by Shirl Henke
They lay for a while, stroking and kissing lightly, comfortable without verbal communication, wrapped in the balmy night air. As he enjoyed his freedom from the sexual tension that had plagued him for weeks, his mind drifted and he remembered Magdalena's far different response to his passion. She was as experienced as Aliyah, yet far less honest about it, he thought angrily. Of course noblewomen of the court were always deceivers. Why am I thinking of a foolish girl a world away when I have a far more satisfactory one right here?
Aliyah sensed the tension that suddenly bloomed in him and recalled that he had cried out at the moment of his release. Some feminine intuition told her that the word “Magdalena” was a woman's name. She rolled up and began to kiss him, starting at the marvelous golden hair that grew from his face, then moved lower to his chest. Her lips and teeth worked on his hard male nipples until he groaned. She stroked his already hardened planting stick and smiled wickedly, but when he tried to roll atop her once more, she pushed him back onto the ground and straddled his narrow waist. Then she lowered herself onto him and they both let go of the past, at least for that night...
* * * *
“One more day and night in the canoa and we will arrive,” Aaron murmured as he watched the men loading their supplies for the last leg of their island-hopping journey. Over the past fifteen days he had learned a great deal about the Tainos, especially their language. They would be good and loyal subjects of the Trastamaras, but only if the monarchs were wise enough to rule through their local leaders. The simplicity of their life in this rich island paradise was deceptive, for already he had learned they were skillful farmers, hunters, and fishermen. The tools and pottery they used hinted at a far more complex culture than he or the admiral had at first believed possible. Yet their lack of guile and abundance of childlike trust led him to fear what European avarice might wreak. He would have long and careful discussions with the cacique when they reached the big island.
Already he felt responsible for the Taino. Perhaps the lovely woman strolling sinuously up to him had something to do with this, he mused, wondering if they would be missed if they slipped off for an hour or so before embarkation.
Aliyah ran her hand along his stubbly jaw, feeling the prickly whiskers. “You need cut face again,” she stated in Castilian. The first morning when he had shaved his beard off, he drew quite a crowd of amazed Tainos who watched as if it were a magic ritual of some sort. They insisted on feeling his smooth jaw when he had completed the greatly longed-for toilette. “I want watch.” Her hand glided lower to the hair on his chest and she smiled as she felt his heartbeat accelerate.
Aaron smiled back and extracted his razor and the highly polished piece of steel which so fascinated her when he showed her her own reflection in it. “Lead me to the pool you spoke of and I will shave. You can watch,” he said in Castilian. Aliyah understood.
They walked away from the low fires over which the men roasted hutias, small rodent-like creatures which were the first fresh meat he had tasted since crossing the Atlantic. Aaron abandoned his qualms about dietary restrictions, even in the face of his father's medical opinions. The dark sweet flesh had tasted better than fine beef to him! Dawn gilded the sky as the young couple wended their way through the tangle of vines, huge leafy plants and brilliant flowers, none of which he or anyone else in the fleet could name.
At first he had wished that another man from the fleet had accompanied him, but the only one desirous of doing so was Luis and he was under royal order to remain with the admiral as translator in case they stumbled upon the city of the Khan, an event Aaron thought more and more unlikely. When all others refused, he insisted on going alone. Since Santa Maria had no need of her marshal while in the Indies, he could serve better learning from the native peoples. Two brave Tainos agreed to journey with the admiral and guide him at length to their home island, where Aaron would be waiting. Loneliness for another to speak his language quickly passed as he became fascinated with the Taino ways and language. His relationship with Aliyah was also a decided cure for melancholy, he thought ruefully as they approached the pool.
Women, even those of high rank such as Aliyah, were not expected to be chaste. In fact, the onset of puberty was celebrated as a time for boys and girls to begin sexual experimentation quite openly. She had singled him out from all the admiral's men on San Salvador and did not regret it. He watched her rounded, golden-brown buttocks swing enticingly as she led him to the pool.
