Captain from Castile (35 page)

"You aren't real, Catana!"

His strength gave way; but to cover up the weakness that crept back, he smiled.

"Talk about me changed! Look at you!"

Her tanned cheeks turned darker, and she raised her hands instinctively to her hair, which was now cut square like a boy's. She drew her legs under her.

"Yes, I'd forgotten. You get so used— You see, traveling on ships—"

"But how does it happen? When did you sail? Where's Hernan Soler?"

"Dead." She hesitated a moment. "He used me badly. I killed him."

Knowing Catana, Pedro was not too much surprised nor, indeed, greatly shocked. In her world and Soler's, knife blows did not call for much comment.

"Ah?" he said. "What then?"

"I came away with Manuel. We went to Sanlucar. It was there we heard about you and Senor Garcia sailing for the Islands."

She added that they had crossed with the spring fleet, had drifted to Cuba from Santo Domingo, and by chance had found Salcedo making ready the caravel to rejoin Cortes. What she did not mention were the eager questionings from port to port, the tactful management, which had induced her brother to sail from Sanlucar, follow on to Cuba, enlist with Salcedo. Perhaps, as a matter of fact, she was not too conscious of it herself. She had simply followed a current that had inevitably carried her to Villa Rica.

"Well," he said, "you've come to the right place. Catana, there's a world of gold beyond the mountains."

He told her of Montezuma's reported treasure, and she listened intently as a man would listen.

"It'll be cursed hard to leave you again," he broke off—"now that you're here. We'll be marching soon. But don't worry: I'll see that you get your share. I'll bring it back to you."

Her familiar drawl cut in. "What are you talking about, senor? You don't think I came here to sit in a flea-bitten fort, do you?"

"It's a long road, Catana; there'll be plenty of fighting. A woman—"

Met by her smile, he realized that the protest was silly. Of course other women would march: Dofia Marina, the Indian, whom Cortes would no doubt take as his mistress when Puertocarrero sailed; Catarina Marquez, who kept a sharp eye on her man, Hernan Martin; Beatriz Ordas, in love with the blacksmith, Alonso Hernando; a couple of others. They would cook and wash and fight. Only the pregnant or the dolls would remain at Villa Rica. He had been thinking conventionally.

"Well then, we'll make the campaign together."

Reaching out, he took her hand. It quickened his pulse to think of the bivouacs at night, some place apart, her head on his arm, his cloak covering them.

"You know what that means, querida mia?"

Only her eyes answered.

"God help the man who forgets that you belong to me!" he said.

Suddenly her eyes filled. "Belong to you?" She raised his hand and laid her cheek against it. "When I think of the days and the weeks and the months! Belong to you? What I never believed possible—"

She released his hand and stood up.

"By the way, I have good news. Before we sailed from Sanlucar, a

Genoese felucca put in. It happened to be the one which carried Don Francisco and Dona Maria to Italy. The shipmaster said that they reached Genoa safely, and that before he left there again he heard that they had been well received by the sefiora your mother's people, in some other town called Florence."

Pedro clenched his fist. "Viva!'' he exulted. "Maravilloso!" For a whole year he had been haunted by the dread that after all his father and mother might not have reached Italy. "We'll see now whether that infamous charge will stick! Our cousin, the Cardinal Strozzi, will attend to that. Catana, I wager that my father is even now in Jaen, reinstated, or prepares to return there—in triumph! When this venture is over—"

His thought was no longer in the New World; it swaggered through the narrow streets of Jaen; it was rich with the gold of Montezuma; it accepted the admiration of the townsfolk- it stopped by the wide-open doors of a certain palace. The miserable, half-finished fort, his rags and weakness, Catana herself, disappeared at the moment. When he remembered them, it was still with the background of Jaen in mind.

"Any other news," he asked with studied casualness—"I mean from Jaen?"

He thought he was being impenetrable, but she understood.

"It depends. If you mean about that fine lady you're in love with, you've never told me who she is. Who is she, sefior?"

Taken aback, Pedro hesitated. Why shouldn't she know? She was bound to find out in the long run. There was no possible connection between the sunburned camp follower and the daughter of grandees. They belonged to two utterly different planes.

"The Lady Luisa de Carvajal," he pronounced reverently.

Yes, she had guessed that; she remembered the episode in church. Her throat tightened, and she found it hard to keep her voice natural.

