Old men have more regard for expediency than for honour.
—ARISTOTLE
Start of the night watch. Sailors in their red caps had gathered for supper, their wooden bowls filled with caldareta, fish stew. They ate heartily and watched as the boatswain doused the hot coals in the pewter brazier. Steam rose about them in clouds turned tangerine by the last rays of the sun. The hammocks where they would sleep were scattered about the deck, not hung up yet for the night. They took their meals to their mats as dusk loomed about them. On the after deck an apprentice turned the sand glass, calling the hour.
Juan Ponce de Leon looked over his ship from high in the stern castle. At first his gaze fell on the mainmast: its great sail spread, hanging limp in the breezeless dusk. Down the deck crowded with bales and barrels and men, twilight thickened. Amidships where the bombards rested some sailors had gathered. He heard the strains of a lute and considered the irony of such soft music amidst iron cannon. Even now he was losing sight of them. It always amazed him how quickly it grew dark in this new world. Behind him the watch leader lit the signal lantern. He noticed across the darkening sea a pinpoint of light where the lantern of his ship’s sister glowed. And then came the watch leader’s deep-throated shout.
“Good watch, starboard lookout!”
“Bright green!” came the reply.
“Port lookout, good watch!”
“Bright red, sir!”
In a moment the bow announced: “Bright top!” and the routine was completed. It would continue like this all night at each turn of the glass. It did not disturb the other sailors. Rather it comforted them hearing the ancient chorus, knowing their comrades kept the good watch. The hard voices of men can sometimes seem soothing, Juan Ponce contemplated. This is a good ship, he thought, and good men I have chosen.
He was the metaphor of his ships. Though of noble blood he did not, somehow, fit the part. Rather, he was the weathered lines of a seaman, the brazed skin of the labourer, the soldier’s sinews and grim scars, the grey closecropped hair of a monk. His clothing was practical. In the evening warmth he’d discarded his doublet leaving only a linen shirt, unlaced at the neck, and economic buckskin hose. Round his right shoulder was slung a thick leather belt and from it, at his left hip, hung the tool of his trade. In an age of earrings and jewelled fingers this man wore only a silver cross and Toledo steel at his side.
He was fifty-two years of age. Thirty-five of them had been spent fighting: against the Moors in Isabella’s great Reconquista in Spain, then under Ferdinand among these islands against the native Taino and Carib. Now he knew he would fight again: the Calusa. He had a new king now, Charles. He had lived through three rulers, fought for them, conquered new lands for them, and in return they had given him — nothing.
The time had come for himself.
Age had wearied but not weakened him. Men still feared him. He found fear a useful tool but there were cracks in his armour now. He could feel them in the aches which had never been there before, in the shortness of days which had once seemed so long. His power waned as an outgoing tide. It was inexorable. Now was his final chance, he knew. There would be none after this. He stiffened a little at the thought. The helmsman beside him, thinking he had made some error, straightened as well and paid careful attention to his work. But his captain-general made no remonstrance. Instead he climbed down from the deck and went below.
The cabin was dark. He crossed to his desk to light the lantern which hung from a beam above it. Even in the dark he knew the witch was there. He could hear her breathing from the narrow bed. When the lantern was lit she continued sleeping, the long ropes of her hair coiling about her, her body dark brown and undulant. He studied her for a while: a beautiful, savage face. Then he turned to his desk.
This woman with me, this Calusa witch, does not fear me as others do. She never has. Even when I beat her for her insolence she did not cry out, taking the slaps with hard silence. And when I had finished, panting from my anger, she would gaze through me with those obsidian eyes. Pain does not reach her. Love cannot touch her. The only thing she shows is passion. In that she is unlike any woman I have known.
