The Moor's Account (45 page)

Mendoza had all of the gold of Tenochtitlán, I thought, and yet he wanted more. In my younger years, such greed would have seemed ordinary to me, desirable even, but nowadays I found it only distasteful and destructive. It was greed that had led me to leave the notary's life for the trader's life, it was greed that had convinced me to sell men into slavery, and it was greed that had led the three hundred men of the Narváez expedition to perish in La Florida.

Do you remember, Mendoza asked, the story you told us some months ago?

Dorantes and I glanced at each other. We had told many stories of our adventures at the dinner parties to which we had been invited and some of these stories had acquired a few embellishments along the way. So we could not be sure which one the viceroy had in mind.

With a smile, Mendoza said: You said that the Indians in the permanent settlements north of Nueva Galicia often spoke about cities that shine brightly in the sun so that a visitor, standing from afar, must look away from the light reflecting on their gates or risk blindness. These must be the Seven Cities.

Your Highness means to send an expedition?

Yes, but it is a small one. Two friars, some horses, a detachment of Amigos. Nothing too large or complicated. A man of your experience should not find it too difficult.

It is not difficult, Dorantes said cautiously, and I would offer to go were it not for the fact that our ordeal in La Florida and beyond has left me with no desire to explore new lands. Have you considered Capitán Castillo?

Indeed I have. But—how shall I put this?—he seems to me to be a little soft. He was, what, eighteen or nineteen when you left Seville? He has spent nearly a third of his life with the Indians, and it seems to me he is far too biased in their favor.

I know not what to say, Your Highness. Castillo is a faithful servant of the Crown.

Oh, no doubt. He is a good man. I just do not believe he would be appropriate for the mission I have in mind. I thought you would be better suited.

Your Highness flatters me. But, as I said, the thought of exploring new territory is not one I can contemplate for myself at the moment.

Perhaps we might come to a different understanding, then? I am told that the Indian women you brought with you have finished their Christian instruction. They will make appropriate guides for this mission. But I would also need someone who can help the friars and horsemen cross the northern lands in safety, someone with the kind of power you wielded when you lived among the savages. A sort of ambassador, if you will. Someone like your Esteban.

I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand. Was this the stroke of good fortune promised by my discovery of the khamsa? Could it be that the very thing I had once dreaded might allow me to return to freedom?

But Dorantes replied: How generous of Your Highness to think of him. But Estebanico has been with me for ten years now and I am so attached to him I have never considered selling him. As for the women, they are needed to attend to my household, and I prefer for them to stay here in the capital, where they might be able to receive further guidance from the church.

As you wish, the viceroy said. But know that His Majesty will look most kindly on those who serve him in his hour of need.

Mendoza walked us out to the palace courtyard. When they saw him approach, the sentinels straightened up and clicked their heels. A group of swallows were taking turns swooping down into the water fountain for a drink. The sun was high in the sky, and the viceroy tilted his face toward it, soaking up the warmth. Another beautiful day, he said. Then he added, almost as an afterthought: Do you remember Doña María de la Torre? The kind lady in the black silk dress at the banquet last week? She
inherited an encomienda from her husband—quite large, fifteen hundred Indians. I would be most pleased to make introductions.

I
T WAS A WARM EVENING
in summer. Castillo and I were sitting in the patio, under the canopy of white bougainvillea that grew on the gallery rails. From the city square came the faint sound of music, fiddles and drums played for the entertainment of passersby. But the house was dark and quiet; the servants had not yet begun to prepare dinner. Castillo had just returned from a walk to Lake Tezcuco with Doña Isabel, a lady he had met at one of the viceroy's dinners. Now he slipped off his black shoes and white hose, and vigorously rubbed his left foot between the toes of his right, satisfying an itch or a rash. How I hate wearing socks, he complained.

Why wear them if you do not like them? I asked.

He shrugged. I have to. I cannot walk around the capital barefoot, you know.

Something crackled under the lavender bushes and one of the greyhounds at my feet lifted its head, but, sensing nothing, went back to sleep. Did you enjoy the walk? I asked.

I did, Castillo said. Doña Isabel sailed all the way from Castile to be with her husband, the alderman of the city, but not six months later he was killed, leaving her alone in New Spain. She has no family here in the capital, only friends she has made since her arrival.

Like you, then?

Yes. And she is from Tordesillas, not far from Salamanca.

Castillo's face was concealed by the darkness, but from his voice I sensed his excitement at the acquaintance he had made. In the bushes, the grasshoppers began to sing. A candle was lit at the kitchen window, as if the house had opened one eye and was watching us.

What about Kewaan? I asked after a moment.

Nothing will change between us, he said earnestly. This is different.

Everything was different in New Spain, I thought. Cabeza de Vaca had left. Dorantes was rarely home now; he was courting the widow de la Torre, to whom the viceroy had introduced him. The chair that he normally occupied sat between us now, empty. The memory of that day with the Carancahuas, when I had woken up to find he had escaped without us, returned to me all of a sudden. I asked Castillo: Did you ever talk to Dorantes about the notary?

Castillo ran his tongue on his lips. He looked so much older now than when I had first met him and, although he had always been very thin, our prolonged stay in Tenochtitlán had filled out his narrow frame to the point that he had become portly. With his eyes to the ground, he said: I asked Dorantes several times why he would not sign your papers, Estebanico.

And what did he say?

That it was none of my concern.

Reader, I should not have been surprised by this retort, but I was. I think there was still some small part of me that stubbornly held on to the belief that Dorantes had been changed forever by our common experience in the Land of the Indians. We had been hungry together. We had shivered in the cold together. We had worked side by side for the Carancahuas and side by side we had tried to heal the Indians in the Land of Corn. But whatever transformation had taken place within him had slowly been undone by his prolonged stay in the capital, where there was endless talk of money and power.

