The King's Fifth Page 5

  "You travel like old women," he called. "At this pace we shall never leave the valley. Tomorrow I will buy horses and three of you can ride. He looked down at his musicians and shouted, "Play!"

  Dutifully Roa beat his drum, Zuñiga blew his flute, Zia, Father Francisco and I fell in behind them, and with Captain Mendoza leading us, we marched forward like a regular little army. We overtook a few stragglers and a woman riding a mule, a boy seated behind her.

  "That one," Zia whispered to me, "is Señora Hozes. Her husband is a page of Coronado. She thinks the army belongs to her. When she speaks, and she speaks much. her husband listens like a dumb man. Captain Coronado listens also, but he smiles when he does."

  The woman had a lean face and a cold eye. She looked at me and said, "More mouths to feed." She looked at Roa and Zuñiga, listened a moment to their playing, then put a finger in each ear.

  We hurried forward, until we reached a place near the head of the column. There we fell in behind our captain. The day was cloudless. The valley sloped gently upward toward dim mountains. The sun shone bright on helmet and breastplate. Banners fluttered in the wind. I could scarce wait until the time when I might draw all that I saw on paper.

  Late that afternoon we camped on the banks of a stream where water ran warm and maize flourished. Indians who called themselves Pimas came before long, carrying large trays woven of grass.

  On the trays, laid out in rows festooned with fern leaves, were the hearts of deer and rabbits, doves and owls, even the small hearts of hummingbirds. These trays they offered to Coronado and his officers, bidding them to eat.

  When Coronado held back, a guide explained the meaning of the gifts, which was to give strength and courage for his long journey.

  Coronado took one of the hearts from a tray, a small one, but did not eat it. With a flourish he doffed his plumed hat and raised his sword.

  "In the name of Charles the Fifth," he said, "I accept this wondrous gift. Henceforth, as a token of my thankfulness, your fair home shall be known to all Spaniards as the Valley of Hearts."

  The friendly Pimas urged Coronado to rest by their stream. High mountains and deep canyons lay beyond, they said, and many hardships. But he was impatient to move on, so at dawn we broke camp, following the stream in a northerly direction.

  True to his word, Mendoza had purchased three horses from one of the officers. On this morning, to our great delight, Roa, Zuñiga, and I rode. Zia could not ride because of Cortés' law, and Father Francisco, in true apostolic fashion, desired to walk.

  Mendoza was again restless as we started off, thinking that the army should take a shorter route. "We are marching back toward the sea," he complained.

  "There is none shorter," I told him. "This is the only route out of the valley."

  "Why are you so certain?"

  "I have asked the Indians," I said. "And Father Marcos."

  "We should be going to the northeast, not north."

  "This is the way that Díaz and Father Marcos and the Moor came. They are the only Spaniards who have been through here. Cíbola lies to the northeast, undoubtedly, yet we reach it by this trail."

  I had no suspicion that Mendoza harbored such a thought, but now, looking back, I am sure that at this time he was possessed with the idea of being the first among us to sight the Land of Cíbola. If there had been another way through the Cordillera, he would have taken it and left Coronado to arrive at the SeVen Cities long after he himself was there.

  The stream narrowed before we had gone far and led us into a gorge of gloomy cliffs and thundering water. Here we struggled for two days over stony steeps, suffering many injuries and losing a brace of horses and four pack animals.

  On the third day the gorge opened upon a wide, green valley seven or eight leagues in length, where ditches fanned out from a stream to water milpas of corn and squash and melons. Soon we came to a village called Popi and were welcomed there with gifts of food, of which we were badly in need.

  In the time of the fearsome gorge, there was no chance to work on my map, though I carefully had put down all readings. As soon, therefore, as we encamped, I found a place by the stream and spread my materials on a flat stone.

  I was sharpening a quill when Zia came at a run through the meadow. Each day since we had left the Valley of Hearts, whether I clung to a perilous crag or lay in camp too tired to lift a hand, she had asked to know about the map.

  As she burst upon me, she asked again. "When do you make it? When?"

  "Now."

