Paradise & More (Torres Family Saga) (14 page)

      
“You and Luis must ask their leader if he will meet with us tomorrow. I like not leaving us open to attack if we sleep on the beaches, even though they seem friendly enough. Besides, if they see us perform nature's functions, we may all too soon appear mere mortals to them,” Colon said with the gentle irony he was wont to display at times. “Now they think we come from the skies, according to what Luis has ascertained.”

      
“I will see what I can make Aliyah understand,” Aaron said with a smile.

      
By the time dusk came and the landing party was ready to board the ships in the cove, Luis, Aaron, and Rigo Escobedo, the royal secretary, had proved most adept at sign language. The natives responded to their queries with simple, honest answers. While they attempted to communicate, Aaron felt Aliyah's eyes on him. Recalling his own words to Cosa about being so long without a woman that a man's reason might desert him, he steeled himself to act in an exemplary manner toward her. She was obviously a noblewoman of some import among the primitives, apparently from a distant island. He was not sorry to bid good even to their new-found friends and return to the
Santa Maria
for the night. Ignoring her lithesome body and blatant sexual invitations had grown increasingly difficult.

      
Once aboard, the admiral summoned the officers and other officials to his quarters to discuss what they had learned.

      
“They certainly like well enough the same trading trinkets used with the Africans,” Martin Alonzo Pinzón said with satisfaction.

      
He and his brother, Vicente Yañez, also a veteran of the coastal trade, nodded his agreement. “For a few hawk's bells, we can obtain a piece of fine gold jewelry.”

      
“Yes, but what we must learn is the source of the gold. Do they mine it or trade for it?” the ever practical Escobedo asked.

      
“Most vital of all, is the gold given out at the source of their government? How far are we from the great cities where Marco Polo saw the very roofs covered with it?” the admiral asked, his pale eyes aglow with visions of presenting his sovereigns' greetings at the throne of the Khan himself.

      
“The head man seems to be telling us that this is but a tiny island outpost of little value. The big island they call by a name I cannot pronounce, but it sounds like Cipangu. It is only a few days journey in the dugout boats,” Luis interjected.

      
“They travel from island to island a great deal, I think,” Aaron said speculatively. “From what I could gather from Aliyah, her home, where a very large village or city is situated, is due south and slightly east of here. I had her use pebbles to make a map of sorts. They travel across a long string of tiny atolls, using them to sleep at night and as food and water stations. Thus they journey to her brother's city. He is the great chief of the primitives.”

      
“And you would meet him?” Colon asked.

      
Aaron nodded shrewdly, “If we could train these young people to understand Castilian and act as interpreters, we could learn where we are and where lies the mainland.”

      
“The mainland and the gold,” Martin interjected baldly.

      
Later that night as the moon rose, Aaron stood on the quarterdeck, gazing at the stars hung in silvery splendor over the black lushness of palms and dense foliage.

      
“You think deeply,” Cristobal said, knowing his young friend had something on his mind.

      
“Now that you are proven right and we have found the outer islands of the Indies, how long do you intend to remain here to explore?” Aaron asked.

      
Colon joined him leaning on the railing. “I would sail for the mainland, but,” he shrugged, “it is difficult to know how many small islands such as this we will encounter. If the accounts of travelers to Cathay I have read are true, there may be thousands. We could explore for many months.”

      
Aaron grimaced at the prospect of more months at sea. “I will be skin and bones. Cristobal. In the still waters of this cove, this is the first night and day I have been free of that infernal headache.”

      
Colon's lips quirked a bit. “And you think travel by dugout preferable to travel by ship? It will be a difficult feat to return to Palos thus.”

      
“Would that I could,” the younger man sighed. “But that is not my purpose. If I remain with these primitives and let them guide me to the big island, I will have all those weeks, mayhap months, while you are making charts and exploring. I can learn their language and find out the sources of their gold, perhaps the key to the mainland's location, or the great island of Cipangu. If two or three of them would go with you, we could meet at the village of their great chief when you have finished your search.”

      
“Is this a brave dedication, a terror of the seasickness, or the lovely Aliyah who makes you think of this plan?”

      
Now Aaron's lips quirked into a grin. “Perhaps a bit of all three.”

      
“I will consider it,” was the judicious reply.

* * * *

October 15, 1492

My Dearest Father,

This land and its people are truly wonders, natural and unspoiled. The admiral has ordered me to remain with the Taino people, as the island primitives are called. I am to learn their ways, their language and their routes of travel about the islands of the Indies. Already we have journeyed by a marvelous boat, a long wooden tree hollowed out, like those on the African coast. Some of the larger Taino
canoas,
as these people call their dugouts, hold seventy people and can travel great distances. We have moved from island to island, and I find the respite on solid land each night greatly preferable to sleeping on a pitching ship. The Tainos have a splendid device in which they sleep in comfort. They weave a cotton net and tie the two ends between trees, allowing a man to lie suspended on the
hamaca
so that the breezes may cool him and his body be spared the hard earth. A most marvelous invention!

      
I can scarce await the final leg of our journey to the great island where their overlord rules. I am given to understand, as much as I can communicate in their tongue and they in mine, that this island is divided among several overlords. I believe their main village is located on the north coast (although you know me to be no navigator!) I shall report on further wonders when we arrive.

      
Aaron paused as Aliyah walked quietly up to him and then sat with unconscious grace on the sand at his side. He had not made mention of her to his father, he thought ruefully, knowing his mother and sister would likely read all he wrote. Benjamin might understand, but Serafina and Ana must be protected.

