by Shirl Henke
“Please, I mean you no harm, Don Bartolome,” a soft feminine voice beseeched.
He looked at the slight figure, clad in the rough clothes of a stableboy. “You are no lad,” he said warily, looking about for others who might be hiding in the portico's colonnade.
“I come alone. I must speak with you on a matter of great urgency,” Magdalena said.
Bartolome replaced his dagger and inspected her in the faint light cast by a flickering torch some yards away. “You are dressed as a rude peasant boy, yet your speech betrays you as a noble lady,” he said incredulously.
“I risked much to secure these clothes from a servant girl's brother, even more to slip from yon window and climb the trellis to waylay you.” She gestured to a stone wall at the far corner of the courtyard, rising several stories above the rest of the palace.
“Those are the royal quarters,” he said with dawning horror. “You could have broken your neck if you had slipped! Just who are you, my lady, and what do you want with me?”
Magdalena scoffed. “I have climbed oaks and palms back in Andalusia that made the descent child's play. As to who I am and what I seek, please, let us go somewhere safe to talk.”
Every instinct honed in the French court led Bartolome to be wary. “You must be one of the queen's ladies in waiting. I could end up on the block for this night's escapade.”
“We will both come to a miserable end if we stand here arguing! At best we will get the lung fever from this accursed rain,” she replied. “If I wanted to entice you, Don Bartolome, I would have dressed more suitably,” she added, pulling the thickset muscular man with her into a dark alcove that led to a winding, narrow set of stairs. “Come.”
“I am doubtless a fool,” he said glumly, allowing her to lead the way down the stairs to a deserted granary filled only with moldy bins of wheat and the mice that devoured it.
The room was barely illuminated by a small tallow candle carefully placed in a dish on the dirt floor. Two rude stools against one wall provided the only furnishing. He removed his damp cape and spread it across the splintering wooden slats of a grain bin, then took the candle and raised it to inspect Magdalena's face.
“You look familiar. I have seen you in the audience room.”
“Your eye is good to remember one girl among hundreds in the queen's entourage, especially disguised as I am.”
“Tis the hair,” he said, noting the thick plait that had slipped from beneath her scratchy cap. “That dark color is like unto the wood brought from Africa and the Indies to make red dyes. Who are you, my lady?”
“Magdalena Valdés, daughter of Bernardo and Estrella Valdés of Seville,” she replied desolately.
“The Count who is Crossbearer, who has the ear of Torquemada himself?” he asked, aghast.
“To my eternal shame, yes, but please, do not fear me for I am in desperate need of your help.” Magdalena pulled her locket from its hiding place beneath the rough woolen tunic. “I have something to show you in strictest secrecy. Pray, please take a seat. I have filched a flagon of wine and some bread and cheese.” For a moment her haunted face flashed a heart-stoppingly enchanting smile. “I am a most proficient thief,” she said, extracting her booty from its hiding place in a leather pouch in the corner.
Bartolome Colon sat down to listen and Magdalena began her long tale of treachery. When she had finished, he felt shaken to the core. He stood up, looking down at her pale, desperate face. “These are evil times in which we live. I would sooner return to Lisbon and make charts than continue in Castile or Aragon.”
“But you would sooner yet journey to join your brother in the Indies,” she argued hopefully.
“I know of this Diego Torres. He was my brother's marshal. They served together in the Moorish wars briefly. The converso saved Cristobal's life,” he admitted grudgingly.
Magdalena shot up. “Then you owe it to Diego to bring his betrothed to him, lest the queen's jealousy consign me to perpetual imprisonment.”
“Do you realize what it is you ask? If my part in aiding your escape from the queen is ever discovered, my whole family could be disgraced, even jailed or killed!”
“As was the House of Torres. Diego is the only one left alive and I have his pledge. He knows not what has befallen me,” she said entreatingly.
