Gold In The South

PROLOGUE

As the first light stirred the east and darkness slowly slipped back its covers, he would allow the skiff to glide towards the side of the river, following its banks until a clump of acacias or oaks stabbed their way out into the flow, overhanging, and there tie the boat tightly to a bough. So he would remain, still. Occasionally, advancing daylight would show that the thicket hadn’t been as dense as he had thought and he would have to pull himself out into the current again, agitated, as he quickly pulled the oars to a further, more suitable, hiding place.

All the time he kept his eyes on the heavy chest in front of him, now clumsily covered with the drying leaves of the ripped boughs. The more he watched it, the more he wished for it to be away from him. Blood, always blood, his dreams soiled by rivers of the stuff, choking him until he awoke. Yet, still, the chest and its contents kept their torpid grip on his imagination. And then he day-dreamed, sweetly, of smiling children running towards him holding out broken bird shells, and insects hunted from dark places, a woman behind him, hand furled around his neck, warm to the touch. All this and more would be made possible by his cargo. All would be well, when he had it secured. His forever.

"But there has been too much blood; blood, noise, filth and death. Lies and deceit. It has wearied me, and tires me still, even as the last survivor. Especially as the last survivor. We should have known that they would never let us leave, alive. We should have left earlier. Of course, at first, we were treated as tueles, gods, with iron hands and mounted on beasts twice the size of a man. But it was only a matter of time before they saw us for what we really were; men with greed played right through us. And Cortés the worst of us. Oh, there was no denying that Cortés played the diplomat. He sweet-talked Montezuma, kneaded him like putty in his grubby, cunning hands.

And Cortés knew well what he was about. He saw the way the caciques, the local lords, bowed before their prince, their God, unwilling to even lift their eyes for fear of dishonouring him. Cortés saw the grip Montezuma had on this land of his. He also saw Montezuma’s curiosity about us, inviting us to tell about our God and Emperor across the sea. Cortés, no fool he, played it all up. Carlos V was the greatest ruler on this earth. Our God, overseer of earth, sea and skies. Our faith in the cross was the greatest treasure to be found.

Who really knew what Montezuma thought of all this? Were we really the rulers coming over seas from the east, so long predicted by the Indians? Was this why Montezuma agreed to our taking him into our care, as Cortés would have it. A prisoner in reality. Or was Montezuma playing the long game, lulling us into idleness and ease, waiting for the moment of our weakness to crush us completely? Who could say?

Of course, such pretences couldn’t last forever. Our own motives were gradually laid bare. The more treasure Montezuma spread around us, the more our naked greed showed itself. Every morning, even the pile of treasure, which Cortés had ordered under strictest guard, was found to be lighter than the day before. Some of us suspected silver-tongued Cortés himself, he who willed us to ever greater feats of daring, of conquest and riches. It was Cortés taking more than his fifth. Others whispered that it was Alvarado and the other captains creaming off more than their allotted share. Even with enough gold and precious stones to make us each content for the remainder of our lives, we strove for more. A madness.

And so they broke onto us. The Indians battering us for days, shouting insults and baying for our blood. To sacrifice us, our hearts cut out with crude stone. Our limbs cut off and fed to the dogs and poisonous snakes. They never stopped attacking, helmets made of wood and bone and crested with feathers that diced the air into colours. Attacked us with slings and stones, bows and arrows, and swords with blades of flint which could slice open a man with a feather touch.

And when the stones rained down on Montezuma himself, the time had come for a miracle. Or, we were doomed. Of our final sortie from the camp I remember little. My leg had been slashed hard the day before in our attack on their great temple, where their most revered idols were kept. The pain was still intense. That morning was beautiful. I do recall that. The silence as we left our compound after days of fevered battle chilled us to the marrow. Too quiet.

Into that expectant silence, the rigid moan of the great oak axle of the cart in which we carried several of the caja fuertes, strong boxes of treasures, creaked and cried out over the blackness of the lake. We feared the spell of silence would, at any moment, be broken. So it was. The dart that whistled a hair’s breadth from my nose signalled the start of the attack and, instantly, the air was thick as projectiles sliced and ripped the dawn, and the black waters of the lake were whisked into white frenzies from the paddles of the canoes that soon surged all around us.

