Home From The Sea (5 page)

He had them now, laughing and stamping in rhythm with a ditty they had never heard before. He was very good, Jim thought. Little wonder Toby called
himself
a balladsinger by trade, and could keep himself fed and bedded on the skills. The mandolin was old but polished, and the hands playing it seemed to move by themselves. It was effortless to him.

He sang again, the tale of a hunter who trailed a wolf across the mountains in winter after it took his baby son instead of a lamb; and then an Irish song about the anguish of being under the heel of the invader. He fell silent there, and took a mug of ale to wet his throat before he set the mandolin aside, leaned elbows on knees and looked from face to face. He held them in the palm of his hand now.

“Do you know the story,” he asked them, “of Diego Monteras?
Of the
treasure
of Diego Monteras?”

Like the rest of them, Jim had never even heard the name, much less the story. He had no doubt it was a complete fabrication, but he fetched himself a small rum, pulled a chair up on the side of the bar closest to the hearth and listened to Toby for the pleasure of just hearing his voice.

The ale was flowing nicely by now. The box of coins under the bar was healthily full. Jim was more than happy with the night’s business, and if Toby had wanted Jim’s own pillow for his head, he could have had it for the asking.

“It was in the days of Good Queen Bess,” Toby was saying, “that a ship put out from the Port of London, bound for the islands and the strange seas of the Caribbean. She was an English galleon called the
Mary of Dee
, and she belonged to a gentleman adventurer by the name of Sir Geoffrey Gaunt. He was a God fearing man who loved his scriptures, and he probably should have been a priest.

“But he was the second-eldest son of the family of Sir James Gaunt … not the first son, who would inherit the title and fortune; not the youngest son, who would be sent into the priesthood. Just the second son, who would have to make his own way in the
world
. So Sir Geoffrey became an adventurer, and he earned his own knighthood when he made the Queen a great deal of money on a voyage to the Americas. He came home with a hold so full of gold, the ship staggered in the water –

“And he came home, also, with a story; and this story, he told to the Queen while they drank a little Madeira to celebrate his knighthood. In the ports of the Caribbean, where English ships skulked like thieves and traitors because the waters were Spanish and the air was sharp with the powder of Spanish cannons, the locals told a story about a man called Diego Monteras.

“Now, Sir Geoffrey was as
skeptical
as you or I. He was no man’s fool, and smart enough for Queen Elizabeth to give him five thousand pounds right out of the treasury to mount an expedition. So Sir Geoffrey had to have heard this same story six or ten times, from the mouths of that many locals and natives, in just as many ports, before he started to believe there was more than a single grain of truth in the tale.

“You see, Diego Monteras was a Spanish traitor.
And a heretic.
And a blasphemer, a pirate, a thief, a scoundrel, and – if the stories were true – a sodomite.
The love of his life was the last prince of one of the native tribes, a lad who’d have been royalty among his own people, if the Spaniards hadn’t enslaved them all and killed most of them. This young man, who’s gone down in history as Francisco, though that wouldn’t have been the name he was born with, was the last scion of a house as old and as noble as the House of Tudor itself.

“It’s said the Spaniards were working and torturing his people to death, but Francisco was protected as long as there were strong backs to save him. And when at last the chance came for him to escape, the men who had protected him sent him away in a little cockle shell of a boat, with the idea in mind that if his royal blood survived, their people could one day be reborn, and return to their lost greatness.

“It was a fine enough idea, but the pagan gods of sea and sky have always had their own plans, and a storm blew up out of nowhere. The boat was smashed to kindling by wind and water, and Francisco was almost dead when he was scooped up out of the waves by a crew of Spanish pirates … heretics, traitors.

“The crew of the
Marianna
sailed out of a secret anchorage, under the command of a brilliant strategist and tactician who had been sentenced to death by the King of
Spain,
and by Holy Mother Church also. Capitan Monteras was judged guilty of the crime of being a sodomite in a land where the only love allowed is that of a man for a woman.

