by Gene Wolfe
De Santiago knew more about sword-fighting than I did, and to be honest anybody who knew anything about it knew more than I did. But I knew more about just plain fighting than he did, I was younger and probably stronger, and I had a longer reach.
There was more, and I might as well write that, too. It had probably been years since he had fought with a sword or even practiced with one, and the swords he was used to were longer and had straight blades. Besides, it was dark and neither of us could see the other's blade very well. My night vision may have been a little better, too. I do not know.
Another thing I ought to say is that it did not last anywhere near as long as the sword fights on TV. Nobody jumped up on a table or swung from a rope or any of that. He tried to stab me the way I had stabbed Yancy. I got out of the way and cut at his arm. I remember those. Pretty soon we banged together. He grabbed the blade of my cutlass with his free hand, not expecting it to be as sharp as it was. I slugged him in the belly with my left, giving it all I had and trying to punch through him.
I do not think that punch traveled more than six or eight inches, but he doubled over. I banged him in the head with the brass guard of my cutlass. He still did not go down, so I kicked his legs out from under him.
That was when Rombeau surprised me. He grabbed the cutlass out of de Santiago's hand, and when de Santiago tried to stand up he had the points of both of them in his face.
"You had better concede, Don Jose." I said it in Spanish and tried to make it as polite as I could. "I'd hate to kill such a brave man, so give up and I'll get somebody to bandage your hand."
After a second or so, he nodded. "I am vanquished, Senor Capitan. What would you have me do?"
Novia said, "Tell us where the woman is," and I seconded her.
It was hard, but he managed to get up. "In the sea. Will you hear me out now, Senora?"
Novia did not answer and Rombeau was yelling for someone to stop the bleeding, so I told de Santiago to go ahead.
"It was our custom to breakfast together, Senor and Senora Guzman, and my wife and I. In fine weather, the little table would be carried from our cabin and placed on deck. You understand, I feel certain. One morning Senor Guzman was not to be found. I had the ship searched. He-"
Novia muttered. "That ship is searched very much."
De Santiago bowed to her again. "As you say, Senora. It is searched, but little is discovered. This was ten days, perhaps, from Coruna. He had thrown himself into the sea. There was no other explanation." De Santiago sighed. "His wife followed him two days ago. I have concealed this matter from my own wife. Senor Guzman's suicide was a great and terrible shock to her. She was devastated. Another suicide…" He let it trail away. "I have given her to think that Senora Guzman keeps to her cabin now, that she is indisposed. You understand, I am sure."
What I understood was that I was the biggest fool ever to have had Menton bring Ojeda forward. I had wanted him to see it was a fair fight. Now he had heard his boss's story, and he would probably stick with it. We got the chains put back on de Santiago and had Menton take both of them forward again.
That was when the watch changed, as close as I can remember. Then, or about then. Anyway we stood around and talked it over, Rombeau, Novia, and I. He thought it might be true. Novia said it was a pack of lies, and there had never been a Mr. and Mrs. Guzman on the ship at all-that this cabin had belonged to some other woman, and she was hiding on the Castillo Blanco this minute.
"Whoever she is," Rombeau said, "he would rather die than hand her over."
I pointed out that de Santiago was not dead.
"Well, Captain, he thought he was going to die."
Novia shook her head. "He thought he would kill Crisoforo. After that, who could say?"
"You understand him, too."
"You may be sure I do," Novia told Rombeau. "What I do not understand is his reason for sheltering the woman. He is not a man of the type of Ojeda. Why does he do it?"
It hit me when she said it, but I tried to pretend I had known it all along and I think I must have fooled them both. I said, "It's her hiding place. He knows where she's hiding, and that's where he's hidden the money."
They looked at me like Saint John looking at the angel on Patmos, and it felt wonderful. I wanted to say that I too was just a servant of the Lord's. It would have been the truth, but I did not.
Finally Rombeau said, "I cannot see through bricks. It is good that we have among us a man who does."
