The King's Fifth: Chapters 1–4

He stands in the doorway and says under his breath, “Garbanzos, a slice of mutton, the best oil from Úbeda! Who ever has heard of such fine fare in His Majesty’s prison? And do not forget the candles stolen from the chapel, for which I could be tossed into prison myself. Worse, mayhap.”

“I do not risk my neck from kindness, which is a luxury of the rich. Or for a few ducats, either. Let us be clear about this matter.”

“If I am found guilty,” I say evasively, “then I shall never return to Cíbola.”

“How much gold is hidden there? Tell me, is it enough to fill the hold of a large galleon?”

“Remember, señor, that what I do for you I do not for a handful of maravedis. Neither for money nor from kindness. I do it only because of a chart, limned with patience and skill, which you will make for me.”

He is tall, with a long, thin forehead and a jaw like a cudgel.

As for the treasure which he covets, who knows where it lies?

Even I who secreted it, do I know? Could I ever find it again?

Perhaps I should begin on the day I received my diploma in cartography from the Casa de Contratación and within the hour sailed from Seville for the New World.

But this too is dim in my memory, hidden beneath the fateful things that since have befallen me.

But this too is dim in my memory, hidden beneath the fateful things that since have befallen me.

Should I start with the day and the circumstances of my meeting with Admiral Alarcón, the oath I took to bear him fealty and of the night our fleet sailed north from Acapulco?

The day was already stifling hot, so I had left the door ajar.

“He skirted the coast as far north as the River of Good Guidance, which he discovered, but did not venture inland.”

I could not gainsay him in this, therefore I was silent. But I began to wonder about it. I wondered about everything he had said.

Why did Blas de Mendoza, a Captain in Coronado’s army, who had never spoken more than a dozen words to me during the voyage, now stand in my cabin, talking as if I were a confidant?

They were the furnishings of a dandy, yet beneath the lace-trimmed doublet, the fancy breeches, the shining boots was a body supple and strong as the best steel.

They were the furnishings of a dandy, yet beneath the lace-trimmed doublet, the fancy breeches, the shining boots was a body supple and strong as the best steel.

He opened the door and glanced fore and aft of the ship’s deck.

Under a green and gilt canopy that shielded him from the sun, Admiral Alarcón sat eating breakfast at a table spread with silver and fine linen.

He took a long drink from a flagon of Jerez.

There was no sign he knew that a mutinous plan to seize his ship was afoot.

In the night the hills had given way to a line of jagged headlands. Black tailings seemed to flow from them into the sea to rise there in reefs and rocky mounds and pinnacles. It was a desolate scene that met our eyes, and awesome to behold.

With his bronze beard blowing in the wind, hands on hips, his countenance without any emotion that I could note, he faced us.

I was not surprised that the Admiral had learned of Mendoza’s plan to seize the ship. What did surprise me was that he had taken this cunning way to forestall it.

Then Alarcón doffed his plumed hat, bowed low in the direction of Captain Mendoza, and strode off along the deck.

The Captain owned many changes, each of different color and cut, entire from boots to plumed hats.

A rocky beach lay ahead, at a distance of half a league. Beyond it a defile wound steeply upward to a treeless promontory.

Yet I was certain that both wind and haze were portents of foul weather, in which these seas abound.

Yet I was certain that both wind and haze were portents of foul weather, in which these seas abound.

Either one by one we would be plucked from the boat by the steel fingers of the Cordonazo, or we would founder at once, together.

The myriad, snakelike voices of the wind became one, a scream that rose and fell and rose again.

An oar, a helmet, a cask of flour, a scabbard were caught by the wind and flung into the sea.

At this moment Captain Mendoza crawled the length of the boat and wrapped his arms around the tiller.

As it was, the longboat listed and began to fill with water.
We bailed, using our helmets, until our hands bled. We bailed through the afternoon, never stopping. The sun went down and still we bailed, except Roa the drummer who lay as if dead.

A star showed in the east. It was small and wan, yet it proved an omen of good fortune.

One of Mendoza’s cloaks was gone, besides a small sack of trinkets we had brought for barter with the Indians.

I was more surprised at the Captain’s silence, for no one argued with him, even over a trifle.

Rearing above the mountains were great castles and battlements and below them were running horses and fighting men.

“Springs and rivulets, streams and rivers and lakes of water,” Mendoza answered.