Alternate Americas

by Gregory Benford

  On the battleground before Granada the troops of the Catholic Monarchs knew that already.

  In spite of Hisdai’s protests that he had no place on the field of combat, his son, Daud, and his newfound retainers insisted that he accompany them to the city gate to view the proceedings. Shock did little to diffuse Hisdai’s innate stubbornness, and he put teeth in his refusal by making that long-contemplated leap out the window.

  To no avail. There were more of the eagle-helmed Cathayans in the patio below, the translator Moshe ibn Ahijah with them. They simply waited until he stopped bouncing, then (with ibn Ahijah’s able intervention) hailed him as Lord Quetzalcoatl, All-Powerful Sovereign, Savior-Whose-Coming-Was-Foretold-For-A-Few-Years-Later-Than-This-But-Who’s-Counting?, and hauled him off to see how well his loyal people served him.

  So it was that Hisdai ibn Ezra came to witness the end of the siege of Granada and the grim finale to all the Catholic Monarchs’ dreams of finishing the Reconquest. Instead the Reconquest finished them. As he stood upon the battlements of the city Hisdai beheld a vast force of Cathayans sweep through the Christian ranks with astonishing zeal and ferocity.

  “Incredible,” he remarked to Daud. “And yet they make such delicate porcelains.”

  “I just hope Lord Tizoc and those jaguar knights of his find you a throne quickly,” Daud replied, not really listening. “This is going to be over sooner than I thought.”

  “And why should I need a throne?” Hisdai inquired.

  “Why, to receive the captives!”

  “Captives?” The old Jew made a deprecating sound.

  Twenty minutes later he was making it out of the other side of his mouth as he gazed down at his noble prisoners and felt distinctly uncomfortable. It was not the fault of his seat—the throne was the best Lord Tizoc’s men could transport from the great Alhambra palace on such short notice—but of Hisdai ibn Ezra’s new position. During his few previous interviews with royalty, he had been firmly entrenched on the giving end of any and all obeisances, grovels, and general gestures of submission. This was different, and would take some getting used to.

  Not all of the captives were making the transition any easier for the former merchant. Queen Isabella of Castilla y León was the only woman who could kneel in the dirt at the foot of a god’s throne and still make it look as if everyone present had come to pay homage to her. Her husband and consort, Ferdinand of Aragón, crouched beside her, eyes hermetically shut, whimpering, any pretense of royal pride long since abandoned. Unlike his mate, he had been in the thick of the last battle and seen too many sights that properly belonged in a sinner’s nightmare of hell.

  Ferdinand and Isabella were not alone. Sultan Muhammad and his mother were with them, the regal quartet linked at the necks with a single rope whose end was fast in the hand of Moctezuma’s finest jaguar warrior.

  Off to one side Christopher Columbus crouched within a ring of eagle knights—the “cargo” of that ship he had abandoned because he thought a shipment of gold had the greater worth than a shipment of heathen ambassadors. The error of his commercial instincts had just been proven beyond doubt on the battlefield.

  Using care, so as not to upset the towering headdress his new subjects had insisted he wear, Lord Hisdai ibn Ezra y Quetzalcoatl beckoned Daud nearer. “This is wrong,” he whispered.

  “Try it for a time; you may like it,” Daud suggested.

  “But this is blasphemy!” Hisdai maintained, pounding on the arm of his throne. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me, says the Lord!”

  “Well, you have no other gods before Him, do you, Father? And if your new subjects choose to worship a Jew, they won’t be the first. Given time, they might even convert entirely. If Judaism is good enough for your Lord Quetzalcoatl, I will tell them, it should be good enough for you! It won’t take long. Moshe ibn Ahijah only had to explain to them about horses once when we reached Tangier, and you saw how well they handled the Castilian cavalry.”

  “Yes, but to eat the poor beasts afterward—!”

  “Well, they do have their little ways….”

  Hisdai considered this. Unfortunately his meditations were interrupted by Queen Isabella, who decided to make her royal displeasure known by spitting at his feet and calling him a name that showed her deep ignorance of Jewish family life. Two of the jaguar warriors sprang forward to treat her sacrilege by a method whose directness would have warmed the figurative heart of the Inquisition. Only a horrified shout from Hisdai made them lower their obsidian-toothed warclubs, still sticky with assorted bits of skullbone and brain-matter collected in the course of the recent fray.

