The Seven Serpents Trilogy

  How could other men who prayed upon their knees, beseeching God’s mercy, begging for His protection, swearing that in gratitude they would honor Him by spreading His word among the islands of the Indies—how could these Christian men commit such acts of brutality?

  Mercifully, my view of the beach and the huddled In dians, who now were waiting until the gold could be carried aboard, was suddenly closed off as the caravel shifted with the tide.

  Confronted for the first time in my life by the bare face of evil, I closed my eyes and prayed for guidance. Before I could compose my spirit, however, Luna, the guard, opened the door and stared at me, his face white with fear.

  He said, “They have come back. Don Luis and Guzmán. Everyone except Señor Barrios. Since the mu tiny was not of my making, they have no reason to blame me.”

  “They don’t need a reason,” I said. “Hide your musket and we’ll go and untie Captain Roa. That should put a better face on the situation.”

  CHAPTER 15

  WE FOUND CAPTAIN ROA IN THE DEEPEST PART OF THE CARAVEL, lying upon a pile of dirty straw, seemingly more dead than alive. But when we unloosed his bindings and gave him the news that the mutiny was over, he quickly revived.

  As well he might, for he was aware that his life had been spared by Barrios solely because he was a passable navigator. Once the caravel and its treasure neared its destination, Barrios would have put an end to him. Events had saved Captain Roa, but he thanked us with a great show of gratitude, as if we alone were responsible for his good fortune.

  The three of us mounted to the main deck, arriving there just as the longboat, stacked with gold from gunwale to gunwale, ranged alongside. In the bow stood Don Luis, his fine chain and leather doublet torn, and his face a mass of scratches. He smiled up at me, as if nothing had happened between us, and raised his sword triumphantly. He looked like a true conquistador, a conqueror, a man of honor. For a moment I forgot what he had done, and all that he had permitted to be done in his name.

  Five members of the crew who had arrived in the longboat set about carrying the gold aboard, prodded along by Don Luis, who, from a perch above the main deck, kept a watchful eye upon their movements as well as upon the horizon to the east.

  The gold—gold in pieces the size of oranges, gold in flakes and slivers, in nuggets the shape of nutmegs—all this was placed in neat rows for everyone to see. The hot sun shone upon it, blinding the eyes.

  When all the treasure was unloaded and lay upon the deck, Don Luis gave orders for the savages to be brought aboard. They came quietly, five boatloads of them, guarded by soldiers. They were put in the hold among the water casks and empty stalls. When the animals were brought aboard, it would be crowded.

  Don Luis then called his henchmen and all members of the crew to the main deck. He had not taken time to change his torn attire or clean the blood from his face. He stood amidst the treasure, with Señor Guzmán at his side, and said pridefully to all those assembled:

  “I have kept the solemn promise I gave you many months ago in the city of Seville, as we set off with God’s guidance to face the dangers of the New World. I promised you gold, and here it lies in front of you. In a moment of weakness, some of you listened to bad coun sel and were led astray. This, though it broke the laws of land and sea and should have cost you your lives, I have forgiven.”

  I wondered, as I stood listening apart from the crowd, if his decision to spare the crew’s lives was prompted less by mercy than the most certain knowledge that without a crew the caravel couldn’t sail more than ten leagues even in fair weather.

  “Your share, however, will be less,” he went on, “yet a goodly portion. Each crewman will receive twenty libras of gold—to be weighed out here on deck by Señor Guzmán—at this moment. Any differences in weight must be adjusted among yourselves. In other words, do not come back complaining of false weight. Complaining, indeed, of anything.”

  Each of the crew stepped forward and received his share. There was no grumbling, at least none that I heard, for each of them must have remembered that he’d had a close encounter with death. Don Luis’s retain ers were then called forward to claim their share of the treasure, which was twice the amount accorded to the crew.

  Throughout this ceremony, a low-pitched chant rose from the hold. I understood none of the words, except that the name of Ayo, the dead cacique, was repeated over and over.