While he shaved, she watched in fascination, as always insisting that the hair must all be carefully gathered up, including that which he wiped from his razor. Then she buried it in a hidden place so evil zemis, as the Taino called their gods, could not use it to work mischief. Their religion was a fascinating puzzle to him, one he had not yet the language skills to fathom. They revered their family and village zemis and feared others, as well as the ghosts of dead mortals. He chuckled as he remembered how he had learned of that. The second time he and Aliyah made love, it was full dark. She had reached out and inserted her finger in his navel before she would let him touch her. Ghosts, it seemed, had no navels! This was a routine precaution taken before making love in the darkness.
Finishing his shave, he watched her bury the discarded whiskers while he laid out his full dress regalia. He had decided, hot and impractical or not, he would arrive to greet the headman looking impressive, as befitted a “man from the sky.” The admiral's lessons in the deportment and dress of a leader had not been lost on him.
After a brief, playful interlude in the pool, he dressed and they returned to the beach. At once he could sense something was wrong. Women hid in the undergrowth and men stood in small groups, their crude lances and darts in hand, talking animatedly and pointing-toward the opening of the cove where a large dugout rowed rapidly toward shore.
Aliyah exchanged words with one of her guards and turned to him in fright, speaking rapidly. He held her by her shoulders and said, “I cannot understand you. Talk slowly.”
“Caribe come! The flesh-eaters,” she said, pointing to the canoa about one hundred yards from them and closing rapidly.
The hair on the back of his neck prickled. These were the ancient enemies of the Tainos, who lived in the south. They took captives, not as slaves but to fatten for their stew pots! “We shall be meat for no Caribe,” he growled. Walking swiftly to the dugout where his possessions were stored, he extracted a light arbalest and a large quiver of fletched bolts.
“Go to the shelter of the jungle,” he commanded Aliyah slowly in Castilian. When she paused with fear-filled eyes, he smiled. “I will be safe. Only watch from afar.” Then he handed the open quiver to one of her guards, saying in the Taino language, “Hold arrows for me.”
The man did as instructed, looking very dubious as he compared the four-foot-long arrows of the Caribes with the fifteen-inch bolts in Aaron's quiver. The Taino were spear throwers who could fight only at close range—when they fought at all. Aaron took the arbalest and placed the bow on the ground with the stock resting against the inside of his thigh. Then he braced his foot on the bow, reached down to grasp the bow-string, and pulled it upward until it fastened into the firing notch of the stock. He slipped a bolt into the groove atop the stock and then held the weapon aloft, sighting it in against the canoa, now barely eighty yards away. He squeezed the trigger lever and the bolt hissed free, flying toward the Caribes, overshooting the dugout by several yards. Cursing, he repeated the exercise as his quiver holder's eyes widened with amazement. The bolt flew true this time, knocking the first Caribe in the canoa backward against the fellow behind him. A third bolt felled another attacker. The paddlers stopped on command and the dugout began to turn in the water. Aaron took advantage of the easy targets presented when the Caribes shifted course, knocking half a dozen more into the water as he unleashed his powerful arbalest bolts with the deadly accuracy born of long and serious practice.
The Caribe rout was complete and they headed out to sea accompanied by the j
oyous shouts of Aaron's Taino friends. “Man from sky save us,” one said in awe. Aliyah threw her arms about his neck as the others examined the magical crossbow and short arrows that traveled such great distances with unbelievable accuracy. During the siege of Granada, Aaron Torres had become famous for knocking Moorish guards from the citadel's walls from nearly three hundred yards with a heavy arbalest fitted with block and tackle.
“You truly a god,” Aliyah said with pride infusing her whole body.
“Nay. I am but a man, all too good at killing,” he replied, feeling oddly ambivalent. He was elated at saving his companions from their fierce predatory enemies, yet as always when the heat of battle ended, he felt saddened that he had never possessed his father's instincts to heal and preserve life. His only skill was in taking it.
With a sense of premonition he said, “Come, let us journey to your home. I grow eager to speak with your cacique.”
