The King's Fifth Read online

  We made ourselves at home, first by building a fire. Our store of dried meat was enough to last five or six days, so we cooked a good meal and ate with relish, making lame jokes about the snow, lame because we were still very cold and far from the city of Tawhi.

  "What did the Indians tell you about this Cloud City?" Mendoza asked Zia.

  "All that they told me, Roa told you," Zia answered.

  "It is nothing," Mendoza said.

  "Yes, nothing," Zia said.

  Below us the horses were restless and she went to the lip of the cave and listened. She was more concerned about the foal than about the Cloud City.

  "Since it is nothing," Mendoza said, "we shall not be disappointed with what we find there."

  "We shall find Indians," said Father Francisco, who as usual was more interested in souls to save than in treasure. "As we did at Nexpan."

  Torres said, "If it is a journey of seven days to your Cloud City, it likewise will be seven days returning. On top of that, to reach Háwikuh, means eleven days more. In all, twenty-five days. Over two hundred leagues of hard travel. Horseshoes are scarce. Do we have sufficient to last for such a long journey?"

  "Sufficient," Mendoza answered, closing the subject.

  Our most serious problem was feed for the animals. Torres had gathered bundles of dry grass while he waited for us at the Abyss, and these they now were eating. But on the morrow more feed must be found.

  Snow fell through the night and when we climbed down from the cave it lay waist-deep in the meadow. Working together, we cut willow branches along the stream, ample feed for that day and the next.

  About noon, with a wan sun at the top of the cliff, Captain Mendoza saddled the roan and struck off through the meadow, saying that he would try to make a trail which we could follow.

  Fearfully, I watched him go, the horse rearing high on her back legs as she came to the first drift, then settling down to rear again. Thus I saw them disappear.

  "A fool's errand," Torres said, and some agreed.

  We waited beside the fire through the afternoon, but near nightfall, when it began to snow again, Roa got up and said that he was going in search of the captain. While he was saddling his horse, Mendoza appeared, so stiff from cold he needed to be helped down from the roan.

  "I traveled no farther than we did yesterday," he said. "We will have to wait for a thaw or until the snow hardens, if it takes a month."

  That night we ate another good meal and made more jokes about the storm. Next day, in need of wood, we spent many hours cutting dead branches, which we pulled up to the cave by means of picket ropes tied together. That night, as I remember, we ate less, but there was still food enough for three or four days and we were not worried.

  "If we have to," Torres said, "we can kill one of the mules. There is enough meat on a mule to last for weeks."

  "Excellent meat, too," said Roa. "It requires the teeth of a shark, yet gives strength and is the equal of any."

  "To those who are hungry," Torres said. "But I have also eaten the hide. That was on the entrada into Yucatán with General Vejar."

  "How is the taste of a mule hide? I have often wondered about this," Roa asked.

  "If the weather does not change," Mendoza said, "you will soon know."

  "Tough, I am certain," said Roa.

  "That depends upon several factors," Torres said. "The hide must be from a young mule. Nothing ancient. But of chief importance is the preparation. You first cut the hide into pieces of the right size to fit the pot. These you singe over a hot fire, removing all hair. Then they are scraped clean and put into the pot to boil. The boiling takes many hours and should not be hurried by an impatient eye. 'Not until the pieces are very soft and melt together in one mass do you cease the boiling. Then you set the pot aside and allow the mass to cool. When it is cold and stiff, you have a jelly, which is gray in color and looks like glue."

  "How is the taste?" Roa asked again.

  "Like glue," said Torres. "Loathsome."

  "With pepper and salt?"

  "Equally."

  "But strength-giving?"

  "Yes," said Torres, "it gives much strength."

  Mendoza fingered his beard. "We shall eat no mules, young nor old," he said, thinking perhaps of treasure and the mules needed to transport it. "First, before that comes to pass, we shall eat one another."

  "This I have also seen," said Torres. "In the summer of '29. On the great desert of Vizcaíno."

