Captain from Castile (25 page)

"One doesn't easily forget a man of your build and carriage, sir. I hope you're with us in this venture? Good! You never made a sounder investment, Senor Garcia. Every maravedi you lay out now w'ill net you a thousand. At the least. At the least, I say. Torrazas"—he nodded to a man with an inkhorn at a side table—"inscribe my friend, Juan Garcia, on the roll of the company. Take good note of his commitment. And these other gentlemen?"

The Nightingale and the Moor, as Sandoval presented them, each received a personal welcome. They were caught up by the General's eye and made one of his fellowship. His warm, quiet voice heated them like wine. Here was no stiff-necked hidalgo looking down his nose at common people. He was a man you could talk to, a man like yourself in spite of his blood. The Moor and the Nightingale grinned and glowed.

"Pedro de Vargas of Jaen," said Sandoval.

Cortes's manner changed slightly. From bluff, he turned polished. Pedro's bow showed a breeding different from the others'.

"From Jaen? Are you by chance a relative of the famous captain of that name, Francisco de Vargas?"

As spring after winter, a golden echo from the past, the reference to his father lifted Pedro's heart.

"His son, sefior."

"By my conscience!" Pedro found himself in a steel-like embrace. "Our fathers were friends, though mine never reached the eminence of yours. Alvarado, Velasquez, Ordas—gentlemen, here's a good omen! The son of Francisco de Vargas joins our company. From the look of him, he has his father's spirit."

Salutations were exchanged. Even the group at cards paused to stare.

"Your illustrious father is well?" asked Alvarado.

"When I last saw him," Pedro evaded.

Cortes remarked, "I hope it will please you to act as one of my equerries. No doubt your merit will soon raise you to a command."

Pedro thought that he had never met anyone so winning. Cortes fascinated with a charm that made men eager to serve him, made them feel important.

"I should like nothing better, sir," he answered. "But I am with Juan Garcia. It is entirely at his charges that I came to the Islands—"

"Nonsense, Your Excellency!" Garcia interrupted. "The boy's independent of me, as far as that comes to. If you take him, you'll have an equerry who knows how to use his weapons."

Cortes smiled. "I'll borrow him then. Meanwhile, you and he do me the honor of dining today at my table. He can take up his duties tomorrow. I want your advice on the stores. And show me this new horse you've brought. We've room for one more manger on the flagship."

Pedro forgot his qualms of a few minutes past. A spark had passed from the General to himself. He looked at the future once more through a rainbow.

As for Cortes, while enlisting four new men in the army, he had added four devotees to his personal service.

XXVll

During the next few days, Pedro worked harder than ever before in his life. He sometimes wondered whether it did not detract from the dignity of a gentleman to oversee the salting down of pork and the lading of vats in the ships, or to dicker for poultry and cassava bread with grasping settlers of the neighborhood, or to sweat under the tropical sun on endless plebeian errands. But with a captain general who kept his eye on these and a thousand other details and who was pedantically thorough about trifles, he had no choice. If Pedro worked, he had to admit that his commander worked twice as hard; if he drudged and sweated, he did no more than Cortes himself. This was an antidote to romantic dreams of adventure. He began to learn that glory depended on salt pork and equipment, on minute planning and careful arithmetic.

"Quien adelante no mira atrds se queda" as Garcia put it. "He who does not look forward remains behind. And that," Garcia added enthusiastically, "our General has no intention of doing, by God."

Pedro soon found that the admiration one felt for Cortes, rather than love, was the secret of his power—admiration for the man's ability, force, and vision. It was probable that a selfish unscrupulousness lay behind his charm: but, even though conscious of being used as a tool, one still willingly served him.

One of Pedro's chief duties was to stand guard over the military chest. "It shows the trust I have in you, de Vargas," the General would say. "I'd ask a wolf to play nursemaid to a lamb sooner than leave this to most of our good companions. Keep your eyes peeled. You're guarding the mainspring of the army." And tapping the box, which gave back a rather hollow sound, he added characteristically, "On my honor, you'll soon have a lot more than this to guard. My word! Tons of gold! I pledge my beard that you'll have your share of it too—depend on me —gold to your elbows."