Novia touched my arm. "You comprehend all this, mi corazon?"
"I think so."
"He conceals his money in this very secret place, yet this woman knows of it, for she conceals herself there?"
"It's a little room," I told her. "Probably just big enough for two people to lie down in."
Rombeau spat. "I am still in the dark, Captain."
"I am not," Novia told him. She laughed, and just hearing her laugh made me feel wonderful all over again. "Her husband is dead. He consoles the widow."
"But his wife is on board." Rombeau rubbed his chin. "I am a donkey."
"You have not been married, I think. Crisoforo, should we go to the white ship to look?"
"It's dark," I said. "Finding her will be a lot easier by daylight. It'll be easier to go from this ship to that one, too. Let's see what the wife knows."
We had Pilar brought up after that. She was crying, and kept on crying even when we had the chains taken off her wrists. I got Novia to hug her and so on, but it took a while to get her quieted down.
"Your husband is still alive," Novia told her. "I swear it. So are you. If you tell us everything we ask, there will come a day when you are home once more, telling your friends of your capture by pirates."
Pilar nodded and tried to smile. It was full dark by then, but somebody had lit the stern lanterns and I could see her pretty well. She was years past her best, and she had been through a lot. Even making allowances for all that, I could see she had never been a treat. If de Santiago had married her for her money, I hoped he had gotten his money's worth.
"There was a woman besides yourself on your husband's ship," Novia began. "What was her name?"
Pilar nodded. "Senora Guzman."
"A younger woman, your husband said." Novia smiled. "No doubt she looked to you for wise counsel."
"Oh, yes." Pilar nodded vigorously.
"It is strange to me that a woman would journey so far alone."
"You are kind, Senora, but she was not alone. Senor Guzman accompanied her when she set out."
I said, "This is one of the people down there? Maybe I should see him."
"He is dead, Senor. Many are dead."
Rombeau touched my elbow, and I translated for him. He asked me to ask her if there was disease on board, and I did.
That started her crying again. Finally she whispered to Novia, and Novia said in French, "There is something that kills. A curse."
Rombau and I just stared at each other.
They whispered some more, and Novia said, "I have promised that she and her husband will be permitted to remain on this ship for the present."
I said, "Sure. Tell her she's got to pull herself together." I can be terribly, terribly dumb, particularly about women. But I finally had the sense to tell Rombeau we needed another chair, a bottle of wine, and a glass. Sitting down, with Novia patting her shoulder and a glass of medium-good wine under her stomacher, Pilar dried her tears and got pretty chatty. Senor Guzman had been the first to die, not long after they had left Spain. She did not know how long. A few days. The rest had been sailors. Sometimes they disappeared like Senor Guzman. Sometimes they were found dead. Her husband had not permitted her to view the bodies, and she did not know whether they had been stabbed or shot.
She leaned toward Novia confidentially. "They were frightened to death, Senora. That is what I think. Some so frightened they died, some leaped overboard rather than face the ghost. Their expressions were most horrible."
Naturally I wanted to k
now how she knew that, if she had not been allowed to see them.
"He told me, Senor. Jose told me. He saw them all. Their faces were hideous, he said."
"Only not Senor Guzman, right? He didn't see him?"
"No, Senor. He saw none of those who leaped into the sea, only those whose bodies we found."
I said, "But he must have been very worried about Senor Guzman, wasn't he? Senor Guzman was a close friend?"
"No, no! Only a friend of a friend. I never saw either of them until the day before we sailed. He was a tall, handsome man, Senor. Very strong. Muy macho. It frightened him to death even so. From this you conceive how much I feared it."
Rombeau said, "I'm surprised that Don Jose let him and his wife travel on his ship, a penniless couple he hardly knew."
When Novia had translated, Pilar said, "Oh, no, Senor! The Guzmans were not penniless. Far from it! They had very much gold. My husband desired to form a partnership with Senor Guzman in New Spain."
Rombeau's ears pricked up when Novia translated that.
