by John Regan
Chapter 17
Although the number of hungry mouths had been reduced by more than half, the spectre of starvation still stalked the Armada de Moluccas, now consisting of two ships, Trinidad and Victoria. The ration was one meal per day. Without Magellan’s iron rule they blundered westwards for no real reason instead of southwards towards their destination – the Spice Isles. If Carvalho had forgotten their mission, Pigafetta had not but in vain he pointed out that the Spice Isles lay on the equinoctial line ten degrees of latitude to the south. Magellan’s charts were useless in these waters but Pigafetta felt he owed it to the great man’s memory to correct the navigation. They were now like Moses wandering in the desert without the pillar of cloud to show the way. What’s more, the weather had turned unsettled.
“We need food,” Carvalho said.
“Is food any less likely to be found southwards instead of westwards?”
Carvalho had no answer. He had also abandoned Magellan’s prudent practice of anchoring at night but, when a small island was sighted next day, Carvalho at least sent a boat to sound the depth before approaching close enough to anchor. He then sent the boat to search for food on the island but a crowd of natives on the beach brandished spears, bows and arrows and blowpipes and turned them back. The boat returned to the ship and the Armada retreated, setting a course of north-west; exactly the wrong direction in Pigafetta’s view. He also wondered whether Carvalho was correcting the compass variation.
Desperate for food by the next landfall, a boatload of armed sailors landed on the beach despite the natives and plucked bananas from the trees and stuffed them into their mouths. Once they saw their desperation, the natives brought them rice, coconuts, sugar cane and roots that tasted like turnips. The chief arrived and wished to make peace, cutting himself in the chest to draw blood, which he touched to his forehead as a sign of friendship.
“Carvalho, he wishes to make peace,” Pigafetta said. “You are the captain. You must perform the casi, casi.”
Carvalho hesitated and seemed about to refuse.
“If you do not do so, it is a great insult.”
Reluctantly, Carvalho drew his poniard, made a small cut in his hand and touched the blood to his forehead, whereupon the chief smiled and issued orders to his people to bring pigs, goats, roosters and other things to eat so that Pigafetta believed that this island, which was called Palawan, should be renamed The Promised Land because it had saved them from starvation.
Unlike Magellan, Carvalho made no attempt to convert them to the Christian faith, to destroy their pagan images of Abba or even to make the sign of the cross over them.
‘These people go naked,’ Pigafetta wrote in his journal, ‘and work in the fields. They have blowpipes with poison darts and spears barbed with fishbone. From the ships they desire rings, brass chains, bells, knives and copper wire to bind their fishhooks. They breed large cocks and place spurs on their legs and make them fight to the death against one another. The owner of the winning cock wins a prize. They have distilled rice wine that is better than the palm wine of Cebu and the women have the same equipment as all other women.’
Pigafetta asked if there were any men here who knew how to go to the Moluccas and a man came forward who spoke a few words of Portuguese and said he was a Christian and knew the way but, when it came time to leave after a couple of weeks, this man could not be found and the ships had no pilot.
Leaving the harbour of Palawan, they came across a large trading prau and Carvalho steered straight towards it as if to ram it but then ordered his men to throw grappling hooks and secure it alongside.
“Ask them if they have a pilot who knows the Moluccas, Pigafetta.”
Three men said they had been to Maluku and Pigafetta invited them aboard so they could talk to Carvalho but as soon as they came aboard, Carvalho had them bound with ropes and then put shackles on their ankles like the ones that Paul the Patagonian had been made to wear. They fought and shouted and struggled and their shipmates on the other boat also shouted and shook their fists in the air but Carvalho ordered the grapples let go and the boats drifted apart. Trinidad and Victoria set their sails again and the prau also set sail and they departed in opposite directions.
Pigafetta asked the pilots what direction to sail for Maluku but they refused to answer.
“Tell them they will get nothing to eat until they tell us the course,” Carvalho said, but meanwhile he set a course of south east, back the way they had come from.
These pilots were Moors and they cursed Carvalho, Pigafetta and all foreign infidels in the name of the prophet Mohammed, (Peace be upon him.). They would sleep with a thousand scorpions and maggots would eat their eyeballs. The wrath of Allah would pursue their children for generations to come. From the deck where they were tied, they attempted to spit on the Virgin Mary but the gobs fell short.
By morning, they were more subdued, and one of them said, “You’re going the wrong way, you fools."Do you know nothing?”
Pigafetta reported to Carvalho that the pilots might be ready to listen to reason after a night on the hard planks.
