‘Very well, Fray Mateo, I will speak with Ah Fong this evening and tomorrow you may call upon her and add your theological arguments to my own.’
Marmolejo seemed genuinely pleased, his face lightening. He asked, ‘What shall her baptismal name be, my son?’
The question caught Iago off guard but he had the answer in a second. ‘Why, Margarita, of course,’ he responded with a smile.
‘Most appropriate,’ said Marmolejo sombrely.
That evening Iago drew Ah Fong to one side and persuaded her of the danger they were all in as a result of her sex becoming known. He explained that it was necessary to appease the Holy Ones in order that they themselves remained untroubled. It was a matter of Iago himself maintaining face, a concept Ah Fong grasped instantly, to which end she must accept the Roman Catholic religion. It was, Iago went on, necessary only to admit belief in what Marmolejo would put to her, and she would thereby secure everlasting life. She could, he assured her, continue to pay homage to her household josses, but that should be henceforth in secrecy.
‘This is what you wish?’ she asked.
‘You know it was necessary that you made like a boy to come with me, Ah Fong?’ She nodded. ‘This is no different, but it requires all your arts and afterwards you will become my wife in the sense that these men understand. Until then you are, in their eyes, merely my concubine.’
Ah Fong considered the matter for a moment and then bent her head in acquiescence. ‘It seems no great matter if that is what you wish.’
Iago kissed her and for several irksome days Marmolejo spent hours with his young and beautiful convert while elsewhere in the ship the crew, under the direction of Lorenzo, Olivera and Llerena, swayed up a jury foremast. Finally, even as Ah Fong knelt at Marmolejo’s feet with the Holy Ones in a circle about her and was christened Margarita, the great ship bearing a similar name – though much reduced in her rig – began again to make way.
For a few hours much was forgotten as the Santa Margarita forged through the deep blue waters of the Pacific and drew behind her a thin line of disturbed white water. Hanging on either quarter flew the long-tailed sea fowl that the sailors called bosun birds. Among those on board some claimed their troubles were over and that it would not now be long ere they saw the coast of New Spain.
‘Is it true, Don Iago?’ Doña Catalina asked him one morning. She seemed much recovered from the loss of her baby, perhaps, like the Holy Ones, considering she had made sufficient sacrifice to assure them all a safe passage. Perhaps there was a new quickening in her womb.
‘We have some way to go yet, señora,’ Iago temporized, not having the heart to inform her that their progress was painfully slow.
But Doña Catalina, like the rest of the hopeful souls aboard the Santa Margarita, soon forgot their brief optimism, for the following day the weather turned chilly. The wind fell light and a fog drifted in so that once again the ship wallowed in a low swell that made her creak as though in agony. And then they learned that the rations were to be cut.
‘This is an outrage,’ Arrocheros spluttered. ‘They say the captain-general has taken all the stores into his own custody.’
‘Then I suggest you petition him, Don Baldivieso,’ advised Iago. ‘He cannot ignore a merchant of your standing and influence,’ he added drily.
‘I shall,’ Arrocheros said boldly, almost puffing himself up with sudden determination as he turned aft. Iago went on deck; the fog lay thicker than ever, so that the bowsprit, truncated though it was, vanished into the nacreous vapour. He turned away and went below. Ah Fong was entertaining Doña Catalina, who seemed both pleased to make the Chinese woman’s acquaintance amid the boredom of the voyage and to wish to assist Ah Fong’s understanding of her new religion.
Ah Fong had been christened that morning and the simple ceremony had awakened a protective fervour in Señora de los Arrocheros, who had stood as godmother. Now she seemed anxious to detach the Chinese woman from her traditional gods, claiming their idolatrous nature was an affront to the one true God. Ah Fong – for she could not yet in truth be regarded as Margarita, aware that this formality was essentially a matter of Iago’s standing in the ship – deployed all her courtesy in appearing to accommodate Doña Catalina’s explanations and expectations. This acquiescence, naturally easy to Ah Fong, irked Iago and his intrusion disrupted the tête-à-tête.
