The Moor's Account (22 page)

T
HAT DAY STARTED OUT
like any other. Bernardo Rodriguez and I departed for work at the usual time, stopping once along the way so he could buy boiled chickpeas from a cart—a habit he thought was beneath his station, but which he found hard to break. At the store, we went over
the inventory: I counted the rolls of linen and he checked his ledger, while the other workers cleaned the storage room. A customer came in, about mid-morning, to ask for merchandise on credit; the master said no. There was a quarrel between some delivery boys outside and we all stood briefly in the doorway to look. But there was nothing, however small or insignificant, that separated this day from any other. Then, without warning, my master stood up from his desk and told me to follow him.

Instead of walking toward the Arenal, we took the road to the residential quarter. The streets were clean; no vegetable peels or animal droppings were in sight. Elegantly dressed gentlemen passed by us, conversing in moderate, unhurried voices. We stopped at a white house with wide arches—I was later to learn that it belonged to a count by the name of Luis de Prado. We were there to see one of Don Luis's guests, a certain Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, who had recently arrived in Seville. The butler sniffed and directed us to a side door, from which we entered an empty hallway. We stood there a while, admiring the plaster ceiling and the vine scroll pattern on the rug, before the butler returned to lead us into a parlor.

A man was standing at the window, looking out into the street. It was not until Bernardo Rodriguez cleared his throat for the second time that Andrés Dorantes detached himself from whatever he was watching and turned to face us. He was a well-built man, with blond hair and blue eyes. I noticed a long scar on his right cheek and I wondered what could have caused it. (I would learn later that he had sustained it fighting for his king in the Comunero rebellion.) He crossed the room in quick steps and stared at us with the candid arrogance of a nobleman toward his servants. This is the slave, then?

Sí, Señor, my master said.

He does not appear to be worth the money you owe me.

This was my first inkling of the business we had come here to conduct. I had thought my master would honor his wife's wishes and sell Ramatullai, but now it seemed he was selling me instead. Why had Rodriguez not told me about this? One moment I was in the store, tying up rolls of cotton, and the next I was in this house, waiting to be sold to someone else. I had not even said farewell to Ramatullai. And why sell a slave at all, I wondered. If he needed money so desperately, why did he not sell the new coach he had bought?

Esteban is worth more than that, Señor. He is a very good slave.

What makes him so good?

He is quiet and honest—two qualities that are hard to join in a slave.

Where is he from?

A town on the Moorish coast. He is hardy, he can handle a sea journey.

A journey from the Moorish coast is not the same as a journey to the Indies.

No, no, of course. But I am confident he will serve you well there.

I was stunned by this characterization of me. The slightest delay in my deliveries had regularly earned me accusations of being a lazy Moor; the most innocent of my questions had been met with orders to be quiet. But now that Rodriguez wanted to sell me, I had become a model slave. Give glory to God, who can alter all fates.

If you say so, Señor Dorantes said. But this slave will not cover the two hundred ducats you owe me. So take him back and bring me my money.

I let out a shallow breath. Perhaps I would be safe after all.

But Rodriguez pulled out an embroidered handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face down. Señor, he said, two hundred ducats may seem like a lot of money, but here you have a good and faithful worker. The price of such a man is not so high in Seville. I know you can get a decent slave these days for as little as forty ducats, but in the Indies, where so few of the savages speak our language or are capable of following directions, he will fetch six or seven times this amount. You could sell him in your first port of call for that much. The plantations in La Española are in desperate need of slaves.

Señor Dorantes cocked his head to the side. Six times? he said mockingly.

Easily.

But why should I go through the trouble of transporting your slave to La Española in order to collect my money?

You would collect more than what I owe you.

It is simpler if you pay me now.

Simpler, Señor, it would be. But not more lucrative. Besides, you would en joy the services of the slave for the duration of the journey.

This is not a pleasure trip, you know.

No, there is risk and danger. But a slave can be used to lessen both.

Señor Dorantes pressed his forefinger into my arm—the appraising
touch of a man considering property. It was not the first time I had been handled in this way, but it seemed to me I would never get used to it or to what it meant.