  "A picture of the earthly world?" she asked, using words she had learned from me, "and the seven ocean seas?"

  "Only that part of the world we have passed through," I answered. "The Valley of Hearts to the Valley of Sonora."

  I opened the portolan and showed her how each page of the book was made of thin reed, and how on these pages sheaths of lamb skin had been glued. I showed her the notes I had taken of the country and the readings made with the cross-staff.

  Zia moved from one foot to the other, half listening.

  I unwrapped the turkey egg, which I had bartered for at Avipa. I separated the yolk and in a clean place on the stone mixed it with water. Then I dipped quill into yolk and drew a cartouche on the lower right hand corner of the page, the shield of His Majesty, Charles V, enclosed by a fanciful scroll.

  "I do not see much," Zia said.

  "Now there is not much to see. Later it gets better."

  When the egg yolk was dry I carefully glossed it over with soot, gathered from the bottom of a pot.

  "Watch closely," I said and passed my hand back and forth like a magician above the design.

  Zia held her breath.

  "Move closer," I said. "Closer, and keep your eyes open." To make things seem more mysterious, I uttered a few strange words. "Now watch carefully."

  With a woolen cloth I then rubbed out the smudge of soot. Suddenly, as if by magic, the shield and scroll stood boldly forth, beautiful to see—white letters and lines on a field of black.

  Zia let out her breath, "Ayee," in a cry of delight. "Once more," she begged me, "make it once more."

  "Tomorrow," I said. "Now we do the gorge. We color it ultramarine, which is the most glorious of all blues."

  We worked until nightfall, making a fine start on the map, there in the meadow beside the quiet stream. It was good to be away from the uproar of the army, from the talk of gold, which went on night and day, whether we were on the march or resting. Everyone—muleteer and soldier, seamstress and page, amorer and blacksmith, the lowliest and the highest—all soon would have more gold than he could carry, or so each one thought.

  When it was too dark to work longer I put the materials away to use in the morning, while Zia washed the brushes and pens in the clear-running stream. But at dawn the trumpet blared and again, like a serpent uncoiling, the army moved on.

  9

  AFTER EIGHT HARD DAYS of fierce suns and short rations, traveling now toward the northeast, we came to Chichilticale, the Red House.

  Both Zuñiga and Roa were beside themselves with joy. From Indians at Popi they had heard that Red House was one of the Seven Cities.

  "The doors are made of turquoise," Roa told me.

  "The women wear belts of gold," Zuñiga said.

  "The people have little gold tools," Roa said, "with which to scrape the sweat from their bodies."

  "And large golden bowls set with garnets, which they put water in for their animals," Zuñiga said.

  "I have talked to Father Marcos," I told them, "and he says that Red House is not one of the cities, though it is a place built by people who once lived in Cíbola. Furthermore, you will see no gold."

  My words were of no avail. From the time we left Popi until we reached Red House, for eight days, they talked of the gold that would be found there. They talked with such authority that, despite Father Marcos, many others began to believe them, indeed, most of the army.

  "This Marcos," Roa said. "What did he tell us about the
Gorge of Sonora?"

  "That it was an easy trail for man and beast," Zuñiga replied.

  "And what did we encounter?" Roa asked.

  "Death at every turn," Zuñiga answered.

  "Do you believe that he came here before?" Roa asked.

  "No," Zuñiga answered.

  "Do you think he is a liar?" Roa asked.

  "Yes," said Zuñiga, "the largest."

  We came upon Red House suddenly, as we climbed to the crest of a barren hill. It lay below us in a wide, brush-covered arroyo, partly hidden by a grove of ancient trees. Through the foliage I caught glimpses of red walls and paths leading down to them from every direction.

  A sigh ran through the army. It grew louder and became a shout of triumph thundering over the hill. Eldorado was finally at hand, the land of turquoise and gold, the first of the Seven Cities.

  Our way wound downward to a stream, on a trail long unused. We entered the grove of ancient trees and came upon a wide opening, circular in shape. Before us were the ruins of what once had been a city.