  I looked around for Esteban and, seeing that he was busy with a game of dice, went alone to the hold. The Indians were huddled together in a stall that had stabled two of our mules, animals that had died during the first week we were on the island. With room to sit but not to move about, they squatted shoulder to shoul der, rocking as they chanted.

  The chant stopped when I appeared. I saw the gleam of eyes in the dim light. One of the women had a child, and the child began to cry. There was no other sound except the tramping of feet overhead.

  The silence grew. Ayo’s people, my friends, waited for me to speak, but there was nothing I could say, not in words they would understand. Nor that I could say in their own words, if I had known the words. In truth, it was not a time for words.

  Powerless, with a feeling of humiliation, I knelt in the stable straw and tried to pray. My lips moved, sounds came from my throat, but my thoughts never left my body, never left the hole where we all huddled in the half darkness.

  While I was there on my knees, Moreno, the black smith, came down from above to say that Don Luis wanted me on deck. He carried a lantern in one hand and held his nose with the other, for the stink of the stable, which the crew had been too busy to clean after the long voyage, was sickening. I took the lantern from him and held it out to Pital, a young man with whom I had sometimes traded words.

  Pital took the lantern and held it above his head. The wick flickered with a small, dull flame, but it was fire that, if so minded, he could use to set the stable straw ablaze and burn to the water’s edge the unholy Santa Margarita.

  When I went on deck, the sun was setting and a soft breeze blew in from the island. The crew and the retain ers were scattered around fore and aft, and, except for the two lookouts high in the tower, were gambling with dice, wagering the gold they had just acquired.

  Don Luis stood on the main deck beside his pile of treasure, which still reached above his head. His hands were on his hips, his booted feet thrust apart, and he smiled as he beckoned me forward.

  “I’m pleased to see that you have untied yourself,” he said in a friendly voice, as if not he but someone else had given the order that tied me up. “I acted hastily. Come and claim your share of the treasure.”

  “I haven’t earned a share,” I said.

  “As much as anyone. Venga. Come.”

  He must have thought that I was acting out of mod esty, for he repeated his command. When I didn’t move, he reached down, scooped up a double handful of nuggets, strode forward, and with a bow pressed them into my hands.

  The nuggets were heavy. They weighed twenty libras or more—enough gold to keep me in books for many years to come. I put them in my purse.

  The longboat was on shore, loading the mastiffs, horses, and mules. Before night fell, the animals would be in their stalls, and the Indians would be without so much as a place to lie. I thought about Barrios and the girl in Cádiz who would never see him again. I thought of Ayo, the cacique, lying dead somewhere in the jungle. The Indians were chanting again. I remembered the lantern I had given Pital and wondered if he would have the courage to use it.

  A lookout called down from his lofty perch in the mainmast crow’s nest and reported a sail.

  “East by northeast,” he shouted, “bearing down un der full canvas.”

  The caravel came suddenly alive under Señor Guzmán’s loud curses. The first of the animals moved aboard in a hurry and were shoved and coaxed into the hold, and the longboat went back for more. The full crew took their stations, ready, as soon as the last of the beasts were on board, to weigh anchor. The
lookout, in answer to Captain Roa, estimated that the caravel would not reach us for another hour.

  I went to the hold and found that the Indians were crouching among the horses, the lantern in their midst. Apparently, they were not going to use it to free themselves.

  I climbed the ladder and walked in the darkness to the rail. Without being seen, I unfastened from my belt the purse filled with gold nuggets and dropped it into the dark waters of the bay.

  An hour later, with everything stowed and a full moon rising, the Santa Margarita weighed anchor and moved out of the bay on a fair land breeze.

  The caravel the lookout had sighted earlier now loomed bright in the moon glow, close off our port bow. Señor Guzmán wished to send a cannonball into her rigging, but Captain Roa persuaded him otherwise, and we headed southeasterly on a new course, toward the land His Majesty had graciously granted to encomendero Don Luis de Arroyo, Duke of Cantavara y Llorente, which he had already named Isla de Buenaventura.