“Now, ’tis not for you and me to say what was right or wrong in Spain all those many years ago, but any honest priest, worth his salt, will tell you this: the matter is a private one which should be left alone, to be taken up between God and the accused upon Judgment Day. If there’s a price to be paid, let the Almighty set the amount and let the sinner pay it willingly out of his own pocket, in whatever coin the Lord decrees to be right … and then the two of them would call the debt settled and the go their separate ways in peace. Diego Monteras believed this.

“Pirate, heretic, sinner?
Oh, yes, he was all of these things. But Monteras also believed strongly in God and Heaven and hell, Spaniard that he was, through to the marrow of his bones. And he believed that the men who’ll be punished hardest and longest by the Almighty are those in the government, in the palace, and in the church.

“Condemned to a slow and terrible death by torture, Diego fled for his life. He took his ship out to sea in the dead of night, and into the teeth of wild weather. The
Marianna
never looked back. She packed forty guns. She was long and low in the water, one of those ships that were built after the painful lessons of the Spanish Armada were learned. She was fast, hard, and she preyed on Spanish merchantmen for more than a decade, seizing every manner of treasure, from gold and jewels to silks and jade, ivory and great art.

“All the treasure was equally divided among the
crew,
and Diego Monteras himself was already rich beyond a king’s dream of avarice when young Francisco was scooped out of the boiling waters of the storm.

“Forget, if you prefer, the love which bloomed between them, for many of you might be discomfited to think long on this. You’re not sailors, and have no feeling for the mateship that happens, six months at sea, far from home. So don’t even give a thought to their private business … but remember it for one moment, just long enough to know how and
why
young Francisco would give the treasures of his royal house to the man who saved him from the storm, and gave him a better home and life than he’d ever known.

“And here’s the part of the story that caught the ears of Sir Geoffrey Gaunt … and he told it to Queen Elizabeth, word for word, just as he’d learned it himself. They say he watched the Queen’s green eyes fairly dance with the glee that comes from knowing there’s another grand adventure out there, with blood and sweat and tears along the way and a pile of gold at the end of it!

“As you know, Francisco was the last of his royal house, and he had a secret, passed down to him from generations before. The secret of the treasure house of the god-kings and emperors of a heathen land which shone with gold and shimmered with jewels for centuries before the Spaniards arrived, dragged down the native princes and enslaved every last one of those people, to the last babe in arms.

“Now, you can imagine how Diego Monteras and the rogue crew of the
Marianna
were enchanted by this story of Francisco’s, which he told to the bold and handsome young Capitan. And you know the
Marianna
traveled
far into verdant, perilous waters which had never even been sailed before, let alone charted. The wind fell dead away; the air was hot and heavy; the crew stood by the oars and rowed her up a wide, jungle-banked river which grew narrower and narrower with every mile they plied inland…

“Until they came to a hill, and at the bottom of the hill was a stone quay, ancient, half ruined, overgrown with vines – built in the time of Francisco’s grandfather’s grandfather. And at the top of the hill was a strange temple where the rocks were still stained brown with the ancient blood of human sacrifices made to the god of the sun.

“Oh yes, Francisco’s people had been savage. As savage as folk who burn men and women at the stake and rend their bodies with tortures that would make your flesh crawl if I were to recount them to you. Don’t be too quick to judge the ancient, heathen peoples of ages less wise, or less educated, than our own. Or, if you do judge the savages of bygone ages, judge also the Inquisition, and the offices of governments, even our own, that employed terrible brutalities … for much less worthwhile reasons.