Though busy, they were pleasant days at Trinidad, days of comradeship and responsibility. After his escape from arrest in Spain, Pedro rejoiced at being enrolled in a legitimate undertaking. He was now in the King's service, even if under false pretenses.

The fact that it was under false pretenses cast the only shadow upon his present life in the camp. If Cortes knew that the Inquisition was on Pedro's and Garcia's traces, he could not compromise the expedition by enrolling them. As a dutiful son of the Church, he would be bound to arrest and hand them over. Not until the fleet had finally sailed for Yucatan could Pedro feel entirely safe.

Whenever he spoke to Garcia about it, the latter only laughed. "Boy, we've got the Ocean Sea between us and Jaen. The Santa Casa hasn't grown wings yet. Not by a long shot. Forget it. We're in the New World."

But, perhaps as a nervous aftermath of the experience in Jaen, the dread hung on. Pedro tried to forget it, but a premonition of something impending stalked behind him. On the eve of sailing, the foreboding increased. To hide his nervousness, he wandered off by himself in the late afternoon and climbed the slope of the Vigia hill above the settlement.

At first the path wound between trees shrouded in Spanish moss, past thickets of flowers; unseen waters sounded here and there, and the voice of birds. Then finally he came out on the open land crowning the summit, a dome of sky above, the immensity of the ocean beneath. A little soothed by the exertion of the walk and by the infinite quietness, he sank down at the foot of a solitary palm and sat staring eastward over the Caribbean.

It brought back the picture of himself a few months ago, similarly seated and gazing westward from the Sierra de Jaen at the beginning of his flight with Garcia. He confronted himself across the interval of space and time that separated one milestone from, another.

At that time he had been flushed by the triumph of his escape and of his vengeance upon de Silva. Now the feeling had strangely altered. Not that he regretted killing the man—he would have killed him again without hesitation—but that he had duped the coward into renouncing God before he killed him remained an undigested lump in Pedro's conscience. His code did not justify such blasphemy as that. Strange, he thought, that the one thing which should have given him the greatest satisfaction now constantly returned to haunt him. "Renounce God, de Silva!" The echo of his own voice kept him away from mass, kept him awake at night. But was any punishment too great for the man? Was hell too hot for him? Had not God used Pedro's sword as a righteous instrument? Then why remorse?

The faint tones of the Angelus from the distant church below reached up to him and started another train of thought. He said his

Ave Maria, trying to remember something that was connected with the Angelus, something on the fringe of his mind.

Yes—Catana. He had promised to think of her every day at that hour, and in the beginning he had kept his word. A wave of longing for her passed over him. Though he had neglected to think of her at the appointed time, he had still thought of her often, and always with a warmth that was partly physical, but not merely that. A strange girl, he reflected, unlike anybody else. He owed her his life. What had become of her with that cutthroat, Soler?

The ocean, vast and infinite as the sky, shut him off from any answer. The New World was well-named. Echoes from the Old World might reach him after months, when the news they carried was long since stale; or they might never reach him. Spain and Italy seemed more remote than the figures on the moon, for at least he could see the moon. What had happened of good or ill? Were his father and mother safe? Did Luisa de Carvajal remember him?

He reached under his doublet for her handkerchief and spread it out on his knee. Inevitably his mind swung back, like a compass, to its fixed point: his one divine hour (the moonlight on the laurels of the garden, on her face), his one devouring purpose which alone gave meaning and a goal to life! If he gained her, he gained everything; if he lost her, nothing mattered. For her, the gold he might win in the West; for her, the fame.

A long shadow, advancing from the sunset, fell along the ground in front of him, the shadow of a cowl and gown. Turning with a start, he found himself looking up into the features of Father Bartolome de Olmedo, chaplain of the army.

Taken by surprise, he lost countenance a little, returned the handkerchief to its place, and started to get up; but Olmedo laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Sit still, my son. I'll join you by your leave, and rest a moment. It's a fine spot you've chosen."

Whereupon, Father Bartolome seated himself shoulder to shoulder with Pedro against the trunk of the palm and breathed a sigh of contentment.