We smacked the horses with all our might to move on, pushing through the struggle of limbs and cries of fear and anger, sounds that no man could utter at any other time. I slipped once, my sword hand coming down hard in front of me, onto the wooden planks, trying to ease my fall. Instead, all my arm found was the warm stickiness of a man’s guts, oozing like boiling jam around my arm. With my other hand I pulled insistently on the horse’s bridle, leading him on through the carnage. How long this went on, I couldn’t say. At one point, a stone caught my breastplate full on, sending me toppling sideways into the horse.

My heart was beating fiercely when we reached the far end of the causeway and my relief at having survived almost brought tears. Yet the screams of slaughter continued and then we saw Cortés, bloodied and maddened, turn from us to return once more to the melee and his men. No-one could say of Cortés that he lacked bravery. But we were far from safe and still led the horses and the stolen riches. One of Navarez’s captains urged us to go with him and a dozen more men, to save ourselves. As we were unsure if the Indian warriors were going to pursue us, we followed; staggering, running, panting hard after him as we continued towards Tacuba.

But we knew what we were about. Though Hernandez, for this was the name of Navarez’s captain, had given the order, each one of us understood that our duty was to return and regroup when dawn and fresh light permitted. But our fortune was to keep walking away. So no man let up, and the closer the day’s light came, the harder and faster we walked to the east, until prudence and need to hide our modest band from the Indians caused us to seek shelter. But the tie had been cut. We had made our decision to run and we were beyond the point of return. Of Cortés, his captains and his men, we could think no further. On that first morning, on the alien plains of the new world, no man had eyes for any other man, only the one remaining caja fuerte which lay, slightly askew, in the back of the cart.

There is little I want to say about the walk to the coast. We moved from the devil of blood to the devil of fear. We only travelled by night, fearful of any contact with the natives, fearful that we may be the only Spanish left, fearful that the Indians would hunt us down, our only mercy a quick death. We moved in the forests and lived like beasts. And we lived by their laws also, hunting deer and rabbit for sustenance, melting into the shadows when pumas and ocelots were spotted. We watched packs of coyotes from afar, each group of creatures passing each other in suspicion. One of our group, removing himself slightly from the others for passing his daily waste, was taken from us by a bear. Alerted by his scream, when we arrived, the bear was retreating into the folds of thick pine while our bloodied companion groaned in his final agonies and, shortly, made sound no more. We didn’t think to bury him.

In the mountains, we slept close together for warmth, our armour long since discarded. And when we awoke in the morning, the valleys were filled with a mist that made us think of smoke from the fires of hell. Creatures from hell also appeared; scaled monsters with frills on their spine, banded tails as long as their bodies and heavy, portentous jowls. They would look at us with keen eyes but stayed away. We soon lost our horses. One had been injured in the leaving battle and wasn’t long for this world. The other was little use in the forests. We didn’t bother feeding it, and one morning of the second week of our march, it appeared dead on the floor, blood still seeping gradually from its neck where one of our number had decided that we wouldn’t need to hunt that day. It would take four men to carry the chest from that point on.

Despite our threadbare appearance upon arrival in Veracruz, Hernandez still bore sufficient authority to convince people that we were all that remained of Cortés’ force and we had orders from the great man to return to Cuba and seek reinforcements there. Slipping the caja fuerte at night on to the caravel was weary work, requiring cunning after the endurance of the previous three weeks. The fewer people who knew, the better. Of course, we discussed splitting all the items there and then, with each man making his way as best he was able. But Hernandez convinced us that our best hope lay in working together and getting safe to Spain before we performed the share giving.

