VOYAGE OF STRANGERS (10 page)

“Truly, Diego,” Rachel told me, “I am happy to do so, and not only because they are all so kind to me that I long to repay them in any way I can. Aldonza is so sweet, and her illness is so frightening. Today at the market she could scarce draw a breath, and when she did, she wheezed like an ill-made bellows. She fretted so that she was drenched in sweat, try as I might
to reassure her that I didn’t mind and that her sisters would lose none of their pleasure through her falling ill except by their concern for her. I was so relieved when the fit passed. And then I sang to her, for she loves music and cannot sing herself, for she so easily becomes short of breath.”

“You are a good soul, Rachel,” I said, tucking an errant curl back under her cap.

“The Espinosas’ is a happy house, is it not, Diego?”

“Yes, indeed. Matters could not have fallen out any better. Once the Admiral arrives, I will not be able to spend much time with you, but I will be easy in my mind, knowing you are not only well cared for, but loved.”

“Ours was a happy house, was it not, Diego?” she said wistfully.

“It was indeed.” I put my arm around her and squeezed her shoulders. “And you shall have a happy home again in Italy, once you are restored to Papa and Mama.”

“I don’t want to go to Italy!” I felt her stiffen within the curve of my arm. “I want to go with you.”

“Rachel, you cannot.” It distressed me to hear that she had still had not given up her wild notion of shipping with us. “It is impossible. Besides, do you not wish to see Mama and Papa and relieve their anxiety?”

“I long to see Mama and Papa, and the girls too,” she said. “But surely they know I am with you by now. You have sent so many messages!”

Indeed, I had sent messages from Barcelona to Firenze, in care of prominent Jews there who were known to be in favor with the Medici rulers of the city. I had sent another letter off by an Espinosa caravan that departed for Italy two days after our arrival in Seville. I hoped by the same means to dispatch Rachel herself before the Admiral’s fleet sailed, if I could not find her a sure means of transport by sea.

“They will not be content,” I said, “until they can see you with their own eyes and hold you in their arms.”

“I don’t wish to cause Mama and Papa pain,” she said. “How can you think it? They have suffered enough. But I long to see the world before I settle down.”

I had to laugh to hear her talk of settling down. Her thirteenth birthday took place during our first week in Seville, and the Espinosas made of it a great occasion, with feasting and presents.

“You are not a Rom or an
infanta
, to be married before you leave childhood behind,” I said. “And you will see more of the world on the journey to Firenze than if we had never left Seville.”

“You chose to sail with Admiral Columbus rather than accompany the rest to Italy,” she said. “Why can you not understand?”

“It is you who don’t understand,” I said. “I have my way to make in the world. Papa no longer has his fortune, so it is up to me to restore our family to prosperity. Your work has already been set, to be a good wife and mother when the time comes.”

“Dull work indeed!” She jerked her shoulders away and presented her hunched back to me. “Would it content you to do the same, with no other occupation or adventure?”

I deemed it time to change the subject.

“Where do you and the other girls go this afternoon?”

“To the Cathedral, to confession.” She made a face. “I wish I had not to pretend with them. Do you think they guess?”

“I cannot say. They surely must know that Doña Marina is
converso
, but they treat her like any other Christian.”

“And so she is,” Rachel said. “She has been truly happy to be able to attend Mass with the family. I would like to think they like us for ourselves, and that it would make no difference.”

“We cannot put it to the test,” I said. “It is too dangerous.”

“We have had no danger since we arrived here.” Rachel sighed. “I might as well be back at the convent.”