  While Torres told about his ill-fated journey, a south wind began to blow and by morning the sky was clear and water ran everywhere. That day we cut willow for the animals and made ready to leave the next dawn.

  20

  THE WIND died during the night, but the sound of water went on, trickles of it from the roof of the cave, a roar from the stream in the meadow. It was like a thaw in springtime.

  I awakened near daylight to the stamping of horses. A moment or two later I thought that I heard someone call my name. The voice came from far off, or seemed to, not from the cave. I sat up and listened, straining my ears, but heard nothing more, except the loud running of water.

  Around me my companions were asleep, all save Guillermo Torres. It was his voice, then, that I had heard, calling from below. Deliberately, I pulled on my boots, pausing several times to listen. One of my chores was to help him curry the horses, which I was never happy to do, and no more on this morning than others.

  I found my doublet, which I shook free of dust and carefully straightened. As I slipped it on, I glanced beyond the fire at Zia's pallet of pine needles set against the wall. I always rose before she did and, as on this morning, my eyes never failed to seek her out. The habit of sleeping on her back, with both hands clasped beneath her head, amused me. I was amused too, and touched, by her face when she was asleep. It had the look of a very small child, so different from the serious, grown-up face she wore at other times.

  I glanced twice in her direction, and walked around the fire to look again before I realized that the pallet was empty. She was nowhere around. She had left the cave. Seized by sudden fear, remembering the voice that had called to me, I hurried outside and gazed down into the meadow.

  At the entrance to the cavern the snow was trampled as if animals had been milling about. I saw that hoof tracks led away from the cavern, followed the stream across the meadow and disappeared in a clump of dwarf pines. The tracks were faint in the mushy snow. How many horses or mules had made them, I could not tell. But it was plain to me that they led in the direction of the Abyss, toward Háwikuh.

  I shouted an alarm to those who were asleep beside the fire and began my precarious descent of the cliff. Water had frozen in the handholds during the night so my progress was slow, one thin hold at a time. Near the bottom I lost my grip and slid heavily to earth. There for a while I lay, half-stunned.

  I became aware of sounds, of stealthy movements, close by, within the cavern.

  Still dazed, my face buried in the snow, I lifted my head and wiped the snow away. The sounds had ceased. Then from above me came a shout and I looked up to see Roa crouched at the lip of the cave. I pointed to the tracks that led off across the meadow.

  Slowly I got to my feet. As my head cleared and I heard distinctly the ring of spurs, Torres rode out of the cavern.

  He sat astride the blue roan. The foal was at her heels. Tied to the hind bow of his saddle were the two sacks which held the gold gathered at Nexpan.

  I do not know if he had heard me fall from the cliff, but he heard me as I shouted and ran toward him. When I was about five paces away, he grasped at the rondel dagger which he carried in a sheath fastened to his thigh.

  There was a drift of snow in front of him and he had to cross it and the stream to reach the meadow. I think that he must have seen Roa, at the base of the cliff, unsling his matchlock, for instead of drawing the dagger, he hesitated.

  I was behind Torres now, so close I could touch his horse. My hope was to seize the bridle and thus
stop him for a moment, long enough for Roa to use the matchlock.

  In the midst of this—of Roa's taking aim, of Torres' reaching for his dagger, then changing his mind, of my trying to grasp the bridle, and then, from the lip of the cave, Mendoza firing a shot which missed its mark—in the moment or two that all this took place, a thought went through my mind. Zia and Torres are in a plot together, against us. Zia has taken the other horses and left. Fleeing the camp, it is she who has left tracks in the snow.

  The thought was still in my mind, and a feeling of shock at her treachery, when suddenly Zia came out from the cavern. She had been injured by a blow, for there was a gash on her forehead and blood ran down one cheek.

  "Drop, hombre!" Roa shouted behind me.

  I knew that I was in his way, but I was thinking of Zia and did not heed the command.

  Torres, at Roa's outcry, spurred his horse and with one lunge was through the drift and into the stream.