"No, I heard nothing. We left the mountains not long after you. But I did hear about the Senor de Silva. Or perhaps you have too."

"What?"

"That he didn't die from the thrust you gave him; he was getting well."

"Esplendor de Dios!" Pedro straightened up. "That devil living?"

But his first amazement was followed at once by a wave of relief. God, after all, had not permitted him to commit the unpardonable sin. It was an act of divine mercy. Now he would have the pleasure of meeting Diego de Silva again and of killing him in an orthodox manner; that is, if Don Francisco let him live. Holy Trinity how de Silva would writhe when the de Vargases returned to Jaen! Father Olmedo would be glad to hear of this.

"Well, well," he added carelessly, "I'll make sure the next time."

He returned to the more enthralling subject. Now that he had disclosed the name of his lady, it would be pleasant to talk about her.

"You have seen the Lady Luisa, Catana?"

"Yes."

"She is beautiful as a star. She accepted me as her cavalier and gave me a favor to wear. We are in a sense betrothed. When I think of the Blessed Virgin, I think of her, Catana."

But he got no answer, and the sense of oneness was gone. He sighed. Women were queer—as if Catana could be jealous of a star in heaven!

She let silence bury the topic, then remarked: "Cdspita, sir, I hardly know where to start upon you. I think the breeches should come first. Take them off, and I'll see what can be done with them."

The dream light vanished. He was back once more in his naked quarters at Villa Rica.

In good humor again, she opened her belt purse.

"See, I've brought two fine needles all the way from Sanlucar, and good woolen thread. In this country, I wouldn't part with them for fifty pesos. Now let me have the breeches."

But this intimate operation was postponed by a sudden fanfare of trumpets in the near distance and by the growing rattle of horses' hoofs. The fort sprang to life; footsteps hurried outside.

"The General," said Pedro. "Our men from Cempoala."

Getting to his feet, he stood with Catana in the doorway, so that they could watch the entrance gate.

The trumpets sounded nearer, then the beat of the marching drums; then through the gateway appeared the aljerez, Antonia de Villaroel, mounted on a tall dapple-gray and bearing the black standard of the expedition, then the General himself with Alvarado and Olid, followed by a group of lances. Behind them wound the long file of foot soldiers; pikemen, crossbowmen, arquebusiers, gentlemen rankers with sword and buckler; the cannon hauled by natives; the baggage; the rear guard. Pennons fluttered here and there; the sunlight glanced on helmets and breastplates. Upon entering the fort, the cavaliers showed the mettle of their horses, rearing and caracoling. For an instant it was Gothic Spain rather than Indian America.

''Viva!" Catana exclaimed. "What a brave sight!"

Cortes swung from his great horse, Molinero; embraced the two new captains, Salcedo and Marin, greeted Escalante. Then, his keen

eye glancing everywhere, he caught sight of Pedro de Vargas and strode over to him, his spurs clanking.

"Ha, son Pedro! It's a fine scare you gave us, but I rejoice to see that you're on the mend. You had my letter? Good! Don't thank me: thank your patron saints."

His gaze took in Catana, sharpened, twinkled.

"And who is this—gentleman?"

Pedro caught the gleam in his chief's eye and, knowing his amorousness, resolved to forestall it.

"My very good friend, Catana Perez from Jaen, Your Excellency. She arrived with her brother on Captain Salcedo's ship. Mi amiga carisima."

His arm slipped from the girl's shoulder to her waist.

Cortes understood. He pinched Catana's ear.

"Damiselaj we've been calling Captain de Vargas 'Pedro the Redhead.' He should now be called 'Pedro the Fortunate.' "

xxx/x

Every company has at least one buflfoon, professional or amateur, a show-off and rattlehead, who plays the clown in order to attract notice, and prefers rather to be kicked than forgotten. In Cortes's army, this post was filled by Cervantes the Mad, formerly jester to Governor Velasquez. And because a fool says anything that pops into his mind, Cervantes sometimes expressed thoughts that wise men kept secret. It was he who had warned the Governor against his choice of Cortes to head the expedition and had told him frankly: "Friend Diego, rather than to see you weep over this bad bargain you have made, I want to go along with Cortes myself to those rich lands." So, one eighth a soldier and seven eighths a clown, he became jester to the army, a perpetual chatterbox and cut-up, getting sometimes a laugh and sometimes a cuff for his efforts.