I found her on that first voyage to Florida, or rather, she seemed to have found me. It was after the skirmish with the Calusa at the place I call Mantanca. It is not so strange to have named the place ‘Slaughter’. The battle had been a costly one. The Calusa had no fear of us. We had lost men and they had lost even more. Only after they had surrounded my ships, their poisoned atlatls piercing the air, killing my men with their accuracy, only then did I order the bombards to open up. The natives retreated then, the guns’ thunder terrifying them as their canoes cut away for the shore.
We had not been ready for their savagery. My exploration was merely to have been a voyage of discovery, not conquest. We had neither the tools nor the men to fight properly. We were preparing to depart when a strange thing happened. A single canoe appeared from the shore and came toward us. She was in it, alone.
My men in their rage had wanted to abuse her; send her back to her people as a sign of what was to come. But something about her prevented them; that fierce fearlessness I now know so well. Instead, they conveyed her to me.
I took her back to San Juan de Puerto Rico as a slave: to learn my language and tell me about her people. She revealed nothing to me but disdain, as if somehow her heritage was beyond mine. She was hiding something, I knew, but I could not discern it. After that, for a long time she became insignificant, submerged in my household as a menial. I’d forgotten her once I discovered I had other enemies far more treacherous than the Calusa. And when those enemies had overcome me, taken my titles and lands and power, when my wife had left and my children were estranged, when I felt old and cheated and insignificant, it was then she’d contrived to reappear before me. She spoke a guttural Spanish by then, her native tongue unable to lisp out Castilian purity; but what she said to me was stunning.
I had ordered wine. I sat on a balcony facing west. She brought me the chalice. Its silver chasing sparkled in the rays of the setting sun. The wine was rich and cool.
“Where is my steward?” I asked, surprised to see her, yet at that moment realizing that somehow the years had not seemed to age her.
“I told him I would bring this. I wanted to speak with you.”
“And he allowed it?”
“He was persuaded,” she said, smiling. It was not a smile but more a sneer, curling her full lips as she handed me the cup.
“Your place is below in the servants’ hall. You dare come to me with ...”
“My place is with you. You are troubled.”
“You know nothing of me.”
“I know enough. Drink your wine.”
“You risk speaking to me thus?”
“There is something beyond this wine you drink. Something secret and sacred. Something I know which will end your troubles.”
“What can you possibly mean?”
“Water.”
“You are a foolish woman, get out of here.”
“Sacred water. I was sent to tell you this.”
“You were cast out by your tribe.”
“No. I was an offering. When Calos, my king, knew he would not destroy you, he sent me to you. But you would not listen.”
“You would not talk.”
“Not as a slave. That is how you treated me.”
“Then what are you now?”
“A messenger. I have knowledge for you. I have watched you carefully. You were too proud in your past. You are not so proud now.”
In that moment I was ready to strike her, beat her for her insolence. I stood. I towered above her yet she did not shrink from me. She even offered her face to receive the slaps. Then I found myself suddenly intrigued, as though she had cast a spell upon me. In that moment I changed. To this day I have no knowledge why. I have found she possesses an unusual power to confound the weak and unready. I thought I was neither but, in reflection, I was at my ebb when she chose to appear.
“Alright, I’m listening. Have your say.”
“In my land, deep inside my country, far into the quagmires where men do not go, is a water so pure it brings youth to those who drink of it.”
“I’ve heard this rumour before. It’s mere fiction.”
“I tell you it is real! I tell you now Calos is willing to share a part of his land where you can regain the power you’ve lost. You are an old man, broken by your troubles. I have something for you: this water, this chance to regain your vigour, to make of you what you once were.”
“Why should I believe this ... what ... fortune telling?”
“Because I tell it. Because Calos is willing. Because now I will be your woman and be your guide. And after all, now, what have you to lose?”
So she set me upon this strange voyage. She has promised me confirmation. She has promised to lead me to that sacred water. Oh, there is more to this than the telling. It is something in her beyond all telling. I felt it that day. I feel it now. I do not love her. She is too primitive. She is useful for only two things: as a release with her body and as a guide with her knowledge. I cultivate one to reap the other.