I had to laugh. But it was a great relief to see Rachel well guarded and in the company of suitable companions. The steward Pancho, armed with a stout cudgel, accompanied the girls on their excursions afoot, or else one of the brothers, Eulalia’s
novio
Roberto, or I escorted them. They usually went no further than the great Plaza de San Francisco, around which the Cathedral, the Alcazar, and the Archbishop’s Palace were clustered. Most beautiful of these was the Alcazar. Now the royal palace, it had been built by the Moors as a fort. Its slender bell tower, La Giralda, had been a minaret, from which their muezzins, not so different from our Jewish cantors, called the Muslims to prayer. The great building was rich with marble, soaring arches, and stone so lacy it might have been living vines and flowers. But in the shadow of these great buildings, unsavory folk loitered: beggars, thieves armed with knives, tricksters with marked cards and loaded dice with which they hoped to gull the unwary, and peddlers of produce who could be counted on to give short weight or rotten fruit to any foolish enough to offer them coin.

“I am to wear Graciela’s farthingale to church,” Rachel said. “We had better take only the widest streets, or I will be sure to get stuck. The hoop is so wide that the skirts above it catch the wind, like the sails of a ship.”

“It is well that you don’t mind when Adelina and the others dress you like a lady and call you a little princess.”

“Oh, they love to dress me up,” she said. “It gives them pleasure.”

“Will you deny it gives you pleasure too? I heard the gales of laughter coming from your chamber this morning.”

“Of course it is pleasant to wear ribbons and lace and look one’s best,” she said. “But it is not my
life
.”

Chapter Thirteen

Seville, June 1-July 15, 1493

I looked daily for Admiral Columbus’s arrival in Seville. But the Queen took such keen interest in the preparations for the voyage and the planning of the trading colony in Hispaniola that she would not part with him before going over every detail a dozen times with the Admiral himself. In the meantime, the Sovereigns appointed the Archdeacon of Seville, Don Juan de Fonseca, to be responsible along with the Admiral for the preparations for our departure. I learned as much upon reaching Seville, for all talked of nothing else in the streets and taverns. Fonseca, who was the Archbishop’s nephew, had set up his headquarters in his uncle’s palace on the Plaza de San Francisco. Once I had seen Rachel settled and spent enough time with the Espinosa brothers to feel guilty about remaining idle, I reported to him, certain that he could find a use for me and eager for fresh news about the Admiral and our progress.

Don Juan greeted me without surprise, having already heard of me. Royal couriers traveled constantly between Barcelona and Seville. Admiral Columbus himself had suggested the Archdeacon employ me. Fonseca was a small, wiry man with a high forehead and thin lips that were always moving slightly, as if he never ceased calculating  sums or reviewing lists of provisions. Or perhaps he w
as praying, although he didn’t seem to devote much of his time to religious duties. As the Admiral would provide the experience, having already experienced both voyage and exploration, Fonseca would supply the organization necessary to equip the fleet. He had a herculean task before him. It had been decided to outfit no less than seventeen ships, which might carry a thousand men or more, along with horses, domestic animals, and implements of all kinds for both farming and mining, when the settlement should be established and the gold mine found.

The Archdeacon was pleased to learn I wrote a fair hand and put me at once to copying lists, invoices, and agreements with the local merchants. We needed great quantities of biscuit, oil, and wine, salt pork and beef, metal breastplates, muskets, crossbows, and a host of other necessities. Don Juan wished every item accounted for in triplicate. His passionate pride in his gift for provisioning matched the Admiral’s pride in his ski
ll at navigation. If he didn’t personally inspect every cask and barrel, it was solely for the inability of even a prince of the Church to cram more than twenty-four hours into a day. He had to purchase the ships themselves, at a price that would not beggar the expedition, as well as hire all the sailors, soldiers, craftsmen, and farmers and calculate their wages. These were the Admiral’s tasks as well, but Fonseca said many times a day that if he waited for Columbus to finish dallying with Their Majesties, the fleet would not be ready to sail before next spring.

The Espinosas declared themselves sorry to lose my company, as the Archdeacon demanded more and more of my time. They never ceased trying, half in jest, to persuade me to shirk my duties and join in their pleasures. To console them, I offered to approach Fonseca on their behalf. They ended in getting a substantial contract for oil, which pleased them greatly, although the Archdeacon drove such a shrewd bargain that I was left uncertain whether I had after all done them a favor.