“For a few ducats we could probably get their cooperation,” Pigafetta said, but such a proposal had to be voted upon by the council and approved by the fleet accountant, Mendez, the numbers man who had replaced de Coca after the mutiny. De Coca was now an ordinary seaman living in the fo’c’sle. Half the council were aboard the other ship, Victoria, under the command of Espinosa. Trinidad was still technically the flagship, although Carvalho was not captain general. The administration of the armada was nearly as complicated as that of the Casa de Contratación.
Carvalho signalled Victoria to heave to and both ships reduced sail to the bare minimum to enable a longboat to bring the council members aboard. The motion was put and carried and Mendez approved an amount of two ducats each for the pilots. Pigafetta carried this offer to the men bound on deck and it was accepted. They immediately ordered a course alteration from south-east to south-west, a right-angle turn.
They sailed by a high mountain that the pilots called Kinabalu and encountered foul ground with hidden shoals and half-tide rocks with fast-running tides, which made the navigation difficult. Several times they had to drop the anchor to await a favourable tide. The pilots did not trust the men of the armada but sent one of their own ahead with a lead line in a boat. Five times a day they stopped work and went down on their knees to pray to their god, Allah, having first to determine the direction of their holy city, or prime meridian, Mecca. Pigafetta was puzzled by this. Since Mecca was half a world away, what did it matter whether they faced east or west? Since the world is round, not flat, Mecca always lies in two opposite directions. The direction of Xanadu was less of a puzzle. That was approximately north-west/south-east but allowance had to be made for the variation of the compass needle, currently under the influence of Venus and the recent solar eclipse. Did the prophet Mohammed (Peace be upon him.) specify the direction of Mecca by the compass or by the stars? In which direction do prayers travel?
These pilots spoke some Portuguese and said that Portuguese ships sometimes sailed these waters, which caused Carvalho to send lookouts to the crows nest in case Dom Manuel still pursued them here. Pigafetta thought these pilots were better sailors than Carvalho and wanted to show them Magellan’s charts but Carvalho kept them under lock and key. He didn’t understand them anyway. The Dragon’s Tail meant nothing to Carvalho. The Moors knew more about navigation than even the Portuguese. They invented the cross-staff and lateen sails for ships and they wrote the Almagest from Ptolemy’s great work, which was copied by Europeans and renamed the Alfonsine Tables. And the Chinese probably knew more about navigation and astronomy than any of them. The Chinese invented or discovered the compass needle, one of the world’s great mysteries.
After nearly two weeks they came to a big harbour with more shoals that had to be negotiated by lead line and anchored off a city with houses on stilts around the shore, a stone castle and a tall t
ower, which was a Moorish church, or mosque, which they call masjid.
“This is not the Spice Isles,” Pigafetta said. “This is still five degrees of latitude.”
“No. This is Brunei. This is where we leave you to find your own way.”
“Treachery!” Carvalho cried. “I’ll have you back in chains if you don’t take us to the Spice Isles.”
Just then a wailing chant came from the mosque and the pilots went down on their knees facing approximately west and prayed to Allah.
After prayers, a big prau came out from shore decorated with blue and white banners, peacock feathers and gold-leaf carvings on the tall stem and stern. Musicians played drums and flutes and stringed instruments and in the body of the boat sat eight men wearing white robes and caps while twelve bare-chested men dipped their paddles in time.
Pigafetta grew alarmed and he said to Carvalho, “They probably think we are Portuguese ships. If they find out we are Spanish, we could be in trouble.”
Fortunately, the ships no longer flew the Habsburg eagle at the masthead and Trinidad still had Magellan’s coat of arms on the poop rail either side because Carvalho had no arms, being a commoner. If they knew anything about heraldry, the Five Wounds of Christ might make them think this was a Portuguese armada. This was a question of diplomacy and Pigafetta convinced Carvalho to speak only Portuguese.
“Let no word of Spanish be uttered,” Carvalho announced in Spanish to the crew on deck as he welcomed the white-robed emissaries aboard.
They responded to his greeting in heavily accented Portuguese. He ordered a rug spread on the poop for them to sit on and they presented him with a wooden bowl full of betel leaves and areca nuts. Crewmen from their boat brought two cages of chickens, a pair of goats, three urns of rice wine and bundles of sugar cane. Smiling and embracing the ship’s officers, they took their leave along with the three pilots from Palawan.
Carvalho called a council meeting.
“On one island we are massacred and on others treated with gifts. How do we deal with these people?”
“They are not all the same people, Carvalho,” Pigafetta said. “They have different languages, different gods and different customs.”
“These are Moors; even more dangerous than Lapu-Lapu’s tribe. Those three pilots deceived us, telling us they were taking us to the Spice Isles.”
“You were going the wrong way, anyway,” Pigafetta said. “The captain general knew where the Spice Isles are. If he were still alive we would be there by now.”
