To the Edge of the World (18 page)

XXV

September 4-October 27, 1521

The coolness of the water wrapped around me, rinsing the sweat from my body. The water was clear, and opening my eyes underwater, I could see everything. Creatures whose names I did not know, who perhaps were unnamed, crawled and swam, crept and swayed with the currents.

Two days ago I had returned to the cove on the eastern side, where the sea animals grew in abundance. Although I was not a swimmer, the cove was shallow, and I found I could easily hold my breath, duck down beneath the water, and gather a shirtful of shellfish. They were everywhere. I plucked them off the ocean floor as easily as I plucked lemons from a tree. Colorful fish surrounded me—brilliant oranges, golden yellows, midnight blues—some of them nibbling at me to see if I was good to eat. It was like swimming in a rainbow. Whenever I moved, the rainbow moved with me.

I rinsed the shellfish in the stream. When night came, I threw my feast upon the fire.

I often lit a fire, spending hours gazing into its depths. On this night, under the canopy of stars, I watched as the shells opened, one by one, heated over a bed of coals. As I devoured my little feast, dipping each morsel into melted boar’s fat, I suddenly realized there was a different kind of courage. It was not the courage of facing my enemy in battle, girded to the teeth in armor, or the courage of returning to my own execution with my head held high. Instead, it was the courage to be alone day after day, not knowing what lay ahead, whether I would ever be rescued, whether I would live to hear the sound of another human voice.

It was the courage of endurance.

I wiped my hands and face on my shirt and poked a stick into the fire, thinking of Magallanes and the courage it took for him to endure. To move onward despite the mumbling of the crew, despite the many mutinies, despite the danger. I doubted I could have withstood such opposition. I doubted I could have endured such disapproval.

It was not that the captain-general had been perfect. He was a man only—like my father—perhaps even tinged with madness toward the end, who could say. But he was a man in whose memory I saw only courage and honor.

Then I remembered something Espinosa had said to Rodrigo long ago, something I think Rodrigo had finally understood before his death.
True honor is not purchased, but born. . . . It is honor
within yourself.

I stirred the fire with the stick, sending sparks into the night air, toward the stars. I withdrew the stick and gently blew on the tip, watching as it glowed orange.

Honor within.

Courage unseen.

Are they the same?

The next day, I built a memorial for Rodrigo. It had been preying on my mind for months, something unfinished. It was time.

I felled two small trees. After shaving off their branches and bark and trimming their ends, I lashed the smaller log to the larger log with vines to create a cross. On the cross beam I carved

RODRIGO NIETO DE CASTILE DIED IN BATTLE APRIL 27, 1521 A BRAVE MAN

I heaved the cross over my shoulder and dragged it up a high hill. By the time I reached the top, sweat dripped from my body and I shook with fatigue. I set the cross down and, after fetching a shovel and a drink of water back at camp, began to dig a hole. When the hole was deep enough, I thrust the cross into the bottom. I worked most of the afternoon until it was secure, certain it could withstand the most powerful of winds.

Even in the ground, it stood one and a half times my height. I knelt before the cross, feeling a hush come over my soul as my knees kissed the earth.

Rodrigo. My friend. My blood brother . . .

I promise you, should I ever get off this island, all of Spain shall know
of your sacrifice, for I shall tell them of you, even if the king himself should
ask me. How you stood beside our beloved captain-general and protected
him with your life while others fled in terror.

Rodrigo, my brother, there is no greater honor.

Rest in peace, my friend.

The day swelled with heat and prickled with insects. Shirtless, barefoot, with a bandanna tied about my head, I stalked a spotted cat, my javelin hefted above my shoulder. I had long ago run out of crossbow bolts.

Spotted cats were difficult to stalk and even more difficult to kill. Their hearing and reflexes were sharper than mine, and it was only by surprise, by cunning, that I had ever caught one. But today I could not find a boar, my traps were empty, and the monkeys avoided me—flying through the treetops faster than I could run. The shellfish had all but disappeared in the shallow waters. Now if I wanted shellfish, I must learn to swim. And I sickened of fruit, crabs, and turtles’ eggs.

As yet the cat had not detected me. She sprawled upon the limb of a giant tree, licking her paws. I crept silently, slowly. Leaves brushed my face as I passed, smelling of dampness. Vines dangled like snakes. I accidentally touched one and immediately the cat’s head snapped in my direction. I froze. Yellow eyes watched while the vine swayed. When finally the vine stopped, the eyes blinked and the cat returned to her grooming.

Again I pressed forward.

Four paces. Five. Each one taking much time. Each footstep sinking into the soft, dark earth. Silent. I drew abreast of her, about fifteen paces away, and took aim. I would have one chance only.