‘Has your husband gone to see Don Juan de Guillestigui?’ he asked Doña Catalina.
‘He has gone to take counsel with Fray Hernando and the brothers,’ she said, looking up at him as Ah Fong rose, beckoning to Ximenez to get hot water so that she might make tea.
Iago nodded, taking off his cloak and sitting. ‘The fog persists,’ he remarked inconsequentially.
‘Don Baldivieso says that it should clear soon.’
‘Let us hope that your husband is right, señora, and that the wind, when it comes again, remains favourable.’
Ximenez returned with the hot water and a face twisted with excitement but held in check from expressing himself by the presence of the merchant’s wife. Iago stared expectantly at the dwarf.
‘Come, Ximenez, this ship is like a village. What is whispered at one end is shouted at the other within an hour . . .’
‘Master?’ Ximenez feigned incomprehension.
‘On a ship, Ximenez, the galley is like a village well. All news is to be had there and – unless I am much mistaken – you have just found something out, eh? I am right, am I not?’
‘Even a bat could see you are so full of news that you will burst like a bladder full of wine,’ added Ah Fong graphically.
‘We are given lentils, master, nothing more than lentil soup while the captain-general keeps a fine table. The Holy Ones and – begging your pardon, señora – Don Baldivieso and some of the others intend going aft in a body to complain.’
‘I wish them good fortune. Unfortunately I do not see in our captain-general a man whose bowels will be readily wrung by merciful compassion, but . . .’ He shrugged.
Iago’s remark seemed to horrify Doña Catalina in her new proselytizing role. ‘Don Iago!’ she admonished.
‘Do you find that an extraordinary proposition, señora?’ Doña Catalina nodded. ‘Then let us hope that I am wrong.’
But Iago was not wrong. A moment later Arrocheros himself tore aside the canvas and appeared in outraged and tempestuous mood. ‘The man’s arrogance surpasses belief!’ he cried, beside himself with fury. ‘He turned us forward like common seamen,’ he fulminated, ‘despite our respectful eloquence.’
‘What exactly did he say?’ Iago asked.
‘He told us that prime victuals would go first to those who worked the ship, whereupon I asked why it was now necessary to place any of us upon rations, to which he answered sarcastically that I must be a fool not to have realized that most of our foodstuffs was spoiled in the storms.’
‘Well, I shall be surprised if he feeds all his seamen.’
‘That is exactly what they are saying at the galley stove, master,’ interjected Ximenez.
‘What can we do?’ asked Doña Catalina, her right hand clasping her breast.
‘Bear it with fortitude, señora, we have little choice.’
‘But, Don Iago!’ Doña Catalina looked from Iago to her husband. ‘Is there nothing we can do?’
‘Señora, one may hunt what rats can be found on board.’
Now Arrocheros was staring at Iago, an expression of horror on his face. It was clear his hopes lay with Iago but his intelligence was asserting itself over his effrontery at the reception he and his fellow petitioners had had at the hands of Guillestigui. Iago saw horror collapse and fear replace it. Arrocheros was a drowning man and, in the manner of drowning men, clutched at the only straw he could see on his limited horizon. ‘Don Iago, you . . . you must do something . . . You are our only hope! We can pay you!’
And to this appeal his wife added her own tearful pleading. ‘Don Iago, I believe you to possess all the skills n
ecessary to bring this ship safely into a haven.’
Iago felt an upwelling of resentment against these people, helpless though they were. ‘Señora, I wish that such things were possible, but I am not the wizard some on board take me for.’
Doña Catalina piously crossed herself and, looking immediately at Ah Fong, said sharply, ‘Cross yourself, Margarita, lest Don Iago’s words attract the Devil.’
Iago stood, almost cracking his head on the beams above. ‘Señora, if the Devil has shipped with us,’ he said, cocking his ears to the noise of disturbance on deck above, ‘there is no hope at all.’
‘Don Iago!’ Arrocheros said with a sharp intake of breath.
‘Now, if you will excuse me . . .’
Iago made to pass Arrocheros, who said in a low voice, ‘They say the Devil has many forms.’
