someone else before this story is played out. But I tell you this. No matter what happens, let it be known that no harm is to come to the one they call Colўn, the white-haired one, the cacique. Tell it to every village and clan: If you harm Colўn, the curse of Sees-in-the-Dark will come upon you."

Nugkui glowered.

"Don't worry, Nugkui," she said. "I think Colўn will be back."

"Maybe I don't want him back," Nugkui retorted. "Maybe I just wish you and he both would go away!" But he knew the rest of the village wouldn't stand for it if she left. So she said nothing, until he turned and walked out into the forest. Only then did she return to her house, where she sat on her sleeping mat and trembled. Wasn't this exactly what she had planned? To make Cristoforo angry but plant the seeds of transformation in his mind? Yet in all her imagining of this encounter, she had never counted on how powerful Cristoforo was in person. She had watched him, had seen the power he had over people, but he had never looked her in the eye until this day. And it left her as disturbed as any of the Europeans who had confronted him. It gave her new respect for those who resisted him, and new understanding of those who bent completely to his will. Not even Tagiri had so much fire burning behind her eyes as this man had. No wonder the Interveners chose him as their tool. Come what may, Cristoforo would prevail, given time enough.

How had she ever imagined that she could tame this man and bend him to her own plan?

No, she said silently, no, I'm not trying to tame him. I'm only trying to show him a better, truer way to fulfill his own dream. When he understands that, those eyes win look at me with kindness, not with fury.

It was a long trip down the mountain, not least because some of the men seem disposed to take out their anger on the girl, Chipa. Cristoforo was caught up in his own thoughts when he became aware that Pedro was doing his best to shield the girl from the shoving and curses of Arana and Gutierrez. "Leave her alone," Cristoforo said.

Pedro looked at him with gratitude, and the girl, too.

"She's not a slave," said Cristoforo. "Nor is she a soldier. She helps us of her own free will, so that we'll teach her about Christ."

"She's a heathen witch, just like that other one!" retorted Arana.

"You forget yourself," said Cristoforo.

Sullenly Arana bowed his head in acknowledgment of Cristoforo's superior rank.

"If Pinzўn doesn't return, we'll need the help of the natives to build another ship. Without this girl, we'd be back to trying to talk to them with signs and grunts and gestures."

"Your page is learning their babble," said Arana.

"My page has learned a few dozen words," said Cristoforo.

"If anything happened to the girl," said Arana, "we could always come back up here and take that black whore and make her interpret for us."

Chipa spoke up in fury. "She would never obey you."

Arana laughed. "Oh, by the time we were through with her, she'd obey, all right!" His laugh got darker, uglier. "And it'd be good for her, too, to learn her place in the world."

Cristoforo heard Arana's words and they made him uncomfortable. A part of him agreed completely with Arana's sentiments. But another part of him couldn't help but remember what Sees-in-the-Dark had said. Until he saw the natives as equals ...

The thought made him shudder. These savages, his equals? If God meant them to be his equals, he would have let them be born as Christians. Yet there was no denying that Chipa was as smart and good-hearted as any Christian girl. She wanted to be taught the word of Christ, and to be baptized.

Teach her, baptize her, put her in a fine gown, and she would still be brown-skinned and ugly. Might as well put a monkey in a dress. Sees-in-the-Dark was denying nature, to think it could be otherwise. Obviously she was the devil's last-ditch effort to stop him, to distract him from his mission. Just as the devil had led Pinzўn to sail the Pinta away.

It was near dark when he returned to the half-completed stockade where the Spanish were encamped. He could hear the sound of laughter and revelry in the camp, and was prepared to be angry about the lack of discipline, until he realized why. There, standing beside a large fire, regaling the gathered seamen with some tale or other, was Martin Alonzo Pinzўn. He had come back.

As Cristoforo strode across the open area between the gate of the stockade and the fire, the men around Pinzўn became aware of him, and fell silent, watching. Pinzўn, too, watched Cristoforo's approach. When he was near enough for them to speak without shouting, Pinzўn began his excuses.

