The Unfinished Land

Cardoza Rising

MANUEL NUDGED HIM with a sandaled foot. “It is done, for now,” the old man said.

Reynard rolled to see pale yellow light brushing the far tops of the tallest trees, divided by distant shadows—hills behind the forest. The sky lightened in the east, over the far promontory, and dawn spread a slow golden glow along the bellies of the clouds, which parted and seemed to rise and dissipate, as if swept by a gigantic hand. A great dome of pale blue cast beach and forest in cool, tempered light.

Manuel toed him again. “Wake whilst there is still food. The soldiers strip the ship and eat their fill.” He reached into his mouth again and wriggled a tooth between two dirty fingers. “Scurvy,” he said. “We arrive none too soon.”

Reynard examined him closely. Manuel had always seemed ancient-old, but now he looked younger, straighter, with thicker shoulders, and even—could it be?—happier.

A sailor descended the ramp closest to the galleon’s bow and spoke to the boys. Reynard recognized this burly man from his first hours on the ship. He had been the one who locked the cage. Now he seemed grayer, less burly, and stooped. The cabin boys, only children the night before, were taller but skeletal, as if they had grown overnight without benefit of food.

“He watched last night from the rail and saw folk with glassy white hair and shiny skin move amongst us,” Manuel said in a low voice. “So he telleth them, ‘We have been visited by glass people.’ He saith they touched thee, boy. But thou hast not changed.”

“You are th’one who’s changed!” Reynard said in accusation.

“It is obvious already.” Manuel squinted, wiggled his tooth again, then pulled it out and threw it aside. “The scurvy still taketh its toll. For me, boy, another night comes not soon enough.”

“Who are you?” Reynard asked, fascinated but frightened.

“Who are we, boy?” Manuel responded. “Thou’st know what the glass people speak?”

Reynard glared, then shook his head.

The cabin boys lay down as a group on the shingle, like beached fish, so still and pale, no longer boys but adolescents, and not looking at all well.

Cardoza removed his mare from under the tent, then mounted her, taking command despite her skittish protests. el capitán told el maestro and the soldiers that now it was light, he would do reconnaissance, but the horse spun and sprayed sand and gravel. Two soldiers managed to grab her halter, and Cardoza descended stiffly, as if he ached all over. True enough, his beard was streaked with gray and his brown hands were wrinkled and marked with ropy rivers of veins. What was happening here? Had time fled in the deep night for all but Manuel?

For all but Manuel—and possibly himself?

Angry, el capitán gathered up five soldiers, those who still seemed strong enough to follow his orders, and took a crossbow from one. He vowed he would hunt for game and find a refuge from this haunted beach, not to stay here another evening. el capitán’s small band followed him into the forest.

That left el maestro, most of the soldiers, and the sailors to fend for themselves. Many returned to the galleon.

Manuel got up to fetch the last of the moldy rice. “Hunting is dangerous here. But no matter. We have blacksmithing to do. Eat what the sailors leave us. Eat what thou canst.”

A few hours later, as the day warmed and the sun overtopped the promontory, Cardoza returned with a half-satisfied look and a limp deer—a kind of buck with a broad nose and mossy antlers.

Manuel stopped Reynard from hammering out more shoes. “In Iceland, they call that hreindyr,” he said. “Here, ’tis not eaten without permission.”

“Permission from who?” Reynard asked. “How is it you know so much?”

Manuel squinted again.

The cook was already cleaning and skinning the animal, and several boys, ravenous, huddled around the butchering. One ran up to the forge clutching a bloody chunk of heart, to steal embers for another fire. Manuel did not stop him.

Cardoza mounted the head on a stick, as a kind of trophy.

Soon a bit of meat was given to each of the sailors and soldiers, and walking between them, chewing on a thick, dripping slice of roast, el capitán seemed more at ease, more in control—more pleased with himself and his prospects. But still with an air of quiet fear.

