VOYAGE OF STRANGERS (14 page)

On the road back to Seville, my desperate haste overmatched the mule’s stubbornness. The beast nearly achieved a gallop over the last few miles. As I neared the Espinosa home, I turned over in my mind ways to explain the need for our immediate departure that would neither arouse suspicion nor insult their hospitality.

I need not have fretted on that account.  The Espinosas had a new tragedy to bear. In my absence, the family had received word that the soldier son, Valerio, had been killed at Arras. Although the battle was long over and the occupation of the town complete, there were periodic skirmishes. During one of these, Valerio’s musket had exploded. These modern weapons were known to prove as dangerous on occasion to those who wielded them as to those who faced them. So it had been in poor Valerio’s case. The news, brought by a disabled soldier returning home, was several months old. This increased rather than diminished the distraught family’s horror and grief.

Doña Beatriz had taken to her bed, where she wept without cease, refusing to sleep or be comforted. She must have at least one of her remaining daughters at hand night and day, as if they might be snatched away if she relaxed her vigilance. Don Francisco had overnight become an old man who crept ghostlike through the house. The boys, too wretched to escape to their former distractions, clung to one another. In their black garments, they seemed like a flock of awkward crows in too small a cage as they fidgeted from room to room.

Rachel, white of face with eyes and nose swollen red from weeping, flung herself into my arms when I arrived.

“Diego, you must take me away
now
! We are only in the way.”

“Don’t worry, I have come to do just that. Dry your eyes. Pack what you can that is warm and small and valuable. Leave the farthingale and the fine laces behind. You will not need them.”

“Shall I dress in my travel garb?” Rachel asked. “The garments I wore on the road from Barcelona?”

“No, though you may bring them along. You may wear the disgraceful shirt and breeches you acquired in Barcelona and your cloak over that.”

Rachel’s wan face lit up at that.

“Diego! You are going to let me dress as a boy.”

“I can see no other choice,” I said, “since I cannot provide a chaperone for you in Cadiz. But this doesn’t mean you will have a boy’s freedom. Don Rodrigo comes south. Remember that he is the only person in all of Spain who knows you in those garments as a girl.”

“He has seen me in a dress as well,” she said.

“He must not see you at all,” I said. “Our lives depend on it. And I cannot mount guard over you. I must go about my duties as if nothing has changed.”

“I will be careful, I promise!”

“Ha’shem grant that this doesn’t prove to be the worst decision I have ever made.”

“It will not! It will not!” Rachel squeezed my waist in a bone-crushing hug. “How many mules may we take to Cadiz?”

“Two for us to ride and a single pack mule. But they must end in the Espinosas’ stables to await our aunt’s return. Why do you ask?”

“No reason. Will you take me on board Mariagalante while we stay in Cadiz? Surely I may at least
see
the Admiral’s flagship.”

Rachel always had a reason, however harebrained it might be. Leaving in the cold, damp gray of early morning, we had hardly rounded the first bend when she insisted we halt at the edge of an olive grove, where we found Amir, the Moorish boy, awaiting us.

“We must help him reach the coast, Diego.”

Rachel regarded me with clasped hands, sparkling eyes, and a determined chin while the boy, head bowed, awaited my reaction. From his demeanor, he expected my wrath, perhaps a blow. I knew that he was not the ringleader of this plot.

“He can ride behind me on Rosa,” she said. “He will pass as my servant when we enter Cadiz.”

“And then what?”

Hearing my tone, ironic rather than furious in spite of myself, Amir looked up, his face brightening.

“I will slip away as soon as we enter the city, master, and you need trouble yourself no more about me. I will find a fishing boat to take me east along the coast and thence to Gibraltar. From there, I will take passage to the Maghreb, where many of my people have fled. Or I may be fortunate to find a skiff that I can row myself.”

“And steal it?”

“If I must.”

Fierce pride warred with shame on his face, which had already lost the impassive expression of a slave.               I could not blame him for seeking any means to free himself. No one growing up in Seville, as I had, could avoid observing the traffic in human flesh and breathing its stench of misery and despair. Coffles of Moors from all the great Andalusian cities, made captive by successive conquests, were herded naked through the streets, chained to even blacker Africans, while auctioneers cried out their price. I feared the golden-skinned Taino would one day meet the same fate.

“Very well,” I said. “You may come.”

Rachel had already extended her hand to help Amir mount the mule behind her.

“I told you he would agree.” She flung me an impish grin and drove her heels into Rosa’s flanks. The mule belched and broke into a trot. “At heart, Diego, you are still Papa’s son.”

Chapter Seventeen

Cadiz, September 6, 1493

We entered Cadiz as the sun rose. The early light tinted the tumble of white houses that fell in tiers from the mountains to the harbor in a dozen pearly shades of rose and gold. In the market, stalls had already opened. We refreshed ourselves with fresh bread and coffee before making our way to the lodging house I had secured.

Rachel was in high spirits, trusting me to conquer any obstacles in our path. I suspected that because I had allowed her to don boys’ garments, she believed she would be permitted to join the fleet as well. I, on the contrary, had confidence that the Admiral would oppose any such outlandish venture. If she would not take “No” from me, she would be obliged to accept it from him.

“What do we do now?” Rachel asked when she had bounced on the narrow bed and approved the view from the small window with its glimpse of the harbor.

“First, we must cut your hair,” I said. “Then we must see Admiral Columbus.”

“Diego!” Rachel squealed. She flew at me and flung her arms around my waist, squeezing hard enough to leave me gasping. “You are going to let me come to the Indies! Oh, you are the best of brothers!”

“The most foolish of brothers to the point of madness,” I said, loosening her grip so that I could breathe. “But that doesn’t mean I consent to this folly. If Admiral Columbus agrees to take you on board, you may come with us. But don’t count your passage assured. He will refuse to lend himself to this deception, even if he thinks it may be done.”

