To the Edge of the World

by Michele Torrey

  God has abandoned me, it said again and again. God has abandoned me. Do you hear, Mateo? God has abandoned me. We are lost. All of us, lost. And the voice wept.

  The food was gone.

  We stripped the leather from the yardarms and soaked it in seawater to soften it. This we ate with a gruel made from sawdust.

  “This is tasty,” said Rodrigo, chewing.

  I said nothing, forcing myself to swallow.

  “Are you going to draw this in your sketchbook, Mateo? Us sitting and eating leather and sawdust soup?”

  “Maybe I will.”

  “Maybe I will eat your sketchbook.”

  “Maybe I will stab you with my quill.”

  “What will we eat next, do you think? How about some rigging? How about some nails?” Rodrigo snorted. “Do you know, Mateo, this would be funny were I not so hungry. I heard of a man who was so hungry he chopped off his legs and ate them. And then his fingers. But once his fingers were gone, he couldn’t chop off his arms because he couldn’t hold his knife anymore. He did everything in the wrong order, you see, so then he had to gnaw—”

  “Stop it, Rodrigo. You solve nothing with such talk.”

  He stared at me, his eyes crazy again. Did I look the same? My hair stinking and matted, my face whiskered and filthy, my gums swollen, my teeth rotten and loose, flies crawling in and out of every crevice. I turned away.

  Rodrigo talked to the back of my head. “Don’t you see, Mateo? This is the end. Magallanes has killed us all. Even himself.”

  I clamped my hands over my ears.

  Day after blistering day.

  Hell.

  We crowded into the shade, panting, groaning with every move. Some men were mere bones, thumping the deck whenever they rolled over, a hollow clacking, sticks upon a drum. Others swelled like pregnant sows, bloated, crying with pain. All of us were surrounded by putrefying stink.

  We waited.

  To see who would be next.

  Swellings covered my body. Colorful swellings—red, blue, yellow, green—each the size of a nut. Sometimes the swellings opened, oozing with juices. Miserable, I begged my mother to pray for me. To take the pain away. Pretending she pressed a damp cloth to my face. . . .

  “O my Jesus,” I hear her pray, “forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell and lead all souls to heaven, especially those who are in most need of Thy mercy.” Then her voice softens and tears fill her eyes. “Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.”

  Again and again she says this prayer. . . .

  I never knew she could speak Latin.

  One night someone stumbled against me.

  I gasped with pain, opening my eyes. A shape loomed over me in the darkness. It is Death, I thought dully. Death has come to fetch me.

  Death grabbed me and yanked me to my feet. My every joint screamed with agony. “I have done it,” it breathed. The stench of rottenness wafted over me. “Come, Mateo. Come.” It pulled me through the darkness into a cabin. A single lantern burned upon a table next to a map and an astrolabe made of brass.

  “I have done it,” it said again. It pointed to the map. “There is an island out there. I saw it. It is big, and there is food and water.” Death looked at me then. Crazed. Shrunken.

  Magallanes . . .

  “An island?” My voice like sand, dry, grainy. I approached the map slowly. It was drawn on creamy paper, crinkled with use. Rivers of blue snaked through the land. Letters of gilded gold. Names of cities.

  Seville. Málaga.

  It was a map of Spain.

  He pointed to Castile. “We will arrive tomorrow,” he was saying, his voice high-pitched and feverish. “You must tell the crew. Tell them we’ve arrived and to prepare.” He knelt and raised his face toward the ceiling. “O God Almighty, You have answered the prayers of the weak. O Father, Thou art merciful!”

  I crawled back to my sleeping place.

  That night I dreamed of an island. Lush, brimming with food and water.

  In the morning, my dream came true.

  XIX

  March 6-29, 1521

  We stood at the bulwarks, crowded together. We leaned on one another, panting, staring. None of us said anything. From behind me came the sound of a sword sliding into its scabbard. Then Magallanes ordered the sheets let fly and the anchor dropped. I heard the shuffle of bare feet. The creak of rigging. The whip of sails loosened. Still, most of us stood and stared.