  CHAPTER 16

  THE NEXT MORNING THE SUN ROSE IN A REDDISH HAZE. THE SEA WAS the same red color as the sky. Captain Roa said that the weather signs tempted him to wish he was not on an overburdened vessel, but somewhere far away, like the city of Seville.

  He was speaking to Don Luis as they stood on the afterdeck, drinking their morning chocolate. Don Luis, except for a few scratches, looked no worse for his ex ploits in the jungle. His beard was curled and his hip boots polished. He wore a soft, sleeveless doublet, yellow in color, cured with ambergris, in the latest mode.

  “We carry far too much weight,” said Captain Roa. “Three tons of gold and twenty-nine slaves give us at least five tons more than when we sailed from Seville. It puts a heavy strain upon mast and timber.”

  Off our starboard bow, as the captain spoke, there ap peared a small verdant isle indented by a bay well pro tected from the wind. He pointed to the shelter and suggested to Don Luis that we might drop anchor and ride out the wind, should one develop.

  Don Luis said, “What are the chances of a wind?”

  “Unfortunately, great,” said the captain. “I have ob served the portents before. Thin clouds moving west ward. A red dawn. A sea without so much as a ripple.”

  “If the wind arrives, how long does it last?”

  “Five days. Six. I recall one that lasted for a week and more. That was during the last voyage of Columbus. In 1502, the Governor of Hispaniola, Don Nicolás de Ovando, arrived in San Domingo with an armada of thirty sail, all loaded with treasure and ready to depart for Spain. I was on one of his ships, the Aguja. My first voyage as boatswain.”

  The captain stopped suddenly and pointed toward the stretch of water between us and the small island.

  “You’ll notice,” he said, taking Don Luis’s arm, “the number of dolphins swimming on the surface. Another sign of a coming storm.”

  “You were discussing Don Nicolás de Ovando,” Don Luis said, looking at the captain, not at the sea. “And his armada. Someday I will have one as large.”

  “Ovando’s ships,” the captain continued, “were anchored at the mouth of the Ozama River. Columbus stood at the entrance to the harbor and asked permission to enter. Out of jealousy and arrogance, Ovando refused him. At the same time portents of a storm appeared, like those that I have just observed this morning. Despite the shabby treatment he had received from Ovando, Columbus warned him not to send the armada to sea. Ovando sneered at the admiral, scoffed at his advice, and the rich armada sailed. They were out less than a day when the hurricane struck. All of the thirty ships were sunk or wrecked on shore, except my ship, the Aguja. More than five hundred men were drowned.”

  “What happened to Columbus?” I asked.

  “He moved his ships not to the harbor but close in upon the land,” said the captain, “and rode out the wind.”

  Captain Roa must have chosen this story deliberately, but he had chosen it wrongly. The story of the catas trophe at San Domingo with its horrendous loss of treasure and life served only as a challenge to Don Luis. Unlike Nicolás de Ovando, governor of Hispaniola and Knight Commander of Lares, he was protected by his own unbending will, his strong right arm, and by God’s most certain grace.

  “If we seek shelter whenever a wind blows,” Don Luis said, “the year ends before we make Buenaven tura. By the way, Captain, how far does it lie?”

  “Three days off if the weather stays fair.”

  “More, if we chance to miss our landfall. We have missed it once already.”

  “A fortunate miss,” Captain Roa reminded him, put ting a sharp edge on his words. He was in a bad mood, not having recovered from the severe buffeting received at the hands of the crew. “Worth the cost of the caravel and more.”

  “True, true,” said Don Luis. “My thanks, my thanks.”

  “And speaking of the gold,” the captain continued, “but not of the slaves, who are worth five hundred excelentes. Speaking of the gold, I am the only one on the Santa Margarita who has not received his share.”

  “Not by an oversight,” Don Luis assured him. “Once we reach our island I’ll see to it. That was our agree ment, if you remember.”

  “But we may never reach the island. I have many doubts about how the Santa Margarita will act in a wind. The old tub may shake apart. Turn her belly to the sky.”

  “If she does, what good will the gold do you?”

