“How do you intend to do it?” Juan asked in an effort to stall for time while his mind evaluated other possibilities.
“I’ve extended an invitation for Columbus to attend a banquet in his honor,” King John answered. “Once he’s here, you can poison his food or drink.”
“Me?” Juan asked in genuine surprise.
“Yes. I seem to recall poisoning is your favored method of murder. Or if you prefer reverting back to your original method, you can always stab him repeatedly in the chest instead,” the king taunted.
Is that the only value the king saw in Juan, as his assassin? That needed to change, and in that moment, his mind settled upon a plan to make that happen. “There’s another way; one that keeps Columbus as your primary spokesman bragging about his grand discovery for the entire world to hear.”
“Exactly how simple are you, Boy? I said—” one of the advisors started in, but the king cut him short with a wave of his hand.
“What do you have in mind?”
“Columbus is an explorer, and explorers carry on about their business for only two reasons: riches, and the fame of having their name tied to a great discovery. Right now all Columbus is thinking about are the riches he’ll derive from the lands he found by keeping it to himself.
“To change his story you must appeal to the other side of his exploring nature. Appeal to his need for fame,” Juan went on explaining. “That part of him is demanding he shout from every rooftop, ‘I, Christopher Columbus, made the greatest discovery of all time. Now idolize me for my greatness.’”
Juan narrowed his eyes on the king and said almost as a command, “We will wine him and dine him. We will lavish him with praise and worship reserved only for the earthly return of Christ himself. I guarantee that his ego will give in to accept the fame and praise along with perhaps fewer, yet still bountiful, riches.”
“And if you’re wrong?” the king asked.
“Then we kill him,” Juan concluded with a finality that drew an approving half smile from the king.
Chapter 16: Shall We Dine?
FROM THE MOMENT they stepped off the boat, the Portuguese king’s plan was obvious to Hastelloy. Columbus and his officers were carted on high through the streets of Lisbon with crowds stacked ten deep and pressing in from both sides cheering their names. Priests blessed them with holy water, women ogled them with lustful intent, and men raised their mugs of beer in salute to their bravery. All this was clearly meant to tempt the admiral with the fame his discovery could bring.
As evening set in, a display of fireworks welcomed the returning explorers into the royal palace. None of the pomp and circumstance caused Hastelloy to worry about Columbus holding to his story until he saw the scope of the banquette thrown in their honor. After eight months spent choking down salted meats and hardtack, even a bowl of stew would have been an impressive sight. The spread King John put on this evening was nothing short of stunning.
Even the setting of the feast was inspired, nestled within a large clearing framed by the royal garden in full bloom all around them. Lording over the courtyard was a replica of Columbus’ flagship. The model stood six feet tall and was constructed of silver mash wiring twisted and bent to form a cage as the boat’s hull to house a host of exotic birds. The main mast boasted a sail with the Columbus family coat of arm emblazoned in the middle as one final ego stroking touch.
The first course of the evening would have impressed the Lord God himself with the sheer volume of food presented. Venison covered with sugarplums, stuffed chicken, sturgeon, and loin of veal sprinkled with pomegranate were but a sampling of the overindulgence on display. Not to be outdone by the opulent selection of cuisine, an army of servants stood ready to pour red and white wines of the latest fashion or from the king’s private preserve.
The next course scaled back the sheer volume of food to feature rare, exotic, and exceedingly expensive delicacies. There was roe deer covered in powdered ginger, and eggs sprinkled with saffron. Strawberries stewed in rose water, and cheese slices of every taste and aroma also made the rounds. All, of course, was accompanied by copious volumes of wine.
By the time servants of King John offered a bevy of pies and other sweet pastries to his guests, there was not an inch to spare in their bellies. This prompted a continuous stream of crude seamen excusing themselves from the table to vomit into the perimeter hedges and return for more. They had never experienced such delicacies and were smart enough to realize that they never would again, so they gorged and purged over and over again. All throughout the lavish evening, the king never let up on his battery of loaded questions.
“What new spices and foods did you come across in these lands you found?”
“No different than those brought back over land using the Silk Road,” Columbus answered.
“Were the natives white-skinned like us or dark like the Africans?” the king asked, ignoring the olive complexion of the Asian people as a possible answer. Columbus successfully parried that question as well.
Even the king’s guests were in on the coordinated attempt to make Columbus misspeak and declare his discovery to be new lands rather than a new trade route. One such question came from a young man in his early teens. “How did you know that it was safe to sail during the night as well as daytime?”
“That is a superb question young man; one showing insights well beyond your years. Before I answer, may I know your name?” Columbus asked.
“I am Ferdinand Magellan, ward of Eleanor of Viseu,” the youth answered.
“I shall watch your future career as an explorer with great interest, Mister Magellan,” Columbus teased before answering the youth’s question. “My decision to sail at night was part out of necessity, and part a calculated risk. Even with strict rationing, we lacked supplies to last more than five or six weeks at sea without resupply. My navigator and I knew how far away the shores of Asia were, and we surmised that if there were other lands in between, then Your Majesty’s subjects living in the Azores would have come across them by now. Had we not made that gamble, we would not be here today to enjoy Your Majesty’s hospitality.”
