Serpent (36 page)

This was the most unhappy and disappointing of all my voyages. We did not find the strait to the west that we were looking for, the natives greeted us, not with friendliness as before, but with arrows and spears. All was against us, the biscuits maggoty, the weather and wind fearsome, until at last our sinking ships came upon a safe harbor where we were marooned for a year and five days in a place I never expected to leave alive, until that joyful day we were rescued. Then the worst ocean crossing of my life.

But more than any storms, or disease, or the depredations of the natives, was my knowledge that for all my attempt to serve Their Majesties with as much love and diligence as I might have used to win the Gates of Paradise and more, I have failed in matters that were beyond my knowledge and strength. While I charted new lands, I lost four ships and found little gold or other treasure. Even worse, my Queen, who being mortal, left her realm free
 
from heresy and wickedness, to be well received by the Eternal Creator.

I knew of only one way to remedy my sadness and to please my most Serene Prince, and that is to find the goal which had eluded me on my earlier voyages. For in my long stay on that most unhappy of islands, I learned that which I had long sought was within my grasp. I was provided with the key that would open the door to a treasure in gold so fabulous as to make all that has come before, which is of no little consequence, appear as coins for a beggar, and grant for Castile, the Sovereign and your

successors, the greatness you deserve, for all time.

I have been well provided for by the gold from my voyages and my share of the revenue, from Hispanola, and had much
 
to
 
be thankful for, my eldest son Diego employed as a Royal Bodyguard, young Fernando as a page. But still
 
I was saddened by my failure. The security of hearth is not for a sailor, and I resolved to go to sea once more, perhaps for a final time, to fulfilll my promise to Your Highnesses, and my obligations as High Admiral.

 
Thus in this month I
 
made out my will; confirming Diego as my heir, and using my own monks, in secret, outfitted the ship

Nina, hiring a small crew of fifteen loyal men, left by night, sailing as in my first and Greatest Voyage of 1492, out of Palos, altering course after dark to the Canary Islands, to the SW and south by west.

Perlmutter paused for a sip of coffee. Interesting. The narrator knew Columbus favored the Nina of all his ships. It was well known that Columbus was beset by frustration at his failure to find his way to China. At one point he was brought home in chains, charged with mismanagement as viceroy of Hispanola, only to be forgiven by the king, and especially. his patron the queen, and outfitted for his fourth, fateful trip, inaptly named the "High Voyage." It would have been totally in keeping with Columbus, who in fact had suffered for his hubris, to try to redeem himself. And for his obsession with finding gold to be the engine that drove him. Only one problem, as Don Ortega pointed out. Columbus started the letter three days after he supposedly died. Oh well. Perlmutter read on. While the document was written as a personal letter Columbus the mariner couldn't help making it a log of his voyage, with observations of wind, direction, and weather conditions. The trip across the Atlantic was a picture-postcard repeat of his first voyage. He picked up the northeast tradewind that begins near Madeira, making the crossing with day following pleasant day, pushed try gentle breezes, favored by luck. As on his first crossing, the winds were "very gentle, as in April in Seville."

An interesting difference. Perlmutter knew from his reading that on his first trip, Columbus navigated by dead reckoning. In other words he kept tabs of his compass direction and speed and marked his daily, position on the chart. The ship's speed was measured with a sand glass known as a "Dutchman's log. The pilot threw a woodchip in the water and counted a rhyme to time its passing. ,

On his first voyage Columbus didn't need pinpoint navigation because he was. mainly concerned with maintaining a westerly heading. He relied on his compass and his long experience at sea and didn't trust an early sextant like device called a quadrant. Therefore it was of interest to Perlmutter that in several entries Columbus not only noted the miles traveled but made frequent celestial observations as well.

May 25, 1506

 
Took fix on north star; maintaining southwest direction . . . . .

May 30, 1506

 
Stayed on course SW , as calculated by
 
quadrant . . . .

It was almost as if Columbus wanted to be precise because he knew his exact destination. Not as on his first trip, when he thought from earlier charts that he would run into the huge land mass of China or India, and a few degrees of latitude either way wouldn't make a difference.

More evidence that Columbus was apparently following a predetermined course was his frequent reference to the ship's torleta.

I steered to the WSW more or less, steering first one way and then the other, for the winds are contrary, but still making sixty six miles and sailing according to the torleta of the ancients.

Perlmutter put the document aside and, with unerring accuracy, navigating by his own kind of dead reckoning, made his way to a wall shelf crammed with books and plucked out a volume on medieval navigation. He knew that torleta referred to torleta del marteloio, "the table of the bell," the plotting board used to mark each day's position. The bell was rung as the hourglass was turned. The torleta went back to the thirteenth century and was actually an analog computer used to solve trigonomic problems. It was made in the form of a grid and kept by the pilot, who drew a line between the start and the end of each day's travel. The pilot factored in his observations of wind and current and leeway and basically took an educated guess.

Perlmutter puzzled over the expression "torleta of the ancients." Maybe it was a loose translation, meaning that the plotting board was an old one, which would fit if it were the original on the Nina.