"Captain-General, you can't imagine my dismay when I lost you in the fog coming away from Colba."

Such a lie, thought Cristoforo. The Pinta still was clearly visible after the coastal fog dissipated.

"But I thought, why not explore while we're separated? We stopped at the island of Babeque, where the Colbanos said we'd find gold, but there wasn't a bit of it there. But east of here, along the coast of this island, there were vast quantities of it. For a little strip of ribbon they gave me gold pieces the size of two fingers, and sometimes as large as my hand!"

He held up his large, strong, callused hand.

Cristoforo still did not answer, though now he stood not five feet from the captain of the Pinta. It was Segovia who said, "Of course you will give a full accounting of all this gold and add it to the common treasury."

Pinzўn turned red. "What do you accuse me of, Segovia?" he demanded.

He might accuse you of treason, thought Cristoforo. Certainly of mutiny. Why did you turn back? Because you couldn't make any better headway against the east wind than I did? Or because you realized that when you returned to Spain without me, there would be questions that you couldn't answer? So not only are you disloyal and untrustworthy, but you are also too cowardly even to complete your betrayal.

All of this remained unsaid, however. Cristoforo's rage against Pinzўn, though it was every bit as justified as his anger toward Sees-in-the-Dark, had nothing to do with the reason God had sent him here. The royal officials might share Cristoforo's contempt for Pinzўn, but the seamen all looked at him as if he were Charlemagne or El Cid. If Cristoforo made an enemy of him, he would lose his control over the crew. Segovia and Arana and Gutierrez didn't understand this. They believed that authority came from the King. But Cristoforo knew that authority came from obedience. In this place, among these men, Pinzўn commanded much more obedience than the King. So Cristoforo would swallow his anger so that he could make use of Pinzўn in accomplishing God's work.

"He accuses you of nothing," said Cristoforo. "How can anyone think of accusing you? The one who was lost is now found. If we had a fatted calf, I'd have it slaughtered now in your honor. In the name of Their Majesties, I welcome you back, Captain Pinzўn."

Pinzўn was obviously relieved, but he also got a sly look in his eyes. He thinks he has the upper hand, thought Cristoforo. He thinks he can get away with anything. But once we're back in Spain, Segovia will support my view of events. We'll see who has the upper hand then.

Cristoforo smiled, held out his arms, and embraced the lying bastard.

Hunahpu watched as the three Tarascan metalsmiths handled the iron bar he had taught them how to smelt, using the charcoal he had taught them how to make. He watched them test it against bronze blades and arrowheads. He watched them test it against stone. And when they were done, the three of them prostrated themselves on the ground before him.

Hunahpu waited patiently until their obeisance was done -- it was the respect due to a hero from Xibalba, whether they were impressed by iron or not. Then he told them to rise from the ground and stand like men.

"The lords of Xibalba have watched you for years. They saw how you worked with bronze. They saw the three of you working with iron. And they argued among themselves. Some of them wanted to destroy you. But some of them said, No, the Tarascans are not bloodthirsty like the Mexica or the Tlaxcalans. They will not use this black metal to slaughter thousands of men so that barren fields burn under the sun, without anyone to plant maize."

No, no, agreed the Tarascans.

"So now I offer you the same covenant I offered to the Zapotecs. You've heard the story a dozen times by now."

Yes, they had.

"If you vow that you will never again take a human life as sacrifice to any god, and that you will only go to war to defend yourselves or to protect other peace-loving people, then I will teach you even more secrets. I'll teach you how to make this black metal even harder, until it shines like silver."

We would do anything to know these secrets. Yes, we take this vow. We will obey the great One-Hunahpu in all things.

"I'm not here to be your king. You have your own king. I ask only that you keep this covenant. And then let your own king be as a brother to Na-Yaxhal, the king of the Zapotecs, and let the Tarascans be brothers and sisters to the Zapotecs. They are masters of the great canoes that sail the open sea, and you are masters of the fire that turns stone into metal. You will teach them all your secrets of metalwork, and they will teach you all their secrets of shipbuilding and navigation. Or I will return to Xibalba and tell the lords that you are ungrateful for the gift of knowledge!"