  “We are saved,” whispered Rodrigo.

  “Aye,” I answered.

  Thatched huts dotted the beach—an island village. A sea of canoes headed toward us. The natives paddled hard, their muscles shining and straining. They pulled alongside, seeming unafraid. Still we stared.

  “Perhaps they have food,” said Rodrigo, spitting a tooth from his mouth even as he spoke.

  The native men swarmed aboard. They were tall, well built, handsome, with stone knives and bone-tipped spears and shields tufted with human hair. With cries of astonishment, they fell upon our metalworks, our buckets, and our weapons.

  We stood and stared.

  One savage lifted a hatchet and sniffed its iron head. He scratched and tapped it with his finger, then licked it. He grunted and stuffed it under his arm to grab another. They filled their arms with stools, clothing, knives.

  “Do you have any food?” a shipmate asked, his voice breaking.

  The natives ignored him. A kettle. A hammer. A pike.

  “Please!” Magallanes held out his arms in an effort to stop them. His arms were bone thin, browned by the sun. “We come in peace. We have brought many items for trade, but you must put down those things you have taken. We need them, and they do not belong to you.”

  The natives smiled and nodded, their teeth stained black and red.

  A native approached me. His gaze traveled from my head to my toes. Then, before I could stop him, he snatched my rosary from my hand, smiling his black-and-red smile. I opened my mouth to scream “Give that back!” but all that came from my mouth was a gasp and a croak. I fell to my knees, weakened, my heart hammering.

  “Marines, gird yourselves in armor!” I heard Magallanes say. “Espinosa, clear the decks of natives and retrieve all they have stolen.”

  It was a shipwide effort to dress the marines in armor. Each marine was too weak to do it himself. The natives watched, talking excitedly. One stepped forward and tapped on Espinosa’s armor as if he were knocking upon a door.

  Dressed in their shining armor, looking once again like soldiers of Spain, proud and unconquerable, the marines began to take back the items from the natives—a hatchet, a harquebus— while the natives blinked in surprise, their hands now empty. Then, suddenly, the natives turned fierce and shoved the marines away. One marine lost his balance and collapsed. His helmet clattered to the deck. And while I watched, stupefied, two natives kicked him senseless.

  The captain-general’s hand sliced through the air as a signal.

  Espinosa fired his crossbow and struck an island chief in the shoulder. The natives gasped. The chief dropped his stolen belongings in surprise and stared at the protruding arrow. He withdrew it from his shoulder in utter amazement while Espinosa fired another cross-bolt into his chest. Blood spewed out of the native’s mouth and he crumpled slowly to the deck.

  Now the air thickened with screams and cross-bolts. The deck grew sticky with blood. The natives leaped aboard their canoes, but not before we had slain six of them.

  “They have stolen our skiff!” cried Magallanes. “Fire a broadside into their village!”

  Cannon boomed and huts disintegrated in a spray of leaves, sticks, and grass. Forty armed marines piled into the longboat and went ashore. They destroyed canoes and scoured the deserted village for food.

  “We shall soon eat,” I whispered to Rodrigo as we peered over the gunwale.

&nb
sp; “Aye. I would destroy a thousand villages just to eat again.”

  It seemed forever before the marines returned with fresh water, chickens, pigs, fruit such as none I’d seen before, rice, yams, and, of course, the skiff. The pigs still squealed as I spitted them and thrust them over the fires, my mouth watering, my hands shaking.

  Such an orgy of feasting! Pork falling from the bone. Roasted yams. The tender breasts of chickens. Fruit bursting with juices. Fresh, sweet-smelling water. We ate and ate and drank and drank. For the first time in weeks, I heard laughter and conversation. Grease smeared my fingers and chin. My gums stung from the fruits. I lost a tooth in a yam. One of my sores burst open, dribbling with pus.

  It was the happiest day of my life.

  We sailed from island to island like hungry bees.

  Water here. Food there.

  Graves dotted the beaches as men still died of plague, food or not. For myself, I grew strong. Rodrigo, too. We clasped each other’s hands, laughing. The worst was behind us.