The admiral’s answer made Hastelloy sit up straight in his chair and survey the banquette attendees with a careful eye. The door was open for a leading question about the discovery being new lands rather than Asia. He expected the king to raise the query, but instead it was another young man in his late teens. The youth had escaped Hastelloy’s notice to this point in the evening, but held his rapt attention from that moment on. It had been nearly five years, but he made it a point never to forget the face or name of somebody who murdered him in a prior life.
“Most mathematicians and navigators understand the world to be much larger around than your calculations suggest,” the boy Hastelloy knew as Juan pointed out. “Is it possible the lands you reached to the west were an entirely new landmass? The peoples you met were an entirely new race?”
“No,” Columbus answered flatly.
“Did the people speak Cantonese, Mandarin, or Japanese?” Juan probed further.
“We did not reach the mainland, only islands off the coast of China. The natives spoke a different dialect of the oriental languages,” Columbus answered.
“Are you sure about that? Respectfully, Sir, you are a magnificent explorer, but not a linguist,” Juan accused.
“Our linguist rendered the conclusion that I drew upon to answer your question,” Columbus parried.
“Where is your linguist then?” Juan prodded. “It would be nice to hear from him his opinion on the languages he heard over in these new territories.”
“They are not new territories,” Columbus reaffirmed with an emphatic slap of his palm on the table. “Our linguist is still in the Orient as we speak. We established a settlement with the timbers from our slowest ship, a carrack rather than a nimble caravel. We expected to beat against the winds and knew the slow cow of a vessel would not do well. That being the case, we set up an outpost and staffed it with,
among others, our linguist to cement Spanish relations with the locals.”
Hastelloy made a mental note to commend Columbus at a later time on selling the need to maroon the crew of his flagship as a good thing. Right now, he was more concerned with Juan’s thinly veiled accusations that Columbus was either mistaken or flat-out lying. Hastelloy had spent enough time with the admiral to know when he was reaching a breaking point, and it was close.
“You of course brought back samples of spices and foods from these discovered territories. His Majesty has quite a stockpile of Asian spices here in the palace. Perhaps we could compare them and conclusively settle this matter,” Juan drilled further.
“Yes we did, but those invaluable Asian spices belong to the underwriters of my voyage, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. They will decide what to do with the samples,” Columbus fired back with a growing anger behind his words.
“You seem the inquisitive lad,” Hastelloy jumped in to cool things down. “We sail for Barcelona on the morrow to meet the underwriters of our voyage. We invite you to come along with us, with Your Majesty’s permission of course.”
“I think that is a grand idea,” King John answered. “Juan, why don’t you go and get your affairs in order before joining our honored guests at the docks tomorrow.”
Juan held a combative stare with Hastelloy for a moment before slowly rising to his feet. His eyes screamed I had him, but you got in my way. The youth turned toward the king, gave a bow at the waist, and said, “As you wish,” before leaving the banquette as ordered.
From that moment on, there were no more leading questions for the admiral. There was only drinking, an obscene amount of drinking, which is why Hastelloy ended his consumption altogether. He had a feeling he would need his faculties about him before the night was over.
**********
That navigator, Juan thought to himself as he waited in the shadows between a pair of shops near the docks. Whether he is the same man or not, he is ruining everything for me.
“They’re approaching,” Juan’s scar-faced companion whispered.
It was about time. He was starting to think that the banquette would go on without end. “Give them the signal.”
Juan looked around the corner to watch as three high-pitched chirps sent a shadowy figure running toward a group of four drunken men staggering between three royal guardsmen serving as escorts. One of the group, Christopher Columbus, carried a large box given to him by King John.
The shadowy figure smashed through the row of guards, snatched the box, and bolted in between a pair of houses before anyone in the group knew what to think. The guards managed to regain their footing and all three dashed off after the thief, leaving the drunken quartet to fend for themselves. Oh this is just too easy, Juan thought.
“Do we wait?” Columbus managed to ask of the others.
“No, clearly it’s not safe out here. The ship is only a few blocks away, and we need to get there fast,” a voice Juan recognized as the navigator responded.
The four men managed to pick up their pace to a slow, meandering jog until they noticed Juan and his scarred companion step out of the shadows to obstruct the road. Preoccupied by their appearance, the four men failed to notice the trio of adversaries coming at them from the rear until it was too late. The three attackers downed two of Columbus’ men before they even had time to draw their blades.
Columbus looked frozen with fear by the sudden violence unleashed upon him, but the navigator suffered no such paralysis. In fact, it looked as if he was expecting this. While the three attackers from the rear did their work, the navigator had time to draw his sword and delivered two deadly cuts to the throats of the assailants. He then engaged the third in a duel that lasted three blocked blows before the fourth dispatched the last threat at their rear.
Juan and his companion dashed into the fray to strike down their target but were too late. The navigator twirled Columbus behind him and held them both at bay with his outstretched blade.