Iago stopped and stared at the merchant, catching himself from making a sharp riposte. Instead he ostentatiously crossed himself and in a low voice agreed with the man barring his way. ‘By Heaven, Don Baldivieso, you are right. It would not trouble the Devil to take upon himself the form of a discalced friar, a plumed hidalgo or even that of a sleek merchant, God help us all . . .’ He let the affront sink in. Then he added: ‘In fact his stink so assails my nostrils that I seek even the sea fog to clear my head of his mischief.’
The fog that enveloped them produced a curious change in the ship. It was as though the lack of a horizon shrank the entire world to the limits of the Santa Margarita herself. A light breeze held, but from the east, too light to disperse the fog or to hasten them on their way, but just enough to keep steerage on the ship and force them north under jury rig. The sea grew flatter, ruffled only by the zephyr, a contrast after the frights and alarms of the typhoons and the strange excesses of the orgy.
In truth the change was caused by the spoliation of the greater part of the Santa Margarita’s stores. The circumscribing fog only emphasized their isolation. Once Guillestigui and his party realized the seriousness of what this meant, there was a reassertion of their authority. For weeks, almost since the day they cleared the Embocadero and were borne north on the wide waters of the ocean, Guillestigui and his henchmen had relinquished day-to-day control of the Santa Margarita to the pilots. There had been nothing unusual in this, particularly to a man of the captain-general’s stamp, for he was a self-indulgent sensualist who, had he but known it, gave the example for the wild indulgences of the ship’s crew when they sensed the bonds of command were loosened by extremity. But once the viands on the cabin table failed to gratify Guillestigui’s appetites, it occurred to him something was wrong, and thus it was that he sent his Basque guard to ferret through the ship while he himself imposed upon the entire company a reduction in rations.
Perhaps he himself realized the freedom with which he had allowed the pilots to take over was almost an abdication of his own authority. Certainly the vigour with which he now recovered control of the ship would suggest this to be so; but perhaps the fact that the fog obscured from his sight the mighty power of the surrounding sea also tempted him to exert his will. What he could not see he did not worry about, at least superficially. There would be time enough for that later, when he had regained control over their destinies. And his first duty lay in protecting his private faction.
As the days passed, the fog persisted and they made more progress north than east, it grew noticeably colder. Guillestigui appeared on the poop, pacing it for hours in his cloak, glaring forward over the misty decks and staring ahead to where the steeve of the broken bowsprit vanished into the grey vapour. On the half-deck below, Lorenzo, Olivera and their respective watches carried on their wearying routine. The sails needed the occasional trimming, the pumps needed manning every watch change for about half an hour, and those off duty fished over the side with some success to augment their meagre diet.
It was noticed that Guillestigui seemed to have distanced himself from his entourage. His officers still came on deck with him – indeed he was never alone and always had two or three of his gentlemen in attendance – but they kept their distance, usually huddling in their cloaks in one or other of the quarters, leaving the captain-general to pace athwart the ship along the poop rail and glare down at the minions and the passengers forward.
His presence loomed over the ship so that it seemed that even below one knew he was there. In the end it proved provocative, for Hernando and Agustin considered the presumption of pride, allied with the garnering of all the available stores and their parochial duty to the ship’s company, to bring the captain-general within the pale of their own spiritual concern. Thus it was that they approached the captain-general by ascending – unbidden – the ladder from the half-deck to the poop. Lorenzo, who had the watch, tried to stop them.
‘Stand aside, my son!’ commanded Agustin and such was the gleam in his eyes that Lorenzo – in defiance of his good sense – obeyed. But he could not help watching what happened.
As the discalced friars climbed the ladder, Agustin leading, Guillestigui turned at the end of his walk and approached them with a slow and measured tread. The three men confronted one another at the head of the larboard ladder.
‘I do not recall summoning you,’ Guillestigui said haughtily.
‘You did not, my son,’ Agustin replied. ‘We are here on God’s work.’
‘You are not welcome, either of you . . .’