“As Francisco had memorized the story as a young boy, the treasure house of his people was far in the earth, deep under the hill. He took Diego up the slope to the temple, and right there, behind the altar stone, was the hatchway that was promised in the legend –

“And
under
the hatchway, the long, steep stairway leading down and down, into darkness and cold, with the drip of water and the rank smell of moss and
mold
…

“A band from the
Marianna
followed the tunnels deeper and deeper into the earth, until even the most stalwart were ready to turn back in dread; and then, just as Diego himself was about to call enough and take his men back to the sun and the light –
then
, their torches picked up a glimmer, a reflection, a shine on the surface of solid gold.

“They had found it, the treasure of ages, passed down from vanished kings and emperors to a young man who had been made a slave by the same race that condemned Diego to torture and death for the sin of love.

“Four days, it took the crew of the
Marianna
to carry out the gold.
Statues, idols, cups, necklaces, bracelets, crowns.
They spilled their sweat willingly till the hold was full of the stuff, and then they hauled the ship around in mid-river, put the oars back in the water, and they sang as they pulled back toward the open sea.

“A week later they were safely back at their own secret anchorage, in a nook, a bay on the coast of South America which is so small, so insignificant, it barely shows up as a pimple on a map even today.

“Now, gold is very pretty and it has a nice shine, but Diego preferred jewels. He liked the sparkle of diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, rubies. He loved their
color
and their purity, and he had little use for metal, even a pretty metal like gold. So, over the space of years, he traded his share of the gold for this bauble and that bauble until he had no gold left of his own, and everything he possessed had been turned into the biggest, most perfect of the precious stones.

“He kept them in a brass-bound chest lined with scarlet velvet, and by night, by lamplight, he and Francisco would take them out and count them, play marbles with them, toy with them as if they were mere amusements. The two of them lived like kings themselves in their safe, secret anchorage while, one by one, the crew of the
Marianna
grew old, infirm, and many passed away peacefully of old age.

“In the end only a handful of old men were left, barely enough to crew the ship with a good wind in her sails, and nowhere near enough to stand by her oars if the wind fell. They all knew they were sorely close to the end of their time. They’d lived long, full, happy lives. They were content and they’d drawn their plans for what would become of the incredible riches they’d won, after they were gone.

“Every man on the
Marianna
had left family back in Spain. Now they were at the ends of their lives, and were in little danger, they wanted to pass on their treasures to their kin, to see future generations living well on their spoils.

“Each man wrote a letter to his family, and each buried his share of the bounty in a specific place which was marked on a piece torn out of a map. Then the letters and the tattered bits of the map were taken back to Spain and delivered by hand, by the very youngest of the crew – a mere lad of 50 years, called Felipe Chavez.

“At least a dozen of the letters were acted upon, and some of the richest Spanish houses today can trace their largesse back to them. But a few fortunes were never collected, and one letter was never delivered at all, because there was no one to receive it. Diego Monteras had left two brothers and an uncle, when he fled for his life. All had died childless, and although Chavez spent months hunting for any surviving members of the Monteras family, he found none.

“In a quandary he returned to the Caribbean, intending to ask his captain what should be done with his share, since there were no Monteras sons or daughters. To his great sadness, he learned that both Diego and Francisco had passed away, just a week apart, though whether there was a sickness or a storm, no one knows. They were buried together, and they lie close to one another even now, though their grave is unmarked and where it is, I cannot tell you.

“I
do
know the letter and the bit of map were passed from hand to hand, kept safe, secret … traded, lost, found, disbelieved, misunderstood … and the treasure of Diego Monteras was still out there, buried, waiting to be dug out of its hiding place by an adventurer who had the courage to believe in the story, and who could get his hands on the letter and map.

“This was the story Sir Geoffrey Gaunt heard over and over until even he, who was a born
skeptic
, believed it, and he began to listen out for tales not of the treasure, but of the
letter
, and that scrap torn out of a map. He crossed many a palm with silver; he plied many a man and woman with fine wine, and at last the trail took him to a hermitage, high on the cliffs above a bay known as Coffin Cove, because the waters were so full of sharks, any galley slave trying to escape by swimming ashore would be dead before he made it halfway.