VOYAGE OF STRANGERS (18 page)

I could not hold my tongue.

“So would your wife,” I snapped, “did you beat her as soundly as you did that wretched maiden.”

Cuneo swung his massive head from side to side like a bull considering whether to charge. Below, the girl could be heard sobbing. I waited with my hand on my dagger, ready to fight if I had to. But nothing could shake Cuneo’s complacency. Still pleased with himself for successfully concluding what he no doubt termed sport, he decided not to be offended. At length, he gave a shout of laughter and turned his back on me.

With a final jest or two, the others dispersed. Fernando, whom I had not seen in the crowd, sauntered over and leaned against the rail. For his benefit, I helped Rachel to rise by extending a comradely hand.

“You have made an enemy,” Fernando said. “You must not be so rash. I fear for you, my friend.”

“Cuneo had best be my enemy,” I retorted, “as I would be shamed to count such a turd as my friend.”

Ordinarily, I tried to guard my language, which could turn as rough as any other sailor’s, in front of Rachel. But when I searched my mind for a gentler epithet for Cuneo, I could not find one.

Chapter Twenty-Three

La Navidad, Hispaniola, November 27-28, 1493

“The fort itself may not impress you,” I told Rachel as our vessel sailed along the coast of Hispaniola, “for we built it in a hurry and without preparation or proper materials. But it is more interesting than it looks, for its walls are made of the timbers of the Santa Maria. She was as gallant a ship as this one, though the sailors called her an old tub.”

“You have yourself become a sailor to the core,” Rachel said, laughing, “waxing sentimental over a broken wreck.”

I smiled, but said, “Believe me, her loss was a tragedy. It is only thanks to Ha’shem that we made it ashore and then across the Ocean Sea and home with only the Niña and the Pinta to carry us.”

A fiery sunset was fading in the sky, and I was due to go on watch soon. But we lingered at the rail, watching the gulls, pelicans, and other diving birds and admiring the sweep of forest and mountain scalloped by beaches of pristine sand, rosy in the reflected light. When it grew dark, I marveled once again at how much more brilliant the stars appeared here than in Spain. Rachel hurried below to attend to her chores for the Admiral, and I reported to the pilot for duty. For the time being, I was ordered to remain at the rail, scanning the darkness, by ear as well as by sight, for the shoal water that had destroyed the Santa Maria.

“Keep a sharp eye out for any sign of the savages as well,” the pilot warned me. “For we don’t know how they may be disposed toward us, and it is best to be prepared.”

This unease was born not only of our experience with the Caribe of Santa Cruz. We found signs that all was not well here in Hispaniola, where before we had had such a warm welcome from Guacanagarí, the
cacique
whose village lay closest to La Navidad. Since reaching the island, which was one of the largest we had thus far discovered, we had sent several parties ashore. One of these, striking inland, found on a riverbank the decomposed remains of two men bound with ropes. No one wished to believe that these were Spaniards. But the men who had seen the remains reported that they included scraps of tangled hair that might have been a European beard rather than the thick black thatch that grew on Taino heads.

Peering into the darkness with all my senses alert, I heard a barely perceptible splashing that I thought might be either the dipping of paddles or some sea creature going about its business. I had better ascertain which. I held up a lantern, but it failed to pierce the blackness before me. I saw nothing until I heard a shout from below, close to the ship.

“
Guamikeni
!
Guamikeni
!” This was what the Taino called the Admiral.

I
held the lantern high. The light fell on round, dark faces and gleaming smiles. I saw the flash of gold as they held up two golden masks of such magnificence that I gasped.

When I demanded that they declare themselves, they indicated by signs that they wished to come aboard.

The pilot appeared at my elbow, and the rest of the watch began to gather.

“Are they hostile?” the pilot asked.

“I don’t believe so, sir,” I said. “They call for the Admiral, and they bear gifts.”

“Throw down a rope, then,” he said, “and send for His Excellency.”

Sailors scurried to do one and a ship’s boy the other. By the time the visitors had climbed aboard, securing their canoe, the Admiral had come up on deck. Diego Columbus trotted at his side.

“We come from your friend
Guacanagarí,” they said. “Our
cacique
welcomes you and gives you these as a token of his love and loyalty.” They held out the masks.

The Admiral took one of the masks in his hand, nodding to a sailor to bring his lantern closer and turning it this way and that. A buzz of excitement arose from those close enough to see.

“Gold! They bring gold! Our fellows must have found the mine!”

The Admiral’s eyes lit up, but then his lips tightened, as if he struggled to restrain his eagerness to ask the source of such a quantity of gold.

“What of my men?” he asked. “Do they prosper?”

“Oh, yes, great Admiral. The
arijua
, the foreigners are well. Our
cacique
has been their loyal friend.”

“Loyal?” I muttered to Fernando, who stood by me. “When a man speaks of loyalty, he generally measures it against some betrayal.”

The Admiral heard me.

“What has happened in our absence?” he demanded. “Do you swear that all my men are well?”

I noticed that Diego Columbus did not translate “swear,” since there is no such concept in the Taino language. Indeed, I thought the Taino had told us less of truth than of what they deemed it expedient for us to hear from the day we first encountered them in 1492. Nor could I fault them for it. They had no cause save the generosity of their nature to trust us nor to offer us their friendship.

“Yes, yes,” the Taino said. “A few were sick, and some died in a fight. But otherwise the friends of
Guacanagarí are as you left them.”

“A few? How many? What kind of fight?”

“The
akani
, the enemies of Guacanagarí don’t like the
arijua
. When they came to attack our village, they fought the men from the Admiral’s boats with wings as well.”

“How many?”

The Taino looked at each other, smiled, and did not answer.

“Why does
Guacanagarí not come himself to greet me? Where is your
cacique
?”