“Must we tell him I am not a boy?” Rachel asked as I took my knife to her thick braid. “Can I not simply sign on as a gromet?”

“Impossible. We do nothing without the Admiral’s consent.”

If we practiced such a ruse without his consent and were discovered, she would suffer imprisonment and scorn. But I might lose my life at the rope’s end for having permitted it. I didn’t tell her that.

“There, it is done.” I handed her the severed braid.

She regarded it without regret.

“Let us burn it,” she said. “We don’t wish the landlord to grow curious. The Admiral will not report me to the Inquisition, will he? Or you for harboring me?”

“I am glad to know you have that much appreciation of the risks we face,” I said. “But no, I don’t think so. Admiral Columbus is a good man. I believe his old loyalty to Papa will outweigh his devotion to his faith. But don’t underestimate that devotion. He sees his mission to convert the Taino and bring Christianity to the Indies as a sacred one. You must never show any doubt of that unless we are alone.”

“I have that much sense,” Rachel said. “Don’t forget I was schooled in a convent. I can be a seeming Christian as well as you, if not better. Besides, we are not asking the Admiral to condone our remaining Jewish. We simply ask him to allow me to accompany you to the Indies.”

“In a fleet of seventeen ships and more than 1,200 men at last count with not a single woman.”

“I will not be a woman,” Rachel said.

I groaned.

“You cannot be a gromet,” I said. “The ship’s boys are too rough. You could not hold your own while maintaining your disguise.”

“Then I will be the Admiral’s page.”

“Are you willing to perform such duties as emptying his chamber pot each morning?”

“If I have charge of it,” Rachel pointed out, “I will be able to use it myself. You cannot say that I am not practical.”

“What about your courses?” Had I not older sisters, I would not have known enough to ask such a question.

“I don’t bleed yet,” she said, “and am not likely to begin on the voyage. Once we are ashore, I will contrive something when the moment arrives that I must. The Taino women must solve this problem every month.”

“The Taino women go naked,” I retorted, “and are no example for a well brought up Jewish girl.” How had she lured me into an extended debate about the details of a plan that would surely never be realized?

“You worry too much.” She tossed her head and adjusted her breeches. “Let us go see Admiral Columbus.”

“Very well,” I said. I wished to get her away from the docks and out of sight well before Don Rodrigo’s arrival in Cadiz. The fewer who saw her in my company before then, the better. Besides, the sooner the Admiral refused to let her sail with us, the sooner I could address the greater worry of finding passage for her to Italy on a ship I thought seaworthy and well-manned enough to carry her without excessive danger.

We found the Admiral in conference with a ship’s chandler. The man had agreed to supply a large quantity of ropes and other fittings and was not fulfilling his contract fast enough to please the Admiral. His companions were two gentlemen I had not met before. The elder of these he introduced as Don Antonio de Torres, master and owner of the Mariagalante. The other, who was almost as tall as the Admiral and thatched with a shock of bright red hair, I took by his plain brown robe to be a cleric. The Admiral presented him as Don Diego Columbus. Once I knew, I could see the resemblance. I had heard of the Admiral’s brothers, though I had not before met either of them.

“Young Diego,” he told his brother and Don Antonio, “sailed with us on the Santa Maria and by his diligence both at sea and ashore has earned a place on our flagship.”

My heart leaped. I was to sail on Mariagalante with the Admiral! 

“My poor brother,” he added, smiling, “will have to make do with a lesser caravel.”

So Don Diego would join the expedition. He seemed pleasant and mild mannered. But his character did not concern me. Since he didn’t ship aboard the Mariagalante, I would not have much to do with him until we reached the Indies, if then.

The Admiral took Torres by the arm and led him away, leaving his brother, Rachel, and me to follow. Over his shoulder, he called out to the chandler, “Three days, and not a moment more!”

“You will like Mariagalante, Diego,” the Admiral said. “She is both spacious and seaworthy, and I assure you that my quarters are three times the size of my cabin on our former vessel.” To the others, he said, “This lad writes the clearest hand of any in my company and has been of great service during our preparations.”

“Better you than I,” Don Diego remarked with a grin. “In my younger days, my brother tried to turn me into his scribe, but he had to leave off in despair, for he used to compare my hand to chicken tracks.”

“I will lose this fellow’s skill once we embark,” the Admiral said, “as I have even greater need of able seamen. How do you plan to compensate me for this loss, young Diego?” 

As I opened my mouth to say that I didn’t know, Rachel dug her elbow in my ribs and cleared her throat loudly. She stepped a pace forward and bowed neatly.

“Excellency!” she said. “May I offer myself as a replacement? If it is not too forward of me to say so, I am adept with a quill, quick at languages, and not given to pranks or drunkenness.”  

Forward! She would neither drown nor hang, for I would kill her first!

“May I present my young cousin—” I stopped short, for I had not considered the need to supply Rachel with a boy’s name.

Rachel bowed again, one hand over her heart. 

“Rafael Mendes, Excellency,” she said, “at your service and hoping greatly for your favor.”

The Admiral cast a piercing glance at her and another at me. Don Antonio looked bored, which I considered fortunate. Don Diego’s face remained tranquil. I risked a look of entreaty at the Admiral.

“Let us speak of this further,” Columbus said. “Gentlemen, will you excuse me? I must secure, if not this paragon, then another of the same ilk. If I do not, Their Majesties will be most displeased with my reports, for they will be unable to decipher them. Come with me, lads.”

The Admiral led the way to a room that had been set aside for him in the Alcazar, so that he and Archdeacon Fonseca need not work under the same roof during their frequent disputes. He closed the door, bolted it, and turned to face us, his face stern but not yet angry.