  Moctezuma himself came before his chosen Lord, bowing low. “O august Lord Quetzalcoatl, mighty Plumed Serpent, bringer of the arts of peace, what is your will that we do with the graceless devils who dared attack your chosen stronghold and those who so poorly defended it until now?” His bastard blend of Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Castilian, Greek, and Latin was really quite good for one who had only picked up snatches of the tongues on board a sailing vessel.

  “He means the kings,” Daud whispered. “Both Catholic and Moorish. And Granada.”

  “I know who and what he means,” Hisdai snapped back, sotto voce. “I still don’t know why he has to mean me, with all those barbarous names. What have I to do with the kings anyway?”

  “Well, you’ll have to do something with them. Your new subjects expect—they expect…” Daud hesitated. Having witnessed the aftermath of more than one battle while visiting the Great Khan Ahuitzotl’s court, he knew just what these people expected and how touchy they would be if they didn’t get it. On the other hand, there was no way short of a new Creation that his father would consent to what Lord Moctezuma had in mind, even in the name of religious freedom.

  Daud was pondering this dilemma when he heard his father exclaim, “Stop pestering me, Moctezuma! I tell you I don’t know what I want done with them! Can’t it wait?”

  “Puissant lord, it cannot. If we do not feed the sun—”

  “What? Feed what? Daud, you speak this man’s tongue better than he speaks ours, see if you can understand him. What is he trying to say?”

  Daud smiled as a second, figurative sun shed the lovely rays of revelation within his mind. “Never mind, Father,” he said. “I’ll take care of everything. You go ahead to the palace. You know they cannot start the banquet without you.”

  Reluctant as he was to leave loose ends behind him, Hisdai was still too flummoxed to do other than comply with his son’s suggestion. Flanked by jaguar warriors and preceded by eagle knights, he allowed himself to be led up to the splendors of the Alhambra, where the promised victory feast awaited. Word of the bizarre conquest had spread rapidly through the Jewish population of Granada, and mad celebration followed. With the help of Moshe ibn Ahijah’s linguistically talented family, Jews, Cathayans, and the always pragmatic Moors had cooperated to lay on a wondrous repast in very little time. Cook was in his glory. There was not an empty goblet nor an occupied kennel left in all the city.

  Hisdai had barely taken his place in the feasting hall when Daud returned and whispered something in his ear.

  “A job?” Hisdai echoed. “That renegade Genoese betrays us and you give him a job?”

  “Why not?” Daud made a lazy, beckoning gesture, and one of Moctezuma’s doe-eyed waiting-women hastened to fetch a tray of chilled melon slices. As part of the Great Khan’s favorite nephew’s entourage, these select highborn ladies had been definitely off-limits for the course of the voyage. Now, however, they were just another gift to Lord Quetzalcoatl’s household. “You didn’t want to be bothered.”

  Hisdai lowered his eyes. “I feared having my enemies in my power. Nothing reduces a man to his animal nature faster than the opportunity for exacting unlimited revenge.”

  “Most admirable. Which was precisely why I sent Christopher Columbus to deliver your will to our—I mean, your new subjects.”

  “My will? How, when I never stated it?
”

  “Not precisely, perhaps, but I assumed you wished the captives be shown mercy.”

  “True.”

  “You just couldn’t trust yourself to say as much with Isabella addressing you so—unwisely.”

  “And shall I trust the Genoese to do as much? The Catholic Monarchs scorned him once. Has he the strength of character to resist paying them back now?”

  “Perhaps not.” Daud ogled the waiting-woman, and she returned a look of most exquisite promise. “Which was why I told him Moctezuma has already been advised that the fate of one captive is the fate of all.”

  Hisdai relaxed visibly. “My son, you are wise. But—you did tell him to request compassionate treatment? You are certain? Does Columbus know enough of the Cathayan tongue to make himself understood beyond doubt?”

  Daud sighed. “Alas, no. Christopher Columbus is a man of vision, not linguistics. Which was why I took the precaution of having Moshe ibn Ahijah translate the exact words our once-admiral should relay to Lord Moctezuma.”