Bartolome shook his head. “You have showed me an expensive ring with a family crest. I know not if it indeed belongs to the House of Torres, nor can I be certain how you came by it.” He studied her stricken face. Even dressed in stable boy's rags, she was lovely. Her green eyes glowed with tears.
“Know you what the Contemplative Dominicans are like? The convent outside of Madrid is isolated, the sisters are held behind stone walls as much in a dungeon as those poor wretches my father falsely accuses.”
“Your father is no man to anger, my lady, least of all for a Genoese, a foreigner in a land not noted for its tolerance.”
Turning from him she said, “My father has destroyed me then. If I cannot reach Diego, I will go to no convent.”
The underlying steel in her voice sent a chill climbing his spine to raise the hairs on his nape. The girl made no idle threat. She would kill herself. He was certain of it. “So, you do not lie about the ring being given you by Benjamin Torres,” he said quietly. Then a half-smile spread across his ruddy face, making him appear far more youthful than his forty years. “How are we to smuggle a noblewoman destined for a nunnery all the way from Valladolid to Cadiz, eh?”
Magdalena turned, wiping tears back with her fists, her face once more ablaze with hope. “I have thought of a plan. ‘Twill seem I tried to escape and was set on by thieves. They will find the skirts that I use for riding, all smeared with blood—sheep's blood. I will take my jewelry and leave the empty cask lying by the bloody clothes. My father, and even the king, will be convinced that I am either dead or so dishonored they will not want to recover me. Once I am out of Fernando's favor, the queen will lose interest in me. It will work, Don Bartolome, I know it!”
* * * *
Cacicazgo of Marten, Summer 1494
Aaron stood in the center of the huge bohio that housed Guacanagari, his wives, and their children. The young cacique sat on a carved wooden chair that perfectly followed the contours of his body. He lounged back against the curve of the polished, gold-inlaid wood with a negligent ease that belied his inner feelings as he studied his friend.
“A child grows in Aliyah. I thought this would be a matter of rejoicing for you as well as for my people. We have come to think of you as one of us.” Guacanagari's eyes were perplexed.
“I have shared your life here for many months, my friend, and there is much I have come to admire about the Taino.” Aaron paused, combing his fingers through his shaggy golden hair, groping for words to explain European values, perhaps to justify European prejudices. “Among my people—all peoples across the great water—it is of greatest importance that a man know his woman's children are of his blood.” He looked at Guacanagari to gauge his reaction.
Puzzled, the younger man replied, “Are not all children a gift from your God? That is what your holy men tell us. We believe every baby should be loved.”
Aaron felt trapped. “All children should be loved, but...” He swore vividly in Castilian and tried again. “It is good that your people accept children regardless of their paternity.”
“It is a sign of fertility in a woman. Such makes her a good wife. A man knows when he weds a woman great with child that she will bear him many children.” Guacanagari's position seemed imminently logical to him.
“I must know that the child is mine, Guacanagari,” Aaron said baldly, his blue eyes locking with the cacique's dark ones. “I am sorry, that is the way I have been taught.”
“Aliyah would be faithful to you after marriage oaths were exchanged.” He brightened. “My sister tells me she has lain with you often, seldom with the others. So the child is most likely yours. Always when men of your race give a baby to one of m
y people, it is easy to discern the mixed blood. We will wait and see when it is born. Will that make you happy, my friend?” The earnest entreaty in Guacanagari's voice was unmistakable.
“Yes,” Aaron said, sighing in resignation that he tried carefully to hide. “You are right. Half-white children of the Taino do look different. I will take responsibility for my own child. You have my word.”
The child is most likely yours. Guacanagari's words echoed in Aaron's mind that night as he reclined against a palm tree near the door of his bohio, watching Aliyah add hulled peanuts to the pepper pot bubbling over the fire. The large copper basin was filled with ah aromatic mixture of wild duck, fish, yams, beans and the bitter spicy juices of the cassava root. As she stirred the stew with a wooden paddle, he watched her movements. She was still graceful, although her waist had thickened and her breasts, always full, had grown taut and heavier.