The cat paused. She rotated her head toward me, yellow eyes alert, while I willed my muscles not to move, while I refused to blink, scarce daring to breathe. When she again looked away, I drew back the javelin and threw with all my might.

The javelin soared harmlessly over her back while she sprang from the tree and disappeared. I had no time to curse my poor aim, for at that very moment, the bushes to my left exploded with a gruntlike squeal and a flash of tusk. I fell hard on my back, the air slamming from my lungs. Burning pain sliced up my right leg, white-hot.

I screamed.

Again it attacked.

My dagger was suddenly in my hands, and I was stabbing wildly. Screaming as I lay on my back. Blood spattering my face, my eyes, my mouth.

Then my head shattered with pain and I knew no more.

The cry of a parrot awakened me, and I sat up with a start. Immediately I lay back again, groaning, my head pounding. What happened? Where am I? Slowly the memory returned. An attack by a wild boar. He had gored me, this I knew. How badly, I knew not. Despite the pain, I forced my eyes open. It was early morning. I had lain senseless for half a day and a night.

I raised myself to my elbow. Pain washed through my head, vibrant and vicious. Beside me lay the boar, a dagger protruding from his ribs. Ants crawled over him in black rivers.

The inner thigh of my right leg had been pierced. Wincing, I probed the wound. For such a deep wound, it had not bled much. But my head . . . ah, my head! My fingers felt a huge, swollen gash along my left temple. I was sticky with blood, my bandanna stiff. The same ants that crawled on the boar crawled on me. I spat them out of my mouth but had not the strength to brush them off.

I must return to camp, I thought. To draw water and bathe. To cleanse and bandage my wounds. And I am thirsty. So thirsty. I stood, clenching my teeth, battling the waves of sickness. It was too much. I leaned over and vomited, fighting the darkness that threatened to suck me down.

Afterward, unsteady and shaking, I withdrew my dagger from the boar and stuck it in my sheath. I would clean it later. At first I dragged the carcass, unwilling to leave such prized meat behind. But I was a league from camp, and after twenty paces or so, I knew I would have to retrieve him later. It would take all my strength to return alone.

The sun was setting when I finally staggered into camp. I gulped water from the stream, stumbled to my shelter, and collapsed. I was quickly asleep.

Fog crept through the depths of my mind. Sometimes an icy mist, slithering, sometimes blasting with heat, smoke from a red-hot forge. I tried to wake but could not. Then the effort of waking grew too tiring, and I released myself to the fog. It deepened . . . swirling . . . deadly. . . .

Awakening with a start, I sat bolt upright, gasping. My heart thundered in my ears. I could not catch my breath, and my body felt afire. Again it was day.

I am sick, I thought with alarm.

I dragged myself to the stream and drank deeply. It was all I could do. Beside the stream—half in, half out of the water—I slept again, my mind drunken with haze. . . .

My father stands in the doorway of our house. Although the shadows hide his face, I know he is looking at me. I yearn to go to him but cannot move. I yearn to ask him why he’s been gone so long, but my mouth won’t open and my tongue feels wooden. Instead I lay on my back in the courtyard. The sun beats on me, and I stare at him helplessly.

Then I see tongues of flame. They dance behind him and lick his hair. He laughs, unhurt.

Never have I heard my father laugh.

Now the flames surround him, but he parts them like a curtain and, still laughing, strides easily into the courtyard to stand beside me. The flames disappear, and where they once were grows a beautiful garden. A sweet fragrance reaches me. His hands touch my face and his touch is cool, like balm. “My son,” he says. “It is time for you to go home. Go home, my son. Go.”

Shapes and shadows invaded my fog. Voices from a thousand dreams. They surrounded me. Stripped the clothes from my body. Washed me. Carried me. Many hands.

XXVI

November 1-December 21, 1521

I awakened to darkness.

A swaying, creaking darkness that stank of rot. A pounding above my head, like feet upon a deck. Water sloshing, as if against the hull of a ship.

I lay there, unbelieving. The dream continues, I thought. I still sleep. I have dreamed this dream many times.

Then in the dream appeared a light. The light swayed, as though someone approached holding a lantern.

A face.

“Espinosa?” I asked. My voice, cracked and feeble, sounded so real, so loud in my ears.

Setting the lantern aside, the man knelt next to me where I lay on a pallet. “You are awake,” he said.

I gaped at him. “Is it really you?”

He laughed and grasped my hand, his grip as I had always remembered it, a grip like iron. “Aye, Mateo. It is good to see you again. We thought you were lost to us. You have been senseless for some five days now.”

My throat clogged, a lump forming in place of words. Finally, after all the months of solitude, after all the questions that had burned on my lips, aching for release, all I could say was, “I thought you’d left me forever.”

Espinosa sighed. “Aye. We were lost. We could no more find your island than we could find the Spice Islands.”