“But he is not alive,” Elcano said, “and good riddance. Carvalho is correct. We need to be careful how we deal with these infidels.”
The council broke up agreeing they should be on the watch for treachery, a view reinforced next day when cannon fire broke the peace and puffs of blue smoke appeared on the castle ramparts six times, although no shot splashed into the sea.
“Mother of God, they could blow us out of the water,” Carvalho said.” They are giving us a warning, or is it a threat?”
The artillery fired at the same time each day after morning prayers. It was regular gunnery practice, so the Moors just wanted to make it understood they were not defenceless heathens
On the seventh day, three boats paddled out from shore loaded with gifts of food as before and the emissaries said the king was prepared to receive them. Carvalho called a council meeting to decide who should go. Obviously, the captains had to represent their ships, Pigafetta might be needed for translating and diplomatic duties and two sailors were selected in case any work had to be done. It was a surprise when Carvalho also elected to take his Brasilian son, Joãozito
The only elephant Pigafetta had ever seen before was Hanna, Pope Leo’s pet white elephant on which he loved to parade through the streets of Rome, and now he was riding one. The great beast walked with a swaying motion, swinging its trunk from side to side while a man wearing a turban sat astride its neck and seemed to steer it by poking one big ear or the other.
Pigafetta’s elephant was one of a convoy winding its way along a road lined with palm trees towards the fortress, with the king’s palace inside. Carvalho and Espinosa rode a seat like a turret on the elephant ahead of him; Elcano shared this one; those behind carried Jaõzito and two Greek sailors. Beside each elephant walked servants bearing silver trays with the gifts of Turkish robes, red caps, bolts of fine cloth and glass goblets which, after much deliberation, the council had decided might be worthy of a rajah. The governor himself, called Shahbanda, led the procession on an elephant dressed in silken weavings.
They passed through the fortress gate into the palace compound guarded by men with swords, lances and shields. The driver ordered the elephant to squat and Pigafetta hung on tight as the beast went down on its knees so they could climb off. The Shahbanda then led them into a large room full of chieftains and nobles, some dressed all in white and others in silk robes with gold embroidery and curly-bladed daggers with golden hafts adorned with pearls and precious stones. They sat on rugs with the presents on the trays. Three hundred foot soldiers with bare swords stood around the walls to protect the rajah, old and fat, who could be seen in an elevated room like a stage in a theatre, seated at a table with a young boy. Both chewed betel nut and red juice ran down their chins. Behind them, many women sat in silence.
The Shahbanda explained they must bow to the king three times with hands on their heads, raise each foot off the ground one after the other and then kiss their hands to the king.
This they did.
“You must not speak to the king directly. If you wish to say anything, tell it to me and I will pass the message to the king’s brother, who will tell it through a speaking tube to the prime minister, who will tell it to the king if appropriate.”
It fell to Carvalho, as spokesman of the democratic council, translated by Pigafetta, to explain that the ships wanted nothing more than to trade in peace with the great Rajah Siripada to stock their ships with food and water and firewood.
This message passed along the tortuous line of communication, was received and acknowledged with a nod. The gifts passed along the same path, placed at the king’s feet and also acknowledged with a nod. Then the curtain was drawn across the stage and the king disappeared from view. The audience was over. The king would consider their request.
The elephants took them back to the big house on the shore where the Shahbanda lived, and that night he gave a feast of goat, fish, chicken, peacock and rice wine but no pork and no girls. Carvalho at first refused to eat, and would not allow his son Joãozito, to eat.
“Keep watch for any treachery,” he warned his companions. “Remember, this is how Barbosa and Serrano met their end.”
“You can refrain if you like, Carvalho,” Espinosa said, “but I’m hungry.”
Pigafetta decided to take the risk and, when he saw no fatal consequences, Carvalho also tasted the food and they dined on thirty two different kinds of food, vinegar with the fish and other things.
They slept that night on mattresses with pillows and linen sheets in a room where servants tended oil lamps and white wax candles on chandeliers.
After morning prayers, the Shahbanda announced he was going to make war and the visitors were invited, if they chose. Startled, they followed him on foot back along the road they had followed to the fortress yesterday. They climbed stone stairs to the ramparts looking out over the harbour where Trinidad and Victoria lay at anchor on the sparkling sea and native fishing boats went about their business. The town, which Pigafetta estimated to be about 25,000 houses, lay below. The shoreline of sandy beaches backed by palm trees curved away into the distance and in the misty blue he made out another town and beyond that, Mount Kinabalu with its peak hidden in cloud.
“What is that town, Shahbanda?” he asked.
