Pastwatch: The Redemption Of Christopher Columbus

Chapter 13 -- Reconciliations

It was a meeting that would live in history.

Cristobal Colўn was the European who had created the Carib League, a confederation of Christian tribes in all the lands surrounding the Carib Sea on the east, the north, and the south.

Yax was the Zapotec king who, building on his father's work in uniting all the Zapotec tribes and forming an alliance with the Tarascan Empire, conquered the Aztecs and brought his ironworking and shipbuilding kingdom to the highest cultural level achieved in the western hemisphere.

Their achievements were remarkably parallel. Both men had put a stop to the ubiquitous practice of human sacrifice in the lands they governed. Both men had adopted a form of Christianity, which was easily united when they met. Colўn and his men had taught European navigation and some shipbuilding techniques to the Tainos and, when they were converted to Christianity, the Caribs as well; under Yax, Zapotec ships traded far and wide, along both coasts of the Zapotec Empire. While the Carib islands were too poor in iron for them to match the achievements of the Tarascan metalsmiths, when Colўn and Yax united their empires into one nation, there were still enough of Colўn's European crew who knew ironworking that they were able to help the Tarascans make the leap forward into gunsmithing.

Historians looked back on their meeting at Chichen Itza as the greatest moment of reconciliation in history. Imagine what would have happened if Alexander, instead of conquering the Persians, had united with them. If the Romans and Parthians had become a single nation. If the Christians and Muslims, if the Mongols and the Han ...

But it was unimaginable. The only reason they could believe it was possible with the Carib League and the Zapotec Empire was that it actually happened.

In the great central plaza of Chichen Itza, where once human sacrifice and torture had been offered to Mayan gods, the Christian Colўn embraced the heathen Yax, and then baptized him. Colўn presented his daughter and heir, Beatrice Tagiri Colўn, and Yax presented his son and heir, Ya-Hunahpu Ipoxtli. They were married on the spot, whereupon both Colўn and Yax abdicated in favor of their children. Of course they would both remain the powers behind the throne until their deaths, but the alliance held, and the nation known as Caribia was born.

It was a well-governed empire. While all the different tribes and language-groups that were included within it were allowed to govern themselves, a series of uniform laws were imposed and impartially enforced, allowing trade and free movement through every part of Caribia. Christianity was not established as a state religion, but the principles of nonviolence and communal control of land were made uniform, and human sacrifice and slavery were strictly forbidden. It was because of this that historians dated the beginning of the humanist era from the date of that meeting between Yax and Colўn: the summer solstice of the year 1519, by the Christian reckoning.

The European influence that came through Colўn was powerful, considering that only he and the merest handful of his officers and men were available to promulgate their culture. But, having come to Haiti, a land without writing, it should not have been astonishing that the Spanish alphabet was adopted to write the Taino and Carib languages, or that Spanish should eventually be adopted as the language of trade, government, and record-keeping throughout the Carib League. After all, Spanish was the language that already had the vocabulary to deal with Christianity, trade, and law. Yet by no means was this a European conquest. It was the Spanish who gave up the idea of personal ownership of land, which had long been a cause of great inequities in the old world; it was the Spanish who learned to tolerate different religions and cultures and languages without trying to enforce uniformity. When the behavior of the Colўn's Spanish expedition in the new world is compared to the record of intolerance marked by the Inquisition, the expulsion of the Jews, and the war against the Moors in Spain itself, it is obvious that while Spanish culture provided a few useful tools -- a lingua franca, an alphabet, a calendar -- it was the Tainos who taught the Spanish what it meant to be Christian.

There was another similarity between Yax and Colўn. Each of them had an enigmatic adviser. It was said that Yax's mentor, One-Hunahpu, came direct from Xibalba itself, and commanded the Zapotecs to end human sacrifice and to look for a sacrificial god that they later believed was Jesus Christ. Colўn's mentor was his wife, a woman so dark she was said to be African, though of course that could not have been true. The woman was called Sees-in-the-Dark by the Taino, but Colўn -- and history -- came to know her as Diko, though the meaning of that name, if it had one, was lost. Her role was not as clear to historians as that of One-Hunahpu, but it was known that when Colўn fled the mutineers, it was Diko who took him in, nursed him back to health, and by embracing Christianity helped him to begin his great work of conversion among the people of the Carib Sea. Some historians speculated that it was Diko who tamed the brutality of the Spanish Christians. But Colўn himself was such a powerful figure that it was hard for historians to get a clear look at anyone in his shadow.