  Five or six steps behind the roan, as Torres set the spurs, the foal leaped ahead to catch up.

  "Hold her," Zia cried to me, as Blue Star went by. "Hold her!"

  I tried but the foal swerved and by a small margin eluded my grasp. Zia was beside me now. As the foal reached the drift it paused. Zia threw herself desperately forward and caught one leg.

  "Por Dios!" she cried, as the two of them went down in a flurry of snow. "Help," she sobbed, and with all her strength clung to the struggling foal.

  Before I could move, the foal broke Zia's hold. It rose, stumbled, and ran straight into my arms. Together we crashed to earth.

  Meanwhile, so I was told, for I was too busy to know, Torres had spurred his horse through the stream. As they reached the far bank the roan had heard the neigh of her foal and swung about. But under heavy bit and rowel Torres turned her head and forced her into a gallop. The shots fired by Roa went wide. By the time Mendoza reloaded his matchlock, Torres was disappearing in the trees.

  My struggle with the foal ended quickly when Roa tied her legs with a rope. We left her with Zia and ran to the cavern. Mendoza was already there, saddling a horse and shouting threats against Torres.

  "You will never overtake him," Roa said. "Remember, he rides the roan."

  "I remember," said Mendoza. "Also that he carries the gold. I remember both. Give me your dagger, Roa. Mine I left in the cave."

  Mendoza had chosen the best of the horses that were left, a big sorrel, which was no match for the roan, either over a short distance or long. Yet, so great was his rage, I wondered if he might not overtake Torres by force of will. He was capable of pursuing him for days or weeks, for whatever time was needed.

  Mendoza threw a saddle on the gray's back and reached for the girth, then drew back in surprise.

  "Cut," he said, quietly. "Cut in two." He turned and, running to where the other three saddles lay, examined the girths. "Each one. All of them, the same," he said.

  "It is well," said Roa. "Otherwise, who knows where the night would find you? Or us? Already the clouds gather and the wind blows."

  We stood looking at the tracks leading off through the meadow, in the direction of Háwikuh, at the lowering sky. Then Roa made a halter for the foal and tethered it to a tree.

  Mendoza spoke to Zia. She had washed the blood from her face in the snow, but she was still pale.

  "What took place?"

  "Much took place," Zia said.

  "Tell us."

  "I tell what I can," Zia said slowly through lips that were tight with pain.

  "Later, perhaps," Mendoza said. "When you talk better."

  "Now," Zia said, "when I have my hat, which is in the cavern."

  I went for the hat and, brushing her hair back, she put it on.

  "I was sleeping," she said, "but I heard Blue Star neigh. It is a dream, I thought. Again I heard this sound. Then I thought it is not a dream and I ran outside the cave and looked down in the meadow. Light was coming through the forest and I saw Señor Torres ride across the stream. He had been out and was coming back, for I saw tracks in the snow where he had gone out. He rode into the cavern and Blue Star neighed again. There was a sound. It was the sound when you break a branch from a tree. Blue Star went outside the cave and stood there. I thought, yes, the sound was when Señor Torres struck her and he will do this again. So I climbed down the cliff."

  "You did not think of the gold?" Mendoza said.

  "No, I thought of Blue Star."

  "You did not call?"

  "No. Next time I will call."

  "You climbed down," Mendoza said. "Then..."

  "Then I went to the cavern quickly. Señor Torres had a dagger and he sat on a saddle cutting something. He did not see me. The horse, which belongs to the Captain, stood near and I saw the two sacks of gold on its back. And when I did, Señor Torres turned his head to listen. But he saw me and jumped and caught my arm. I screamed and he hit me. I do not remember more to tell."

  "There is not much more," Mendoza said. "Except that I am a poor shot with the matchlock and Roa is worse and Sandoval is nada. And we have four girths to mend before we leave. Of the gold, we shall say nothing. Nor of that sweepings of the world's stables, Guillermo Torres."