“That is Badiao, our enemy. It is why we have to practice war. The people there are heathens,” he explained. “They do not believe in Allah and reject the teachings of the prophet Mohammed, (Peac
e be upon him.) We have tried every way to enlighten them but they continue to worship their pagan idol.”
“Is that Abba?” Pigafetta asked.
“I don’t know the names of their gods. Allah is the only true god and Mohammed, (Peace be upon him.) is his prophet.”
Thirty-six bronze and six iron cannons pointed their muzzles out at the harbour. Beside each was a box of stone artillery. The Shahbanda displayed them proudly. Each cannon was engraved near the touch hole with the insignia of the Five Wounds of Christ, the Portuguese coat of arms. These cannons came from the royal foundry in Lisbon.
“Mother of God,” Carvalho exclaimed. “Where did they get them?”
“Lisbon, obviously,” Pigafetta said.
“I mean, how did they get them?”
“Shahbanda, where do these guns come from?”
“Malacca. We trade gold and spices for guns.”
“There is your answer, Carvalho. Malacca.”
The irony of a Muslim rajah using Christian guns to kill or convert heathens was not lost upon Pigafetta. He wondered if the Shahbanda appreciated it but decided not to enlighten him.
Six of the forty-two cannons were fired by gun crews who loaded, primed, fired and swabbed as efficiently as any of the armada’s crew. This was the daily gunnery drill, as the Shahbanda explained – six each day except Friday, which was the day of prayer. They fired blank shot to avoid casualties in the harbour.
“We could use some of those men on board,” Espinosa said wistfully.
While they waited for the king’s decision, Pigafetta walked down to the town, where the houses were built out over the water, and talked to the people. This was the biggest city they had so far encountered. He later noted in his journal, ‘These people are Moors, worshipping Allah, and they eat no pig’s flesh; they only eat goats or chickens freshly killed in a certain manner. They wash their arse with their left hand and never use it for eating. Even the men squat to urinate and are circumcised like Jews. The sick drink quicksilver to purge themselves and the healthy, in order to stay healthy. In this city, the people eat their dinner off Chinese porcelain plates. Porcelain is a very white kind of earth, and it is left under the earth for fifty years before it is worked, otherwise it would not be fine. The father buries it for the son. If poison is put into a fine porcelain vessel, it will immediately break. Their money is made of bronze with a hole in the middle and marked with Chinese characters on one side. Junks are their ships. The junk is made of solid planks of wood secured by wooden nails, which are better than iron nails because they do not rust and can not be drawn out of the wood by magnetism. Their masts are made of bamboo and the sails of bark strengthened by battens. These junks can sail faster than European ships and make great voyages in these parts.’
This was all clear evidence to Pigafetta that the armada was not far from the destination that Columbus had failed to find: China. They had, indeed, reached the East by sailing west.
The town had no market place but the women went by boat at high tide to trade with one another, and so business was done. The people told him the king never left his palace except to go hunting riding on an elephant, which is why he was so fat. He had ten scribes who wrote down everything he said and did on scrolls made of thin bark, which they called chiritoles, and this was another word for Pigafetta’s dictionary. His name was Sultan Bolkiah but he was called Hajji Siripada because he had made the pilgrimage to Mecca and had visited Sri Pada, which is Adam’s foot on the mountain called Adam’s Peak in the land called Serendib, which is the land of the Garden of Eden.
Pigafetta saw his first cinnamon tree here. It had leaves like laurel and branches only as big around as a finger. The bark is the spice so valuable in Europe. It was the first sign that the armada might be getting close to the Spice Isles.
When it came time to go back to the ship, five men remained behind to establish a trading post. They were Espinosa, Elcano, Jaõzito, and the two Greek seamen. Carvalho and Pigafetta rode down to the water on an elephant and were then taken back to the ship in a ceremonial prau.
A rapidly ringing ship’s bell and Carvalho’s frantic cry, “All hands on deck!” wakened Pigafetta next morning. He scrambled into some clothes and tumbled out on deck to a scene of chaos, with men rushing here and there, arming themselves and shouting at one another. Magellan’s practice drills had fallen into disuse under Carvalho and confusion had taken over instead.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Mother of God, it’s an invasion,” Carvalho cried, pointing towards the west.
The Sun had not yet risen but there was sufficient light to see a fleet of praus, more than a hundred, Pigafetta guessed, bearing down on the two ships. They were manned by armed warriors like the ones lining the road to the rajah’s palace. He had never seen so many native boats together and a vision flashed before his eyes of Lapu-lapu’s horde attacking in their frenzy. Magellan had faced them with cold deliberation; Carvalho panicked.
“Heave away on the anchor,” he shouted at no one in particular. “Set the staysail. Set the spanker. Men-at-arms arm the side.”