He knew that if the child had European features, he would wed her, but now that he was irretrievably confronted with the prospect, something in him rebelled. He had spent the better part of a year living and working among the Taino. The life was good, the people honest, kind and uncomplicated. They possessed none of the greed, cruelty, and fanaticism that had destroyed his family in Seville. He enjoyed Aliyah's passion, but he did not love her as his father had loved his mother. “The old world is dead to me. I will return only to exact revenge, not to build a life there.”
Aaron knew that many men who had come with the fleet would never return to Castile. Men like Roldan married Taino women and became caciques in their own right, blending into the primitive world of lush jungle life, warm, unfettered, slow moving. But the Taino way of life would soon disappear. Already the officials from Ysabel came, building forts, enslaving Caribes and Tainos alike. They set quotas for gold each fortnight and when the beleaguered and frightened Tainos were unable to gather enough, they cut off their ears or sliced open their noses.
When first this brutality touched Guacanagari's village, Aaron had gone to Ysabel to protest, ready to kill Margarite, but the commander was in the interior building forts. Diego Colon, Cristobal's youngest brother, was in charge of the government while the admiral was exploring. The haughty young man indignantly defended the governor's policy, saying the sovereigns must have the gold or all support for the colony would be withdrawn, including vital shipments of wheat, wine, clothing and weaponry, even medicines. Aaron had left Ysabel, barely escaping imprisonment for his outraged protest about the methods the soldiers used to obtain their booty.
Francisco Roldan did more than protest. He raised the standard of rebellion in Xaragua and drove out all intruders from Ysabel. The more cautious Guacanagari, as cacique in Marien, decided to wait upon the admiral's return, trusting him to be a just man who would stop the soldier's ravaging. Aaron had not been inclined to be so pacific. He had fought and killed several gold-hunting colonists who had attempted to force Tainos into slavery as miners. He wondered if his old friend Cristobal could undo the harm that was being done in his absence.
In the meanwhile, Aaron Torres learned to use the bejuco cord with silent, deadly efficiency. He also stockpiled bolts for his crossbows, but prayed that he would not be forced into open rebellion against the crown and its representative, Cristobal Colon. He valued their old friendship and wanted to keep open conversation between Guacanagari's people and the royal authority in Ysabel. Also, if his plan for vengeance against Bernardo Valdés was to be effected, he had to be able to return to Seville. As a hunted outlaw, this would not be possible.
Aliyah knelt by the fire, watching the expression on Aaron's face grow increasingly pensive. Ever since he had returned from across the waters he had seemed distant to her. She stood up and walked over to where he sat, then stretched out on the damp, mossy ground beside him. In spite of her well-advanced pregnancy, she was as sinuous and graceful as a sleek cat.
“What troubles you? Please speak these things so that I may share the burden.”
He reached out and stroked her cheek. Her moods were mercurial, ranging from petulance to pleading. “I think about the soldiers and others, all the men of my country who come here in ever increasing numbers to enslave and kill the Taino. We need protection for your people. Your brother waits on the admiral. I only wish he would return quickly.”
“You have fought your own kind for us. Will you then become one with my people and turn your face away from the white men if the admiral will not help us?” she asked, visibly brightening at that idea.
He shook his head in perplexity. “I know not, Little Bird. I must journey across the great water again.”
“To kill he who destroyed your family.” She knew this well, for he had explained the tragedy that had befallen the House of Torres. “But after that you will once more return. Nothing remains for you in that place. Here you could be a great cacique. I am of royal blood. As my husband you could lead our people against the evil of the white men who make us dig in the earth for gold.” She drew herself up with hauteur, as grand as a Castilian princess.
As Aaron had learned their language, he had found Aliyah was the word for a small, brightly plumed little bird that preened itself high in the tree tops of the jungle. “You do me great honor, Little Bird, but I have told you I must wait.”