On that day in 1519, when the official ceremonies were over, as the feasting and dancing for the wedding of the two kingdoms ran far into the night, there was another meeting, one that was not witnessed by anyone but the participants. They met on the top of the great pyramid of Chichen Itza, the last hour before dawn.

She was there first, waiting for him in the darkness. When he came to the top of the tower and saw her, at first he was wordless, and so was she. They sat across from each other. She had brought mats so they wouldn't have to sit on the hard stone. He had brought a little food and drink, which he shared. They ate in silence, but the true feast was in the way they looked at each other.

Finally she broke the silence. "You succeeded better than we dreamed, Hunahpu."

"And you, Diko."

She shook her head. "No, it wasn't hard after all. He changed himself. The Interveners chose well, when they made him their tool."

"And is that what we made him? Our tool?"

"No, Hunahpu. I made him my husband. We have seven children. Our daughter is Queen of Caribia. It's been a good life. And your wife, Xoc. She seems a loving, gentle woman."

"She is. And strong." He smiled. "The third strongest woman I ever knew."

Suddenly tears flowed down Diko's face. "Oh, Hunahpu, I miss my mother so much."

"I miss her too. I still see her sometimes in my dreams, reaching up to pull down the switch."

She reached out her hand, laid it on his knee. "Hunahpu, did you forget that once we loved each other?"

"Not for a day. Not for an hour."

"I always thought: Hunahpu will be proud of me for doing this. Was that disloyal of me? To look forward to the day when I could show you my work?"

"Who else but you would understand what I achieved? Who else but me could know how far beyond our dreams you succeeded?"

"We changed the world," she said.

"For now, anyway," said Hunahpu. "They can still find their own ways to make all the old mistakes."

She shrugged.

"Did you tell him?" asked Hunahpu. "About who we are, and where we came from?"

"As much as he could understand. He knows that I'm not an angel, anyway. And he knows that there was another version of history, in which Spain destroyed the Caribian people. He wept for days, once he understood."

Hunahpu nodded. "I tried to tell Xoc, but to her there was little difference between Xibalba and Pastwatch. Call them gods or call them researchers, she didn't see much practical difference. And you know, I can't think of a significant difference, either."

"It didn't seem as if we were gods, when we were among them. It was just Mother and Father and their friends," said Diko.

"And to me, it was a job. Until I found you. Or you found me. Or however that worked."

"It worked," said Diko with finality.

He cocked his head and looked at her sideways, to let her know that he knew he was asking a loaded question. "Is it true you aren't going with Colўn when he sails east?"

"I don't think Spain is likely to be ready for an ambassador married to an African. Let's not make them swallow too much."

"He's an old man, Diko. He might not live to come home."

"I know," she said.

"Now that we're making Atetulka the capital of Caribia, will you come there to live? To wait for his return?"

"Hunahpu, you aren't expecting that at our age we would start to set a bad example, are you? Though I admit to being curious about the twelve scars that legend says you carry on your ... person."

He laughed. "No, I'm not proposing an affair. I love Xoc, and you love Colўn. We both still have too much work to do for us to put it at risk now. But I hoped for your company. For many conversations."

She thought about it, but in the end, she shook her head. "It would be too ... hard for me. This is too hard for me. Seeing you brings back another life. A time when I was another person. Maybe now and then. Every few years. Sail to Haiti and visit us in Ankuash. My Beatrice will want to come home to the mountain -- Atetulka must be sweltering, there on the coast."

"Ya-Hunahpu is dying to go to Haiti -- he hears that the women wear no clothing."

"In some places they still go naked. But bright colors are all the fashion. I think he'll be disappointed."

Hunahpu reached out and took her hand. "I'm not disappointed."

"Neither am I."

They held hands like that, for a long time.

"I was thinking," said Hunahpu, "of the third one who earned a place atop this tower."

"I was thinking of him, too."

"We remade the culture, so that Europe and America -- Caribia -- could meet without either being destroyed," said Hunahpu. "But he's the one who bought us the time to do it."

"He died quickly," said Diko. "But not without planting seeds of suspicion among the Spaniards. It must have been quite a death scene. But I'm glad I missed it."

The first light of dawn had appeared over the jungle to the east. Hunahpu noticed it, sighed, and stood. Then Diko stood, unfolding herself to her full height. Hunahpu laughed. "I forgot how tall you were."

"I'm stooping a little these days."

"It doesn't help," he said.

They went down the pyramid separately. No one saw them. No one guessed that they knew each other.