Some sense of order began to appear as men turned to their tasks but for Carvalho it was not fast enough.
“The anchor is too slow. Pigafetta, go and cut the cable.”
“What?”
“Cut the anchor cable. Get yourself an axe and cut the cable.”
Pigafetta rushed forward to the bosun’s store, brushing past men cocking crossbows or priming muskets as they lined the bulwarks. He retrieved an axe and climbed to the fo’c’sle head, where men trudged around the capstan straining at the bars to lift the heavy anchor out of the mud.
To cut the anchor cable seemed to Pigafetta an extreme thing to do. Magellan had never ordered an anchor cable cut and the only instance he knew of was Molina’s act of sabotage in Port St Julian and Serrano’s act of desperation off the Cape of Eleven Thousand Virgins. He hesitated, wondering if Carvalho really meant what he said.
“Pigafetta, cut the anchor cable,” Carvalho screamed all the way from the poop.
Three or four blows severed the heavy, plaited rope, which whipped away over the cathead. Now the ship was free and gradually gathered way, heading towards the oncoming flotilla.
There was no master-at-arms to impose discipline on the crew, who began firing independently while still out of range. The gap rapidly closed and soon the hail of musket fire and crossbow bolts began to take effect. Both the crossbow and the musket were powerful enough to pierce flimsy native shields and warriors dropped down dead into their narrow-hulled boats or fell overboard and splashed into the sea. Almost magically, the fleet divided and veered away, evidently driven off, and the men-at-arms ceased fire.
Back on the poop, Carvalho was wrestling with another threat. Two junks had anchored nearby overnight and were now heaving up their anchors and setting their lozenge-shaped sails, perhaps intending to attack. Carvalho called upon the gunner, who arrived on the poop in a fluster, distracted from whatever he was doing.
“Master Andrew, do you have enough men for a broadside?”
“No, Captain, as already mentioned.
“We must stop those junks before they stop us. I want you to aim at their rudders.”
“It’s a narrow target, but we can try.”
First, Carvalho had to manoeuvre Trinidad into position and even Pigafetta, with his whole two years of nautical experience, recognised Carvalho’s skill in bringing his ship to a commanding point upwind of the junk, now under way. Master Andrew’s first attempt went wide, the second blew a hole in the junk’s spanker but the third was right on target. It shattered the big rudder hanging off her transom and Carvalho clapped his hands in delight. The junk fell off the wind, out of control, and although the crew got her sails down smartly, she drifted sideways towards the not-too-distant shore. Her captain made the only prudent decision and let go an anchor, but the second junk had escaped.
Carvalho wore his ship around on to t
he other tack and came back for another run by the helpless vessel, raking her with crossbow and musket fire, which cleared the deck of men. He called Master Andrew to the poop, his eyes sparkling in high excitement and his feet performing a curious little two-step dance.
“You have done well, Master Andrew. Revenge on Humabon and Lapu-lapu. Now I want you to take a boarding party and secure the junk for ourselves.”
Only too eager to finish the job, men piled into the boats, pulled across to the junk and swarmed up over her bulwarks to complete the victory. With Trinidad and Victoria safely back at anchor, they were followed by Carvalho and Pigafetta with a crew of four in the pinnace. Only six of her crew survived and sat on deck with arms bound behind their backs and feet tied together, guarded by two sailors. The deck was strewn with dead lying in their own blood.
“Get rid of those dead bodies, will you?”
They found Master Andrew in the great cabin with a drawn dagger over the junk’s captain, who was bound hand and foot in a chair and gagged with a silk scarf, apparently his own.
“He’s a wild one, Captain,” Master Andrew said. “I had to tie him up real good.”
He was a young man wearing robes, not a sarong and with gold earrings indicating some rank. He struggled and kicked at his bindings and muffled noises came from his mouth.
“Perhaps we had better let him cool off for a while,” Carvalho said. “Meanwhile, what do we have here?”
The junk’s cabin was bigger and more luxurious than Trinidad’s although it had no stern gallery windows and so was lighted with oil lamps. It featured a carpeted deck, polished wood, porcelain urns and, on one bulkhead, a glass case holding a cutlass and three krises with jewel-studded golden hilts, apparently for ceremonial purposes. This is what had caught Carvalho’s attention.
“That’s rather nice, isn’t it?” he said, lifting the cutlass out of its case and slashing the air with it. “You have to say one thing: these natives have good taste in jewellery.”
Just then, the bamboo curtain on the doorway was drawn aside and one of the men-at-arms, a seaman named Marquez, looked in.
“Captain, look what we found in the hold,” he said.