Chapter Eight
The Village of the Cacique of Marien, December 22, 1492
Dearest Father,
So much has happened I scarce know where to pick up my tale. Life among the Taino people is remarkable indeed, with each day full of new experiences. I have told you of their handsome appearance, generosity and friendliness. During the weeks since last I made an entry I have become a fisherman apprenticed to my friend Guacanaguri. They have a fantastical fish that they actually leash-train to catch turtles, sharks and other large fish. Had I not witnessed it myself, I would not believe it either. The creature has a long sucking snout which attaches itself to the prey and holds fast. Then the fisherman reels in his pet, who is fastened by stout hemp lines, and dispatches the catch with a spear. These marvelous creatures are captured young and held in tidal pools where they become accustomed to the leash and learn to hunt, being rewarded with a piece of their prey each time they are successful. This day I reeled in the cacique's own remoru, as that is what they call them. Through its skill I caught a huge sea turtle on which we all feast this night.
I will bring you one of their ceremonial pipes and the aromatic, mildly narcotic powder they inhale through it, which I have described earlier. Some people, although not of this village, prefer to roll the leaves and burn them, inhaling the smoke directly into their nostrils, a most disagreeable sight and smell. As to the medicinal properties of this tobaco, I know not, but you will doubtless find it interesting.
Aaron paused and looked across the room of their large, gable-roofed bohio. As a residence for a cacique's sister, it was much bigger than the caneyes of the lesser classes, but made of cane poles, a wood-beamed ceiling, and a thatched roof like theirs. A large, hearth-fired clay pot, beautifully painted, sat in one corner next to the twilled basket in which desiccated ancestral heads were kept. He smiled to himself. There were many things he could not write to his family for fear of shocking their sensibilities, the Taino burial practices being among them.
The dead were prepared very reverently, but before being interred with great ceremony in one of the caves some distance from the village, the deceased was decapitated. His or her head was lovingly shrunken and dried, then placed in the basket. Only young children who died escaped the basket. They were cremated and their ashes kept in tiny urns beside the family's zemis, or small idols. The zemis, too, were difficult to describe for his family. They were really quite beautifully carved male and female figures, all completely nude with greatly exaggerated genitals and bellies. When he questioned Aliyah about this she had asked in all reasonableness, “Are not procreation and eating the most pleasurable gifts of the gods to humans?” The zemis merely reflected the philosophy of Taino life.
Another facet of their culture he could not share in his diary was the bizarre code of sexual morality. All positions of authority, including the royal line of caciques, were passed to the son of the dead ruler's eldest sister. Thus, maternity, not paternity determined inheritance. Chastity was not a value for women before they themselves chose a mate. That made the maternal inheritance rule imminently practical, he supposed, but his strict Jewish upbringing made the concept abhorrent. A man should know who his children were! Of course, considering the morality among the ruling classes in Castile, he doubted if many of the nobility could swear the children bearing their names were truly of their blood.
That disturbing thought brought memories of Magda-lena Valdés rushing back to him. Did she carry his child? Such was possible, but since she was as free with her favors as any unwed Taino female, he could never be certain of his fatherhood. Forcing himself to dismiss the oddly painful and guilty thought, he looked at Aliyah. She, too, could be carrying his child. He had been received by her brother, the young cacique of Marien, as the savior of the trading expedition his sister had led. He was accorded every privilege of royalty, from the spacious bohio in which he lived to the privilege of having Aliyah share his bed. There were no conditions placed on this hospitality and the cacique's sister certainly favored him, but Aaron often detected the wistful hope of Guacanagari that his guest would offer to marry Aliyah. His conscience smote him because he did not wish to do so. She was lovely, complaisant, and obviously worshipped him. Her brother, a man of honor and intelligence, entrusted him with all his wealth and placed everyone in the village of three thousand souls at his disposal.
What awaits me in Castile? Perhaps once I return and talk with my parents, I will come back here...to Aliyah. His love for her was the joyous uninhibited lustfulness of youth, but was it also the genuine companionship that created a permanent bond such as Benjamin and Serafina shared? He wished no less than that, but had often doubted he would find it. Ana certainly had been forced to settle for less.