Cristobal Colўn returned to Spain in the spring of 1520. No one looked for him anymore, of course. There were legends about the disappearance of the three caravels that sailed west; the name Colўn had become synonymous, in Spain, at least, with the idea of mad ventures.

It was the Portuguese who had made the link to the Indies, and Portuguese ships now dominated all the Atlantic sea routes. They were just starting to explore the coast of a large island they named for the legendary land of Hy-Brasil, and some were saying that it might be a continent, especially when a ship returned with reports that northwest of the desert lands first discovered was a vast jungle with a river so wide and powerful that it made the ocean fresh twenty miles from its mouth. The inhabitants of the land were poor and weak savages, easily conquered and enslaved -- much easier to deal with than the fierce Africans, who were also guarded by plagues invariably fatal to white men. The sailors who landed in Hy-Brasil got sick, but the disease was quick and never killed. Indeed, those who caught it reported that they were healthier afterward than they had ever been before. This "plague" was now spreading through Europe, doing no harm at all, and some said that where the Brasilian plague had passed, smallpox and black death could no longer return. It made Hy-Brasil seem magical, and the Portuguese were preparing an expedition to explore the coast and look for a site for supply stations. Perhaps the madman Colўn was not so mad after all. If there was a suitable coast for resupply, it might be possible to reach China by sailing west.

That was when a fleet of a thousand ships appeared off the Portuguese coast near Lagos, sailing eastward toward Spain, toward the straits of Gibraltar. The Portuguese galleon that spotted the strange ships at first sailed boldly toward them. But then, when it became obvious that these strange vessels filled the sea from horizon to horizon, the captain wisely turned about and raced for Lisboa. The Portuguese who stood on the southern shores said that it took three days for the whole fleet to pass. Some ships came close enough to the shore that the watchers could say with confidence that the sailors were brown, of a race never seen before. They also said that the ships were heavily armed; any one of them would be a match for the fiercest war galleon of the Portuguese fleet.

Wisely, the Portuguese sailors put in to port and stayed there while the fleet passed. If it was an enemy, better not to provoke them, but instead hope they would find some better land to conquer farther east.

The first of the ships put in to port at Palos. If anyone noticed that it was the same port from which Colўn had set sail, the coincidence went unremarked at the time. The brown men who disembarked from the ships shocked everyone by speaking fluent Spanish, though with many new words and odd pronunciations. They said they came from the kingdom of Caribia, which lay on a vast island between Europe and China. They insisted on speaking to the monks of La Rabida, and it was to these holy men that they gave three chests of pure gold. "One is a gift to the King and Queen of Spain, to thank them for sending three ships to us, twenty-eight years ago," said the leader of the Caribians. "One is a gift to the Holy Church, to help pay for sending missionaries to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ in every corner of Caribia, to any who will freely listen. And the last is the price we will pay for a piece of land, well-watered with a good harbor, where we can build a palace fitting for the father of our Queen Beatrice Tagiri to receive the visit of the King and Queen of Spain."

Few of the monks of La Rabida remembered the days when Colўn had been a frequent visitor there. But one remembered very well. He had been left there as a boy to be educated while his father pressed his suit at court, and later when he sailed west in search of a mad goal. When his father never returned, he had taken holy orders, and was now distinguished for his holiness. He took the leader of the Caribian party aside and said, "The three ships you say that Spain sent to you. They were commanded by Cristobal Colўn, weren't they?"

"Yes, they were," said the brown man.

"Did he live? Is he still alive?"

"He is not only alive, but he is the father of our Queen Beatrice Tagiri. It is for him that we build a palace. And because you remember him, my friend, I can tell you, in his heart he is not building this palace for the King and Queen of Spain, though he will receive them there. He is building this palace so he can invite his son, Diego, to learn what has become of him, and to beg his forgiveness for not returning to him for all these years."

"I am Diego Colўn," said the monk.

"I assumed you were," said the brown man. "You look like him. Only younger. And your mother must have been a beauty, because the differences are all improvements." The brown man didn't smile, but Diego saw at last the twinkle in his eyes.

"Tell my father," said Diego, "that many a man has been separated from his family by fortune or fate, and only an unworthy son would ask his father to apologize for coming home."

The land was purchased, and seven thousand Caribians began trading and purchasing throughout southern Spain. They caused much comment and not a little fear, but they all claimed to be Christians, they spent gold as freely as if they had dug it up like dirt, and their soldiers were heavily armed and highly disciplined.