He stepped into the cabin, holding the curtain aside, revealing three terrified girls, naked from the waist up, and staring in wide-eyed horror at their own future. They were propelled into the cabin by another man-at-arms behind them and threw their arms around one another, not game to look at anyone.
“Well,” Carvalho said. “Look at that. I’ll say another thing for these natives; they have pretty daughters.”
Pigafetta found he had to agree. The girls here, generally speaking, were more attractive than those in Brasil.
The junk captain, strapped in his chair, struggled and kicked so violently that his chair fell over. Master Andrew hoisted the chair upright and slapped the prisoner’s face.
“Behave yourself,” he said, which Pigafetta did not bother to translate.
“Now, girls, don’t be frightened,” Carvalho said. “No one is going to bite you. What’s your name?” he asked one of them, chucking her under the chin and smiling at her.
The group of three contracted like a tortoise pulling its legs into its shell.
“Now, don’t be like that,” Carvalho said. “You have to realise I am captain general of the Armada de Moluccas and I deserve respect.”
Pigafetta did not bother to translate this either. Apart from being sickening, it was wrong.
The girls burst into tears.
“No no no, don’t do that,” Carvalho said. “There’s nothing to cry about.”
Pigafetta sought words to reassure the girls but found none. Eventually, he asked where they came from.
“From the island of Suluan,” said one, wiping away her tears. “This captain said we now belong to the rajah of Luzon. This captain destroyed my village and my mother and father and my brothers and sisters and there is no one left in my village except dogs, which eat the bodies.”
Pigafetta had no recourse against such stories and did not want to pursue it further.
“Captain, what are you going to do with these girls?” he asked.
“I don’t know. It’s a problem, isn’t it? Let’s see what the captain has to say.”
Pigafetta pulled the gag out of his mouth, which released a torrent of shouted words too loud and rapid to understand. It was several minutes before he lapsed into sulky silence, and Pigafetta asked him his name.
“I am Charo Cabardo. I am the son of the rajah of Luzon.”
“Luzon is far away. Why are you here?”
“My father’s father is the brother of Rajah Siripada. We come to help him fight the war against the idol-worshippers.”
“So why did you attack our ship?”
Here the captain’s voice rose to a shout again and he struggled against his bonds.
“I did not attack your ship. You attacked my ship. You killed my crew and you killed the warriors of Rajah Siripada.”
“They were coming to attack us.”
“They were not coming to attack you. They were going to attack the heathens of Badiao. You attacked them and killed many for no reason.”
When Pigafetta translated this, Carvalho’s jaw fell open and he stared in disbelief at the captain.
“He’s lying,” Carvalho said. “He must be lying. There were hundreds of armed men on those boats. Hundreds.”
Pigafetta said nothing, watching Carvalho squirm.
“Tell him he’s lying, Pigafetta. That can’t be right.”
“My captain says you speak untruth,” Pigafetta said.
“Why should I speak untruth? You can ask Rajah Siripada yourself if you dare.
Pigafetta began to realise that a terrible mistake had been made.
“Carvalho, it seems you have made war on Rajah Siripada,” Pigafetta said.
Carvalho slumped down into a chair and stared in hate at his prisoner while Master Andrew, the two men-at-arms, the three girls and Pigafetta all watched him wrestle with this news. At last, he reached a decision.
“All right, Pigafetta. We’ll go back to the ship and you can take a message.”
The deck of the junk had been cleared of bodies and two sailors were swabbing the blood away. Pigafetta and Carvalho climbed down into their waiting pinnace and were rowed back to Trinidad, where Carvalho went immediately to his cabin and motioned Pigafetta to sit while he procured pen and paper from the drawer where the charts were kept.
“Dear Rajah,” he said,” beginning his epistle out loud. “Is that the right way to address him, do you think, Pigafetta?”
“Probably something more like, ‘Most Illustrious and Venerated Son of Heaven, before whom kings tremble in awe of Your Majesty...’” Pigafetta said, “or words to that effect.”
Before he was done, they heard a hail from the deck, ‘Boat ahoy,’ indicating that some vessel was approaching. Shortly thereafter a man appeared in the doorway – one of the swarthy Greek seamen left behind to set up the trading post.
“Begging your pardon, Captain; I have a message from the Shahbanda.”
“Yes?”
He says the rajah is not pleased. He says you have killed his people. He says the junk you have captured belongs to his friend, the rajah of Luzon. He says you must release the junk and take your men off it. He says, until you do this, Espinosa and Elcano and your son will remain his guests.”
Carvalho crumpled his letter, in its fifth draft, and buried his face in his hands.
“I don’t have much choice, do I? Very well. You can tell the Shahbanda it shall be done.”