He was a square, soldierly man with a scrubby beard, frank eyes, and an appealing smile. He wore the habit of the Order of Mercy. Cortes often remarked that if Father Bartolome could not convert the heathen dogs of Yucatan, they were past praying for. Entrusted to him, the spiritual interests of the expedition were in good hands.

The friar slipped off his sandals, complaining that the thong chafed him, and wriggled his strong toes in relief.

"So you're thinking about Spain, Senor de Vargas?" he observed. "Seems far off, eh, and a certain young lady farther still?"

Shocked by the aptness of the remark, Pedro colored. Was the friar a necromancer? He shot him a nervous look.

Olmedo laughed. "Vdlgate Dios, when a young man, newly arrived in Cuba, walks off by himself and sits gazing to the east with a handkerchief on his knee, he's probably thinking of home and sweetheart. I've been young myself and not always in orders. Cheer up. You'll sail back again some day wdth a chestful of gold and much honor. The peerless lady will be yours. The dream will come true." He added with a sigh, "And afterwards, Seiior de Vargas?"

"I don't understand."'

The other retorted, "Why not? I only meant that your dream is attainable and wondered what would take its place afterwards. Another lady? More wealth and fame? Because the zest of life is effort, my son, not attainment."

Tempted out of his reserve, Pedro smiled. "Believe me, if I get what I long for, I'll be satisfied."

"Ah?" said Father Olmedo. He raised his knees and sat clasping them, his eyes on the ocean. "Well, the difference between you and me is that I shall never get what I long for."

To become a bishop, thought Pedro, or maybe even pope? Yes, it did seem a far cry for a poor chaplain.

"What is that. Father, if I may ask?"

"To know God in His perfection," said Olmedo quietly. And after a moment, "It is unattainable. And therefore I shall be happy forever in my dream. You see," the friar went on in another tone, "dreams are like carrots, and we are like mules. As long as the carrot dangles in front of our noses, we keep going, cover ground. If we catch up with it, we stop."

Unused to metaphors, Pedro digested the meaning slowly.

"How did you happen to come to the Islands, Father?"

"As a witness for God."

"To the Indians?"

Olmedo looked amused. "Yes, I came with that idea. I soon learned that the greater need was to witness to the Spaniards."

"What do you mean?"

"Why," returned Olmedo, "who is more guilty: the Indian, serving his devils through ignorance; or the Spaniard, professing Christ and serving the devil in rape and murder, cruelty and extortion?"

The friar's face grew darker.

"The Indians welcomed us like children. We destroyed them by the sword, by the lash, in the fields and in the mines. They died like flies; soon there won't be any more. We've been a plague to these islands, God have mercy on us!"

He controlled himself with an effort. "So on this expedition, I am chaplain to the army. It's my flock—of wolves," he added. "Hernan Cortes talks of converting Indians. I'm not nearly so much concerned for them as for us. By God's help, what happened here shall not happen again."

The words, harsh as they might be to Spanish pride, struck a responsive note in Pedro. Yet it was not so much the words as the ring of them, the emanation of Olmedo's spirit. He sounded actually like a good man, not good merely in the usual, but in a higher, sense; a man one could talk to—perhaps even confess to. Maybe a priest like this could be trusted.

De Vargas probed further. "It seems to me. Padre, that men like you could do some witnessing in Spain. Talk about cruelty and extortion! Holy saints! And in the Church too. I saw an auto-da-fe not so long ago in Jaen. \Vhat do you think of the Santa Casa?"

This was the test. If Fray Bartolome sidestepped the question, Pedro would drop it; but Olmedo returned his gaze without blinking, though he fingered his beard. When he spoke, it was as if he were partly thinking aloud.

"My son, do you believe in the Holy Catholic Church?"

"I do of course."

"There isn't any other church, is there?" iSo.

"One church in Spain, England, France, the Empire, and Italy— everywhere. Every Christian believes alike. Isn't that true?"

It was before the Reformation. Pedro could answer, "Yes."

"You wouldn't like to see the Church, the mantle of Christ, torn into rags and patches, would you? Instead of one sheepfold, many folds? Would that make for harmony and peace?"

"No. But does the Santa Casa—"

"One moment. Because there are often cruel shepherds, greedy shepherds, do you think that the office of shepherd itself should be given up and the sheep left to wander?"