“We haven’t seen your faces yet,” the navigator said. “Leave now and you’ll live to see another day without issue.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Juan’s companion barked before delivering a set of strikes with his well-practiced hand.
The blows were countered with calculated precision that kept Columbus out of reach and Juan out of the fight with his scarred accomplice always in the way. Half a dozen attempts to step around and join the duel were met with obstruction until the navigator appeared to lose his footing. His weight shifted onto his back heel, which prompted his opponent to charge in with a head-level thrust.
Juan instantly recognized the unconventional move and tried to warn his companion, but he was too late. The navigator redirected the blow to the side while pushing off his hind leg to deliver a crushing punch to his assailant’s nose. He followed the dizzying blow with a lighting quick slash across the throat to give his opponent one final, fatal scar.
The navigator then squared off against Juan, who stood twenty feet away with his face still hidden by shadows. The sound of approaching footsteps from behind drew a quick glance to confirm that the three royal escorts were returning.
“Your move,” the navigator declared.
Outnumbered, hopelessly overmatched by the navigator’s skill with a blade, and now thoroughly preoccupied with seeing the same unconventional fencing maneuver as his mentor on the first voyage, Juan chose to fight another day. He dropped his sword and ran away as though a demon was chasing after him, which in his mind at that moment was a distinct possibility.
Chapter 17: Getting the Word Out
HASTELLOY HAD TO give Columbus credit; he was a true showman and a master at self-promotion. In Lisbon, it was the Portuguese king who put on the lavish performance. However, with his return to Spanish soil in Barcelona, it was Columbus’ turn to put on the show.
As before, the streets were lined ten deep as Columbus and his famous crew paraded down the avenue. This time the admiral was not content to be pulled along in a cart, this was his parade and he led the procession from the front. The finishing touch to his commanding performance was that he did it all while mounted atop a towering stallion from the king’s stables. Columbus shed his drab maritime rags in favor of a pure white shirt with organ pleats worn under a black over gown ornamented with a necklace and a silver chain wrapped around his waist.
His men behind him showed off numerous treasures acquired from across the Ocean Sea: shells, pearls, along with pieces of gold and silver. They also displayed, to the crowd’s delight, the previously unknown tobacco plant and the exotic pineapple fruit. A crewman shepherding three wild turkeys through the crowds received a particularly stirring round of applause. Bringing up the rear of the procession were a half-dozen natives wearing necklaces, aprons, earrings, beads, headdresses, and bracelets.
When the festivities finally reached the royal couple, Columbus presented each exotic item to them in turn. Of particular interest to the king and queen were the aji peppers. Gold nuggets were well received, of course, but every European power had gold already. The items that carried true value to the European continent were spices. Black pepper, ginger, and cloves from the East Indies were valued ten times their weight in gold owing to their scarcity and nearly insatiable demand from cooks serving the wealthy and royal courts. The aji peppers were the real treasure.
Even when the monarchs invited Columbus to have dinner with them that evening, he found a way to continue his show. Word preceded his arrival about the attempt on his life back in Lisbon. Columbus played up the concerns for his safety to the point that Queen Isabella lent him her personal servant, who tasted the food from each dish before he ate to make sure it was not poisoned. Everywhere he went, Columbus had a cadre of servants and body guards open doors for him and investigate the room before his entry.
At the dining table, the admiral was in rare form boasting about his exploits. His descriptions were part fact but mostly exaggerated fiction to e
ntice the royals to invest in another, much larger expedition.
“The first island we found, which I named Hispaniola, is a miracle. Mountains and hills, plains and pastures are both fertile and beautiful. The harbors are unbelievably good and there are many wide rivers of which the majority contain gold.”
When the topic of the aji peppers came up, Columbus was particularly flamboyant in his telling. “It is so plentiful and wholesome that the natives grow it and eat little else.”
Once the conversation turned to the natives and how they could exploit them for labor in the gold mines and aji fields, Hastelloy lost interest. He turned his mental efforts instead to the young man seated at the far end of the table; the one he was virtually certain had a hand in trying to assassinate Columbus. Juan had killed before, and given his close relationship with the Portuguese monarch, he certainly had motive to kill again.
To this point, Juan had done a commendable job of avoiding Hastelloy. It was a rather impressive feat considering they spent two full days sailing from Lisbon aboard the Niña, which measured just sixty feet long with only two decks. The boy always positioned himself on the opposite end of the vessel from him or, failing that, among a crowd to prevent Hastelloy from engaging him in any meaningful conversation.
Even at tonight’s banquette Juan seated himself as far from Hastelloy as he could manage. Little did the boy realize that his predictable effort at avoidance placed him in the proverbial hot seat.
Hastelloy excused himself from the mundane conversations going on around him, got to his feet, and paced over to the far end of the table. There he came to a stop behind Juan’s chair and remained unnoticed until he interrupted the boy midsentence, “I’ll bet you’re ecstatic to get away from Lisbon. I found those streets to be downright dangerous with all the ruffians milling about among the shadows at night. Didn’t you?”
Origins: Discovery Page 12