The sailors call her la Vieja, the old woman. They fear her. She has an old soul. Yet she has no idea what age she is. It seems unimportant to her. But then she is a witch. And there is the water.
The scratch of his pen had awakened her. She muttered something, her eyes glittering in the lamplight. He knew what she wanted.
“Not tonight, woman,” he muttered, “I have work to do.”
“Making marks in that book,” she said, smirking. “It takes your manhood from you.”
The men despised her. They thought her merely an old man’s senile whim. There had been trouble about it the first day out. But though she did not fear Juan Ponce, his crew most certainly did. He quelled their impertinence with harsh commands and a flogging for one of the ringleaders. Yet he knew there was talk. And the zealot, protected from punishment by his position, still stirred the men against her.
Despite his convictions, the monk hated her. She was all he stood for yet she had betrayed him by not accepting his faith. She had laughed at him and for a zealot that is the worst of responses. Even Juan Ponce did not dare do that, though he felt much the same. The monk had come on this voyage with a mission. Juan Ponce had taken him only because he was sanctioned by the Inquisition. So Juan Ponce used the zealot, as he used this woman, for his own design. He prayed and confessed and attended mass, though he secretly believed none of it.
“Go back to sleep,” he muttered. She did not respond and within a few minutes she was again sleeping. He envied that in her. Once he had had that ability. Now age had stolen it from him as he found himself awakening too many times through the nights ... an old man’s fragility.
He continued writing on the parchment before him. The ship’s log lay beside it, untouched. He let it remain: plenty of time for that later. Right now he charted a different voyage.
The day I first met him, Don Pedro Nunez de Guzman, Knight Commander of the Order of Calatrava, replaced my father. I was presented to him as his page, a position my father had secured for me. And as the great man shook my hand and my father humbled himself in the background, I was aware I stood in the presence of power.
He was a diminutive man barely taller than me, though I had only thirteen years and he was at the peak of his abilities. Unlike my father he was never officious. He would go about his affairs in an offhand manner with pleasant words for even the lowest of stable boys. Yet when he appeared at court, I strutting like a peacock behind him, the waves would part as he approached the throne. And King Ferdinand would invite my master to conversation, less the king and more the equal of Pedro Nunez de Guzman.
Those were fruitful years in the house of Guzman. For a lad who had known only harsh northern climes, the April freshness of Andalusia and the gentle moods of my new master were a far cry from childhood. Though I was but one of several pages, Don Pedro paid me special notice. A master swordsman and tactician, in his training yard I learned the things which sustain me now.
And then, of course, there was Seville. Seville too was a wondrous teacher. For the young rustic its streets were classrooms. The world came to the city up the muddy Rio Guadalquivir. Along its docks and in its markets one’s senses were taxed to their full. I followed mine without hesitation. On long summer days I would wander until, footsore and weary, I would find a stool in some exotic tavern and the sights and smells of my lessons would mingle in a cup of sangria at the end of the day.
Yet despite the intentions of Don Pedro, I was not a prime student. By my seventeenth year I had mastered the arts of weapons and war and that strength had evolved for which now I am noted. But I lacked the finer touch. For music I had no ear and for the dance, no feet. When the ladies gathered on warm spring evenings around the fountains of Don Pedro’s domain, I became stiff and formal. In the diversions of courtship I was lost. And that which gave me grace in the training yard turned me clumsy and bearish amid polished manners. My colleagues grew distant. None took the pains to discover that beneath such proper armour lay the pounding heart of a frightened boy.
In the training yard I became merciless, numbing those witty tongues with terror. I hurt them, every one, as I exacted my revenge. Thus my notoriety began almost without my knowing. Worse was the realization that now I would never be what I wished. I would not become Don Pedro. I would be my father instead.
It was late when Juan Ponce extinguished the lantern. The dog watch had been called and taken its place. He was weary. He undressed and went to bed. But the witch awakened and with her passion aroused him despite himself. And the wind came up.