Travellers in Magic (20 page)

“Then, my friend, we will have to keep you here.”

Walter looked up in surprise. He had guessed from Tuala's reaction to his talk of prison that the chief would not hold anyone against his will.

“Oh, yes, Sir Walter. But we will not put you in prison. You'll be allowed to go anywhere you like, anywhere but back to your country and King James. And who knows? Perhaps you'll come to like it here.”

Walter said nothing. “We will give you leisure to think,” the chief said.

“To think! How am I to think—what am I to think in this place? Everything I thought I knew has proven false. How do I know I didn't meet you twenty years ago, on my first voyage?”

The chief laughed. “Nay, we did not meet. I have looked forward to this moment for a long time. You have proven yourself every bit as clever as I had heard.”

Walter rubbed his forehead. “I don't feel very clever. And I don't like the idea of you doing something to my memories. I have nothing in the world, nothing. I sold everything I owned to raise the money for this voyage. My mind and what is in it are all I have left.”

“We have no choice. We must have you return to King James and tell him—tell him honestly—that there is no such land as El Dorado.”

And lose my head, Walter thought. What would this man say if he knew all that is at stake here?

“Think about what I have said,” the chief said. “You are free to explore any part of the city, but you will not be allowed to go beyond our borders.”

Music began to play in another room. “You are tired, Sir Walter,” Tuala said. “You and your men must rest. We will talk later.”

He fought against sleepiness. What had been in the wine? Would all his long journey end here, sometime in the night, as he finally succumbed to slow-acting poison?

Servants came to lead them to their rooms. He tried to hold to coherent thought, to ask an intelligent question. He must have said something, because he heard a servant laugh. Then, somehow, he was in the bed, drifting off to sleep.

He awoke feeling refreshed, clear-headed. The servants had provided him with a wash-basin, and he cleaned himself as best he could. When he was done he saw that clothes had been set out on a chest at the foot of the bed. He dressed himself slowly, marveling at the textures of the doublet and hose. And how did they know the kinds of clothes he was accustomed to wear? The men here wore—what did they wear? He couldn't remember. Had it all been a dream?

He went outside. Tuala had given him the liberty of the city, and he decided to take the other man at his word. He strode the lawns with their riotous profusion of flowers, so different from a formal English garden. He walked by the canals that fed the lake, looking with interest at the boats drawn by horses on the towpath. He moved through the golden streets and saw children using markers of precious gems—ruby, sapphire, emerald—in their games.

He entered the towers with their banners of silver and green, red and gold, and came finally to a library crowded with ancient volumes. Tuala and a younger man stood by a table weighted down with scrolls. They spoke in low, urgent voices. The younger man seemed to be arguing, demanding something from the chief. They had not yet noticed Walter.

Finally Walter heard his name. What were they saying? But the two men had seen him, and the chief broke off to come over and greet him. The other man moved toward the door. Before he left he gave Walter a look that seemed heavy with malice.

“Did I interrupt something?” Walter asked.

“We were discussing matters of state, nothing more,” the chief said smoothly. “It is not your concern.”

It was his concern, though; he had heard his name. That day and in the days that followed he continued his explorations, walking with a tireless intensity. He chose a different direction each time, hoping to make Tuala think his walks were aimless. But he had a purpose, a method. He wanted to find the mine, or, failing that, the storehouse where the gold was kept.

And what then? Could he escape and return to England? He would have to cross the country of women, and the Amazons seemed to be allied in some way with Tuala's people. And then he would have to pass by the Spanish fort, and somehow sail alone down the Orinoco, because he couldn't trust the men he had brought with him. But these things seemed unimportant in the face of his urgency. All that mattered was finding the mine.

One day he followed a road and found himself, to his surprise, in an English countryside. Men were hurrying to bring in the crops before the rainy season, which in this upside-down country started in April. Beyond the fields he saw a low weathered building. It looked out of place, and he realized with surprise that it was the first structure he had seen that reminded him of England. A barn, probably, he thought, but his heart beat faster as he approached it.