And as a token of my good wishes to you, Rodriguez said, his voice more confident now, I present to you this golden earring from the Yucatán.

Señor Dorantes took the earring in his hand and examined it with great curiosity. How odd, he said. They put wild beasts on their jewelry. Do you suppose the Indians of La Florida do the same?

I would not know, Rodriguez said. I am just a merchant, not a brave sea captain.

Very well, Rodriguez, Señor Dorantes replied. He put the earring in his pocket and said: But do yourself a favor and give up the game of cards. It is too risky for a man like you.

He laughed at his own joke, and Rodriguez joined him with relief. Then Rodriguez produced a contract, and each man put his signature to the document that transferred the legal ownership of me from one to the other.

I
T WAS EARLY
in the morning, but already the Casa de Contratación was humming with noise. I had often come to this building with Bernardo Rodriguez, but this time I followed Señor Dorantes down a different set of corridors, past the stately hall where a painting of the king hung on the wall, past the balcony where two officials argued over a map, to a small, dusty office where merchandise bound for the Indies had to be reported. From the high windows on the far wall, a gray light fell onto a brass crucifix, a book-lined shelf, and a lamp with a damask shade, before coming to rest on the clerk. He was a hunchback, with a dimple on his chin.

I found him, I wanted to cry. Ramatullai, I found him!

It seemed to me that Fate liked to mock me. For three years, I had searched for the hunchback—at the store, on the streets, along the Arenal—and now that I had finally found him, I could not tell Ramatullai about him. Even if I could somehow secure a piece of paper and some ink, I had no one to whom I could entrust a private message. She would never know that her daughter's master was so close. I stared at the hunchback, as if my intent gaze could wordlessly communicate his presence to Ramatullai.

Señor Dorantes said he needed to record his slave, here present, who would be traveling with him to the Indies in a few weeks.

Certainly, the clerk replied. He opened a leather-bound register and, licking his index finger, turned to the right page. He asked a series of questions and, as he recorded the answers to them, I learned that Señor Dorantes was from a town called Béjar del Castañar, in the province of Gibraleón, that he was thirty-two years old, that he intended to sail as a ship captain on the Gracia de Dios, and that the expedition he was to join was led by Señor Narváez.

Pánfilo de Narváez? the clerk asked, his ink-dipped feather poised in the air.

Yes, he himself.

Do you know how Narváez lost his eye? the clerk asked.

No, Señor Dorantes replied. Why does it matter?

The clerk ignored Dorantes's question and instead answered the one he had posed. Nine years ago, Diego Velázquez, the governor of Cuba, heard from a group of sailors who had drifted off their course that they had found a new land southwest of his island. Judging from the gold and silver the sailors had bartered to the Indians for beads, this land seemed to be rich. Diego Velázquez wanted to send his secretary, a certain Hernán Cortés, to explore and conquer it. But he was not entirely sure if Cortés could be trusted. So Velázquez dithered and delayed, while Cortés bought ships and provisions for the journey. When Velázquez finally made up his mind to relieve Cortés of his command, it was too late: Cortés had left Cuba, without even taking formal leave of his commander. Once Cortés arrived in New Spain, he established a settlement at Veracruz and began to make alliances with some of the native chiefs, who were vassals of the emperor Moctezuma. This Moctezuma, as you know, was rich beyond all imagination, and Cortés was determined to lead a march onto his capital. But the soldiers were often quarrelsome and even doubtful about the mission. So Cortés had all the ships destroyed, leaving the men no choice but to march.

What does this story have to do with Narváez?

Well, in order to stop Cortés from claiming this new province for himself alone, Velázquez sent an old friend of his in pursuit: it was Pánfilo de Narváez. Narváez arrived in New Spain with an army that was four times larger and better equipped than that of Cortés. He set up his camp in a native town on the coast and sent messages to the emperor Moctezuma that he was the true representative of the Crown. But Cortés found out
about these messages through his spies and native allies. He returned to the coast, bribed Narváez's sentinels, and swept into the camp at night. In the battle that followed, not only did Narváez lose his right eye, some of his own soldiers deserted to join Cortés. And in the end it was Cortés who took México for His Majesty.