  The waiting-woman knelt beside him with seductive grace, offering her tray and more besides for Daud’s inspection. Rumor had it that she and the others were ranked as princesses in their own land. Idly Daud wondered whether—the lady’s eventual conversion permitting—such a match would satisfy Hisdai. So caught up was he in these pleasant musings that he did not hear his father’s next question.

  “Daud! Daud, wake up. I asked you something.”

  “Hmm? And what was that, O my fondle—father?”

  “What he said. What you told the Genoese to say.”

  “Oh, that. I kept it simple. I told him to say—”

  From somewhere outside a loud cheer from many throats assaulted heaven, loud enough certainly to cover the lesser cry of one man surprised by the religious practices of another.

  “—have a heart.”

  LOOKING FOR THE FOUNTAIN

  Robert Silverberg

  My name is Francisco de Ortega and by the grace of God I am eighty-nine years old and I have seen many a strange thing in my time, but nothing so strange as the Indian folk of the island called Florida, whose great dream it is to free the Holy Land from the Saracen conquerors that profane it.

  It was fifty years ago that I encountered these marvelous people, when I sailed with his excellency the illustrious Don Juan Ponce de León on his famous and disastrous voyage in quest of what is wrongly called the Fountain of Youth. It was not a Fountain of Youth at all that he sought, but a Fountain of Manly Strength, which is somewhat a different thing. Trust me: I was there, I saw and heard everything, I was by Don Juan Ponce’s side when his fate overtook him. I know the complete truth of this endeavor and I mean to set it all down now so there will be no doubt; for I alone survive to tell the tale, and as God is my witness I will tell it truthfully now, here in my ninetieth year, all praises be to Him and to the Mother who bore Him.

  The matter of the Fountain, first.

  Commonly, I know, it is called the Fountain of Youth. You will read that in many places, such as in the book about the New World which that Italian wrote who lived at Seville, Peter Martyr of Anghiera, where he says, “The governor of the Island of Boriquena, Juan Ponce de León, sent forth two caravels to seek the Islands of Boyuca in which the Indians affirmed there to be a fountain or spring whose water is of such marvelous virtue, that when it is drunk it makes old men young again.”

  This is true, so far as it goes. But when Peter Martyr talks of “making old men young again,” his words must be interpreted in a poetic way.

  Perhaps long life is truly what that Fountain really provides, along with its other and more special virtue—who knows? For I have tasted of that Fountain’s waters myself, and here I am nearly ninety years of age and still full of vigor, I who was born in the year of our Lord 1473, and how many others are still alive today who came into the world then, when Castile and Aragón still were separate kingdoms? But I tell you that what Don Juan Ponce was seeking was not strictly speaking a Fountain of Youth at all, but rather a Fountain that offered a benefit of a very much more intimate kind. For I was there, I saw and heard everything. And they have cowardly tongues, those who say it was a Fountain of Youth, for it would seem that out of shame they choose not to speak honestly of the actual nature of the powers that the Fountain which we sought was supposed to confer.

  It was when we were in the island of Hispaniola that we first heard of this wonderful Fountain, Don Juan Ponce and I. This was, I think, in the year 1504. Don Juan Ponce, a true nobleman and a man of high and elegant thoughts, was governor then in the province of Higuey of that island, which was ruled at that time by Don Nicolas de Ovando, successor to the great Admiral Cristóbal Colón. There was in Higuey then a certain Indian cacique or chieftain of remarkable strength and force, who was reputed to keep seven wives and to satisfy each and every one of them each night of the week. Don Juan Ponce was curious about the great virility of this cacique, and one day he sent a certain Aurelio Herrera to visit him in his village.

  “He does indeed have many wives,” said Herrera, “though whether there were five or seven or fifty-nine I could not say, for there were women surrounding all the time I was there, coming and going in such multitudes that I was unable to make a clear count, and swarms of children also, and from the looks of it the women were his wives and the children were his children.”

  “And what sort of manner of man is this cacique?” asked Don Juan Ponce.

  “Why,” said Herrera, “he is a very ordinary man, narrow of shoulders and shallow of chest, whom you would never think capable of such marvels of manhood, and he is past middle age besides. I remarked on this to him, and he said that when he was young he was easily exhausted and found the manly exercises a heavy burden. But then he journeyed to Boyuca, which is an island to the north of Cuba that is also called Bimini, and there he drank of a spring that cures the debility of sex. Since then, he asserts, he has been able to give pleasure to any number of women in a night without the slightest fatigue.”