  He paused and glanced about him. Finally, his eyes rested on the big dog, who sat watching us from the shelter of a bush.

  "Tigre!" he shouted and, as the dog trotted over, wagging his tail, gave him a slap across the ears. "You are a lout, Tigre. And your former master was a lout. I know now why he wished to sell you. It was for the reason that you should belong to some old lady." He gave the big dog another slap on the head, and glanced at Roa. "You did not teach him much."

  "He is not a good student," said Roa.

  Father Francisco, who like Tigre had slept through most of the adventure and had only appeared while Zia was talking, now read the morning service. We rose from our knees in better spirits and began to mend the slashed saddle girths, which was no small task.

  Before noon we were on the way to Tawhi, the City of Clouds, unaware that we would not see it until the winter had gone and another spring had come.

  The Fortress of San Juan de Ulúa

  Vera Cruz, in New Spain

  The eighth day of October

  The year of our Lord's birth, 1541

  THE WALLS OF San Juan de Ulúa are made of coral stone, hewn into blocks and carefully fitted together. At the top, my jailer tells me, they are six varas in thickness, six full steps across. At the bottom, where the walls rest upon the rocky bed of the sea, they are nine varas. The fortress itself is so vast that it would take a man the better part of an hour to walk its circumference.

  So vast, indeed, that once, standing on the balcony of his palace in Spain, the King shaded his eyes and peered intently toward the west.

  "For what is Your Majesty looking?" asked a courtier.

  "For San Juan de Ulúa."

  "That is thousands of leagues away, Your Majesty."

  "Yes," replied Charles V, "but it has cost me enough to be seen across the sea."

  Yet vast as it is, I swear that for a night and a day this stone fortress, which is larger than the great cathedral of Seville, which is larger than any fortress of the Christian world, has seemed to move like a ship at sea.

  The wind began yesterday at dusk, with wisps of damp air curling through the window. By midnight it blows with such force that I have to leave my pallet and seek shelter in a corner of the cell, though the window is very small and barred by wide, iron bands.

  There is no way to make the candle burn, so I crouch in the corner like a rat in a hole, and cannot write.

  It is noon before I hear Don Felipe's steps in the passageway. The door, driven by the wind, crashes open and strains against its hinges. He tries to close it but fails. We both put our shoulders to the door, which strikes me as curious, indeed—a prisoner helping to imprison himself.

  "For two hours I have been on the way," he says, setting my breakfast on the bench.

  Usually, he is n
eat in polished jackboots and well-brushed doublet, but this morning he has the appearance of one who has just crawled forth from a chimney hole.

  "What a wind!" he says. "A man cannot stand against it. So I came roundabout, a secret way, through passages I have not used in a year. This, compañero, accounts for my lateness and the coldness of the food."

  Despite his appearance, he has a bright air about him. He is the bearer, I fear, of bad news.

  I have no hunger, yet eat as I have before, to please him. He says nothing of importance until I am finished. He then takes from his inner doublet a roll of papers tied with leather thongs, which at once I recognize.

  "Your notes," he says, handing them to me with a flourish. "All the way from the City of Mexico, safe and sound, though the messenger twice was accosted by bandits, once came near to losing his life in a flooding river, and arrived just before the storm!"

  I remove the stones from the hiding place in the floor, secrete the notes, and replace the stones.

  "When do you begin the map?" Don Felipe says.

  "When the wind dies."

  "Do you make a large map?"

  "As large as paper permits."

  "With the trail that leads to Cíbola? Latitude? Mountains and rivers? Everything put down, señor, so that the treasure can be located without trouble?"

  "Complete," I answer.

  "How long does the map require?"

  "Two days."

  "Not sooner?"

  "No."

  Don Felipe looks at me and his eyes grow small. "What happens when you give the notes to the Royal Audiencia?"

  "I keep a copy."

  "Exact?"

  "Exact."

  "And by looking at the notes, just looking at them, the Audiencia can tell nothing?"