Carvalho and Pigafetta saw the Greek into the prau that had brought him and watched it head towards the fortress. Then Carvalho called for his pinnace crew to take him back to the junk.
“No need for you to come this time, Pigafetta,” he said.
He returned within the hour along with Master Andrew, the men-at-arms and the three slave girls. Pigafetta was astounded.
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“Carvalho, why have you brought the girls?”
“A present for Don Carlos. We shall turn them into Christians and take them back to Spain.”
“When did you become a missionary? You agreed to release the junk.”
“I have released the junk and its captain and its crew. Nothing was said about the girls.”
Pigafetta smothered his disgust but confirmed his view that Carvalho was not a fit successor to Magellan.
Espinosa and Elcano returned next morning in fulfilment of the Shahbanda’s side of the bargain. They were not as diplomatic as Pigafetta.
“You idiot, Carvalho,” Elcano fumed as he climbed aboard. “You have made a mess of everything. What did you think you were doing?”
Carvalho was peering down into the prau, looking for his son.
“Where is Joãozito?”
“We don’t know,” Espinosa said. “He could not be found this morning. Also, the two Greeks have deserted. They seem to prefer Brunei to the joys the armada has to offer.”
“Where is my son?” Carvalho asked, his voice rising in pitch.
“I told you, we don’t know. Perhaps he has also deserted.”
“My son. They have killed my son. The treachery!”
“Yes, the treachery,” Elcano said. “Meanwhile, we have to get out of here before the Shahbanda decides on gunnery practice with real ammunition.
As proof that the boats had indeed been on their way to attack Badiao and not the armada, the prau had brought the severed heads of two of its heathen citizens.
At the first council meeting once clear of Brunei’s harbour, Carvalho was placed under interrogation, his eyes downcast, his shoulders slumped, perhaps still mourning the death of his son, which carried little weight with his accusers. Pigafetta was not the only one disgusted by the conduct of their so-called captain general. If Carvalho were twice the man he was, Pigafetta believed, he would be only half the man Magellan was. Mutinous mutterings circulated among the members of the council although no one was sure who was a member and who was not. Some sailed in Trinidad and some in Victoria, so in order to bring the council together, the ships had to be at anchor or, as in this case, becalmed.
They drifted on a glassy sea only a few miles offshore from an enticing sandy beach and within sight of the same mountain peak seen from the Shahbanda’s fortress. Victoria’s contingent came across by longboat: Elcano, the captain; Miguel de Rodas, the master; Albo, the pilot and Bustamente, the barber and surgeon. They joined their counterparts in Trinidad’s great cabin, which Pigafetta would always regard as Magellan’s cabin. The globe Magellan had used to explain the problem of longitude still stood on the cabinet that contained the charts which, in these waters, were useless.
The delegates sat around the table in stifling heat even though the stern windows were opened for a breath of air. It was also necessary to keep an eye on the weather. If the wind came up, the meeting would have to be abandoned. Although Carvalho sat in his usual place at the head of the table, Elcano opened the attack upon him, still furious over the debacle in Brunei.
“You made the same mistake as Magellan,” he said. “You attacked an enemy without knowing his strength. In this case, it wasn’t even an enemy. It was the people we came to do business with.”
“How was I to know that?” Carvalho said. “I saw hundreds of boats coming at me before dawn, all with soldiers on board. It wasn’t attack; it was defence.”
“But why did you then attack the junks?” Espinosa said. “What was to be gained?”
“The junks were getting up their anchors and I thought they might attack, so I attacked first. Surely that is the action of a wise captain.”
“I would hardly call it wise,” Espinosa said. “And now, there is the matter of the three slave girls. Why have you brought them on board when you know women are not permitted? Magellan would never have allowed it.”
“Magellan captured natives as presents for Don Carlos, to be taught the scriptures and converted to the Christian faith.”
“I suspect you are more interested in their bodies than their souls. Magellan never captured females. Females aboard a ship are nothing but trouble. We’ll have the crew fighting over them like dogs over a bitch on heat.”
“Not if they are kept away from the crew.”
“You plan to keep them to yourself, do you?”
Espinosa pointed to three rolled up mats standing in a corner of the cabin. “Those are their sleeping mats, are they? How often do they sleep on their mats and how often in your bunk?”
Carvalho failed to answer this question but glanced around the table with a hunted look on his face.
“The captain is no more entitled to a harem than anyone else,” Espinosa said. “To be a captain general is to be a servant, not a master. Magellan understood that. These girls are not your whores but our responsibility.”