Applicants for places in the expedition began to gather in Seville and in Cadiz, the port city at the mouth of the Guadalquivir, some fifty miles away. There was no shortage of volunteers. The year before, we had sailed into the unknown with hearts as filled with dread as with hope, knowing we might never see land again, no less make our way home. But now the case was very different. In the end, two hundred gentlemen volunteers took ship with us, along with priests and even a physician. I could have done without the priests, who would surely make it harder for me to say my prayers up in the crow’s nest, as I had done on the first voyage. Their mission was to convert the Taino, but I had no doubt their zeal for sniffing out heresy would make the journey with them.

Every day I brought home to the Espinosas’ a budget of news and fresh tales.
Some I shared with the family at large, others only with Rachel.

“Fifty
caballeros
on fine horses arrived today, sent by the Queen,” I told them one day. “Did you not see them parading in the Plaza?”

“Why, that is sixteen for each of us,” Graciela exclaimed. “Eulalia doesn’t need one, as she already has a
novio.
”

“Your mathematics is at fault,” Paquito said. “Fifty divided by three makes fifteen and two-thirds. Will you cut your last two
caballeros
up like a cow at the butcher’s, to make them come out even?”

“I saw them parading by along the Calle Sierpes,” Leon said. “They made a fine sight.”

“Faustino came along five minutes later,” Horacio said, “and encountered only their leavings. You may smell his boots if you don’t believe me.”

Faustino lunged at Horacio, and the two scuffled on the floor, while their sisters gave squeaks of mock alarm, laughing as they did so.

“Adelina and Graciela may divide my
caballeros
between them,” Aldonza said. “I am happy to save them from being butchered, and I don’t wish for a
novio
.”

“A convent, then, sweet one?” Paquito tweaked one of her auburn curls. “Your sisters are not good enough, but you may be our little saint if you wish.”

“No convent either,” Aldonza said. “I wish to stay with Mama and Papa always.”

“And so you may, pet,” Adelina said, kissing her cheek. The brothers ceased their horseplay, and all regarded Aldonza with affection.

Another day, I told them that weapons, armor, powder, and shot were coming in from as far away as Malaga and Granada, as well as from the royal artillery in Seville. The Espinosas thought nothing of it, except to remark that I would be well protected. But when Rachel and I were alone, I expressed my reservations.

“The Queen has said we are to treat the Taino well,” I said. “And none deny that they are a gentle and peace-loving people. Why, then, must we carry so many crossbows and muskets across the Ocean Sea? Why must every soldier wear a metal cuirass?”

“It may be,” Rachel said, “from fear that you may encounter fiercer tribes. We have heard the Caribe are more warlike and that the Canibale are disposed to eat their own kind.”

“Rachel, none of them have a shred of metal beyond the soft gold ornaments they wear and nuggets such as those they gave us, which they keep as trinkets. They have no iron, no steel. When shown our swords, they took hold of them by the blade and cut themselves sorely, so ignorant are they of weapons. When they hunt, they use sharpened spears of wood and arrows tipped with sharpened fish bones. Besides, any man will speak ill of his enemies. My friend Hutia admitted to me that the Caribe and the Taino are equally gentle, or equally warlike, in each other’s eyes, and that it is a common insult, a kind of jest, to say one’s neighbor eats people.”

“Against wild animals, then,” Rachel suggested. “A musket or crossbow would be protection against, let us say, a wild boar.”

“There are none,” I said. “Neither boar nor any other animal larger than a manatee.”

“What is a manatee?”

“A gentle creature like a porpoise, but bigger and less shapely. The Taino hunt the manatee for food and also the hutia, which is a kind of rodent, larger than the biggest rat.”

“Why is your friend called Hutia?”

“He is quick. The hutia runs very fast, as it must if it is to escape the cooking pot.”