Old man, Señor Dorantes said, this mission has nothing to do with Cortés. Narváez has a license from His Majesty to claim La Florida for the Crown. No one else has such a license.

The clerk's story had been spoken in a tone of warning, but I do not believe that Señor Dorantes noticed it. He was in too much of a hurry to complete these tedious proceedings and return to Don Luis's house.

My master registered me in that book under the name he used with me ever since. I had entered the Casa de Contratación as Esteban, but I left it as Estebanico. Just Estebanico—converted, orphaned, and now dismissed with a boy's nickname.

T
HREE DAYS LATER
, I found myself on the deck of the caravel Gracia de Dios. I could feel, under my sandaled feet, the movements of the animals in the stalls of the lower deck and, underneath them still, the gentle tug of the Guadalquivir, its waters running fast and deep. I was standing behind Capitán Dorantes when a man clad in an elegant black doublet and breeches boarded the ship and approached my new master in quick steps. Albaniz, Señor Dorantes said. Welcome aboard.

Señor Albaniz retrieved a document from his leather satchel and unscrolled it, his movements slow and deferential. The Gracia de Dios was the last ship on his rounds; he had already visited the other four ships in the armada.

Everything is in order? Señor Dorantes asked as he received an ink-dipped plume. Without waiting for the notary's answer, he turned toward me, his eyes not seeing me, his blond eyebrows knotted in concentration. Wordlessly, I offered him my back and he, laying the page against it, signed his name. There, he said. This is signed. Now we are ready. Estebanico, ring the bell.

As I pulled on the knotted rope, I looked at the city before me. During my time in Seville, I had tried my best not to grow attached to anything—not to the tools that dangled from my belt when I worked in the store, nor to the lentils in my bowl at night; not to the sound of the water fountain
in the patio when I woke, nor to the soft glow of the afternoon sun on the Alcázar. Above all, I had tried my best not to love. I knew it was the sensible thing to do if I wanted to survive my bondage. But I had not been able to keep myself from loving Ramatullai and so, once again, I was forced to drink from the bitter cup of separation. The little joy I had managed to wring from my bondage, the joy she gave me, was gone from my life. I wondered now whether she, too, was thinking of me, whether she knew I was sailing to La Florida, the property of Andrés Dorantes, distinguished nobleman, war hero, and ship captain.

With experienced sailors, lateen sails, and favorable winds, a caravel like the Gracia de Dios can travel at the startling speed of four knots. Its lower deck provides respite from the elements and privacy for the use of the chamber pot, while its upper deck offers ample room for exercise. But the rafts—flat, plain, crudely made—had none of these conveniences. Even when the winds were strong, our progress remained modest because our sails were made of motley pieces of fabric, which were unevenly cut and roughly sewn together, allowing the air to whistle its way through. For an hour or two in the morning, and then again in the afternoon, the sails gave us some shade, but otherwise we were exposed to the sun and the heat.

The rules and formalities that had existed on land could not be maintained on the rafts—a nobleman had to sleep beside a blacksmith; a royal official was forced to share a cup of water with a carpenter. Worse: our ablutions were no longer private. A man who has had to relieve himself in full view of others finds it harder to assert his superiority over them. For Dorantes, especially, it was a humbling experience. But for one like me, who had already known these humiliations, it was a reminder that all fates, including my master's, could turn upside down. And I would do whatever it took in order to right mine.

Having seen it only from the perspective of our camp on the beach, none of us had known quite how large the Bay of Oysters was. It was immense—steering the five rafts out of it took up an entire week. In all that time, the water never rose higher than a man's waist and often it was so shallow that the rafts were only a few qibadh above the seafloor. While
we waited for the wind to take us to the open ocean, we passed the time however we could. Some of us told stories; others recited poems; yet others played games in which they gambled whatever remained of their possessions.