  Vast red walls still stood, but the earth-and-timber roofs had collapsed in a mass of rubble. Weeds grew everywhere. Among them lizards scurried and snakes lay coiled. On creaking wings black zopilotes soared into the air.

  A man and a woman crawled out of the ruins. They were old and toothless, the color of the rubble they had left. In their withered hands they held out to Coronado a gift of dried grubs and grasshoppers.

  "Gold," someone shouted. "Where is the gold?"

  "Where?" other voices echoed.

  The man and woman drew back in bewilderment. But Coronado silenced the soldiers and took the gifts. He then asked about the Sea of Cortés.

  "In which direction does it lie?" he asked the old man, Zia translating his words, "and how distant?"

  Father Marcos, in his gray robe of Zaragoza cloth, stood listening. "I have been to the Sea of Cortés," he said. "It is only five short leagues from here."

  The readings I had made on the coast were with me, as well as the reading I had made that day at noon.

  "With all respect to you, Father Marcos," I said, holding out my notes, "I believe the sea to be farther. Perhaps as far as sixty leagues, though I could well be wrong by ten or more."

  The old man spoke. "I do not know a sea by that name. But there is a sea very far away. When I was a young man I went there to net fish. I was on the trail ten suns going and ten suns returning."

  Coronado turned away. His trust in Father Marcos had long since gone, for many of the things Marcos had told him about the trail had proven wrong. The old man's statement, and mine tallied closely. It was dire news. It meant that while the army was traveling toward the northeast, the coast and the Sea of Cortés was trending in the opposite direction, away from us. It meant that he must give up all hope of meeting Alarcón and his ships.

  That night men went to parley with Coronado. The fainthearted threatened to turn back. Some wished to strike out for the Sea of Cortés on the chance of finding the ships. Bolder spirits, like Captain Mendoza, wanted to continue on the trail to Cíbola. Some, like Señora Hozes, had no plan yet gave shrill tongue to their anger.

  Coronado heard them all. He sat at the door of his tent and listened patiently. He was a man just thirty years old, but in the firelight he looked twice that age.

  When the last had spoken, he rose and said in his quiet voice, "You have endured much, and so have earned the right to do what you want. Those who wish to may go in search of Admiral Alarcón or return to your homes. Yet, many or few, the army goes forward. Nor will it stop until it reaches the Land of Cíbola."

  Officers and soldiers cheered, but there were some who grumbled. Whereupon Coronado sent for the old man and asked him if he had heard of the Seven Cities.

  "In twenty suns," the Indian said, as Zia translated, "you will come to Háwikuh, the first of these." He pointed toward the northeast.

  Those who grumbled fell silent. The rest of us moved closer, better to hear Zia, as the old man's words came faint and halting from withered lips.

  "In the City of Háwikuh," he said, "there in that city, gold is so common that everyone who uses it is looked down upon."

  There was not a whisper from the hundred men and more who pressed around the old man.

  "The people of Háwikuh," he said, "possess wash basins of gold but keep them hidden where they cannot be seen. Rather than bathe in them they go and wash in the river. Gold is so common that only the poor eat from gold plates, while the nobles and the king use wooden plates because wood is so rare."

  The old man said more, but this was enough to set tongues to wagging. When he had finished and hobbled off to his home in the ruined city, men began to recount the stories they had heard, adding new ones of their own.

  I marveled to hear them, at their willingness to believe any tale they heard so long as it dealt with gold. Had not the Indians of Popi lied to them? Were they not on this very night camped beside the ruins of a place that had been described as a thriving city filled with treasure?

  There were some, however, who did question the truth of the old man's words. One of these was Captain Mendoza.

  When the campfires burned low he summoned Zia and me. Carrying a torch, he led us into the ruins of Red House. There we went from room to room, climbing over piles of rubbish and rotted timber, through narrow halls where rats scurried, into dark places where things of the night squeaked and fluttered, to a room at last that smelled of smoke.

  In one corner was a cavelike dwelling, dug into the floor and partly roofed with brush. Into this hole Mendoza thrust his torch. The eyes of the old man stared out at us.