He went on with his reading. Columbus had made a smooth Atlantic crossing. By June 26, he was south of Hispanola, one day to become the countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic with its capital at the settlement of Santo Domingo, which Columbus founded. Perlmutter again saw the problem Ortega had with the document. Columbus was supposedly cruising the Caribbean at a time he had been dead for more than a month. Perlmutter grinned with pleasure. He wasn't going to let a small technicality spoil his enjoyment of this wonderful yarn just as things were getting interesting.

He unrolled a map of the Caribbean next to the letter to trace the ship's course. The Nina threaded Hispanola and Cuba and sailed toward Jamaica, where Columbus had been stranded with his crew on his previous voyage. The log jumped back to a description of that unhappy time.

My ship headed south and west, bypassing Santo Domingo with a good northeast wind in our sails, for three days. It was on the island here four years before that the people told me of the plan called Cigure and its abundance of gold when the women wear pearls and coral, and the houses are tiled in precious metal. The natives told me then that the ships of these people are large and the inhabitants of this land wear rich clothing and art used to a good living. That then are gold nuggets as big and plentiful as beans.

Here was proof that the Lord uses the tiniest of creatures to carry out His will because it was in this strange land, on my previous crossing, farther than any has gone before that the ships of my High Voyage came apart from the depredations of the toredo, the shipworm. We were marooned for more than a year. But it was during my confinement on this island prison that the veil was lifted from my understanding and I saw a clear path to the riches that I have sought for Castile all these years.

 
Diego Mendez, the brother of one of my captains, set offf in a canoe to seek help in Hispanola, five hundred miles away.
 
In his

absence the Indians he had befriended changed in their hearts and refused to trade for provisions as agreed. I feared this seas

God's retribution, his punishment for my part in the deaths of the five, for although I did not raise a hand I gave them up to the Brothers.

 
I got down an my knees and prayed for forgiveness and vowed to make many pilgrimages to the Holy Land and give up all that I found in His cause. He heard my prayer, and made
 
me to remember that from my copy of Regiomantanus that there should be an eclipse of the moon. I told the Indians and their
 
chief that my God seas displeased with them and would make the moon die. When the moon disappeared in shadow the Indians
 
were much afraid and restored our provisions so I should make it live again. The chief said he was grateful arid would make sun
 
to please my God by showing me the way to gold. He took me to
 
the east end of the island. Here in a temple as fine as any palace
 
in Europe he showed me a "talking stone,' carved with figures, which he said showed else way to a great treasure.

Perlmutter had read in Ortega's book about the eclipse episode. It showed how resourceful Columbus could be. But what was this equally odd tale of a talking stone?

The narrator had similar questions.

 
For many weeks I puzzled over the meaning of this strange stone. I perceived it to be a map of the coast I discovered, but the

other writings and marks would not yield their secrets Once backin Spain I took it to learned men who said it was a navigational

device but knew not the strange writing. Then it came to me as a simple sailor. That this was a torleta used by the ancients to find their way. The stone being unwieldy, I had charts made of its markings and set as I said above on my ,fifth voyage, vowing
 
to

find some who could understand the strange writing.

That explained the references to the torleta of the ancients. It was apparently a stone tablet, a large and heavy one from the description, carved in a way to indicate it had been used for navigation. Since Columbus couldn't use the stone without explanation, it must not have been a map in the conventional sense. The letter returned to the fifth voyage account.

August 10

We
 
continued westerly, favored by good winds as before. And now at last we are anchored off a shore more distant than any

man has gone. The native people we have talked to have said that there is more gold nearby than we can ever imagine. l think

I am close to the treasure of King Solomon. I am not wel having been made ill and weak once more by the heat and disease, but feel the gold to be near and ask your Majesty that when I return with these mountains of gold and precious levels I be allowed to make a pilgrimage to Rome and Jerusalem. I will write no more until I have the gold in my possession . . .

The next entry was dated two days later. The script was written in a firmer hand.

The Admiral is gone! When the crew arose at dawn we found that a small boat had disappeared and that the Admiral's cabin is empty. Gone too are his maps. I have sent ashore a party to search for him, and they found the boat, but they were driven back to the ship by
 
group of natives who showered then with arrows. Alas I fear the Admiral is dead, killed by these ungodly savages! We shall wait safely offshore, but unless we see a sign that he lives, we must soon weigh anchor and will sail to Hispanola to seek help. God bless the Admiral of the Ocean Sea.

Signed this day by Alonso Mendez, apprentice pilot.

Perlmutter tapped his plump chin in thought. Columbus was clearly delirious in his last hours. Solomon's gold indeed! He wondered off what shore the Nina was anchored. He consulted the map again. Sailing westerly from Jamaica would have put him into Central America. Anywhere from Mexico's Yucatan peninsula down to Belize or Honduras if he were a few degrees off. When he had more time he would go over the daily observations and see if he could plot an exact course to its end.

Columbus took his maps and charts with him, but what became of the stone? Perlmutter shook his head, amused at how he had let himself be pulled into the story. He was acting as if the document he had just finished reading were real when it might be no more historically meaningful than a challenging crossword puzzle.

But what if the document were the real thing?

What relevance might it have to the modernday melodrama Austin had told him about, with blackclad bands of assassins dashing about killing innocent archeologists? What was that odd reference to the "death of the five"? Columbus apparently felt so guilty about his involvement in this . incident that he thought his marooning was divine punishment. Perlmutter decided to go through the letter again in case there was something he missed. Then he would start digging into his own library.