Navigator

by Stephen Baxter

  She smiled almost fondly at Colon, who bowed with a flourish.

  XXVI

  Isabel took the seat de Santangel had vacated. She murmured to the financier that she was sorry to have missed Colon’s presentation but looked forward to his judgement.

  De Santangel, glorying, showed off. He walked back and forth, stroking his bearded chin. ‘I’ll tell you what I think of all this, good Colon. I can see you’re a man of substance: of good bearing, of integrity, of faith, of belief - and of determination, which is what a man needs to get along in business.

  ‘But I can also see that the case you’ve spouted is a lot of bilge. No, no,’ and he held up a hand as Colon made to protest, ‘I don’t want to hear it all trotted out again. Once is enough, thanks! But what I will say is that it’s bound to be a lot of bilge, because the truth is nobody can say what lies on the other side of the Ocean Sea until somebody goes out there to see for himself. Am I right? So that’s the bare bones of the case.

  ‘Now, I’m a man of business, and I’m used to estimating risk. And as I see it the risk to the monarchs is low. All we have to fund is the first voyage, for if you succeed subsequent voyages will be paid for out of the profits, and if you fail, for instance if you don’t come back, we just won’t go out again. All you want is three ships. You’re asking for, what, five million maravedis? Why, I’d be prepared to put up my own house as collateral on that much if necessary.

  ‘And why? Because the returns are potentially huge. The Portuguese are already sucking in profits from Madeira; we are already making money from the Canaries. Now, I’m no geographer and I don’t know if you’ll find a way to Asia or not. But it stands to reason that there’s something out there, because God surely wouldn’t make a world half-covered with an ocean good for nothing but fish!

  ‘Our new kingdom of Spain has grown from nothing to cover the whole peninsula, in a few centuries. Now, it seems to me, we have the chance to build a new Spanish empire that could grow much further, beyond all imagination. Why, the monarchs could be compared in future to - to—’

  Abdul said drily, ‘Alexander the Great?’

  ‘Exactly! And on the other hand if we don’t take this chance some other petty king or grasping prince, from Portugal or England or France, will take it instead, and we’ll be for ever in their shade.

  ‘And I’ll tell you something else. We need the money. For centuries we lived off a tithe of Moorish gold. Now we’re funding the war with money confiscated from the Jews by the Inquisition. But the Moors are all but defeated. And if some have their way,’ and he eyed the Inquisitors, ‘we’ll soon be driving the last Jew out of Spain, and half our merchant class and a good chunk of our wealth will go with them, and then we’re going to need a new source of funds.

  ‘Cristobal Colon, you may be a genius or as mad as a grasshopper in a hat, I’m not qualified to judge. But you offer a vision of virtually unlimited wealth, for a price that represents an affordable risk. And for that reason I’ll be recommending strongly to their noble majesties,’ and he bowed to Isabel, ‘that they fund your mission. Let it not be said that such great and noble monarchs denied themselves a grand chance to probe the secrets of the very universe over a pittance.

  ‘And as for the proposal that Colon should become a general in God’s army,’ he concluded, glancing at Ferron, ‘God has many generals, but we have only one Cristobal Colon. He is meant for discovery, not war, friar!’

  So, Harry realised, his and Geoffrey’s years of work and scheming - and perhaps a manipulation of history centuries deep - were coming to fruition in this very room.

  And Harry himself had to ruin it. He gazed at Ferron, who met his eyes calmly. Anger flared in Harry. Perhaps he would defy this monster even now.

  But then Ferron turned to his serving girl, who had knelt, silent and still as a statue, throughout Colon’s presentation. Ferron slid back the veil from the girl’s face.

  It was, of course, Agnes. Her chin was bruised, her nose a little bloody. Her eyes were empty, unfocused, and a little drool laced her lips. It was clear she was drugged.

  Harry knew he had no choice. Reluctantly, he stood. The Queen, de Santangel, even Colon, turned to him curiously.

  Geoffrey plucked at his sleeve. ‘In God’s name sit down. We have won! There’s no more to be said.’

  But Harry shook him off. ‘I must speak.’ He turned to de Santangel, his head full of devastating arguments against Colon - not least the fact that some of his evidence was simple fakery, planted by Geoffrey and himself. He prepared to speak.

  And Ferron’s other Moorish companion, the tall woman, leapt to her feet. From beneath her loose white robes she produced a blade, long and sharp and polished.

  With a strangled cry she hurled herself at the Queen. Isabel stared, with no time to react.

  But as the woman’s arm descended, as the blade fell towards the Queen’s breast, Abdul Ibn Ibrahim threw himself between the killer and her target. He took the first strike in his arm, but he stayed on his feet and spun around, trying to get hold of the killer. His reward was another stabbing, this time in the chest. Blood spurted from the wound, frothy with air, and Abdul gurgled, as if drowning.

  But the blade was caught, perhaps on Abdul’s ribs, and the killer could not draw it out. The Holy Brothers, had time to fall on the assassin and club her to the ground.