  Mendoza gave me the torch and with one hand grasped the Indian by the throat. As if he held something made of faggots and rags, he snatched the old man from the hole and set him on his feet.

  Zia put a hand upon Mendoza as if to hold him back. "Do not harm him," she said quietly. Then to the old woman who crouched in the hole squealing like a small animal, she said something that calmed her.

  "I will not harm him if he speaks the truth," Mendoza answered. "But tell him that I demand the truth about Háwikuh. Not tales that people wish to hear."

  Mendoza took the torch from me and while he waited for Zia to translate, thrust it close to the Indian's face.

  "I have spoken with a straight tongue," the old man replied.

  "Ask him," said Mendoza, "when it was that he saw the city of Háwikuh."

  "I have never seen this city," the Indian said. "But I have spoken to many who have seen it."

  "Why have you not seen Háwikuh?" Mendoza demanded. "If this is a place where gold is so abundant, why have you not gone there?"

  "For the reason," the Indian said, "that gold means no more to me than to those who live in the city of Háwikuh."

  Mendoza raised the torch. I thought for a moment that he was about to strike the old man.

  "Tell him that gold means something to me, if not to him," he said. "Tell him also that if I do not find gold in Háwikuh and in the amounts he has described, I shall come back to this place and cut out the tongue he uses so freely."

  Mendoza waited while Zia spoke to the Indian. Then, with a thrust of the torch, he shoved the old man back into the hole.

  Next morning when the army marched away from Red House I saw the Indian standing among the shadows of a fallen doorway. As Mendoza rode by the old man glanced out at him and with two crooked fingers made a sign of ill omen.

  Whether or not Mendoza saw the sign I do not know. I do know that I saw and many times in the days to come remembered it.

  The Fortress of San Juan de Ulúa

  Vera Cruz, in New Spain

  The twenty-seventh day of September

  The year of our Lord's birth, 1541

  THE WIND BLOWS HOT from the jungle. It tosses the candle flame about but still I can see to write down those things that happened during the first day of my trial.

  Two hours after dawn Don Felipe comes to
the cell, bringing comb and razor, a fresh doublet which is too small for me, and a word of advice.

  "In a short time," he says, "you will stand before the Royal Audiencia. When you face these royal gentlemen, what do you say?"

  "I answer the questions asked of me."

  "Truthfully?"

  "Truthfully."

  He snorts through his long, crooked nose. "Then, young señor, you will live here in the Fortress of San Juan for the rest of your days."

  "I have wronged the King," I answer bravely, braver than I feel. "But it was not my purpose to do so."

  Don Felipe laughs. "Say that as much as you wish. But about the gold, say nothing. Nothing, señor. Like your counsel, they care little whether you are guilty or not. What they wish to know is about the treasure. Does it fill the hold of one galleon or perhaps two? Or is it only the size to fill a king's hollow tooth? Where was it found? Where is it hidden? The gentlemen will ask a hundred questions to get the answer to one. Therefore, guard well your tongue."

  Before we leave the cell, Don Felipe places a hand on my shoulder. "I think of you always as a son," he says. "When you stand in front of the Royal Audiencia I shall pray for you to the Holy Mother."

  I am sure that he will. He wants the treasure for himself.

  We climb the stairs together. We pass the sentry box, a sleeping sentry, whom Don Felipe rouses with a kick, and the holes where prisoners are kept.

  "One more thing," he says as we cross the esplanade. "One of the judges is as deaf as a stone. Therefore speak up and do not mumble your words."

  We reach the chamber of the Royal Audiencia, where two guards stand at the door. Inside I can see nothing, blinded as I am by the sun on the esplanade. Then I make out a small window, which has not been cleaned for months.

  In front of the window at a heavy oak table sit three old men who look very much alike, whose faces are the same color as the underside of a sturgeon. They wear well-kempt wigs and black robes trimmed with fur. On their right is the royal fiscal, on their left the fiscal's assistant. The royal notary and two drab-looking clerks sit at another table, near Gamboa, my counsel.