Where did you get this meat? Señor Dorantes asked when I served him one of the birds’ roasted legs for lunch. He sat on a stool outside his hut and took the bowl from me, his long fingers wrapping greedily around it.
From your brother, Señor.
El Tigre killed this bird?
He took it from an Indian trap in the woods.
Ah, he said with a chuckle. Diego is not much of a hunter.
Poor Diego, I thought. Always trying, but somehow failing, to get his brother’s approval. Why did my master not pay him any notice? Señor Dorantes looked much older than Diego, so perhaps they had not grown up together, but that alone could not have accounted for the strange distance between them. Oh, what I would not have given to be with my own brothers. They were seventeen years old now, young men already, though in my memory they remained the same little boys who used to run across the courtyard to greet me as soon as I stepped inside our home. Over the years, I had convinced myself that my sacrifice had been enough to spare them the life that was now mine, and sometimes I even dared to imagine that good fortune smiled on them. Had they made their way to the college of the Qarawiyin and fulfilled my father’s dream? Or had they, instead, given up on the scholar’s life and apprenticed with one of my uncles’ friends? I could not know. But it was my desire to know and my yearning for them that dictated everything I did in those days, everything I saw, but chose not to notice or reflect upon.
Where is Diego now? Señor Dorantes asked me.
With the friar Anselmo.
Again?
They went to the river.
Did he at least save some of this meat for Castillo?
No, Señor. He said the meat should be distributed to all those present.
Tell him to check the traps again tomorrow.
Since our departure from Seville, I had seen Señor Dorantes treat Señor Castillo with brotherly care, which I rarely saw him display toward Diego, though Diego was his own flesh and blood. Once, when Señor Castillo had complained that his right glove had a hole in it, Señor Dorantes had reached into his saddlebag for his spare gloves, even as his brother watched, his bare hands resting on the pommel of his saddle.
I waited for Señor Dorantes to eat so that I could do the same. I had saved some scraps, enough to taste the native bird, but not so much that my master would ask me why I was helping myself to some of the meat. In the square, one of the soldiers was trying on a feather headdress from the temple and asking a friend to help him secure it around his head. Then, like an actor in a play, he walked down an imaginary road, his arms on his hips in an effeminate pose, while his comrades laughed and jeered. Across the way, a group of settlers were playing a game of baraja, excitedly calling out the points they scored. Patience, I thought, patience. Soon, we will leave this village for Apalache, where we will find the gold and where I can remind my master of my role in his good fortune.
SEÑOR CASTILLO AND HIS MEN finally emerged from the wilderness a few days later. How pitiful they looked! Their faces were gaunt, a result of the meager rations the governor had allowed for their mission, and their muddy clothes stuck to their bodies. In the hands of a young soldier, the flagpole leaned sideways, as if he no longer had the strength to hold it upright. Slowly, in small clusters, they made their way into the village square. Everyone came to watch them dismount. Did you find the port? the men asked. Did you come across signs of a city? Where is the hatchet you borrowed?
Señor Castillo raised his hand to quiet the hubbub. From the glum look on his face, it was clear he did not bring the good tidings for which he had hoped. Addressing himself only to his fellow captains, he said: We followed the Río Oscuro all the way to the ocean, but we found only a wide and shallow bay. The water never rose higher than our waists.
This news was greeted with silence. Then Señor Castillo took off his helmet and ran his hand through his hair.
What does this mean? Diego asked him finally.
It means we have no idea where the port is, Señor Castillo replied. It means we are lost.
Come now, Diego said. You are letting your emotions govern you.
It is true.
No, it is not, a voice said.
The crowd parted to let Señor Narváez through, and he came to stand in the clearing, in his blue doublet and impeccably clean breeches. The governor had a flair for dramatic announcements. This one was no different — it had the effect of quieting the whole company and shifting its attention to him. Now he looked around him with satisfaction and even a hint of amusement. Hombres, he said, my investigation has revealed that Apalache is not just the name of the kingdom, but also the name of its capital city. Think about it. When we Castilians speak of León, we can mean either the city or the province. Likewise, Apalache is both a kingdom and a capital. This was why the word Apalache caused some confusion in my interrogations. But the prisoners have confirmed for me everything that we already know about the kingdom of Apalache — that it is very rich with gold, that it has many fields, and many people who labor in them. At this moment, we are in the area of Apalache, but we have not yet reached the city of Apalache.
The governor always spoke to the soldiers in a familiar way. He laughed at the coarse jokes they made and, when the occasion presented itself, he was not above making one of his own. This was why the soldiers liked him, even if what he had to say was not what they wanted to hear. But Señor Castillo always sounded like a nobleman, with the full vowels and trilled consonants that would have been better suited for the royal court. Worse, he rarely addressed the soldiers directly, so he seemed aloof even if that was not his intention.
And look at this, Señor Narváez added, holding up a very large and heavy Indian necklace, of the kind that a person of high rank might wear. The necklace was made of white seashells, so small that they looked like beads, and at its center was a golden amulet shaped like an egg. My page found it in the bushes, a quarter of a league upriver.
The page tucked his thumbs in the loops of his belt and looked on with undisguisded pride. The men whistled and cheered and began to talk about conducting a thorough search along the riverbank.
But Señor Castillo interrupted them. So how far is the capital of Apalache?
Ten days, more or less, the governor said. It is impossible to get a precise answer from the savages because their idea of time is not the same as ours. In any case, we have tarried long enough in this village. It is time to resume the march.
And how will we return to the ships?
Exactly as I said before, Castillo. Once we secure Apalache, I will send a contingent to the coast, and from there to the port of Pánuco.
ALTHOUGH SEÑOR NARVÁEZ STILL LED the procession of horsemen, he rarely spoke to his captains, choosing instead to relay his orders to his page, who walked beside him on foot. He seemed annoyed with Señor Castillo for his insistence on a mission to return to the ships and disappointed that it had failed to quell the young hidalgo’s doubts. Now the governor’s gaze was always fixed on the horizon, as if he expected at any moment to catch a glimpse of Apalache; he did not want to miss it. The captains, too, withdrew into a thoughtful silence, all of them anxious now to reach the capital. As we marched deeper into the wilderness, the soldiers no longer sang, and few people spoke.
We were taking a break from the midday heat one day when I heard a distant melody. It sounded like a flute, or many flutes, and I suddenly recalled the words of an old Castilian official, a man who had spent some years in La Española and had been a frequent dinner guest in the captain’s cabin during our trip across the Ocean of Fog and Darkness. The Indians in these parts, the official had said, do not have art. They make some music, but it is very primitive, of the sort that a child could make if he were given a drum. They have no painting, no drawing, no sculpture, no architecture of any sort, none of the things that we Castilians take for granted.