It took a year to build the palace for the father of Queen Beatrice Tagiri, and when it was finished it was clear that it was really more of a city than a palace. Spanish architects had been hired to design a cathedral, a monastery, an abbey, and a university; Spanish workers had been well paid to do much of the labor, working side by side with the strange brown men of Caribia. Gradually the women who had come with the fleet began to venture out in public, wearing their lightweight, bright-colored gowns all through the summer, and then learning to wear warmer Spanish clothing when winter came. By the time the city of the Caribians was finished, and the King and Queen of Spain were invited to come and visit, the city was populated by as many Spaniards as Caribians, working and worshiping together.

Spanish scholars were teaching Caribian and Spanish students in the university; Spanish priests taught Caribians to speak Latin and say the mass; Spanish merchants came to the city to sell food and other supplies, and came away with strange artworks made of gold and silver, copper and iron, cloth and stone. Only gradually did they learn that many of the Caribians were not Christians, after all, but that among the Caribians it did not matter whether a person was Christian or not. All were equal citizens, free to choose what they might believe. This idea was strange indeed, and it did not occur to anyone in authority in Spain to adopt it, but as long as the pagans among the Caribians did not try to proselytize in Christian Spain, their presence could be tolerated. After all, these Caribians had so much gold. And so many fast ships. And so many excellent guns.

When the King and Queen of Spain arrived -- trying their pathetic best to look impressive amid the opulence of the Caribian city -- they were brought into a great throne room in a magnificent building. They were led to a pair of thrones and invited to sit on them. Only then did the father of the Queen of the Caribians present himself, and when he came in, he knelt before them.

"Queen Juana," he said, "I'm sorry that your mother and father did not live to see my return from the expedition on which they sent me in 1492."

"So Cristobal Colўn was not a madman," she said. "And it was not a folly for Isabella to send him."

"Cristobal Colўn," he said, "was the true servant of the King and Queen. But I was wrong about how far it is to China. What I found was a land that no European had ever known before." On a table before their thrones he set a small chest, and took from it four books. "The logs of my voyage and all my acts since then. My ships were destroyed and I could not return, but as Queen Isabella charged me, I did my best to bring as many people as I could to the service of Christ. My daughter has become Queen Beatrice Tagiri of Caribia, and her husband is King Ya-Hunahpu of Caribia. Just as your parents joined Aragon and Castile through their marriage, so my daughter and her husband have united two great kingdoms into one nation. May their children be as good and wise rulers of Caribia as you have been of Spain."

He listened as Queen Juana and King Henrique made gracious speeches accepting his logs and journals. As they spoke, he thought of what Diko had said -- that in another history, the one in which his ships had not been destroyed, and he had sailed home with the Pinta and the Nina, his discovery had made Spain so rich that Juana had been given in marriage to a different man, who had died young. It had driven her mad, and first her father and then her son had ruled in her place. What an odd thing, that among all the changes that God had made through him, one of them should be to save this gracious queen from madness. She would never know, for he and Diko would never tell.

Their speeches were done, and in return they had offered him many fine gifts -- by Spanish standards -- to take back to King YaHunahpu and Queen Beatrice Tagiri. He accepted them all.

"Caribia is a large land," he said, "and there are many places where the name of Christ has not yet been heard. Also, the land is rich in many things, and we welcome trade with Spain. We ask you to send priests to teach our people. We ask you to send merchants to trade with them. But since Caribia is a peaceful land, where an unarmed man can walk from one end of the kingdom to the other without harm, there will be no need for you to send any soldiers. Indeed, my daughter and her husband ask you to do them the great favor of telling all the other sovereigns of Europe that, while they are welcome to send priests and merchants, any ships that sail into Caribian waters bearing weapons of any kind will be sent to the bottom of the sea."

The warning was dear enough -- it had been clear from the moment that the thousand ships of the Caribian fleet were first seen off the coast of Portugal. Already word had come back from the King of Portugal that all plans to explore Hy-Brasil had been abandoned, and Cristoforo was confident that other monarchs would be as prudent.

Documents were prepared and signed, affirming the eternal peace and special friendship that existed between the monarchs of Spain and Caribia. When they were signed, it was time for the audience to end. "I have but one last favor to ask of Your Majesties," said Cristoforo. "This city is known to all as La Ciudad de los Caribianos. This is because I would not give the city a name until I could ask you, in person, for permission to name it for the gracious queen your mother, Isabella of Castile. It was because of her faith in Christ and her trust in me that this city was built, and such great friendship exists between Spain and Caribia. Will you give me your consent?"

