Paradise & More (Torres Family Saga) (20 page)

      
Colon ran one large, cruelly gnarled hand through his thinning hair, no longer the bright fiery red of his youth, but now lightened with gray. Placing one arm about Diego's shoulders, he drew the younger man toward a clear stretch of beach, unmarred by the ugliness of death. “Return to the flagship and summon the captains of
Carrera
and
Prìmivera
. Send them with orders to search eastward and westward for a suitable site where we may build a new fortress. Let it not be too far from here, no more than a day's journey.”

      
Diego digested the assignment, which he deemed to be worthy of his importance and nodded. “I will dispatch them at once, Cristobal.”

      
Aaron turned from his conversation with Caonu and addressed the admiral. “I must go to the village and speak with Guacanagari.”

      
“Is it safe to do so?” Cristobal asked bleakly, looking at the carnage about him.

      
“Yes, I believe so, although these fine civilized men comported themselves so abominably that I would not fault Guacanagari for killing us all!” He gestured to the bodies being gathered for burial.

      
“What, by the Blessed Virgin, happened?” Colon asked.

      
“The men split into factions. The gentlemen of the court expected the lowly seamen from the marshlands to obey them, which they would not. The assayer from Seville organized many of them to search for gold—which they did, not by prospecting in the streams as the Taino showed them, but by forcing Guacanagari's people to work in their stead.” Aaron paused and shrugged. “As for the rest, Galicians, Cordobans, Basques, each small group took women from Guacanagari's village—some by force—and went off, deserting the fort and building these shacks. They drank, wenched, and had the Tainos do their bidding. Some of the more adventurous struck out with Guacanagari's people as guides and trespassed into the
cacicazgos
of Caonabo and Behechio. Both are far less tolerant than young Guacanagari. Caonabo is half Carib! The
caciques
killed them, and I believe they were right. These men deserved to die,” Aaron said grimly.

      
Don Cristobal Colon, brilliant navigator and chartmaker, visionary explorer, stood on the beach amid the wreckage. “I fear I am more at home at sea than on land. I thought these men could be trusted. I left Harana in charge, thinking we had taken all the troublemakers back to Castile with us.” He looked at Aaron's grim face and met his gaze. “Perhaps we should send a company of heavily armed men with you.”

      
“No. I would prefer to go alone. Guacanagari and his family trust you and trust me as your representative. If I return this trust, I think we can mend what these fools have wrought.”

      
The admiral nodded. “Go with God, my young friend.”

      
God, the Christian pantheon of saints, the Taino
zemis
, I will accept help from any and all,
Aaron thought as he bade farewell to Colon and turned back to Caonu.

* * * *

Ysabel, Española, February 2, 1494

      
The rude village was filled to overcrowding with pigs, chickens, sheep, cattle, even the few skittish horses that had survived the last bitter month. From the end of November to the opening of the new year, Colon and his grand fleet had struggled, beating a course eastward, against the wind, along the ruggedly beautiful coastline of Española. The admiral finally chose a level grassy plain with a small river not too far distant as the best choice for a new settlement, given the fact that both men and animals were sickening aboard ship. He named the new city Ysabel in honor of his patroness.

      
Aaron held his peace, but he thought it a singularly appropriate name for the unlikely site, feeling as he did about the unattractive and fanatical queen. The river was brackish and too far from the plain to be really convenient. The land was marshy and the climate, come the heat of summer, would be miasmic. But he had been otherwise occupied with peace-making missions between the colonists and the Tainos and had not been consulted.

      
Now, as he surveyed several thatched huts, greatly inferior in construction to those of Guacanagari's village, Aaron shook his head in disillusionment. Men idled about in the central plaza or sat drinking wine in front of their rude quarters. Dung littered the streets. Pigs squealed, chickens squawked, and sheep bleated in complaint, running hither and yon, heeded only when hunger bestirred the gold seekers to catch a prize and butcher it. Food was scarce and few crops had been planted. A combination of poor soil and poorer cultivation would yield meager harvests. Already the settlers had grown dependent on the Taino for
cassava
bread and yams as staples. Still many men sickened and died of fevers and other maladies.