Mine had pricked up already. We wanted to know who had that gold now.
"Senora Guzman, of course, Senors. He is dead, so his gold is hers."
We gave Pilar another glass of wine, chained her hands again, and sent her forward with the two men. After that I plumped myself down in her chair, and Novia, Rombeau, and I looked at each other.
"That liar of a shipowner told us Guzman was ruined," Rombeau said. "He will pay for that!"
I nodded. "He did, and he will. He's got guts, just the same, and you've got to give him credit for them. He wanted his stash and Guzman's, too, and he was willing to fight for them."
"Already he has lost them, Crisoforo." Novia was thinking so hard she sounded as if she were talking to herself instead of me.
"Not the way he sees it. Rombeau's promised they won't be killed. That sounds like we're going to let them go eventually. Put them ashore someplace or send them off in a boat. After that we'd probably sell the Castillo Blanco, or so he thought. He has friends and business connections, and he might be able to find her and buy her before the new owner finds the money."
"Or the woman will save the gold for him, perhaps." Novia went to the rail to look at the white bulk of the Castillo Blanco, a quarter mile away and glowing in the moonlight. "You will not sell her?"
"I don't know. I want to look her over, and I want to find that money." I went to the taffrail, too, and stood there beside Novia with my arm around her waist, a waist no bigger than a child's. Ten dozen things were swirling around in my mind then, and I could not write them all down here if I wanted to.
She leaned against me, just a little. She was wearing one of the calico gowns she and Azuka had made, and there was perfume in her hair. "Do not sell her, Crisoforo." It was a whisper.
"I won't," I promised. "Not if she's half as fast as she looks." I do not believe either of us were thinking of Pilar's ghost, monster, or whatever it was just then.
17
God Has Punished Me
Fr. Phil and I went for a walk this morning. It was the first time we have ever done that, and was probably the last. At least one priest is supposed to be at the rectory every minute of the day and night in case someone is at the point of death or in urgent need of confession. Fr. Houdek is usually somewhere else, so Fr. Phil and I rarely have a chance to go out together.
Today was different, because Fr. Ed Cole has come to take collections for the missions. He said he planned to spend the rest of the morning reading, so off we went, a couple of young priests on a sunny Monday-morning stroll.
While we walked, we talked about a good many things. Fr. Phil is eager to get a parish of his own, but thinks it will be years. I know I may get one in the next few weeks, and am not at all eager-which is not what I said to Fr. Phil.
One of the things we talked about (maybe the only important thing we talked about) was what it means to be a priest. He is focused on the priest as leader of a little community of believers. That is what he wants from his priesthood, though he did not put it like that. I am more focused on the sacred nature of the calling. "After all," I said, "a priest living alone on a desert island far away remains a priest. Does God think less of him because he has forsaken the world of men for God?"
"You ought to say, the world of people," Fr. Phil told me.
I have used the word importance, but none of this was important at all. The subject is certainly important, but we had nothing of importance to say about it. And we were both right, and both quite willing to concede that both of us were right. If Fr. Houdek had been with us, he would have focused on something else, I am sure, though I am not sure what it would be. Raising money for a new school, or administering the sacraments, or any of a dozen other things.
One thing I am sure of, now that I have had a chance to think our conversation over, it is that the thing we should focus on depends on where we are. My priest on a desert island is not in a parish. Fr. Phil's priest in a parish is not alone on an island. Fr. Luis was in a third place, and so on.
I started writing about this because of what happened at the end. Fr. Phil said something I ought to have said, and felt something I ought to have felt. We were out of character (as an actor would say), both of us. But life is not a TV series, and this was a salutary reminder of it.
We were returning to the rectory when Fr. Phil stopped and pointed to the spire of the church, raising its shining gilt cross to the clear blue sky. "Look at that, Chris! Isn't it inspiring? Every time I see it, I want to cheer."