Pigafetta silently applauded this speech by Espinosa. Ever since the girls came aboard they had been inseparable, like a flock of three sheep whenever they appeared on deck for exercise or air, with sailors staring at them like a pack of wolves. Pigafetta gave them each one of his old shirts, which at least covered their breasts. He had also learned more details of the attack upon their village by the junk from Luzon. It was not uncommon for entire villages on the island of Suluan to be destroyed by invaders; the old slaughtered and the young taken slaves. It was just one of life’s hazards, and the girls seemed resigned to their fate, whatever it might be. Their names were Cabiling, Layong and Limbas. He guessed they were about fifteen years old.
“There is another point regarding the girls if we are to approach this matter rationally,” said Martin Mèndez, the numbers man. “As you l know, each crew member is entitled to primage according to his rank, saving only one twenty-fourth part reserved for the king. I have a copy of the regulations here and I see the captain general is entitled to sixty quintals of cargo space, which is six thousand pounds in the old style or slightly less than fifteen bihars, which is the measure used by the natives of Cebu. Now, if Carvalho claims primage for the girls as being legitimate spoils of war, we need to weigh them and then decide how much they are worth so we can calculate the tax owing to the king.”
“How do we decide how much they are worth, Mèndez?” Espinosa asked. “I mean, are they worth as much as cloves or pigs or red hats or do we have to wait until we get them to the slave market and see how much they fetch?”
“Why should Carvalho be entitled to claim a captain general’s primage?” Elcano asked. “That is the real question. He is not a real captain general at all.”
Carvalho was no longer paying attention to this debate. His head had sunk down on to his arms, folded on the table. Pigafetta could not decide whether he was crying or not.
Master Andrew, at the bottom of the table, had been trying to get a word in and now he stood up to gain attention.
“That’s not the only thing Carvalho brought from the junk. I saw him take down a cutlass and three or four daggers from the wall of the captain’s cabin, all with hilts of gold and jewels. He hid them under his clothing to bring them aboard.”
“Is this true, Carvalho?” Espinosa asked.
Carvalho stammered with his reply. “The ship was captured – a prize. Everything is forfeit in a prize, and the captain was pleased to give up the ceremonial sword in exchange for his liberty.”
“So, after promising the rajah to release the junk, you then demanded a ransom from its captain? Is that what you did?”
“He was my prisoner.”
“I thought at the time it was strange he should hide the weapons under his clothing,” Master Andrew said, “but I thought he wanted to protect them from the weather. Now it is clear he wanted to keep them for himself.”
“What else did you steal, Carvalho?” Espinosa demanded.
“Only a few coins, but I always intended to declare them to the accountant.”
“Really?” said the numbers man. “You have had p
lenty of opportunity to do so.”
This being a democratic council, argument raged back and forth, with Pigafetta abstaining, not so much out of disgust but as a mere observer, noting that three captains general –Magellan, Barbosa and now Carvalho – had been brought down by greed in one form or another mingled with another deadly sin, vanity, which had been Magellan’s spectre. It was not a mutiny but the outrage was such that Pigafetta feared for Carvalho’s life. “Magellan would have chopped your head off,” Espinosa asserted, “and good riddance.” Even Elcano, who had suffered Magellan’s retribution in Port St Julian, proposed stripping Carvalho of all privileges. Pigafetta had to go back in his mind to ancient Greece for a parallel, and recalled the passage where Plato described exactly the situation in which the Armada de Moluccas now found itself.
Pigafetta also abstained from the voting for a new captain general, not really regarding himself as a member of the crew since he was entered in the articles as a supernumerary. The numbers man, Martin Mèndez, emerged as the armada’s fifth captain general; the fourth in the three months since the death of Magellan. The council believed Mèndez was the one to prevent further fraudulent activities like Carvalho’s. The valuable ceremonial weapons were found in the chart cabinet and Mèndez took possession so they could be entered in the ship’s asset register. The Chinese coins were also recovered. Espinosa and Carvalho exchanged positions – Espinosa became captain of Trinidad and Carvalho pilot. Elcano, the most highly qualified and experienced seaman, remained captain of Victoria and his mutinous past was expunged from living memory.
“As for the slave girls,” Mèndez said in his new official capacity, “we have a spare cabin they can live in until we find a place for them. Meanwhile, I suggest Master Andrew should be their guardian. He is perhaps too old to be tempted.”
“Not that old, Mèndez,” Master Andrew said with a scowl.
The other emergency facing the new captain general was that Trinidad was leaking badly and required continual pumping.
“Elcano, I rely on your advice in this matter,” the accountant said.
“The seams have opened up. She needs recaulking. We need to find a place to haul her down. Last time we came through these waters I saw a place that might be suitable.”
When the wind returned, the ships sailed northwards, retracing their track to Palawan. With light breezes and smooth seas, the voyage was slow and the mountain remained in view for days, the sea a deep and bottomless blue.