The King's Fifth: Chapters 5–10

It was there waiting for me because I had broken my solemn pledge to Admiral Alarcón.

The sound grew louder and drew abreast of the boat and I saw a dark fin glide past.

During the night the sea changed. It was now the color of parchment, with dark streaks running through and fronds of a weedlike plant floating.

During the night the sea changed. It was now the color of parchment, with dark streaks running through and fronds of a weedlike plant floating.

We moved slowly across the flat water, which soon glittered like a burnished shield.

With a lunge he was out of the boat, to flounder in the sea, drinking mouthfuls of sea water from cupped hands.

Since dawn when I first saw that the sea had changed color, we had been drifting on this lake. And by some great good fortune, by a miracle, during the time when the tide was at ebb. For at high tide, so Ulloa had noted, the sea raced into the river mouth and the lake of sweet water disappeared.

He has brought my supper, but of more importance, a new sheaf of paper.

After twelve steps we come to a broad landing and a sentry box. In the doorway a man with a pointed beard leans on a musket.

In his voice there is a tone of pride, an ominous tone as well. “In all of them,” he says, “men die in a few weeks or go insane. So you see, caballero, how truly fortunate you are.”

At the end of the landing is a second flight of twelve stairs and this leads to a broad esplanade. Beyond a stretch of water are the red roofs of the City of the True Cross.

“Where is it?” the counsel asks.
“In the land of the Seven Cities,” I reply, remembering Don Felipe’s admonition.

“If this is the case,” he says, “the matter is simple. Give the King his royal share of this treasure and I shall ask clemency for you.”

Counsel Gamboa looks at his fingers, which are thin and sallow, and after a moment at me.

Far below me I hear the moans of some poor wretch.

Directly to the east, which was the way to Cíbola or so Captain Mendoza thought, the country was broken by sea-swamps and estuaries.

Torres was a small man, with a glib tongue and eyes that did not rest for long on anything. I had seldom seen him on board the San Pedro, but what I had seen I had not fancied.

Gómez had brought the dog with him and I had seen it skulking around our camp in Avipa.

Spare as the wooden cross he carried slung over his back, four times my age, yet he was stronger than I and tireless.

In the lead rode a man in gilded cuirass and helmet with a tall, black plume.

In the lead rode a man in gilded cuirass and helmet with a tall, black plume.

We overtook a few stragglers and a woman riding a mule, a boy seated behind her.

Late that afternoon we camped on the banks of a stream where water ran warm and maize flourished.

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.

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.

It lay below us in a wide, brush-covered arroyo, partly hidden by a grove of ancient trees.

That night men went to parley with Coronado.

The rest of us moved closer, better to hear Zia, as the old man’s words came faint and halting from withered lips.

Then one of the clerks sidles forward, carrying a cross, and halts a step away.

“A treasure does exist?” the royal fiscal asks again, raising his voice.

Speaking with an eloquence that surprises me, he objects to what the fiscal has said. He speaks for several minutes and when he is through the three judges nod their heads in agreement.

A girl for a guide, a lame priest, two musicians, an armorer and keeper of horses who could not make a good bodkin.

Not to mention you yourself. A stripling who yet could not raise a beard.

Yet, while others grew gaunt or sickened, Mendoza’s animals fared well.

Their deaths cast a pall upon the army.

We saw it from afar, through misty air, the sun not yet risen, across a deserted plain, against sombre red cliffs.

We climbed out of a swale to the plain where the city rested, tier upon tier.

I saw then that Háwikuh, its walls and parapets, even in the golden light of morning, were fashioned of mud.

Before the notes had died away, from behind the mounds, a phalanx of warriors jumped to their feet. They rose as one man, though there were more than two hundred.

At once their comrades began to make hostile gestures, waving shields, brandishing clubs, daring us to cross the line of sacred meal.