  I was there. I saw and heard everything. El enflaquecimiento del sexo was the phrase that Aurelio Herrera used, “the debility of sex.” The eyes of Don Juan Ponce de León opened wide at this tale, and he turned to me and said, “We must go in search of this miraculous fountain some day, Francisco, for there will be great profit in the selling of its waters.”

  Do you see? Not a word had been spoken about long life, but only about the curing of el enflaquecimiento del sexo. Nor was Don Juan Ponce in need of any such cure for himself, I assure you, for in the year 1504 he was just thirty years old, a lusty and aggressive man of fiery and restless spirit, and red-haired as well, and you know what is said about the virility of red-haired men. As for me, I will not boast, but I will say only that since the age of thirteen I have rarely gone a single night without a woman’s company, and have been married four times, on the fourth occasion to a woman fifty years younger than myself. And if you find yourself in the province of Valladolid where I live and come to pay a call on me I can show you young Diego Antonio de Ortega whom you would think was my great-grandson, and little Juana Maria de Ortega who could be my great-granddaughter, for the boy is seven and the girl is five, but in truth they are my own children, conceived when I was past eighty years of age; and I have had many other sons and daughters too, some of whom are old people now and some are dead.

  So it was not to heal our own debilities that Don Juan Ponce and I longed to find this wonderful Fountain, for of such shameful debilities we had none at all, he and I. No, we yearned for the Fountain purely for the sake of the riches we might derive from it: for each year saw hundreds or perhaps thousands of men come from Spain to the New World to seek their fortunes, and some of these were older men who no doubt suffered from a certain enflaquecimiento. In Spain I understand they used the powdered horn of the unicorn to cure this malady, or the crushed shells of a certain insect, though I have never had need of such things myself. But those commodities are not to be found
in the New World, and it was Don Juan Ponce’s hope that great profit might be made by taking possession of Bimini and selling the waters of the Fountain to those who had need of such a remedy. This is the truth, whatever others may claim.

  But the pursuit of gold comes before everything, even the pursuit of miraculous Fountains of Manly Strength. We did not go at once in search of the Fountain because word came to Don Juan Ponce in Hispaniola that the neighboring island of Borinquen was rich in gold, and thereupon he applied to Governor Ovando for permission to go there and conquer it. Don Juan Ponce already somewhat knew that island, having seen its western coast briefly in 1493 when he was a gentleman volunteer in the fleet of Cristóbal Colón, and its beauty had so moved him that he had resolved someday to return and make himself master of the place.

  With one hundred men, he sailed over to this Borinquen in a small caravel, landing there on Midsummer Day, 1506, at the same bay he had visited earlier aboard the ship of the great Admiral. Seeing us arrive with such force, the cacique of the region was wise enough to yield to the inevitable and we took possession with very little fighting.

  So rich did the island prove to be that we put the marvelous Fountain of which we had previously heard completely out of our minds. Don Juan Ponce was made governor of Borinquen by royal appointment and for several years the natives remained peaceful and we were able to obtain a great quantity of gold indeed. This is the same island that Cristóbal Colón called San Juan Bautista and which people today call Puerto Rico.

  All would have been well for us there but for the stupidity of a certain captain of our forces, Cristóbal de Sotomayor, who treated the natives so badly that they rose in rebellion against us. This was in the year of our Lord 1511. So we found ourselves at war; and Don Juan Ponce fought with all the great valor for which, he was renowned, doing tremendous destruction against our pagan enemies. We had among us at that time a certain dog, called Bercerillo, of red pelt and black eyes, who could tell simply by smell alone whether an Indian was friendly to us or hostile, and could understand the native speech as well; and the Indians were more afraid of ten Spaniards with this dog, than of one hundred without him. Don Juan Ponce rewarded Bercerillo’s bravery and cleverness by giving the dog a full share of all the gold and slaves we captured, as though he were a crossbowman; but in the end the Indians killed him. I understand that a valiant pup of this Bercerillo, Leoncillo by name, went with Nunxez de Balboa when he crossed the Isthmus of Panama and discovered the great ocean beyond.