They listened wide-eyed, promising everything. His words would be relayed to the king soon enough, but when they showed him what iron could do, and warned him that One-Hunahpu knew how to make an even harder metal, he would agree to the alliance. Hunahpu's plotting would be complete, then. The Mexica and the Tlaxcalans would be surrounded by an enemy with iron weapons and large fast ships. Huitzilopochtli, you old faker, your days of drinking human blood are numbered.

I've done it, thought Hunahpu, and ahead of schedule. Even if Kemal and Diko failed, I will have suppressed the practice of human sacrifice, unified the people of Mesoamerica, and given them a high enough technology to be able to resist the Europeans whenever they come.

Yet even as he congratulated himself, Hunahpu felt a wave of homesickness sweep over him. Let Diko be alive, he prayed silently. Let her do her work with Columbus and make of him a bridge between Europe and America, so that it never comes to bloody war.

It was suppertime in the Spanish camp. All the officers and men were gathered for the meal, except for the four men on watch around the stockade and the two men who watched the ship. Cristoforo and the other officers ate apart from the others, but all ate the same food -- most of which was provided by the Indians.

It was not served by Indians, however. The men served themselves, and the ship's boys served the officers. There had been serious difficulties over that, beginning when Chipa refused to translate Pinzўn's orders to the Indians. "They're not servants," said Chipa. "They're friends."

In reply, Pinzўn had started beating the girl, and when Pedro tried to intervene, Pinzўn knocked him down and gave him a solid beating, too. When the Captain-General demanded that he apologize, Pinzўn gladly agreed to apologize to Pedro. "He shouldn't have tried to stop me, but he is your page and I apologize for punishing him when that should be left to you."

"The girl, too," Colўn had said.

To which Pinzўn had replied by spitting and saying, "The little whore refused to do what she was told. She was insolent. Servants have no business talking to gentlemen that way."

When did Pinzўn become a gentleman? thought Pedro. But he held his tongue. This was a matter for the Captain-General, not for a page.

"She is not your servant," Colўn said.

Pinzўn laughed insolently. "All brown people are servants by nature," he said.

"If they were servants by nature," said Colўn, "you wouldn't have to beat them to get them to obey. It's a brave man who beats a little child. They'll no doubt write songs about your courage."

That had been enough to silence Pinzўn -- at least in public. Ever since then, there had been no attempt to get the Indians to give personal service. But Pedro knew that Pinzўn had not forgiven or forgotten the scorn in the Captain-General's voice, or the humiliation of having been forced to back down. Pedro had even urged Chipa to leave.

"Leave?" she had said. "You don't speak Taino well enough yet for me to leave."

"If something goes wrong," Pedro had told her, " Pinzўn will kill you. I know he will."

"Sees-in-the-Dark will protect me," she said.

"Sees-in-the-Dark isn't here," said Pedro.

"Then you'll protect me."

"Oh, yes, that worked so well this time." Pedro couldn't protect her and she wouldn't leave. It meant that he lived with constant anxiety, watching how the men watched Chipa, how they whispered behind the Captain-General's back, how they gave many signs of their solidarity with Pinzўn. There was a bloody mutiny coming, Pedro could see it. It awaited only an occasion. When Pedro tried to talk to the Captain-General about it, he refused to listen, saying only that he knew the men favored Pinzўn, but they would not rebel against the authority of the crown. If Pedro could only believe that.

So this evening Pedro directed the ship's boys in serving the officers. The unfamiliar fruits had grown familiar, and every meal was a feast. All the men were healthier now than at any time before in the voyage. From outward appearances everything was perfectly pleasant between the Captain-General and Pinzўn. But by Pedro's count, the only men that Colўn could count on his side in a crisis were himself, Segovia, Arana, Gutierrez, Escobedo, and Torres. In other words, the royal officers and the Captain-General's own page. The ship's boys and some of the craftsmen would be on Colўn's side in their hearts, but they wouldn't dare to stand against the men. For that matter, the royal officers had no personal loyalty to Colўn himself. Their loyalty was simply to the idea of proper order and authority. No, when the trouble came, Colўn would find himself almost friendless.