“But you will return to us,” she insisted, placing her hand on his bare chest and stroking it. “Do you not still find me beautiful? I have had great bride prices offered for me by many fine nobles—caciques from Magua and Ciguayo, even as far away as Xaragua. Now that I am proven fertile, I may choose among many men.” Her voice, at first wheedling, became strident as he made no response to her overtures but continued staring into the flames of the cook fire.
“I will do what I must do, Little Bird. You must do what you think best,” he said, rolling himself up in a smooth movement and stalking off across the plaza.
* * * *
Luis Torres lay in his hamaca, sipping from a gourd filled with fermented papaya juice, reading an Arabic treatise on Aristotle, a treasure he had brought from Castile. The paper was moldy as were most of his books, but it was his favorite diversion. Hearing a commotion from the waterfront, he carefully placed the fragile volume on the earthen floor and swung out of the hamaca.
His Taino wife, Anacama, came running up to their hut, gesturing excitedly. “A ship has come from across the waters bearing the brother of the admiral!”
“So, at last the prodigal has come, all the way from France,” Luis said, smiling broadly. Bartolome was older and by all reports possessed far sounder judgment and far stiffer backbone than did his younger brother Diego.
Luis walked briskly toward the crowd gathered about the ships' boats at the harbor.
As the boat approached shore, Magdalena sat huddled in misery, hot, itchy and overcome with apprehension. What will I do if he rejects me? Looking at the wildly unkempt men gathered to greet them, she was appalled. “It is naught but a crude village of thatch huts with a small stone fortress at its center. I have seen far more impressive towns in the poorest marshes of Andalusia,” she said in horror.
“My elder brother has always had a tendency toward exaggeration. It is a fault, I fear, of every visionary. I had hoped the settlement would be more substantial than this, but suspected it would be much as you see it. Like our Portuguese brethren, we Genoese are inclined to trade and industry. The Castilians are a warrior race who take ill to planting wheat and laying masonry. Cristobal's letters to me decried the lack of discipline among the gentlemen adventurers whom he had recruited.”
The smell of rotting fish and other offal filled her nostrils. The men crowding about the boats, staring at her, were scarcely less odoriferous. “Why do these men stare so? They look like savages themselves!”
“I am given to understand, Magdalena, that many of these men have not seen a lady since they left Cadiz in 1493. A few white females have sailed aboard the more recent supply vessels, but we have traveled with some of these women. I believe I can un
derstand why the men view you differently,” Bartolome explained with gentle irony.
During the long tedious days aboard the heavily laden nao, Magdalena had stayed clear of both the seamen and the coarse women who accompanied them. A small handful of females were wives of soldiers, the rest common prostitutes. All were curious about the highborn lady who had come aboard in the pre-dawn darkness just before sailing. Wanting to leave no trail that her father could trace, Magdalena had boarded heavily cloaked, wearing a heavy net caul encasing her distinctive hair.
Now she was dressed to meet Aaron with as much care as possible, wearing her best green silk gown, covered by a gauze surcoat of palest green embroidered with gold thread.
As she fussed with the tight sleeves and then reached up to smooth her hair, Bartolome said laughingly, “You look grand. Diego Torres will think you a vision.”
“After weeks of bathing in salt water, I feel sticky and bedraggled. Do you think anyone here will write back that you accompanied a red-haired woman to Ysabel?” she asked worriedly.
Bartolome replied with cynicism, “I doubt any of this crew can write. Even if they do, we are far from your father's reach now. I can claim you as my sister,” the big, red-haired man added genially.
“I must remember to affect a Genoese accent,” she replied in what she hoped was a bantering tone. Bartolome helped her from the boat and then scanned the motley crowd of colonists, looking for a familiar face. Surely the governor would come to greet three ships sailing into the harbor laden with such badly needed supplies.
“You have medicines, wine?” one man, a surgeon by the look of his bloody clothes, asked. “We die like flies with fevers and bloody bowels, those of us the primitives do not strangle in our sleep.”
“Is there bread? Or wheat to make it? God's bones, I sicken on cassava cakes,” another fellow said.