Cervantes, then, led the march on August sixteenth, the long-projected march inland, through the hot jungle lands of Cempoala, toward the mountain rampart of Cofre de Perote—toward distant Mexico. He grimaced and capered and played an imaginary flute, strutting and high-stepping, ahead even of Pedro de Vargas with his scouts, while far behind him stretched the snakelike winding of the army.

"What's itching you, man?" called de Vargas, making ready with a handful of horsemen to cover the country several miles in advance. "Save your breath for the climb. What are you dancing for?"

"A parade, valiant Captain," proclaimed the jester, who had been fishing for the question, "a parade of fools, led by Cervantes the Mad! For when all the wise men of the army turn loco, it behooves a madman to lead them."

Since he was waiting for de Laris, one of the scouts, who was tightening his saddlegirth down the line, Pedro continued to lead his troop at a foot pace and drew the joker out to fill in time.

"Get it off your chest, senoritingo/' he said, with a backward glance for the missing Laris. "What's the point?"

"Luckily something that you haven't the sense to grasp, friend Redhead."

"Why luckily?"

"Because Escudero and Cermeno got hanged for grasping it. Because Umbria's toes were chopped off and the stumps of them fried on Master Escobar's iron for the same reason. Because two hundred lashes apiece made mincemeat of the Gallega seamen's backs for the same reason. No, seiior, heaven preserve you from sense, which is the worst crime in this army."

Sandoval, who was riding with the scouts, broke in. "Look you, rascal, that pack of traitors was gently dealt with, as you well know. Many's the general who would have hanged the lot of them for a less cause. If you talk treason, your own back will scorch, let me tell you."

Cervantes cut a caper beyond the reach of Sandoval's lance point.

"Exactly. And therefore I do not talk sense, caballero. I wouldn't talk treason for the world. Tootle-oo! Tootle-oo! A parade of fools led by Cervantes the Mad!"

He drew a laugh at that. "What do you call sense?" demanded Sandoval.

"Why, sir," replied the other, walking backward to face the horsemen, "my grandmother told me that he who throws all his gold through the window is not apt to have any in his pocket. It is an example of sense, sir—or treason, as you would say—but the old lady is dead and can't be whipped for it."

This allusion to the sailing of the treasure ship, now headed for Spain, was not lost on the cavaliers, who exchanged glances.

"She used also to say/' continued Cervantes, "that he who climbs to the top of a wall should not kick over his ladder, as he might wish sometime to climb down again; or thai he who scuttles the ship he

arrives in may have to swim when he leaves. A bit of treason, sir, which in other parts of the world is called sense."

"By the Cross," swore Sandoval, who had been ardent in promoting the destruction of the ships, "if you lay your dirty tongue to matters above your judgment, I'll have it torn out for you. How, in God's name, were we to march forward, if the chicken livers like you were forever looking back to the ships—ha?"

Ortiz the Musician, who was riding next to Sandoval, shook his head. "No, I agree with El Sefior Loco. It was folly true enough. Magnificent folly, sirs, which will be to our honor. But magnificence and honor don't make sense—do they, fool? Nor does song or music."

"Not to the dead, Senor Musico," grimaced the jester. "They mean nothing to the dead."

A moment of hollow silence fell, broken only by the sucking of the horses' hoofs on the wet trail. Sandoval scowled but did not find his tongue. Cervantes, prancing backward between the jungle walls on either hand, made the most of his opening.

"When we're properly cooked and served up on Indian platters, magnificence and honor will have changed their tune. The magnificent chops of Ortiz the Musician! The honorable hams of Pedro de Vargas! Bless you, masters, what yearning and toiling over mountains toward the grave! What panting for death! Elsewhere people strive to eat; here they strive to be eaten. Viva topsy-turvy! Tootle-oo! I dance at the thought of the banquets in Mexico. Here comes the procession of fools led by Cervantes the Mad!"

The hoofbeats of a horse at the gallop sounded along the column. Laris arrived in a spatter of mud.

"Vaya! At last!" exclaimed Pedro. "Adelante, gentlemen!" And to Cervantes, "Go tell your jokes to Cortes and see what he gives you."

Clapping spurs to Soldan, he bounded forward, closely followed by Sandoval and Laris, with the other riders at their heels. Cervantes leaped to the side in time but missed his footing and sat down in a thorn bush to the amusement of the oncoming pikemen.