As for Chipa, she would be destroyed. I will kill her myself, thought Pedro, before I let Pinzўn get his hands on her. I win kill her, and then I will kill myself. Better still, why not kill Pinzўn? As long as I'm thinking of murder, why not strike at the one I hate instead of the ones I love?

These were Pedro's dark thoughts as he handed another bowl of melon slices to Martin Pinzўn. Pinzўn winked at him and smiled. He knows what I'm thinking, and he laughs at me, thought Pedro. He knows that I know what he's planning. He also knows that I'm powerless.

Suddenly a terrible blast shattered the quiet evening. Almost at once the earth shook under him and a shock of wind from seaward knocked Pedro down. He fell right across Pinzўn, and almost at once the man was hitting and cursing him. Pedro got off him as quickly as possible, and it soon became clear even to Pinzўn that it wasn't Pedro's clumsiness that had caused their collision. Most of the men had been bowled over by the blast, and now smoke and ash filled the air. It was thickest toward the water.

"The Pinta!" cried Pinzўn. At once everyone else took up the cry, and ran through the thickening smoke toward the shore.

The Pinta wasn't on fire. It simply wasn't there at all.

The evening breeze was gradually clearing the smoke when they finally found the two men who were supposed to be on watch. Pinzўn was already laying on them with the flat of his sword before Colўn could get a couple of men to pull him off.

"My ship!" cried Pinzўn. "What have you done to my ship?"

"If you stop beating them and shouting at them," said Colўn, "perhaps we can learn from them what happened."

"My ship is gone and they were supposed to watch it!" cried Pinzўn, struggling to get free of the men who restrained him.

"It was my ship, given me by the King and Queen," said Colўn. "Will you stand alone like a gentleman, sir?"

Pinzўn furiously nodded, and the men let go of him.

One of the men who had been on watch was Rascўn, who was part owner of the Pinta. "Martin, I'm sorry, what could we do? He made us get into the launch and row for shore. And then he made us get behind that rock. And then the ship -- blew up."

"He?" asked Colўn, ignoring the fact that Rascўn had reported to Pinzўn instead of to the Captain-General.

"The man who did it."

"Where is he now?" asked Colўn.

"He can't be far," said Rascўn.

"He went off that way," said Gil Perez, the other watchman.

"Se¤or Pinzўn, would you kindly organize a search?"

His fury properly focused now, Pinzўn immediately divided the men into search parties, not forgetting to leave a good contingent behind to guard the stockade against theft or sabotage. Pedro could not help but see that Pinzўn was a good leader, quick of mind and able to make himself understood and obeyed at once. That only made him more dangerous, as far as Pedro was concerned.

When the men had dispersed, Colўn stood on the shore, looking out over the many bits of wood that were bobbing on the waves. "Not even if all the gunpowder on the Pinta exploded all at once," said the Captain-General, "not even then could it destroy the ship so completely."

"What could have done it, then?" said Pedro.

"God could do it," said the Captain-General. "Or perhaps the devil. The Indians know nothing about gunpowder. If they find this man who supposedly did it, do you think he'll be a Moor?"

So the Captain-General was remembering the curse of the mountain witch. One calamity after another. What could be worse than this, to lose the last ship?

But when they found him, the man wasn't a Moor. Nor was he an Indian. He was white and bearded, a large man, a strong one. His clothing had obviously been bizarre even before the men tore much of it from him. They held him, a garrotte around his neck, forcing him to his knees in front of the Captain-General.

"It was all I could do to keep him alive long enough for you to speak to him, sir," said Pinzўn.

"Why did you do this?" asked Colўn.