“But Carvalho—”

“—has been deposed.”

“Deposed?” I sat up, gritting my teeth against the dizziness.

“He was an incompetent leader. Drunk most of the time. The final straw was when he forced captive women into his cabin.”

“You mutinied?”

“Nay, Mateo. I am sick of betrayal. We all are. Instead we gathered on an island, beneath the palms, and voted him out. We elected a new captain-general.”

“You?”

He nodded. “I am now captain-general and captain of the
Trinidad,
and Cano, one of the mutineers at Port San Julián, is captain of the
Victoria
. We have done what Carvalho could not.”

“Which is?”

“We have found the Spice Islands. In a few days, if the winds favor us, we shall arrive.” Espinosa clasped my hand again. From the expression on his face, I knew him to be pleased—as pleased and happy as I had ever seen him.

I spent the evening on deck, surrounded by shipmates who clapped me on the back, who gave me extra portions of their food and drink until my stomach tightened like a drum. I know I had a silly grin pasted on my face, but I could not help it, nor did I care. I was home.
Home
. I could not stop looking at them. Each face, once lost forever, now so precious. My friends. My brothers.

On the eighth day of November, we dropped anchor at the Spice Islands. It was another tropical paradise of gleaming sands, broken shells washed bone white, and swollen, lush mountains that smelled of jungle.

Someone told me that the mountains were covered with a perpetual mist, that a cloud descended every day without fail, that the mist provided the proper moisture for the growing of cloves, and that nowhere else in the world could cloves be grown. Three days after our arrival, while the leaves of the jungle steamed after a morning’s pounding deluge, I wandered into the mountains to sketch the cloves. Though plagued with a headache, I was well enough now to carry out my duties as the fleet artist.

I tramped through the mists and studied the trees. The trees grew tall, their trunks as big around as I was, the cloves growing in clusters at the tips of the branches. I drew until the light began to fade.

On another excursion, a companion and I found nutmeg trees, which resembled walnut trees, with the same leaf, their fruit like an apricot. I split one of the fruit in two, exposing a crimson-colored casing, which my companion said was the source of mace. The casing surrounded a single brown seed, the nutmeg. I held the nutmeg in my hand, amazed that so many lives had been lost over a simple nut.

From the moment of our arrival, we had been welcomed by the natives. The rajah of the Spice Islands came aboard the
Trinidad
.

“I dreamed ships came to the Spice Islands from a faraway land,” he said as he held out his hand to be kissed. “When I awakened from my dream, I looked to the moon, desiring to know the truth. And in the moon’s face I saw you coming and knew you to be my friends. It is good you are Spaniards and not Portuguese, for the Portuguese have been difficult of late. I would be honored to have a treaty with Spain. You are now as sons to me. Go ashore as if you were home. From henceforth, this island shall be called Castile.”

We set up a trading outpost. I purchased bags of nutmeg, ginger, pepper, cinnamon, and cloves. I would return to Spain a wealthy man, for what I could buy for a few coins here, I could sell in Spain for a hundred times its worth. I also took the money Rodrigo had earned selling rats, plus his gold nuggets from Cebu, and purchased spices. Someday I would find his family and give them spices. Spices instead of Rodrigo. A poor exchange.

Come December, we prepared for departure. We bent new sails to the yards, each sail a crisp white with the blue cross of Santiago upon its center and the words
ÈSTA ES LA ENSEÑA DE
NEUSTRA BUENAVENTURA
, This is the sign of our good fortune. Finally, the last of the cloves was loaded.

On the eighteenth day of December, our holds bursting with spices, the ships’ bellies low in the water, we prepared to set sail. The air buzzed with happy chatter, and we took off our caps and cheered when the master cried, “Prepare to up anchor for home!”

Everyone jumped to obey orders. Grins stretched from ear to ear. We were going home! After so many months away from Spain, after the loss of so many friends, certain none of us would make it back alive, finally, we were going home! We sang our chanteys lustily. Round the capstan. Astraddle the yards. The sigh of canvas and the thud of tackle. The steady stream of commands from the fo’c’sle, the quarterdeck, the main deck.

“Sheet home and hoist away topsails!”

Ahead of us, the
Victoria
left the harbor.

The
Trinidad
began to follow, slowly. Suddenly she groaned. “The anchor’s snagged! The anchor’s snagged!” cried one of the seaman. “It won’t budge!”

For a moment, a breath only, every man on the
Trinidad
stood rooted. Above us the Trinidad’s topsails filled with wind. Beneath us, she strained against her anchor. An enormous shudder passed from stern to bow. Suddenly chaos erupted. Men dashed everywhere.

“Cut the anchor! Cut the anchor!”

“Let fly the sheets!”