  The audience erupted in screams and panic, as bishops and nobles scrambled to get out of the room. Colon stood beside the monarch fiercely, protecting her with his bulk.

  Harry ran to Agnes, and scooped her up in his arms. She was as limp as a puppet, her eyes rolling in her head. But she was alive.

  He turned to see the Holy Brothers holding down the would-be killer. He got a clear view of her face for the first time.

  Her skin darkened, her hair blackened, it was Grace Bigod.

  XXVII

  James saw the courtiers spilling out of the audience chamber. From his elevated viewpoint they boiled like ants over the ground. He grinned, and swept lower. If Grace and Ferron had arranged for the inquiry into Colon to come out into the open air to see his display in the sky, this was his cue.

  But the crowd seemed disorderly. People were running away from the chamber - and likewise soldiers were running towards the mocked-up building. Even from up here he could hear screams. And now he saw a knot of the heavy-set brothers hustling out of the chamber, escorting a finely dressed woman who could only be the Queen. Something had gone wrong. Nobody was looking up. He would have to descend to see what was going on - and to make people look at him.

  Tugging on his control lines he dipped his left wing, and banked that way. But then a gust of wind washed over the wing, and it pulled out of his grasp. He felt the machine slide further to the left, and the strengthening breeze made it impossible to pull the wing back. He fought with his control lines and kicked at his machine’s tail. Struts snapped with sharp cracks.

  And he slid into a tight spiral, spinning ever leftward, that drove him towards the ground. As the wind pushed back the skin of his face, as his speed rose and he spun like a leaf, he screamed in longing and fear: ‘Grace, Grace!’

  XXVIII

  It was a huge relief for Harry to get out of the chaotic confines of the audience chamber and into the clear Spanish air. He still had his sister in his arms. Geoffrey stood by him, panting with shock and fear.

  The army camp was in chaos. The attempt on Isabel’s life had been like a stick thrust into a beehive. Soldiers ran everywhere. There were screams, and the crack of arquebuses. Muslims, who an hour ago had been able to go about their business unmolested, now ran for their lives. It was a grim irony, Harry thought, that it had been a Muslim who in fact had saved the Christian Queen, and a Christian who had tried to kill her.

  ‘But I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Evidently Grace didn’t know of Ferron’s scheme with Agnes,’ Geoffrey said grimly. ‘Our opponents didn’t even trust each other
! Grace saw she was losing the argument, Harry. She saw we were winning. And that couldn’t be allowed. She was a woman who had come to need her murderous war, the glory of her weapons. She would even impersonate a Muslim, she would murder the greatest Christian queen, in order to win the argument - and to provoke needless slaughter.’

  ‘And Abdul—’

  ‘Abdul, in that flash as the blade descended towards Isabel, saw the opposite. The Moors are already defeated, here in Spain; Boabdil, for all he is despised, is doing a decent job of negotiating a surrender with honour. But if Isabel had been killed Fernando and his soldiers would have vented their fury on Granada. And in the east, the sultans would have responded to such a massacre as they have always threatened to do, beginning with reprisals against the Christians in Jerusalem, and against our holy sites.’

  ‘And then the holy war would have been inevitable.’

  ‘Yes. Abdul saw it all in a flash. He gave his life to save a Christian monarch, and to avert global disaster.’

  ‘We have all spoken of such possibilities,’ Harry said. ‘But it was Abdul who acted.’

  ‘He was a better man than either of us,’ Geoffrey murmured, calming. ‘He has saved countless lives, beginning with Isabel’s. Perhaps he has saved the future.’

  Something in the sky caught Harry’s eye. It was like a bird, yet massive, more ungainly, high in the air. And it was spinning, spinning towards the ground, as if it had broken a wing.

  ‘Is that a man? Is that James of Buxton? Are men meant to fly, Geoffrey?’

  ‘If so, not here, not now.’

  The fragile contraption, all struts and feathers, tumbled down, out of sight. It didn’t seem to matter. Harry held Agnes close, murmuring to her, longing for her to wake from her drugged stupor.

  EPILOGUE

  AD 1492

  I

  There was much excitement around the harbour of Palos this August morning. The place was crowded with curious Christians, many still wearing their crusader shoulder flashes, and with Jews desperate to flee a country that had rejected them.

  Harry and Geoffrey walked a good distance, pushing through the crowds, trying to get a glimpse of the explorers. In the end they climbed a steep slope, just outside the town, from which they could see the harbour and the three ships it cradled.

  It was a modest fleet. There were the two caravels, called the Pinta and the Santa Clara, the latter more commonly known as the Nina after its owner, a man called Juan Nino. And there was the one larger carrack called the Santa Maria, but often called La Gallega as it had been built in Galicia. The Santa Maria carried square sails on a foremast and mainmast, and a triangular lateen sail on a mizzenmast at the rear. The Pinta was rigged like the Santa Maria, but the Nina relied on lateen sails. The two caravels especially were graceful, slim little ships.