B
Y THE TIME
the fall season started, Dorantes announced that he would marry the widow de la Torre. Castillo, too, decided that Doña Isabel, and her estate, were a good match for him. The three men I had once thought of as brothers were moving on: they were seeking royal grants, or getting married, or acquiring estates, forgetting everything that we had been through in the north. But I did not have the luxury to put the past behind me. I had made the mistake of once again placing my fate in the hands of another man and I had to find a way out.

I was sitting with my greyhounds by the window one afternoon when Dorantes came in. He began to chatter about the expedition that the viceroy was preparing. It was to be led by a young man named Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, and it would include a friar from France, a certain Marco de Niza, and several hundred Aztecs. The viceroy had once again asked Dorantes to sell me to him so that he could use me as a scout.

And what did you say? I asked.

I refused, of course, Dorantes said.

Outside, the shadows of the orange trees had begun to lengthen; it would be dark soon. The lavender bushes swayed in the wind. Dead leaves eddied across the courtyard.

But the Seven Cities of Gold, I said. What an incredible opportunity!

It is, he sighed.

And if the friar and I manage to reach them, just imagine what we will find. You would have a claim to all those riches.

The thought of the Seven Cities silenced Dorantes for a long while. All his fantasies of gold and glory returned to him and he found them hard to resist. Perhaps he could have a second chance at making them come true. Perhaps he could finally receive the rewards that had been promised to him when he was a younger man in Seville. Perhaps he could become famous for a success, rather than a failure.

Turning away from the window, I added: Besides, who could refuse an offer from the viceroy of New Spain?

No one, he replied.

Dorantes was lost in thought, weighing the alternatives that had been presented to him: keep me with him in Mexico, where he faced the daily drudgery of running an estate; or send me to the north, where fortune might smile on him. From above the fireplace, the king of Castile watched us with equanimity, confident in the knowledge that, whatever the outcome, his share was secure.

You are right, he said at last. You must go.

I looked at his face—the scar on his right cheek, the lines around his eyes that had deepened over the years, the gray hair on his temples and beard. Now he started to chew his lower lip. I wondered if he had ever learned to read the expressions on my face the way I had learned to read his. I suspected he had not or he would have realized that I was finally going to set myself free.

C
OME
, I
SAID
. C
OME
. Oyomasot smelled of lavender—a new scent on her, a scent acquired from living in this guesthouse—but I loved it, for it mixed together the memory of old and new, past and present. From very far away came the sound of horns, celebrating one imperial triumph or another, but in the bedroom it was very quiet, the only sound the ruffling of her dress. I unlaced her corset, but when finally I freed her of it, Oyomasot still turned away from me. What is it? I asked.

Are you sure your plan will work?

Yes.

You have made promises before.

It will be different this time, I said. You will see.

I left Tenochtitlán in the year 945 of the Hegira. Once again, I was part of an expedition to the farther reaches of the empire, surrounded by a governor, friars, and horsemen. But this time there were no soldiers or settlers—no soldiers because the viceroy did not want to pay their salaries without the certainty of profit, and no settlers because he did not wish to put civilian lives at risk just yet. Instead, he had sent with us more than a hundred Amigos, who would carry supplies, set up our camp, cook our meals, fight any hostiles, and generally do what needed to be done. The Amigos were Aztecs who had allied with the Crown of Castile against other Aztecs—and for this betrayal they had earned the privilege of losing their tribe's true name, replacing it with a common and unthreatening Spanish noun. Whatever their talents, the Amigos could not know what lay beyond the range of mountains that bordered Nueva Galicia; nor did the newly appointed governor, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, or the two friars, Father Marco and Father Onorato. They were all venturing into the unknown, unaware of the landscape, unfamiliar with the people, and ignorant of the languages.

Except for the forty horses Coronado had brought and the mules the friars rode, most of our company trudged on foot, burdened by baskets of provisions. So our progress was slow. Having been idle in the capital for so long, it took me a while to get used to day-long marches again, but I walked resolutely toward the north, pausing only when the governor complained that it was time for a break from the heat. At such moments, while he dabbed the sweat from his face with a white lace handkerchief, I shed some of my clothing. I took off the too warm doublet first, and
later the frilly shirt, and later yet the uncomfortable shoes and tight belt.

Four weeks into the journey, when we had just crossed into the province of Nueva Galicia, we came across a group of Indian slaves, thirty of them shackled together with irons, shuffling quickly to keep up with the two Castilian horsemen who were riding on either side of them. One of the horsemen squinted at us with great curiosity. His face was wrinkled and darkened by the sun, and his hair was white. The other, younger and taller, was indifferent. He chewed on a blade of grass and waited, his hands resting on the pommel of his saddle.

The governor opened his right arm, in a gesture that took in the slaves and their drivers. Where might you be going? he asked.

To the capital, the older horseman said. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, as if he had just taken a sip from his flask.

The different groups of Indians, brought here by different groups of Castilians, stared at one another with envy, pity, or contempt. Envy came from the shackled Indian slaves; pity from my wife and others in our party; and contempt from the Amigos, who thought that their station guaranteed they could never be reduced to slavery. I had felt both the envy and the pity at some time in my life, but I could not allow myself the luxury of contempt. I knew only too well how precious and how fragile a man's freedom was.

You must undo their shackles, Father Marco said.

They are slaves, Father, the younger one replied. And then, as if suddenly aware he was addressing a friar, he took out the blade of grass from his mouth. They will run away, he said.

You cannot enslave them, Coronado said.

Who says we cannot?

His Majesty, you fool.

The two men looked at each other across the heads of their slaves. What are we supposed to do for money? the younger one asked.

For a few moments, Coronado watched them in silence. Then he said, I am the new governor.