But it was too much to hope for. The crew of the Santa Eugenia were no fools and soon grew suspicious of the contents of Hernandez’s cabin on the lower deck, for this is where we had stored the chest. None of them knew for sure what the cabin contained but they saw we were thicker than thieves and were controlled by instincts far from pure. Fifteen of them to ten of us. Weakened as we were by our travails, we were desperate men who had seen desperate times and lived only through our obsession. So, one hundred and fifty miles east of Veracruz, we attacked, waiting till it was our men on watch, we relied on the element of surprise. Hernandez cut the throat of the sleeping captain while the rest of us went about our own business. And in the moonless night the still of the ocean was torn by the screams and shouts of men battling for their survival. Sounds of the most primitive horror, it rose to a manic crescendo before a gradual fading as the fear and anger of fighting gave way to moans of the dying ebbing away, until only the waves of the boundless sea slapping the sides of the caravel could be heard, the men doing a silent reckoning of who had survived and who was no more. Four of our number lost their souls in the fight, yet we shoved them over the ship’s boards, the same as the others. And as dawn cracked open the sky and gave us eyes to see again, we looked around at each other in our bloodied, exhausted state, and all knew that more of us would perish before we once again set eyes on our homeland.

Our survival depended on our working together and, with only the six of us remaining, there were times when we were not up to the demands of the sailor. Often the ship drifted, and our speed and location were mere guesswork. We looked to the sun as guide, fixing its daily rising as the point we should be making for, guessing its height at midday for our latitude.

Provisioned as we had been to Cuba, we weren’t long at sea before our lack of supplies became clear. It was, however, less of a danger than stopping at Cuba where we were sure to excite questioning and suspicions with such a reduced crew. So, we followed the sun and sailed on. We hadn’t even passed Cuba before our supply of fruit was gone. A further week and not much remained of the honey cakes and salted tripe. We would have to judge carefully our water rations too. Yet we knew we needed each other so each made sure that we sustained ourselves. All knew we were just giving ourselves a fighting chance. A pact of devils. And on the morning when a sliver of land slowly emerged as a line to the east, we celebrated with extra supplies of our remaining food, the weed from the great lakes of the new world, which curdles and hardens and tastes like cheese. Yet, even as we washed these morsels down with the dregs of water in the oak barrels, our eyes grew small, hard and tight as we looked from one to the other and said nothing, but all thought the same.

One of the half dozen knew the coast, knew it well enough to see that we had veered too far north and that we must sail south, towards Spain, towards the wide sand plains that welcomed voyagers into the Guadalquivir and our masters and betters in Seville. But we all knew that we were our own masters now and that laying into port at Seville was not an option. The knowledge we lacked was what our real plans were and so we all waited, hands pressed close to the steel of our swords, eyes rigid to the skies instead of sleep, waiting for the move which we knew must come. But from whom, when and how, only God knew.

In the end, it was nature which addressed our destinies. A violent storm blew in from the Atlantic, sending each of the six to his duty on the rope, on the line and sail, on the tiller and capstan. Two at the front, two the middle, two at the rear. The waves played with the caravel, sending one of our number careering from one side of the main deck clean into a bulwark on the other, crashing into it with such a force that the sound of splitting bones was heard clear over the howling wind and spitting waves. Standing closest, I heard it clearest. The man tried to rise, as if from habit, but found that he was unable, collapsing like a doll to the ground, moved now only by the violent pitching of the ship.

It was like a signal had been given to Hernandez. Standing on the quarter deck, he gestured to Oswaldo on the forecastle. Oswaldo, a thin, rat faced man Hernandez had always been closest to. From nowhere, the two men brought forth short knives, plunging them with fury and speed into the flesh of the men who had been at their sides. Oswaldo’s foe was too busy altering the foremast to offer any resistance and was taken completely by surprise, his face turned in horror at his adversary, arms flailing the air, thick with sea spray and conspiracy. Hernandez was less fortunate, the other man on the quarter deck, quick to grasp the situation soon had Hernandez in a close armed tussle, the attacker unable to use his weapon, which was tossed uselessly to one side. The storm conspired to throw both men onto the floor where they engaged in a struggle to the death, each man using his silent strength to overcome the other in any way possible.