Consent was freely given, and Juana and Henrique stayed another week in order to lead the ceremonies involved in naming the Ciudad Isabella.

When they left, the serious work began. Most of the fleet would return to Caribia soon, but only the crews would be Caribian. The passengers would be Spanish-priests and merchantmen. Cristoforo's son Diego had turned down the wealth that his father offered him, and asked instead to be allowed to be one of the Franciscan contingent among the missionaries to Caribia. Discreet inquiry located Cristoforo's other son, Fernando. He had been brought up to take part in the business of his grandfather, a merchant of Cўrdoba. Cristoforo invited him to Ciudad Isabella, where he recognized him as a son and gave him one of the Caribian ships to hold his trade goods. Together they decided to name the ship Beatrice de Cўrdoba, after Fernando's mother. Fernando was also pleased at the name that his father had given to the daughter who became queen of Caribia. It is doubtful that Cristoforo ever let him know that there might be some ambiguity about which Beatrice the queen was named for.

Cristoforo watched from his palace as eight hundred Caribian ships set sail for the new world, carrying his first two sons on their different missions there. He watched as another hundred and fifty ships set forth in groups of three or four or five to carry ambassadors and traders to every port of Europe and to every city of the Muslims. He watched as ambassadors and princes, great traders and scholars and churchmen came to Ciudad Isabella to teach the Caribians and learn from them.

Surely God had fulfilled the promises made on that beach near Lagos. Because of Cristoforo the word of God was being carried to millions. Kingdoms had fallen at his feet, and the wealth that had passed through his hands, under his control, was beyond anything he could have conceived of as a child in Genova. The weaver's son who had once cowered in fear at the cruel doings of great men had become one of the greatest of all, and had done it without cruelty. On his knees Cristoforo gave thanks many times for God's goodness to him.

But in the silence of the night, on his balcony overlooking the sea, he thought back to his neglected wife Felipa; to his patient lover Beatrice in Cўrdoba; to Lady Beatrice de Bobadilla, who had died before he could return to her in triumph in Gomera. He thought back to his brothers and sisters in Genova, who were all in the grave before his fame could ever reach them. He thought of the years he might have spent with Diego, with Fernando, if he had never left Spain. Is there no triumph without loss, without pain, without regret?

He thought then of Diko. She could never have been the woman of his dreams; there were times when he suspected that she had once loved another man, too, that was as lost to her as both his Beatrices were to him. Diko had been his teacher, his partner, his lover, his companion, the mother of many children, his true queen when they had shaped a great kingdom out of a thousand villages on fifty islands and two continents. He loved her. He was grateful to her. She had been a gift of God to him.

Was it so disloyal of him, then, to wish for one hour's conversation with Beatrice de Bobadilla? To wish that he could kiss Beatrice de Cўrdoba again, and hear her laugh loudly at his stories? To wish that he could show his charts and logbooks to Felipa, so she would know that his mad obsession had been worth the pain it caused to all of them?

There is no good thing that does not cost a dear price. That is what Cristoforo learned by looking back upon his life. Happiness is not a life without pain, but rather a life in which the pain is traded for a worthy price. That is what you gave me, Lord.

Pedro de Salcedo and his wife, Chipa, reached Ciudad Isabella in the fall of 1522, bringing letters to Colўn from his daughter, his son-in-law, and, most important, from his Diko. They found the old man napping on his balcony, the smell of the sea strong in the rising breeze that promised rain from the west. Pedro was loath to wake him, but Chipa insisted that he wouldn't want to wait. When Pedro shook him gently, Colўn recognized them at once. "Pedro," he murmured. "Chipa."

"Letters," Pedro said. "From Diko, most of all."

Colўn smiled, took the letters, and laid them unopened in his lap. He closed his eyes again, and it seemed he meant to doze off again. Pedro and Chipa lingered, watching him, with affection, with nostalgia for early days and great achievements. Then, suddenly, he seemed to rouse from his slumber. His eyes flew open and he raised one hand, his finger pointing out to sea. "Constantinople!" he cried.

Then he fell back in his chair, and his hand dropped into his lap. What dream was this? they wondered.

A few moments later, Pedro realized that there was a different quality to the old man's posture now. Ali, yes, that's the difference: He isn't breathing now. He bent down and kissed his forehead. "Good-bye, my Captain-General," he said. Chipa also kissed his white hair. "Go to God, my friend," she murmured. Then they left to tell the palace staff that the great discoverer was dead.