Captain from Castile (76 page)

Pedro stammered, "Sire, I was one of the youngest. They should not be judged by me. Take Sandoval, Alvarado, Olid, Marin, Davila, Tapia —a dozen others. I am not worthy to be mentioned among them."

"Indeed?" smiled the Emperor. He turned toward Gattinara and Don Francisco. "Do you believe that, gentlemen? Well, we'll put it to the test. I'm giving you a boon you haven't asked for. Captain de Vargas. You can have the task of bringing Diego de Silva to justice— alive or dead."

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If Charles of Austria had made Pedro an officer of state, it would have been as nothing compared with the warrant received within the hour, authorizing him to seize the person, dead or alive, of Diego de Silva and commanding all loyal subjects to assist in the arrest. He took immediate council with his father, when they were at last free from congratulating friends and alone at the inn where Don Francisco had been stopping.

The old gentleman emptied a measure of wine and thumped the table. "By the mass, I wish I were younger! Por Dios, I wish I could

ride with you on the traces of that carrion! AUve or dead, ha? My dear boy, you'll forget the first two words, I hope, when you overtake him. But watch yourself. He's an eel and a fox in one."

"I see it this way," said Pedro. "He'll head north. My fear is that he's halfway now to the French border. The mountain passes are so many holes in a sieve. We can't plug them."

Don Francisco shook his head. "I disagree. We're on the eve of war, and Castilians will find cold welcome in France. I say look to the ports. He'll head for Africa. Where's home for a renegade except among his friends, the infidels? He'll turn up on the east coast or on the south coast east of Gibraltar."

"The port officers are being warned," said Pedro. "Sefior di Gattinara took order for it—also to notify inns and trumpet the reward. Meanwhile, the chase this afternoon lost him in the city itself. The guards at the gates have seen no one like him pass. It may be that he's gone to cover here for the present."

"You spoke of a Tito el Fiero and the Moor, Stuiiiga."

"They are covered, sir. I'm expecting news about them at any moment. I've summoned my rascal turnkey, who may know something."

But the news, when it came, was blank. El Fiero and his mates had vanished. So had Stuiiiga. The turnkey did not appear. A search by the city watch found his body with the throat cut not far from the prison.

"Poor scoundrel!" exclaimed Pedro. "He merited no better. And yet I promised him protection."

Spain is an ideal country to play hide-and-seek in; ideal, that is, for the party in hiding. Weeks became a month. Now and then, on the strength of a report, Pedro would lead a hunt in one direction or another, only to return baffled at the end. It seemed to him that a needle in a haystack would be easier to find, for at least one could know that the needle was there, whereas by now de Silva might easily have escaped from Spain. Indeed, for a time, de Vargas was the hunted rather than the hunter. Twice his mail shirt turned the dagger of a hired assassin. Then even these attempts, which encouraged him to believe that de Silva might be still within reach, stopped; and he had to admit a complete stalemate.

Meanwhile, Don Francisco returned to Jaen to reassure Dona Maria and to publish the good news from court. He had much to publish. With the Fonseca influence excluded, it did not take the reviewing council long to decide between the claims of Cortes and the Cuban

governor. The enormous fact of the conquest silenced even Spanish legalism. What had Velasquez, what had any other colonizer in the New World, to show in comparison with this? The court and soon the whole of envious Europe rang with the deeds of Cortes and his company, which had added new glory to Spanish arms. That the actual conquerors should be denied recognition and reward in favor of a man like Velasquez who had lent only his name and a small investment to the enterprise was too great an absurdity for even the most pedantic to accept.

Called now and then to witness before the council, Pedro played his part in this exoneration and reaped his share of the laurels. As the power of the Bishop of Burgos declined to nothing and the star of Cortes rose higher, no longer were the Cortes men overlooked at court assemblies. They stood now in the full noon of imperial favor.

Before a group of friends, including the Marquis de Carvajal, who had been invited for the purpose, Don Francisco described the scene of Pedro's knighting.