The caravel lurched violently in the angry waves with spray and rain adding to the misery of the scene. I saw Oswaldo stagger across the main deck of the caravel. He looked at me, briefly, bright blood wet along the length of his blade, and, for a moment, I saw my destiny unfold there. Instead, a fresh wave jolted the ship and he carried on his passage, up to the quarter deck where both men lurched and rolled, as if engaged in a tightly held dance. The dance of death. Unexpectedly, Oswaldo just watched both men writhe on the wet boards, silently calculating. What Hernandez would have thought about his co-conspirator’s silent vigil over the deadly struggle, I will never know. Most probably he wouldn’t have been surprised. There is no such thing as honour amongst thieves. All I recall from my view on the main deck was the apparent calm with which Oswaldo, first waited, and then dispatched both men, when they could grapple with each other no longer. Quick and efficient thrusts to each body and both men lay still, pushed into each other now by the rocking motions of the storm. The wind and rain were dying as Oswaldo walked slowly and deliberately down the steps from the quarter deck, blade of steel still in hand, to where I was, rigid with fear, but as yet unharmed. ‘We can share it,’ he said simply. And I had no choice but to believe him. But we both knew that we were using each other, and a final reckoning would take place. So I said nothing and just assented with my head.

Each knew that the caravel only had a little further to go. It was impossible that such a vessel would go unnoticed at the mouth of the great river or any further upstream. Two of us were needed to carry the heavy box from the cabin to the ship’s boat on the quarter deck – we hadn’t moved the bodies which still lay with their heads close together, like lovers on a midsummer’s day. Two of us were needed to use axes to prise open the stout planks in the ship’s hold, the pressure of the first cracks sending salty water spraying onto the spare sails, lines, hawsers and firewood which had been kept there. Two of us were needed to lower the ship’s boat from the davit to the waves below. And we both climbed down the rope to take our places aside each other, oar each in hand. As we departed the Santa Eugenia, we could see the great vessel tilt abruptly to one side, as if aware that she was in mortal danger and that no one would now come to her aid. She danced slowly with the sun as each drifted downwards into the dark. Our thoughts, though, were our own as we edged closer to the shore, each pulling hard on our oars, each silent with the other, waiting, knowing…but still wondering when the other would strike.

Oswaldo was the first to crack. I knew he would be. Land was still a long smudge on the horizon and we would still need to row most of the night. Oswaldo broke the uneasy silence, asking if I wanted some water, which we had stowed behind us, while the chest, exposed and oversized in the small boat, was squarely in front of us. He leaned back off the cross plank on which we sat and, as he rocked back to the small barrel we had furnished ourselves with, my eyes tracked back with him. Seeing his hand dart behind the barrel was enough of a warning and it came as little surprise when he heaved forward again, the sharp point of his sword arcing swiftly towards my head. Instinct dictated a move away from the encroaching projectile, but I knew that I had little room for movement to the side of the skiff and, besides, his hand would follow through my movements, lancing me regardless. Instead, I closed on him, ramming my left shoulder into his slight figure and jerking my head up to catch his chin. At the same moment, I felt the sword pierce my hip, adding to my anger, my ferocity. My movement across had given me the initiative and I felt myself lying over his legs and lower body, pinning him to the rough wood below. His right arm still held the sword, but it was too big to move in such close quarters, and I grabbed at his right arm and held it firm while with my free hand punched him cleanly in the face. Its power sent a shiver through him and I could feel the weakness spread over his body. The sword clattered down. Oswaldo now tried to summon his remaining forces, twisting violently under my weight, his left hand clawing the flesh of my face. Despite his slight physique, he held surprising strength and, as I laid hold of his left hand with my free right hand, it was as much as I could do to hold the man down, for he writhed and slithered like an eel for a chance to break free. In desperation, I flopped down on him, using my weight as a weapon and then brought my head forwards and onto his with such force that I thought my own head had split open. He cried in pain and I looked back in a frenzy for the sword which lay inert on the dark salty boards behind us. I needed to finish it quickly, so I forced myself up off him, stood and twisted before laying hands on the bone grip of the sword. It felt good in my hand. I was ready to kill. But I heard the splash even before I turned back to him. Oswaldo had crawled to the side and thrown himself into the water, though his hands still hung to the side of the boat, more