The door opened to his touch. Surely they would not be so foolish as to keep their gold here, unprotected. But a shaft of light came through the cracks in the walls, and it illuminated all the riches he had sought, gold and silver and precious gems. He could not help reaching out his hand to touch, to hold. A sane part of his mind whispered, Are we turning thief, then? but he ignored it.

Someone shouted. He turned, dropping the emerald he had taken. The man he had seen arguing with the chief stood behind him in the strange cathedral light, speaking angrily and moving toward him. Walter raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. Did they all understand English, or only Tuala? “I was exploring, nothing more,” Walter said, backing away carefully.

The man made a fist. Walter tried to block him but it was too late—the blow hit his face, cutting his lip. The man made as if to strike again, but this time Walter was ready, landing his own blow on the man's stomach. The other man doubled over with a cry of pain and rage.

Walter grinned. Age had not slowed him down, then—it had only made him more cunning, more capable of finding another man's weaknesses. The young whelp remained bent over, more stunned than hurt, probably. Finally he stood and said through clenched teeth, “The king will be told about this.”

“Certainly. I'll tell him myself. What will he say about an unprovoked attack on one of his guests?”

“Unprovoked! I caught you in the middle of committing a crime. He'll put you on trial.”

“What crime?”

“We don't have a word for it,” the man said. “But in your language I think it's called theft.”

“Is it true you were in the storehouse?” the chief asked Walter. The man who had attacked him stood at the chief's side, smiling maliciously.

“Aye. You said I could walk wherever I pleased.”

“And is it true you stole an emerald?”

“Nay. I stole nothing.”

“Only because I stopped you,” the other man said. “He had the emerald in his hand—I saw it.”

The chief sighed. “Nuad thinks we cannot trust you. He thinks you've come to rob us.”

Walter said nothing.

“He says our only choice is to kill you now.”

“Nay, tell him all of it,” Nuad said angrily. “Kill him, aye—but that will solve the problem for only a little while. We must strike at the root.”

“Do you understand, Sir Walter?” Tuala said.

“We'll attack England,” Nuad said. “We made a mistake all those years ago, when we decided to turn inward. We must wake up and look around us, see what is happening in the world. Sooner or later your people will come to destroy us. We must destroy them before that happens.”

For the first time Walter thought the chief looked tired, defeated. “Do you understand?” Tuala said again. Walter nodded—he had seen struggles for power before. “You did not arrive at the best of times for us. Somehow we must resolve this question before you return home.”

“Resolve the question?” the young man said scornfully. “Kill him now!”

“Nay!” Tuala said. For the moment the chief seemed to grow, to gain stature.

“Then put him on trial.”

“For what? We have no laws against theft in this country. The children come to the storehouse to take gems for their games.”

“But this man is not a child,” Nuad said, becoming angrier as he saw the chief about to decide against him. “He is not one of us. Sooner or later he will lead his king to our mine.”

“Will he?” Tuala said.

“Of course he will! Or do you place all your hopes in this man's honor? I tell you he has none!”

The chief said nothing. Nuad took it as a dismissal. “Remember my words,” he said as he left. “He'll return with an army at his back.”

That evening after dinner Tuala escorted them to a room filled with musicians and dancers. To Walter's surprise the chief took to the floor and danced a wild and complex measure with a young woman. “Come, Sir Walter, join us,” Tuala said when the dance had ended.

His leg was bad that night—he should not have walked so long and so hard. “Nay, I thank you,” he said. Some of his company, he saw, were choosing up partners for the next dance.

“Then we will talk awhile,” the chief said.

He sat easily, not even winded from the dance. In the candles on the table the golden glow of his skin was very pronounced. How old was Tuala? He had spoken of the huts of London as if he had seen them personally. For a heart-stopping moment, a moment in which it seemed as if he hung, dizzyingly, over a precipice, Walter wondered if these folks were immortal. “How old are you?” Walter said.