“Your thoughts are troubled,” Aliyah said, putting down her work. “Is it that my brother's gold hunters have been able to find so little for your admiral?”
He smiled at her and shook his head, replying in the Taino language, “No. I have seen the riches of this land, the people, the crops, the magnificence of mountains and rivers. Men can live and thrive in peace here. They need only tools and a will to work, not gold.”
“Then you miss your family?” Aliyah watched his face grow even more pensive.
“Yes, my parents grow old and my sister is unhappily wed. My brother, like me, sojourns far from home. Yes, I miss them.”
“But you have no wife,” she said, her voice laced with uncertainty, although he had repeatedly told her he did not. “Will you go back to the sky when the admiral comes here?”
Her voice sounded both jealous and sad. Aaron felt the old guilt gnaw at him as he took her hand, pulling her up from the earthen floor. “I have told you we cross the waters. We do not sail to the sky. We are but men, not gods, Aliyah, all too mortal in our sins.”
She waited patiently, knowing he did not want to answer her.
Sighing, he added. “Yes, Aliyah, I will have to return to Castile with Don Cristobal.”
“Forever?” she asked with the beginning of a pout marring her full lips.
“Forever is a long time,” he replied with a lazy smile, reaching out to her. “Let us not consider it until the admiral arrives here.”
She came eagerly into his embrace.
Later, as evening fell, Aliyah prepared the staple food in their diet, cassava, bread. Seated on a stool, she patiently scraped the outer skins from the cassava plant with a piece of sharp flint. The bitter roots, once peeled, squeezed, and shredded, were baked like unleavened bread, a food considerably more palatable than ship's biscuit. Outside their bohio the thick white meat of an iguana roasted slowly over the coals. With minimal hunting and fishing, the men of the Taino supplemented the carefully tended crops the women grew. Because of the year-round warmth, two planting seasons were possible. Nature yielded great bounty here.
Aaron lay in his hamaca, contemplating how it might be to live out his life among these people. Of course, he would first have to return to Seville and explain his choice to his family. His mother would be bereft, but somehow, he thought his f
ather would understand. Aaron drifted off to sleep, dreaming of bringing his family here to see the marvels of the Indian islands. Then a russet-haired nymph intruded, standing beside Benjamin.
He was startled from his reverie when Aliyah's younger brother called his name excitedly. He swung from the hamaca and the disturbing dream faded as he faced the fourteen-year-old boy. Caonu was slim and fine-boned with the features of a choirboy, almost too delicate for a male. Only a heavy gold nose ring marred their perfection. “What has happened?”
“Your ad-mi-ral,” the boy said, pronouncing the foreign title carefully, “he returns!” The youth's face split in a wide grin of pure joy. “His great canoas have been seen at the north of the river only a few miles from here. My brother Guacanagari prepares to greet him in person.” Although he strove for dignity, it was all he could do not to hop up and down in excitement.
“The cacique does great honor to my admiral, Caonu,” Aaron replied as he pulled on his tunic, hose, and boots, then buckled on his sword belt. Colon would be appalled at his marshal's newly acquired habits. He had taken to wearing only a small loincloth as a shield against the curiosity of the natives, who found his circumcision a thing of great wonder and puzzlement. Now European clothing seemed hot and constricting. Already he was sweaty as he left the bohio and strode into the central plaza with Aliyah at his side.
The plaza served as a gathering place for war councils, celebrations, and the rough and exhilarating ball sports the Taino played. Now several dozen highly ranked nobles were awaiting the cacique. Everyone was decked out in red body paint with feathers in their hair and heavy gold-copper alloyed jewelry adorning their arms and legs. Guacanagari wore a nose ring of pure gold, and about his neck the heavy pendant that symbolized his rank as the cacique of the province. At least twenty to thirty sub-chiefs from a hundred miles around bowed to the young leader's authority.