‘That we are not welcome by you is of no concern to us,’ Agustin went on. ‘We have come to discuss the plight we are in and to inform you that while we understand the cabin table remains well stocked, the people are on rations so short that it is unlikely that they will be able to subsist until we reach Acapulco. We come to ask – no, to insist that you share what remains of our foodstuffs.’
‘Insist? You come to me to insist?’ Guillestigui seemed amused. ‘Why, you men of God may live on a few beans and a dried crust; that is your avocation. It is not for you to insist upon anything.’ His tone was reasonable, so reasonable in fact that it fooled Agustin.
‘Don Juan Martinez,’ he began, ‘it cannot be right to have half – no, the greater proportion of the ship’s company – driven to starvation.’
‘Starvation?’ Guillestigui frowned with mock incomprehension. ‘See, good Father, how amidships they are hoisting fishes from the sea just as the disciples did on Galilee . . . Now, I am of a mind to tempt you to turn that bounty to good account except that I know that the Devil tempted Christ and it would be sinful of me to do so. Nevertheless, I consider it wise for you to return whence you came and enjoy some fish and set some to dry for the coming days.’
‘We cannot live on fish indefinitely, Don Juan, and you know we can only take fish now with the ship moving so slowly . . .’
‘You do not comprehend me, Father. I am ordering you to go below.’
‘And I am here to plead the case of the people.’
‘Damn the people. If the people wish to speak with me let them send a delegation through the pilot-major. They know how things must be done. I will not tolerate any of you meddlesome religious speaking on behalf of the people. Get below while I still command my temper.’
Hernando made to turn away, plucking at Agustin’s habit, but the friar was not so easily persuaded. ‘I am not to be so turned off the purpose of my embassy . . .’
‘Embassy! Embassy? What gibberish do you spout, you insignificant worm? Get off my deck!’ Guillestigui half-turned his head. ‘Gentlemen!’
The officers, all three of whom had been trying to hear what was being said, now crowded forward. Peralta had his right hand on his sword hilt, the blade started from its scabbard. ‘Remove these vermin!’ the captain-general ordered, falling back a pace.
But even as Hernando had the soles of the open sandals that gave his order its name on the top step of the ladder, Agustin dropped to his knees, his right hand holding up the crucifix he wore round his neck. ‘You shall not touch me, villains!’ he cried, and Peralta and the others hesitated.
&n
bsp; ‘Ah,’ said Guillestigui stepping forward again, ‘there is one for martyrdom, if I am not mistaken.’ He held up his hand to touch Peralta’s arm. ‘Shall we gratify him his desire? Shall we flay the dog of his skin and make a belt and a box of it to hang round his neck that he may beg upon the streets of Acapulco and live off the charity of the people whose cause he so espouses? What do you think, Rodrigo? Shall we skin the—’ and here Guillestigui grabbed the collar and hood of Agustin’s habit and with a powerful jerk pulled it down over his arms so that the unexpected movement caused the friar to drop his crucifix. It swung on its leather thong against Agustin’s pale chest as his arms were pinioned by the habit. Guillestigui, with a second mighty haul, spun the friar round, exposing the upper part of his back. It was disfigured with the dried and scabby whip-marks of his flagellation.
‘Ah, see how he has cheated us of this sport, Rodrigo. He has spoiled his hide. No wonder he has mustered such affrontery, he has been mortifying himself. He is holy beyond the comprehension of mere men.’ And with a third movement of his sword arm, Guillestigui threw Agustin from him so that the friar sprawled full length on the deck. Guillestigui jerked his head and Peralta and another officer bent and heaved Agustin down the ladder into Hernando’s arms.
‘You have had little to say, Fray Hernando. Have Christ or the cat got your tongue, eh?’
‘God will judge you, Don Juan Martinez, you may be assured of that.’
‘And since God is master of this world, Fray Hernando, he will judge those in high office according to their responsibilities.’
‘God help you . . .’
‘God keep you,’ riposted Guillestigui. Then, looking up and seeing many of those forward staring aft at the scene on the high poop, he shouted: ‘Turn to your duty, men. Do not trouble yourselves with the prating of these religious.’
The Disastrous Voyage of the Santa Margarita Page 18