      
A few stone buildings had been erected, an austere governor's residence for Don Cristobal, who according to his royal patents was the chief civil and military authority, and an arsenal. Although Colon had offered his fleet marshal command of the island's military, Aaron had declined, feeling that he better served both colonists and Tainos by living among the Indians and acting as a go-between. Few of the settlers had made any effort to learn the Taino language and most abused the generous Indians shamefully, trading cheap trinkets for vital food and gold.

      
Gold
. Aaron looked at the harbor. A dozen ships were outfitted for the return voyage home. Over thirty thousand ducats in gold was aboard, along with exotic birds and other lesser booty. Even a few baskets of pearls had been obtained by trade with Tainos from outlying islands. Over three hundred of the disappointed colonists were returning, including many of the clergy who were as disillusioned with their meager success in converting the Indians as the
caballeros
were with their failure to find instant riches.

      
Yet riches were present, for those who had pluck and brains enough to gain them. Aaron's plan for vengeance swung on his ability to get rich. But beating and maiming Tainos to force them into giving up their small gold supplies was not the answer. A cold smile crossed his face as he recalled his conversation with a half-Caribe
cacique
from Higuey in the southeast. His people had found gold in the interior rivers. Someday soon, when he could gather enough from this richer yield, he could return to Seville and exact a fearsome penalty from Bernardo Valdés.

      
Francisco Roldan, big, bluff and hearty, strode up to Aaron, kicking a squawking chicken away with one booted foot. Throwing his meaty arm about the slimmer man's shoulders, he asked with genuine curiosity in his voice, “How do you manage to win more gold, even brazilwood, from the
caciques
by smiles than Margarite does with his sword?”

      
“You should know, my friend. You, too, are fast becoming as acclimated to Taino life as I,” Aaron replied with a smile.

      
“Ah, but you have the favor of Guacanagari's lovely sister, an asset of priceless worth.” Roldan's own prowess with the Taino women was legendary and his tastes notably catholic.

      
Aaron sighed and the smile left his face. “Unlike you, who have a ‘wife’ in each village from Marien to Xaragua, I am faithful to Aliyah.”

      
“Faithful, yet unwed by either her laws or ours. Do I detect a hint of conscience in an adventurer such as you?” Roldan teased. “Have you a wench back in Seville—or worse yet, a lady who holds your heart captive?”

      
Aaron scoffed as the vision of cat-green eyes brimming with tears flashed into his mind. “Scarce that. I am pledged to no woman, nor would be until other matters are attended.”

      
“Yet the fair Aliyah works her wiles on you and cajoles her brother to force the match.”

      
“You have become far too adept at picking up Indian gossip,” Aaron replied crossly.

      
Seeing that the joke had turned sour, the mercurial Francisco changed the subject. “You brought a good deal of booty in for our governor's treasure fleet. Think you the Majesties will be pleased?”

      
“Nothing will ever satisfy Fernando's greed,” Aaron replied bluntly, for he had grown to like Roldan, a rough but honest soldier who treated the Tainos fairly. “As to his queen, when her priests go scurrying home without a soul baptized, I think she will be sore displeased. The admiral is. He hoped for mass conversions.”

      
“I know you like him well,” Roldan replied, looking about the busy harbor area where ship's boats busily loaded goods, “but Don Cristobal is a fool as an administrator. He should stay at sea, which is his own true element. On land he flops like a banked bonita, giving and countermanding orders, treating the Taino as allies one day, as enemies the next.”

      
Aaron sighed. “He has chosen poor men to command, I agree. Margarite is a brutal butcher and Hojeda I would trust no sooner than I would pet a coiled adder. His brother Diego has little to recommend him either, but look about us, Francisco. These men are not settlers. They do not adapt to the land. They will not become farmers or herdsmen and they are too arrogant to learn the Tainos' ways—all they do is bleed the
caciques
for food and gold.”