  In these last minutes before they cast off Harry could see the figures of the crew loading their ships, bustling around the decks and the stout castles at prow and stern. The men looked somehow too large for their ships, which were only some fifty or sixty feet long; they were terribly tiny ships to challenge a world ocean. Harry remembered Abdul telling him that the rudders on some Chinese vessels were almost the size of a ship like the Nina.

  And yet it was not the Chinese who sailed today, but Cristobal Colon.

  ‘Modest they may be, yes,’ Geoffrey said, when Harry voiced these thoughts. ‘But look at them, Harry, bristling in the water, full of purpose. Henry the Navigator would be proud to see the day - even if they are Spanish ships sailing from a Spanish port.’

  ‘It’s turning out to be quite a year for Cristobal,’ Harry said.

  ‘Quite a year for Spain!’

  The door to Colon’s ocean adventure had finally opened in November of last year, when Boabdil, the last emir of al-Andalus, signed a treaty of surrender. On 6 January 1492, the monarchs themselves entered Granada. They were dressed respectfully in the Moorish style, Isabel radiant in a turban and an embroidered caftan, but the sweet voices of the royal choir sang hymns to Christ, which echoed through the empty stone streets. It was a tremendous victory for Christendom, the conclusion of eight centuries of dedicated reconquest, and the news of it rang out across Europe.

  And in April Colon was summoned to the monarchs’ court once more. The monarchs received him in the Alhambra itself, in a chamber the Moors had called the Hall of the Mexuar, a room in the oldest part of the palace where the daylight was filtered through the stained glass of a lantern roof. In this architectural triumph of a vanquished people, amid rooms inscribed with Moorish slogans - Wa la ghalib illa Allah, there is no conqueror but Allah - Colon’s contract documents were sealed. He was given a letter from Fernando and Isabel to the Great Khan of the Mongols. And as a final flourish Colon begged the monarchs to devote all the treasure raised by his expedition to the reconquest of Jerusalem.

  But Colon would not be able to sail from Seville or Malaga, for those great ports were choked with fleeing Jews.

  He headed for little Palos on the Tinto estuary instead; Colon was glad to honour the town where he had found such support from the brothers of La Rabida. But on the road Colon was caught up in great chains of refugees, more Jews, struggling to get to the coast. Some of them carried shards of the shattered tombstones of their ancestors. They were dusty, exhausted, ill; some helpless mothers even gave birth on the road. But their rabbis made the women sing and play tambourines to raise the people’s spirits. And even when Colon reached Palos he had trouble securing ships, for all the masters were busy with the urgent task of transporting Jews.

  Just at this moment when it was preparing to reach out across the world, Spain was cleansing itself.

  Geoffrey said, ‘What a terrible mistake the expulsion could prove to be! Torquemada’s bitter heart may be brimming. But Spain is stripping herself of her most industrious citizens - of a whole class of bankers and moneylenders, artists and administrators; no hidalgo or caballero would lower himself to such work. Just as she is on the verge of empire, Spain is ridding herself of the talents she needs to run it. Ha!

  ‘And the Moors will surely follow the Jews out of Spain sooner or later, whatever promises the monarchs have made. What will become of the Moors I don’t know, for though their ancestors came from the deserts of Africa and Araby, they don’t belong there now any more than you or I would have a place in the German forests of our own forebears. Perhaps they will simply dissipate, a vanished people, leaving behind their palaces and books, and the future will wonder that a Muslim nation once flourished in western Europe...’

  Harry had had enough of the grand sweep of history. ‘Well, all I want is to get back to my own life,’ he said firmly. ‘I’m thirty-six years old now, brother, and feeling it. I have spent too long on the past; I want to think of the future. If I can find a wife, have some children—’

  ‘Good for you.’

  ‘And I want to get back to trade. If there’s profit to be made from this adventure, I want a share in generating it - and spending it. The Spanish aren’t the only explorers. I have been corresponding with an Italian adventurer called Jacobo Caboto who is going to approach King Henry with a proposal to try to find a route to Asia through the northern seas, following in the wake of the long-dead Vikings.’

  Geoffrey grunted. ‘Perhaps you will find Vinland, if not China.’

  ‘And what next for you, Geoffrey?’

  Geoffrey thought, tugging at his lip. ‘I have been contemplating this muddy business we have been involved in. I want to do something about it. We have been at the focus of a battle between two time-meddling agents, the Weaver who fed the designs of the Engines of God back to Aethelred and Aethelmaer, and the Witness who spoke to Eadgyth.

  ‘And there is evidence of other tampering, Harry. Your remote ancestor Sihtric, dead four centuries, made marginal notes on his copy of the Engine Codex. He believed he had found evidence that the Weaver, or another agent, tried to avert the course of the Norman Conquest of England. And even
earlier, in the deep and ancient days when the Romans ruled Britain, another meddler, or the same one, tried to arrange the assassination of the Emperor Constantine. I have tried to map all this.’

  He produced a parchment on which he had scribbled a kind of tapestry. He explained that the long warp threads were the true course of history, the wefts the deflections of history, or attempted deflections - he had found no less than six of them, from the failed assassination of Constantine to the amulet of Bohemond which resulted in the murder of the Mongol Khan.