  One day as we made our way through a string of islands, I swabbed the floor as the captain-general studied his charts, as he grunted now and then, his breath whistling through his nostrils. He had grown stronger, too. His frame had filled out, and he no longer had that shrunken, starved look. He hurriedly dipped his quill into the ink pot and then wrote, paused, and wrote, the quill flying across the paper like a summer storm.

  I approached the table slowly, wondering. “Do you know where we are?”

  “Not now, Mateo.”

  “Are we almost there? At the Spice Islands, I mean?”

  “Mateo, please. I have much on my mind.”

  I chewed my fingernail, bursting with questions. “Do you think we’ll return home to Spain? Someday, I mean?”

  He did not answer me. Instead he scooped up his charts and left the cabin so abruptly the flame sputtered in the lantern and went out.

  It was then I noticed the shadows move. Enrique.

  For the entire voyage, I had heard Enrique speak but a few words and only to Magallanes. Now for the first time, he spoke to me, his voice high and girl-like. “The gods have chosen him.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “My master. He is a great man. To sail away in one direction and arrive home from another. Such a thing has never been done before.”

  I blinked. “How do you know this? Did he say we had traveled around the world?”

  Enrique’s eyes glinted. “Because I can understand the language of the islands. I am home.”

  For a moment I did not understand. Then I remembered something Rodrigo had told me. Many years ago Enrique had been captured as a slave by Magallanes during a campaign in the Far East. “You mean, we are in the Far East? That means the Spice Islands are . . .” My voice trailed away when I realized the shadows were empty. I was alone.

  I finished swabbing the floor.

  It was true what Enrique said. Soon everyone on the ship knew it—that we had arrived in the Far East by sailing west. Magallanes had achieved the impossible! Excitement gripped us like a fever. Soon, we knew, we would arrive at the Spice Islands. Gold, jewels, spices, pearls. Then it would be home for Spain, our ships staggering under the weight of our wealth, the glory of our fame.

  “God has indeed blessed this man with greatness,” some whispered, speaking of Magallanes.

  “Aye,” whispered others. “Cartagena could never have done such a thing.”

  Even Rodrigo did not have a ready retort, knowing, for once, that what everyone said was true. Our captain-general was a great man.

  Island after island, the fleet now well fed and provisioned, Magallanes made peace with the natives, using Enrique as the interpreter. Magallanes brought chiefs aboard and presented them with fine gifts: Turkish robes and Spanish hats, mirrors and knives. His face flushed with pride, he showed them how the sails were raised and lowered. He spread out his charts and compasses, explaining how we had sailed across one ocean, found a strait through a continent, and then crossed another great ocean to these islands.

  Then, always, without warning, the cannon roared, belching flame, throwing the chiefs to the ground. Magallanes raised them, saying we mean no harm. But we all knew. Even the chiefs knew. It was a show of force. We wanted our power understood by all. We stood watching, our arms crossed, knowing none could defeat us. Not with their puny sticks and stones. Not while Magallanes was our captain-general.

  The natives were then treated to a mock battle, staged between a fully armored Espinosa and three men armed only with swords and daggers. Espinosa had no trouble fighting them off. We enjoyed watching the chiefs’ eyes widen with fear.

  “We have two hundred such armed men on each of our ships,” Magallanes always boasted, his voice ringing with triumph. “One armed Spaniard would be worth one hundred of your fighting men. There is no one in the world who can defeat us!”

  At night I slept soundly. I am Mateo Macías, a Spaniard, a conqueror. There are none who can defeat us.

  XX

  March 30-April 26, 1521

  Late one night, after an exhausting day of chiefs and treaties, the captain-general requested to see my drawings. I hurried to his cabin, anxious to please him.

  His brows drawn together, he studied my sketchbook. There were drawings of the strait, the seabirds, sharks, men dying of plague, island chiefs. There was a drawing of Magallanes himself. In the sketch, he sat in a chair, brooding, his face troubled and distracted. “I look like this?” he asked.

  “Aye. Sometimes.”