I did not feel that way. I knew I should have, but I did not. Still, there was a little tickle of memory there for me, and I knew there had been a time when I had felt like that about something. It took me hours to recall what it was. Eventually I realized that it had hit me so hard because I am at that point in this private and probably worthless chronicle-in this, the true story about me that I tell myself each evening at the hour when all or most of the kids have gone home from the Youth Center and we are about to close. It meant a great deal to me then, as it still does. It did not speak in words, however, and I know that no words of mine can make anybody-no, not even this man in black who writes it-feel what I felt then.
When Novia and I went aboard the Castillo Blanco, we did not set out to look for the hidden woman or the hidden gold straight off. My first concern had to be for the ship itself-how well Bouton had been handling her, and how well she handled.
He was full of praise for her, though he had less for the crew Rombeau had given him.
"You don't have a pistol," I said.
"Mine are in my cabin, Captain. I did not feel one was necessary."
"You're right. You need two. Two at least. Go to your cabin and get them. Three would be better."
When he had gone Novia said, "I have mine, Crisoforo," and I told her I hoped she would not have to use them.
"First we'll explain things to them," I told Bouton when he came back with his pistols. "If we do it right, we won't have to worry about their ganging up on us. If you see anybody goofing off, smack his ass with the flat of your cutlass. If anybody hits you or pulls a knife-or if anybody even tries it-kill him. I'll be with you, and I expect you to be with me. We kill him quick, throw him over the side, and get them back to it. Capeesh? We don't give them time to talk it over."
He got the watch up to the quarterdeck rail for me. This is more or less what I said, only I said it in my second-rate French:
"Friends, we're on our way to Port Royal to sell the Rosa and her cargo. When we do there will be plenty of money for everybody."
Some of them cheered.
"We're not going to sell this ship, though. She's fast, and we're going to make her faster. Handled right, she'll bring us ten times more than she'd fetch at auction. The thing is, she's got to be handled right. We can't slug it out with a Spanish galleon, not even with the Magdelena doing most of the fighting. So we've got to be able to run, and we've got to be able to catch. Anybody want to argu
e with that?"
Nobody did.
"Fine. We're going to put her through some maneuvers now. Me and Bouton are going to be jumping around yelling at you, trying to get everything better and faster. If you don't like that, I don't blame you. I've been yelled at a lot, and I never liked it for shit. But those officers who yelled at me were trying to save me from drowning. If the ship wasn't handled right and fast, we were all going to drown. That's true here on the Castillo Blanco, too. We handle it right or we drown. Or hang. I'm a pirate, so I've got a noose around my neck right now. You've got a noose around yours, too, every man of you. Feel it?
"Stations now! Stations, everybody!"
After that we tacked, wore ship, and so on. We took in canvas, and we let canvas out. At first we had to yell at the men to get down when she gybed, but they caught on faster than I expected. We kept them at it until the watch was over, then we went to it with the next watch while they stayed out of the way and jeered. One of the good things was that we did not have to kill anybody.
Another good thing was that I took the wheel for the last hour or so of that second watch. I wanted to see how she answered her helm, and she drove like a sports car. What a ship! I had been shouting out the maneuvers, stand by to go about and all that. Finally I called, "Mister Bouton! Run up the black flag!"
Although he was a big, solid man, he was back up on the quarterdeck and into the signal chest like a boy, and had the flag climbing its halyard almost before I caught my breath. We had a good breeze by then, and I stood there at the wheel looking up at that flag snapping at the masthead while the whole crew cheered. I was as happy right then as I have ever been in my life.
We ate at eight bells, Bouton, Novia, and me messing together at the little table Don Jose had talked about. It was a lot better food than Novia and I had been getting, and we enjoyed it. There is nothing like warm sunshine, salt air, and a stiff breeze to give you an appetite.
Looking at all that good food, I happened to think of the fat woman back in Spain who had told me to take a walk. I asked Novia whether she had been a good cook and easy to work with. Novia said no and no, but did not want to talk about her. I would not mention it here if it had not been for what happened that night.