But it was too late.

“She’s too full!” shouted someone from the hatch. “The strain has split a seam in her timbers! Water is pouring into the bilge! We need men on the pumps! Fast!”

In an instant, it was over. Our voyage home was cut short by ill timing and poor luck. By the time the
Victoria
returned, curious why we had not followed, we had beached the
Trinidad
and heeled her over to stem the leak. As we unloaded her—spices, cannon, food, water casks—I could not bear to look at anyone.

Spain. Would I ever return?

Then Espinosa gathered both ships’ crews together. As I stood among my shipmates, I could feel our heartbreak, our dream turned to nightmare. “The news is not good,” he said. “The
Trinidad
will take months of repairs.”

Behind me, I heard someone weeping.

Espinosa continued. “I have decided that the
Victoria
will sail for Spain. I will stay behind with the
Trinidad
and follow when we can. That is all. You are dismissed.”

No one left. We stood, silent, absorbing the shock of this news, before a sailor spoke the thoughts that screamed through everyone’s mind. “But, Captain Espinosa, how will we decide who leaves on the Victoria and who stays behind on the Trinidad? Everyone wants to return to Spain. Everyone wants to be aboard the
Victoria
.”

Espinosa sighed heavily. “Very well. We shall draw lots.”

An hour later, we gathered around Espinosa, each of us reaching into a bag he held. A blue crystal meant a sailor would leave aboard the
Victoria
. A green crystal meant a sailor would stay with the
Trinidad
.

It was my turn. I thrust my arm into the large bag and closed my eyes. I felt the differently shaped crystals. It was impossible to tell what color they were. My hands trembled as I went from crystal to crystal, praying God to guide me.

I grasped a crystal. This is the one, I thought. I withdrew it from the bag.

It was blue.

I was going home.

In a few days, the
Victoria
was again ready to sail. We waited until afternoon, for the men aboard the
Trinidad
would not let us leave until they had finished writing letters for home. My hand cramped with writing, for I was one of the few who could write. Not well, but it did not matter. One by one, they came to me.

Whispered sighs. . . .

Messages of love. . . .

Dried flowers pressed into my hand. . . .

But as my quill scratched over the paper, ten letters, twenty, my heart became a well of the blackest ink. I, who had no one, would soon return to Spain. Yet they, who had wives, children, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, would remain at the Spice Islands. Perhaps not returning home for another year or more, perhaps never returning home.

“Tell my—tell my wife I love her,” said Espinosa in a voice as parched as the ground of Castile. “I know not the words to use. You fashion the words. Tell her someday I will return to her. Tell her nothing will keep me from returning home to Spain. Nothing.” Espinosa continued, and when he finished, he placed his hand on my shoulder as I sealed his letter with melted wax. “Fare thee well, Mateo. You are a good lad. I have been proud to call you friend.”

Words choked in my throat. Espinosa squeezed my shoulder one last time and was gone.

Finally at midday, with forty-seven crew, many spices, and an additional thirteen natives who had signed on as crew members, the Victoria weighed anchor. The Trinidad’s men followed in their ship’s boats as we slipped away. They rowed frantically, their expressions desperate, filled with longing.

“Tell my wife I love her!”

“Tell my children I shall return home!”

“Give my family my spices! Tell them I will not be long in coming!”

Then, as one, they dropped the oars in the oarlocks and stood, shouting farewells. Their arms stretched toward us.

We rushed aft, weeping, hanging over the
Victoria
’s stern, altogether almost two hundred arms stretching across the waters as if to embrace for the last time.

“I shall never forget you, my friends!” I cried. “We have been through much together! May God protect you!”

“Farewell!”

“Until we meet again, my brothers!”

“Godspeed!”

Gradually the gap between us widened. First a stream, then a river, then a great gulf. One by one, our voices trailed away until we stood silent, shoulder to shoulder, our arms hanging at our sides. The ship’s boats grew smaller. Smaller. The
Trinidad,
too, dwindled . . . a dot only . . . until finally she vanished.

Still we did not move.
It should not have been this way,
I thought.
So many left behind. For you, my friends, for you will we make it home. For
you will we survive. I promise.

Suddenly, over our heads, the wind intensified. My cap blew from my head, tumbling against the bulwarks. Beside me the captain drew a deep breath, paused, and then barked, “Helm a-starboard!”

“Aye, aye, sir!” came the helmsman’s cry.

The
Victoria
fell off to larboard. The masts and yards creaked. Water thwacked against the hull as she picked up speed.

“Helm amidships! Steady as she goes!”

I leaned over the stern. The wake frothed and bubbled. Wind whipped my hair, lashing my face. Tears streamed down my cheeks.

You were right, Rodrigo, my brother. You were right.

It is the way of the sea.