  “At least I’ll have had the pleasure of being rich, if only for a moment.”

  Don Luis smiled. “This being your wish, I hereby present you with all the gold you can carry away.”

  “I have a very weak back,” said the captain.

  “Then make two trips,” Don Luis replied. “Three. But in the meantime, let us move along and not tarry at every passing shelter that invites us.”

  The sails had been slack all morning. Now a strong gust of wind filled them, and the Santa Margarita began to make headway.

  “Furthermore,” said Don Luis, “adventurers swarm about the court in Spain, begging Their Majesties for grants to isles, to reefs and rivers, even to continents. They swarm through the governor’s palace in Hispaniola—I saw them there by the dozens—asking for encomiendas. They sail the seas like hungry sharks looking for pieces of land to bite off. The sooner we make our island and settle ourselves upon it, the more comfort able rests my mind.”

  Captain Roa chewed the ends of his mustache and looked down at the deck. As he had before, at the time we ran low on water and he advised Don Luis that it was wise to return to the Canaries, he once more went against his better judgment. We had been saved then by great good fortune. I wondered if we would be saved again.

  “We sail,” said the captain. “But the gold needs to be shifted. Here on deck it makes us top-heavy. In a wind we’ll rock like a baby’s cradle.”

  Don Luis said, “I don’t trust the crew to handle the treasure, even from here to the hold.”

  “Nor I,” said the captain.

  Guzmán had appeared and stood listening. He wore a bandage over one of his ears, a part of which had been severed but which Juan Pacheco, barber and sur geon, had restored.

  “How the crew long to get their claws into it,” he said. “Sorry lot that they are. We’d be better off if they were ten fathoms under.”

  “Where do we store the gold?” Don Luis asked.

  “In the stable,” said the captain.

  “Not with the horses.”

  “With the savages.”

  “Yes, let them sit on it. They can serve as watchmen.”

  Now that the sun had risen and everyone was on deck, except the Indians, without much spirit I sang a morning song. Afterward, Don Luis asked me to go be low and repeat the song for the savages.

  “Let them know,” he said, “that they have nothing to fear. In three days they shall be living on a beautiful is land. Give the mother comfort and her child this sweetmeat.” He drew forth from his doublet a hard, yellow confection and put it in my hand. “And you should take with you the pic
ture of the Virgin Mother and Child. I noticed in the past when we first came to the island that the savages displayed great interest in the holy picture when you showed it to them.”

  “I fear that now they’ll show little interest,” I said. “If I were they, I wouldn’t feel any. Therefore, I shall not take the picture. Nor will I make them promises about life on a beautiful island. But I will give the sweetmeat to the child, if you wish, and say it is from God. If I said it was a gift from you, the mother wouldn’t allow her child to take it. For which I would not blame her.”

  Don Luis brushed a mosquito from his sleeve. “You are very stiff necked about these slaves. I recall that you are an admirer of Las Casas. I’ve heard you speak of him. I believe he preached in our village church on one occasion. You took leave of school to attend.”

  He waited for me to say something, and when I didn’t, he went on.

  “But I have never heard you mention the fact that this Las Casas, who is highly regarded by both Their Majesties and by the Church, proposed that Negroes be shipped from Africa to the Indies. It was his idea and it is now being carried out. They are captured in Africa by slave hunters, transported to Hispaniola, and sold here to the highest bidders for work on the farms.”

  “I am aware of this,” I said. “Las Casas was wrong. What you are doing is wrong also. Enslaving the In dians. Taking gold that does not belong to you.”

  Don Luis showed his teeth in a quick smile. “You were glad enough to take a share of the gold,” he taunted me.

  “Not glad,” I said. “The gold you pressed upon me I threw away. It’s now at the bottom of the sea.”

  Don Luis was carrying his sword. It hadn’t left his side since he came aboard yesterday. I am sure that last night he had slept with the sword. His hand settled upon the hilt. Our eyes met. I am certain from what I saw there that it took the whole of his will power not to slip the sword from its sheath and run me through.