"You will forgive my partiality, senores, but I consider this the crown of my life. You should have seen my son, gentlemen. I tell you he bore himself well and gallantly. Nay, many remarked on it. In addition His gracious Majesty conferred on him the Cross of Santiago and has promised him the command of fifty lances in Italy. But, sirs, to my thinking, this is not the best of it." Don Francisco paused here for effect. "I had it from the Grand Chancellor himself that my boy's general, Hernan Cortes, has been justified in every act, that he's to be appointed governor, captain general, and chief justice of New Spain, that his officers and men are to be honored and rewarded. My lord di Gattinara vowed that this had been owing to Pedrito's management. What's a Cross of Santiago compared with that—to have rendered stout and loyal service to one's captain!"

But, in view of all this glory, Don Francisco and his friends would have been puzzled could they have seen Pedro's moody expression that same evening as he left the palace in far-off Valladolid. He had temporarily taken a house in the city and now rode back to it through the dark September weather with hardly a word to his brand-new squire, Cipriano Davila, and none to his link-bearers. Swinging wearily from the saddle, he nodded to his Zapotec retainers on guard and trudged upstairs to his bedroom.

He felt as if the last smile, bow, compliment, reservation, and politic remark, had been pumped out of him. Good Lord, how tedious, how

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boresome! He could not rid himself of the sad philosophy that here in Spain everything could be bought. Not a man at court, the Emperor included, who was not somehow for sale in terms of pesos. Where would the honors of Cortes and of the company be now if gold had not been forthcoming from Mexico? And would a deserving but poverty-stricken de Vargas have been knighted and decorated? His disgust included himself. He too had sold out, he as much as any.

A page relieved him of his stiff, wide-sleeved cloak and then of the tight, brocaded doublet.

"Ah-h!" he breathed, stretching his arms.

He remembered how Catana used to squire him when he came in from some duty, and how he would then take her on his knees and lean his cheek against her. It seemed ages ago. The poor page did not know why his master stared so coldly at him. To curry favor, he brought a letter which had just arrived from Luisa de Carvajal but earned nothing more than a grunt. Pedro dropped the letter unopened onto the table. No need to open it. He knew by heart the phrases it would contain, the sugary little repertoire. There had been no letters at first. Now that he had become His Excellency Don Pedro, they arrived daily. He felt cynically indifferent: they too belonged to the pattern of everything else.

"Fetch me my night draught, lad," he said. "Then get along with you."

The boy went out and returned with a silver flagon, which he dutifully tasted, a custom not without its practical value. Next he opened a special leather case and produced a pewter tankard, which his master insisted on using every evening. He handled it carefully, feeling sure that there was some witchcraft in the strange characters carved on the side of it.

"God give Your Excellency a good night."

"He's the only one who can do it," Pedro returned dryly. He noticed for the first time that the lad somewhat resembled Ochoa, Gortes's page, and, reaching out, he pinched his ear. "Good night yourself, little knave," he said—a kindness that sent the boy off happy.

The deuce of it was that Pedro could see no end to the weariness and the boredom. After court, his marriage; after his marriage, the military conventions of a regular army; after Italy, the court again. Well, he yawned, he had asked for it.

But an old Latin tag haunted him tonight. Et in Arcadia ego. It had been a wild, fierce Arcady he had known, but how fresh and free it seemed now, as he looked back!

The Emperor had hinted that he might be the proper man to take the good news to Mexico, but de Vargas had not been receptive. The surge of longing was tempered by the realization that he could not recapture the old life by returning to the scenes of it. Better launch out into something entirely new where he would not be forever reminded of the past. The past belonged to Gatana and Garcia.

Strolling over to the window, he stood looking into the darkness that covered the garden at the rear of the house. A flurry of dead leaves brushed the panes and brought a shiver of autumn.

In Mexico now, it would be the end of the rainy season, good marching weather. Expeditions would be pushing out. Much talk of fabulous mines, new empires. He wondered what Sandoval was doing. And, thought following the well-worn paths, he found himself again with the company.

Old faces seemed peculiarly vivid tonight, men he hadn't remembered for a long time. Most of them dead. Ortiz, Escalante, Manuel Perez, Master Botello, Juan Velasquez, Francisco de Morla—many others. An old song woke in his ears, Ortiz's song.