The man answered in Spanish -- thickly accented, but understandable. "When I first heard about your expedition I vowed that if you succeeded, you would never return to Spain."

"Why?" demanded the Captain-General.

"My name is Kemal," said the man. "I'm a Turk. There is no God but Allah, and Mohammad is his Prophet."

The men muttered in rage. Infidel. Heathen. Devil.

"I will still return to Spain," said Colўn. "You haven't stopped me."

"Fool," said Kemal. "How will you return to Spain when you're surrounded by enemies?"

Pinzўn immediately roared out, "You're the only enemy, infidel!"

"How do you think I got here, if I hadn't had the help of some of these." With his head, he indicated the men around him. Then he looked Pinzўn in the eye and winked.

"Liar!" cried Pinzўn. "Kill him! Kill him!"

The men who held the Turk obeyed at once, even though Colўn raised his voice and cried out for them to stop. It was possible that in the roar of fury they didn't hear him. And it didn't take long for the Turk to die. Instead of strangling him, they pulled the garrotte so tight and twisted it so hard that it broke his neck and with only a twitch or two he was gone.

At last the tumult ended. In the silence, the Captain-General spoke. "Fools. You killed him too quickly. He told us nothing."

"What could he have told us, except lies?" said Pinzўn.

Colўn took a long, measured look at him. "We'll never know, will we? As far as I can tell, the only people glad of that would be the ones he might have named as his conspirators."

"What are you accusing me of?" demanded Pinzўn.

"I haven't accused you at all."

Only then did Pinzўn seem to realize that his own actions had pointed the finger of suspicion at him. He began to nod, and then smiled. "I see, Captain-General. You finally found a way to discredit me, even if it took blowing up my caravel to do it."

"Watch what you say to the Captain-General." Segovia's voice whipped out across the crowd.

"Let him watch what he says to me. I didn't have to bring the Pinta back here. I've proved my loyalty. Every man here knows me. I'm not the foreigner. How do we know that this Colўn is even a Christian, let alone a Genovese? After all, that black witch and the little whore interpreter both knew his native language, when not one honest Spaniard could understand it."

Pinzўn hadn't been present on either occasion, Pedro noted. Obviously there had been a lot of talk about who spoke what language to whom.

Colўn looked at him steadily. "There would have been no expedition if I had not spent half my life arguing for it. Would I destroy it now, when success was so close?"

"You would never have gotten us home anyway, you posturing fool!" cried Pinzўn. "That's why I came back, because I saw how difficult it was to sail east against the wind. I knew you weren't sailor enough to bring my brother and my friends back home."

Colўn allowed himself a hint of a smile. "If you were such a fine sailor, you'd know that to the north of us the prevailing wind blows from the west."

"And how would you know that?" The scorn in Pinzўn's voice was outrageous.

"You're speaking to the commander of Their Majesties' fleet," said Segovia.

Pinzўn fell silent for the moment; perhaps he had spoken more openly than he intended, for now at least.

"When you were a pirate," said Colўn quietly, "I sailed the coast of Africa with the Portuguese."

From the growling of the men, Pedro knew that the Captain-General had just committed a serious mistake. The rivalry between the men of Palos and the sailors of the Portuguese coast was intensely felt, all the more so because the Portuguese were so clearly the better, farther-reaching sailors. And to throw in Pinzўn's face his days of piracy -- well, that was a crime that all of Palos was guilty of, during the hardest days of the war against the Moors, when normal trade was impossible. Colўn might have buttressed his credentials as a sailor, but he did it at the immediate cost of losing what vestiges of loyalty he might have commanded among the men.

"Dispose of the body," said the Captain-General. Then he turned his back on them and returned to the camp.

The runner from Guacanagari couldn't stop laughing as he told the story of the death of the Silent Man. "The white men are so stupid that they killed him first and tortured him afterward!"

Diko heard this with relief. Kemal had died quickly. And the Pinta had been destroyed.

"We must watch the white men's village," said Diko. "The white men will turn against their cacique soon, and we must make sure he comes to Ankuash, and not to any other village."