      
She watched him carefully cork his ink bottle and wrap his writing supplies in the oiled skin pouch he guarded so carefully.

      
Aaron had not found it difficult to convey the significance of reading and writing to the Taino. They possessed rather sophisticated pictorial symbols with which they adorned their
canoas
, their pottery, even the walls of caves, leaving a historical record of their society. They were intrigued, however, that he could communicate so rapidly by means of his scratchings. He was learning their language a bit at a time. The soft vowel sounds were difficult for European ears to distinguish. So, often he communicated by signs when vocabulary failed.

      
Aliyah was very adept at sign language. Ever since they had begun their journey three days ago she had been his shadow, shooing away the guards sent to protect her and making overt sexual blandishments toward him that he could not ignore. Apparently, there were no rules governing chastity for Taino women. He had watched the other girls of their party bed with various of their own men, switching partners each night.

      
Only Aliyah held aloof from the activity, refusing other offers and playing cat and mouse with him. Desperate as he was for sexual release and attractive as he found her, Aaron was not at all certain he enjoyed being the mouse to her cat. Also, he was an officer of the fleet, and as such, a representative of the crown, and she was the daughter of a
cacique
, a headman of some importance.

      
Dusk on this third night began to envelope them in its balmy embrace and her nearness stirred him. If only they could communicate more clearly and he understood what lying with her might mean in terms of commitment.

      
Aliyah placed her hand on his chest and felt his heart thud. A slow smile played about her lips. After much coaxing, she had cajoled him to shed the strange hot cloth he wore above his waist, although he still insisted on the coverings for his lower body. Never would he relinquish the leather belt with its strange metal weapons that cut, but such was a warrior's prerogative. In time she was confident she could get him to wear only the sharp spears and abandon the rest of his foolish tight garments. Already the pale skin beneath that mysteriously furred chest grew darker as sun and wind touched it. How she longed to see the rest of his splendid body!

      
Her clever, soft fingers glided to the tight lacings at his waist and she began to untie them. Aaron froze and his hand shot up, closing over hers as he looked around the clearing to where other men and the handful of women sat at several small fires. Others lay stretched out on the soft sand. No one seemed to be paying any attention to Aliyah and him. The two older men who were the
cacique's
guards charged with protecting her were occupied eating the last of the roasted meat from the evening meal. Apparently, they had abandoned all attempts to watch over her. He stood up, pulling her with him. Then scooping up his dress cloak, now rather the worse for wear, he led her around a curve of the beach to a secluded spot and spread the cape on the sand.

      
“Now,” he said with a smile, placing her hand at the lacings of his hose. She immediately comprehended and began to unfasten them as he unbuckled his sword belt and tossed it and his dirk onto the ground close at hand. Cupping a full, bronzed breast in each palm, he let his thumbs rub over the dark brown nipples. She arched into his caress and the tips of the large globes hardened and contracted.

      
Unfamiliarity with European clothing was all that kept her from stripping him with great haste. She uttered several words, expletives in her tongue, Aaron was certain, when the lacings knotted beneath her eager fingers. He helped her complete the task, then felt his breath leave him when she boldly reached inside his hose and freed his straining sex, caressing it with practiced hands.

      
About to lose control and spill his seed, Aaron took her skillful hands and removed them, then pulled her down to his cloak. He sat up and yanked off his boots and peeled down his hose. All the while Aliyah watched in fascination. The combination of frank sexual curiosity and childlike wonder was oddly familiar. The little Valdés witch had displayed much the same traits of eagerness and surprise, yet Magdalena's strange vulnerability and hesitance were absent in Aliyah. She reached out and pulled him toward her, letting her hands caress his body.

      
She stared in amazement at the difference in coloring of his skin. The sun had begun to bronze his upper body, while his lower half was starkly white in contrast. Always his body hair fascinated her. She traced the thick golden mat from his chest in its narrowed descent over his flat belly to where it blossomed thickly around his groin.

      
A smile twitched at his lips even as he fought the frissons of ecstasy her touch evoked. She handled his phallus, examining it as a Toledo steelmaker might a finely honed sword. Her eyes rose to meet his with an unspoken question. “Yes, I am different than your men,” he said, then groaned as she stroked the hardened shaft. “Well, perhaps not all that different,” he whispered raggedly, covering her soft flesh with his body.

      
He kissed her face and brow, traced his lips about her ear and temple, finding her hair amazingly fragrant. The Taino people were far cleaner than most Castilians, he observed as his mouth centered on hers for a deep, increasingly fierce kiss.

      
Aliyah had never had a lover such as the golden one from the sky, who worked such magic with his lips and hands. His body was wondrously different as well, with its patterns of crisp light furring. Even his planting stick, large and magnificent, stood smooth and proud, its tip uncovered without her touching it. He was truly magic!

      
Aaron watched her eyes open wide, then close in blissful surrender as her fingers curved around his shoulders and she pulled him close, her nails digging into the bunched muscles of his back. He felt her legs open wide for him, her hips arch in invitation. With an outrush of breath, he plunged into her wet warmth and felt her drawing him deeper into the vortex of passion.

      
He rode her fast and hard, oblivious of his surroundings, feeling only her fierce, joyous response as she wrapped her legs tightly about his hips and met each thrust.

      
Like a hot-blooded young stallion long held back from a mare in season, he quickly rode to a blinding climax. Then, as time and place returned, he feared he had disappointed her in his desperate need. Wounded green eyes flashed in his mind, filled with hurt puzzlement, but when he opened his eyes and gazed into Aliyah's brown ones, he saw an utter satiation that matched his own with its simple animal acceptance of a natural urge, well fulfilled.