Within the hour, the animal had been consumed, even its bones cracked and sucked. None of it was given to Manuel and Reynard. The soldiers did not trust them, and Reynard was half convinced he knew why. Manuel’s appearance was scaring even him.

“We must return to sea as soon as possible,” el maestro said, studying the sky through eyes wrapped in thick flesh. His lids seemed always ready for sleep, but Reynard saw the large man was no fool, and no lackey for el capitán, whatever his terms of service. He instructed Manuel and Reynard to pause on the horseshoes and start making brackets for a patch to the galleon’s hull.

el capitán did not disagree. But he ordered another group of soldiers to prepare to move inland. Cardoza and el maestro walked off to discuss these matters, the very large man moving slowly, reluctantly. An argument followed. el capitán refused to delay his departure. Soon he ventured off again with a larger group of soldiers—perhaps sixty, Reynard guessed—leading the skittish horses by their reins. The beach was left to the sailors, el maestro, and around thirty soldiers.

One of these, equipped with a loaded harquebus and a little tinder ready in an iron box, approached their small forge. Another with a saber approached from the opposite side, as if they wished to outflank Manuel and Reynard. The pair stopped their work on the brackets and closely studied the unhappy men.

“El maestro quiere hablar contigo con ustedes,” said the soldier with the saber.

Manuel led Reynard to the beach.

el maestro sat on a barrel near the bow, in the shadow of the galleon, as sailors came and went on the ramps. The biggest man on the ship, he had lost a notable amount of his bulk in the night, but his hair showed just a shade grayer. He pointed to Manuel. “The English boy told us he knew this place.”

“It was to make himself useful,” Manuel said. “He did not wish to be thrown overboard.”

el maestro shrugged. “I know thee, Manuel. Thou art a sailor with much experience, not an easy man to deceive, and my little ears have heard thou speak’st to this boy as if ye wouldst share secrets.”

Reynard did not want to learn too soon that they were about to be executed, and his mind wandered in a kind of self-defense to other matters—to an observation that there were no mosquitoes here, and no biting flies. And all the fleas and lice had died! Perhaps it was the wrong season. But it was summer, no? So where were the insects? Drake and other travelers had observed that the seasons reversed only as one moved south beyond the equator. Was there another equator as one sailed farther north?

And what did the ship-crawling lobsters prey upon when they could not climb up on galleons? Were there other predators in the woods, natural predators, and not just spirits? Predators that resented hunters taking down their hreindyr…

“What was it that visited us in the night?” el maestro asked Manuel. “These gente de vidrio.”

“I do not know their names,” Manuel said.

“Vampires, of a kind? I have read Lucius, Culo de Oro. I know of spirits who drink blood, but never of a land where they still live—except perhaps the Indies.”

Reynard listened closely, trying to understand.

“el capitán tells me this boy is Gitano, like thee. Is that true?”

“I am not clear on his ancestry, or mine own, for that matter—but there are many such in Spain, and who can know?”

“Hath this place an ancient Gypsy name, old man?”

“Not that I am aware of.”

“How about the boy? Would he know?”

“Nor him,” Manuel said.

“He nameth it ‘the land where the wind sleeps.’ Doth he still believe?”

“That was my translation, señor. Clumsy at best.”

Reynard said nothing.

“Deceit and ignorance. How like Gitanos!” el maestro said. “I would soonest get back to sea. But el capitán doth wish to stay and find towns and people he can pillage. Since he never reached London and hath no victories to his name, he thinketh this could be his Mexico or Peru… But many died in those far lands, and I prefer to support his conquests from beyond… away from los vampiros and out from under those eagles—if they are birds at all. My ship hath had enough of large ambitions.”

Manuel listened with a humble frown.

el maestro spat in disgust. “Finish the hardware for the patch. Soon we will have felled enough of these damned trees to free my ship at high tide, or when the land doth breathe again. Thy choice will be stay with el capitán or go with my ship. But for now, thine only choice is to work.”