Far in the West,

The white sierras bloom

In gold and fire . . .

He had forgotten some of the words, but the tune filled in the gaps.

Far in the West,

The mighty waters hear

Our reckless sails . . .

God! That was living. Whereas this—His clenched hand relaxed.

His comrades had not lived to see the victory, to gather the gold and the fame. Not like himself with his title, decoration, and treasure. But how was he luckier than they, who had gone down in the heat of living? What did he have more than they; that is, more that counted for happiness? For the first time, he actually understood what Olmedo had meant in that talk of theirs long ago. The dream, not the realization; effort, not fruition; battle, not victor)'—these were life.

Returning to the table, he filled the pewter tankard, his thoughts reverting to Gatana. It seemed odd that all he had of her was this poor cup and the few lines she had written him in Goyoacan—these and memory.

Having drunk, he sat turning the empty tankard between his hands, rubbing his thumb over the scratched letters, his mind adrift. Then, all at once he looked intently at the cup as if he had never seen it before. Catana Perez. The edges of the letters were sharp. They must have been newly cut, for otherwise they would have worn smooth after four years of tavern use. But Sancho Lopez had said that this was Catana's former cup, which she had had marked by Paco the Muleteer. Had the innkeeper lied to please him? Was it Catana's cup after all?

Then, struck by another idea, he opened the little amulet pouch that hung around his neck and took out the note she had written him at Coyoacan, holding it close to the candlelight and studying the letters. A sudden pulse quickened in his forehead. The same letters were reversed here as on the cup. He had never been able to teach her to make a proper n or p. But then—but then, if she herself had cut these letters on the tankard—why then—

Springing up, he fumbled among his papers in a leather writing case and retrieved the note he had received from Jaen, signed Paco. Here too the same letters were reversed.

But God in heaven! . . .

Could he believe, on such evidence, that Catana was in Spain, that she had been at the Rosario, that she had written him the all-important letter about de Silva? Common sense rejected the idea; wishful-thinking embraced it. A new flood of life boiled through him. He stood an instant eying the paper. Then before he knew it he had opened the door and was shouting for his squire.

Cipriano Davila appeared, wide-eyed and sword in hand, under the impression that his master had been attacked. Pedro's expression startled him.

"Look you, my friend," said de Vargas, "see that our horses are saddled and ready for the road at dawn. See that there are mounted servants and led horses enough—at least two spare mounts for each of us. We'll be traveling fast."

"Where to, my lord?"

"Jaen. Damn the city gates, or we'd be off this hour! Still, I must write to take leave of His Majesty."

"No bad news, I hope, sir?"

"The best news perhaps. We'll find out in Jaen."

LXXX/V

Often during the next four days, Cipriano Davila, stiff and saddle-galled, wondered what the news had been that kept them riding as if the fate of Spain depended on it. But Pedro offered no information except that he was taking one chance in a thousand and wouldn't risk his luck by talking about it. He rode silent for the most part, his eyes on the distance in front. When he spoke at all, it was generally in reference to possible short cuts or other details of the journey. He did not, however, ride like a fool who spends all his resources on the first flurry, but showed the skill of a good trooper in husbanding his horses over hard terrain, letting them out when the footing warranted it, inspecting their hoofs at every halt, seeing to it personally that they were well-fed and well-tended at night, with their legs bandaged. Young Davila, an apprentice in the career of arms, both groaned and congratulated himself on belonging to so expert a captain. Here was a cavalier you could learn from, and his respect for Pedro grew with every blister.

In view of the size of the party (they were eight mounted men in all, with six led horses) and the roughness of the roads, they could do no more than twenty leagues a day, and that meant riding from dawn until well past sunset. But at night in the country inns, after Davila had stretched out, he would be drowsily aware that Don Pedro was still up, pacing the floor as if fatigue meant nothing to him, and as if a night's sleep for horse and man were merely a weakness that had to be put up with.

Toward the end of the third day, they were well into La Mancha, with the peaks of the Sierra Morena in the distance across the plain.