Tuala smiled. “Nearly a hundred.”

Not immortal then, Walter thought, feeling both relieved and disappointed. “Tell me about your king,” the chief said.

Walter shrugged. “I barely know him. I served Elizabeth, who was queen before him.”

“Ah. And what was she like?”

“Wise and beautiful, virtuous and kind,” he said. He put aside his memories of her last days, her back gone crooked and her teeth rotted to blackness in her mouth. A lady whom time had surprised, he had called her once.

“And James? Is he wise as well?”

“I don't know.”

“Was it he who sent you to prison?”

Walter nodded.

“Then he cannot be so very wise, I think.”

“Nay, he is a coward.” The words burst from him before he was aware of them. “He wears a thick padded jerkin, summer and winter, because he fears the assassin's knife. He sent a man to spy on me, a coward like himself, who would only fight when he saw the odds were on his side, or when he could attack from behind.”

“Then why do you serve him?”

“Because he is king. Because God appointed him king.”

Tuala said nothing. Walter thought over what he had said, wondering how it would appear to this strange man before him. It was true that he would have preferred to serve Elizabeth to the end of his days. Like a feudal serf he gave his loyalty to few, and always to a person rather than an institution. James had never earned his trust; perhaps that was why he had been sent to the Tower.

“The dances are ending,” the chief said. “We had best go to bed.”

That night Walter dreamed of Wat. He had hardly thought of his son in the past few days, had put out of his mind the letter he would have to write to Bess. Yet when he woke he thought he saw the boy standing in front of him, like an avenging ghost in a play.

Wat was dead, and the other man who had been shot by the Spanish—sweet God, he didn't even know his name! By what right did he think he could command men to do as he ordered, to send them even to their deaths? God had not appointed him king. He had been driven only by personal ambition and his hope for gain.

Nay, it was worse than that. Nuad had been right—he was nothing but a common thief, a man without honor. What was the difference, after all, between robbing a man and plundering a country? The latter had been sanctioned by a king, true, but what was the word of James worth?

He stayed in his room the next day, thinking and writing in his journal. Toward evening he went out and walked through the gardens to the plains beyond. He must not have come to the borders of the chief's country, because no one made as if to stop him. He had the sense he was being watched.

The walls of his cell widened outward to take in the entire plain. Then it seemed as if they widened still further, that his mind grew to encompass all he had learned in the past few weeks. He thought of the Ewaipanoma, and the Amazons, and the folk of El Dorado.

He turned and went in search of the chief.

“I have another plan,” Walter said to Tuala. “I do not choose to forget the beauties of your country. But I won't stay in any prison, no matter how fair. I'll go back to King James and say of my own free will that I have not found El Dorado.”

“And what will the king do then? What happens when you return without the treasure you promised him?”

“I don't know.”

“I daresay you have some idea. We have spoken to some of your men—they tell us you will be killed if you return without the location of the mine.”

So the old chief knew that as well. Was there nothing of his life hidden from this man?

“Can we trust you to keep our secret in the face of death?” the chief asked.

Walter nodded slowly. “I promise you I will do it. You have my word on it.”

“You surprise me. And yet I find I believe you. But if that's true then we can't allow you to go back—we won't have your death on our hands. Stay here, Sir Walter. You'll find that your prison will be very fair indeed. We'll give you the liberty of our city—you'll study the old books with us and learn our philosophy.”

“Nay—I've had enough of prisons. And what of my wife? What will she think when I don't return?”

“What good can you do her under a sentence of death?”

“Very well, then, what will happen to you? Someone will guess where I am and come after me. What will you do then?”

“We cannot keep our city a secret much longer. The world is opening up to travellers and explorers—sooner or later we will be discovered. Already stories about us are spreading throughout the land. We need another hundred years or so, and then we will be ready.”