The Admiral looked at the ship’s master, Don Antonio de Torres, who stood close by, and asked him, rather than the Taino, “Why don’t Harana and the others come to greet us?” This was the gentleman who had been appointed leader of those who stayed. “If these Indians know that we have arrived, so must they.”

“Our
cacique
Guacanagarí was wounded by the
akani
. He sends you his love, for he cannot walk to come himself. This was the doing of the
anki
Caonabo, the evil person who attacked our village.”

“It sounds to me like a pack of lies,” Fernando muttered in my ear.

Guacanagarí’s ambassadors were given food and drink, and much was made of them. Everybody wanted to examine the golden masks. I stayed close by throughout their visit, hoping to hear them talk more candidly between themselves in Taino. When they left, I ventured to seek out the Admiral, who had retired to his quarters. Rachel opened the door, looking mussed and sleepy. Over her shoulder, I could see the Admiral seated at his writing desk, the masks propped up before him. They glittered in the flickering light of a candle.

“Diego! Have you seen the golden masks?” Rachel burst out in an excited whisper. “And tomorrow we shall go ashore!”

Evidently, the Admiral had not confided in her, for she obviously knew of naught amiss.

“Excellency, may I have a word?” I said.

He rose and came to meet me with a nod to Rachel. She slipped outside the door, no doubt to stand guard. I knew she would have preferred to put her ear to the keyhole, had the oak door had a keyhole rather than a massive iron bolt.

I reminded him that I had learned a fair amount of the Taino language.

“I listened to the talk between the two,” I said, “and I fear that more is amiss than they care to tell us.”

“What did they say, then?”

“They said nothing clearly,” I admitted. “It was all hinting. But I greatly fear that more of our men may be dead than we believe. I wonder, too, if Guacanagarí is truly as steadfast a friend as he would have us think.”

“Nonsense!” the Admiral said. “I don’t believe it. Perhaps they have all fallen sick with a flux and are too weak to make their way out to our anchorage in the dark. We will go ashore in the morning and see for ourselves. Dr. Chanca will come with us and Fray Buil as well, so if their bodies or their souls need tending, we will be prepared. If it is past your watch, get some sleep, for we will need our wits about us.”

“Then I may be one of the shore party, Excellency?”

“Certainly,” he said. “You have done well on this voyage, young Diego, and so has little ‘Rafael’.”

Warmed by his praise, I bade Rachel good night and sought a dry, quiet corner of the deck to lie down in. But sleep would not come. I watched the stars wheel slowly in their great dance until they began to pale and the sky to lighten. From the shore, I could hear parrots scream as, like us, they woke and stirred to meet the approaching day.

Word had been sent to the other vessels of the events of last night. Gentlemen and soldiers from the other ships, as well as ship’s officers and all the clerics, no doubt determined not to be left out, met us on the shore before the dawn had faded from pink to blue. I was not surprised to see Don Melchior Maldonado among them. Like me, he wished to know if Juan Cabrera lived. I was glad Rachel had remained on Mariagalante.

For myself, I was not afraid of Cabrera’s genius for evil. I had proved myself beyond all doubt on this voyage, and I was no longer under his command.

I realized with some surprise that I no longer feared the Inquisition either, at least as long as we remained in the I
ndies. I had said nothing of Anacaona's murder because Cabrera knew my secret too, that I was still a Jew. I had been frightened then of being denounced and returned to Spain in chains to be given to the fire, if not hanged on the spot. For it was a capital crime to be a Jew in Spain, and was not the Admiral’s fleet an outpost of Spain? So, too, were the islands he had named and claimed on this side of the Ocean Sea. But even Fray Buil and his fellow clerics were talking eagerly of gold as we marched toward La Navidad. Their minds were not on sniffing out heresy.

I had forgotten how like paradise Hispaniola was: the whisper of the breeze tossing the verdant canopy above us and clicketing the great fans of foliage that grew out of the ground at our feet; the jewel colors not only of parrots with their raucous cry but of small birds that sipped at nectar from flowers as colorful as themselves or perched, singing sweetly, on a branch or leaf; the myriad butterflies that lent the very air not only color but gaiety as well. Even the nakedness of the Taino whom we would no doubt shortly see seemed to me, this morning, not an ignorant absence of shame but the embodiment of innocence, as it had been in Eden.

It was hard to remain cautious and apprehensive on such a morning. As we marched, the weapons slackened in our hands. Our gaze softened, feasting on beauty wherever we looked, rather than scanning for danger. A cheerful hubbub arose, as if we were marching straight to the gates of the gold mine of Cibao.

“At any rate,” I heard one soldier tell another, “they’ll have a bite of fresh bread for us to eat, instead of that infernal biscuit. I don’t know how sailors stand it for months at a time.”

“They’ll likely have stronger drink than sour wine,” his comrade said, grinning. In spite of all Archdeacon Fonseca’s care, the merchants had sold us wine in rotting casks, which had let much of it seep away and turned the rest to near vinegar. “And some of those
yayama
we had on Dominica. I’ve never tasted the like.”

“And women,” another soldier said. “I’d like to get me one of them naked women for myself,” here he lowered his voice, “like that fellow from Savona. Or maybe two.”

“These lads at the fort have had near a year to pick them over,” the first man said.

“Don’t worry, there are plenty in the woods,” the second said, and all of them laughed heartily.

I was not pleased to hear them speak so. When the Queen commanded that the Taino be treated lovingly, she had not meant that her soldiers and sailors were to emulate Michele de Cuneo of Savona. But before I could say something sharp, the rank of men in front of us stopped short. I was walking some way back among the company and could not see at first what had halted them. But cries of dismay from those in the vanguard soon reached us. In spite of the officers’ orders, the men broke ranks and shoved each other in their haste to reach the front. I confess I did the same.