      
“Soon there will be a rebellion,” Roldan said softly. “You know it as I do. The question is, with your loyalties so divided, where will you stand?”

      
Aaron looked into the Castilian's shrewd brown eyes. “I do not know. There is an oath I must keep, sworn .back in Seville. I would not see Guacanagari's people harmed. Nor do I wish the admiral's colony to fail and drag his dreams down with its demise.”

      
“So that is why you stepped down as Colon's marshal. You could have had Margarite's job, but it would have meant spilling Taino blood. Even now he sets up forts across the interior mountains, from which our colonists will bleed the Tainos for yet more gold and food.”

      
“Both can be obtained by honest barter—and by working alongside the Taino.” Aaron studied Roldan. “I have heard about a powerful
cacique
in Xaragua, far to the southwest of here, who would defy the invaders. You will ally with him, will you not?”

      
“Let us pray to all the saints it comes not to that, but if it does, I will not ally with the
cacique
of Xaragua...I will
be
the
cacique
of Xaragua!” He threw back his head of thick brown curls and laughed.

* * * *

      
Aliyah stroked Aaron's chest, then moved deft fingers up to his bristling jawline. “Will you cut the hair from your face? It burns my skin,” she said with a pout, hefting her full breasts, one in each hand, to display whisker burns on the tender flesh.

      
Aaron rolled back on the platform bed inside the
bohio
and watched her as she posed artfully. She had grown shrewish and jealous since his return. Of course, in his absence she had resumed relations with several noblemen of Guacanagari's village.

      
With a sigh he said, “I will shave for you, Aliyah.”
I seem to be cursed with faithless women
, he thought in irritation, wondering what had become of Magdalena Valdés so far across the ocean.

* * * *

Valladolid, March 1494

      
“He is not so tall as the admiral, but has the same red hair. And Don Bartolome has not the crippling affliction, but is most robust,” Estrella Valdés said breathlessly as she paced the carpeted floor of the quarters she shared with her daughter.

      
“I am surprised you did not look on his young nephews as prospects for dalliance as well,” Magdalena said, rolling her eyes in disgust.

      
“You will show your mother some respect, Magdalena! They are but boys brought by Don Bartolome to be pages at the court. Don Cristobal's younger son is a babe of six and even the elder is a stripling of fourteen years.” Estrella regarded her daughter thoughtfully, then mused aloud, “Of course, in a year or two he might have possibilities as a husband for you.”

      
“All you ever think of is ridding yourself of me. I will wed none of your odious choices, Mother.”

      
“You foolishly pine away for one long gone. His family is in disgrace and there is no possibility of your marrying him even if he were to return.” Estrella shuddered, then continued with her scheming. “Your father will arrange a match if I do not. You might find some of his choices far more odious than mine.” Ignoring Magdalena's angry scowl, she looked in the mirror of polished steel on the wall, studying her faded beauty, the loose skin beneath her chin, the fine lines webbing her eyes. “You are young and fresh. What power you could wield, stupid girl, if only you would cooperate!”

      
Magdalena's face became a hard mask. “I will not wed at your pleasure, nor will I sell myself as a leman to please you or that man you married.” She could never again name Bernardo Valdés as father.

      
“You are a fool to hide yourself away and pine for that Jew! The king is taken with you.”

      
Magdalena recalled Fernando's jet eyes following her last evening at the banquet honoring Don Cristobal's brother. Merciful Virgin, what had she done to deserve such unwanted attention! “I am not you, Mother. I want nothing to do with the king's favors. And less to do with the queen's wrath.”

      
Ever a court game player, Estrella considered her daughter's words and found they had merit. “Ysabel minds not as much that Fernando sports with married women, but young maids of exceptional beauty...of those she is fierce jealous. Still—”