  There was another drawing of him. Bone-thin. Starving. I saw him scowl as he studied this drawing. For a long time I heard nothing but his breathing. In. Out. He traced the edges of the figure, as if by doing so he could feel its flesh, as if he were remembering what it was like to be this hungry person. Finally he asked, “Have you heard of Job?”

  Without waiting for my reply, he went on, “Job was a goodly man who honored God. He had everything one could wish for in this world, and each day he worshiped God in thankfulness. God blessed him with great wealth, and Job had many sons and daughters. One day God decided to test Job. He afflicted Job with much suffering.”

  I had, in fact, heard this story many times from my mother. “God took Job’s family from him and destroyed Job’s wealth. And then He gave Job a terrible disease, like the plague.”

  Magallanes nodded. “Job suffered terribly, as we have suffered. Of course, Job was angry at God for his afflictions, believing he was a righteous man and that righteous men should not suffer. But in that thought alone, Job sinned, believing himself wiser than the Almighty. Once he realized this, Job repented.”

  “He passed the test.” I wondered why the captain-general was telling me this story.

  “Aye, he passed the test. As I shall pass mine.”

  “Sir?”

  Magallanes did not answer. Instead he brushed his beard, seemingly lost in thought. I wondered if I should leave, if I should speak.

  Then he stood, my drawing clutched in his hand. He strode to the covered mirror and pulled off the shirt. The shirt fell to the floor, exposing the mirror for the first time in weeks. A film of green slime covered the surface. He swiped his hand across the glass and as he did so, I glimpsed his reflection in the cloudy green smear. His breath upon the glass. And in the depths of his brown eyes, I saw something I’d never seen before. A fire. Burning.

  He stared at himself. “The scales have fallen from my eyes,” he murmured, sighing. “My heart is full.” He pressed his palm against the mirrored surface as my drawing floated to his feet, forgotten. “ ‘For I know that my Redeemer lives and that at the last He will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God.’ ”

  Warmth crept into my face and I shifted my feet. When he said no more, I gathered my drawings and left.

  We were a happy crew, on our way to gold and riches.

  We had been told by local chieftains that Humabon, the chief of Ceb
u, was the chief of all chiefs. While Magallanes wanted a treaty with this man—peace and lands in the name of Spain—the crew wanted riches. There were gold nuggets the size of hens’ eggs to be found in Cebu, we’d been told, even the size of ostrichs’ eggs, maybe.

  “Soon, Mateo,” said Rodrigo, “our sea chests will overflow with gold. They will be so heavy we will have to use an elephant to carry them.”

  “You have seen an elephant?”

  “No, but I hear they are taller than a building and can carry gold easily.”

  “Ah,” I sighed, trying to imagine such a creature.

  On the sixth day of April, we approached the island of Cebu. Fishing villages dotted the shores. Their houses were constructed of boards and logs, elevated off the ground with pilings. Hogs, chickens, and goats rooted for food and slept under the shade of the huts. Out of doorways tumbled scores of natives, pointing at our ships. Boys and men jumped into outrigger canoes and followed us. The canoe sails were of different colors, and by nightfall, a rainbow of a thousand colors sailed in our wake.

  On the morning of April 7, 1521, one year after the execution of Quesada, we hove to in the bay of the bustling port city of Cebu. The squadron’s gunners fired a salute.

  “See how they run and hide?” Rodrigo pointed. “Nothing can match the power and might of Spaniards.”

  A delegation representing Humabon came aboard the flagship to begin negotiations for a treaty of peace between the Spaniards and the island of Cebu.

  Again a staged combat was performed.

  Afterward, Magallanes reassured them. “You have nothing to fear from the Spanish power, for our weapons are soft to our friends and rough to our enemies; and as a cloth wipes away the sweat from a man, so our weapons destroy the enemies of our faith.”

  Then before us all, the captain-general dropped to his knees and prayed. When he finished, he held out his hands to the natives and urged them to accept the Christian faith. “My fleet padre can baptize you this day.”

  The natives were silent and I saw they did not know what to do. Perhaps they did not yet understand baptism, though the captain-general had explained it again and again.