Whenever we crossed a swamp, burdened by our loads and fearful of the lagartos, the Apalaches struck us, succeeding each time in inflicting some harm on our company. They killed a man in armor by aiming for his throat and forced a porter to leave behind one case of ammunition and two cases of tools as he ran for cover. They wounded a horse when it was wading through a swamp. They kidnapped one of the Indian captives the governor had brought from Portillo and, seeing the look of terror on the prisoner’s face, I was not at all sure that his new jailers meant him well.
Then came the day when Gonzalo Ruíz broke down. Ruíz was a rough soldier, hard to impress and even harder to scare. During the journey across the Ocean of Fog and Darkness, he had been one of two men in charge of securing the lower deck of the Gracia de Dios. I remember that, about a month into our voyage, he accused the stable boy, a shy lad from the Gold Coast, of stealing a barrel of wine. A bitter fight between them had ensued, which Señor Dorantes had been forced to break up. The stable boy was put in irons for three days, a judgment that kindled in me a simmering aversion for Ruíz. But, aside from the usual grumbling of soldiers, Ruíz had not attracted anyone’s notice again. Yet now he let out a terrifying howl that startled all of us. From his horse, Señor Dorantes turned to look. Ruíz, he said sharply, contain yourself.
Ruíz’s eyes had the glint of madness about them. No, he said. I am not going to wait for the savages to hunt me down like a partridge. With his musket leveled before him, he left the procession and went looking for Indians deep in the bushes.
Ruíz, my master called. Return to the line immediately.
But the only reply was the rustling of leaves. Oak, cedar, and juniper trees stood tall in a sea of wild green grass. The smell of the sick man on the packhorse was all around us. Above us, the sky had lost its color, turning a bluish tinge of white. And the sun was so hot it made our ears ring.
We should send someone after him, Señor Castillo said.
He disobeyed my order, Señor Dorantes replied.
Each captain was responsible for his own contingent — usually, the men who had traveled with him from Seville — so the governor did not intervene. He nudged his horse forward on the trail, and we resumed the march. But only a moment later, a scream of pain cut through the air like a knife, and Ruíz reemerged from the bushes, without his weapon and with his hands covering his bloodied face. The Apalaches had thrown a rock at him with such precision that they had taken out his left eye, turning him into a younger, leaner version of the governor. His fellow soldiers gathered around Ruíz, but Señor Dorantes shook his head slowly, in a way that suggested Ruíz had been too foolish to merit a better fate.
• • •
So WE LIVED IN FEAR. We feared the fever, the Indians, and our hunger. We feared the swamps, the water lizards, and the berries of unfamiliar bushes. We feared not finding Aute and we feared finding it. At least the sick man no longer had such varied and constant reasons to worry: he could lose himself to the disease and forget everything else. Perhaps it was this desire for the peace of delirium that led so many men in our company to succumb to the fever. By the fifth day of the march to Aute, the governor had to assign horses solely for the transport of the sick — nearly thirty men in all.
Sometimes, I thought of letting go, too. Sitting under the shade of a poplar tree as the company took its midday break, I wondered what would happen to me if I was infected with the fever and perished in this land. Who would wash my body for burial? Who would commend my soul to God? Who would mourn me? I whispered Ayat al-Kursi to myself, over and over, the way I had as a child, whenever I had been scared or troubled or worried, hoping it would grant me the same measure of peace it had back then. With the stick in my hand, I wrote the verse on the ground before me, each word, each stroke taking me back further to my days at the msid in Azemmur, to those days when my life was still my own. His throne doth extend over the heavens and the earth and He feeleth—
You can write? Señor Dorantes asked. He was looking over my shoulder at the line of characters in the dirt, his elbow resting against the trunk of the tree. I was startled by his silent appearance behind me and I rushed to stand up, but he put his hand on my shoulder, urging me to sit down. Where did you learn? he asked.
At home, Señor. In Azemmur.
My father’s dearest friend is a converso — a jeweler from Cordoba. He still keeps his ledgers in Arabic, even though my father warned him that it might raise questions with the inquisitor. But I suppose it is hard to break old habits.
I ran my tongue on my lips, not sure what to say next. Experience had taught me that these kinds of conversations, with personal questions, friendly questions even, were dangerous, that they fed the master new ways of tormenting you later on, when you let down your guard. So I remained quiet, hoping the moment would pass. A soft breeze rustled the leaves of the poplar tree, shifting the dappled light on the ground. From the cluster of men behind us, someone called out for Father Anselmo to come hear a confession.
How did you end up in Seville, then? Señor Dorantes asked.
It is a long story, I said.
He slid against the trunk of the tree and sat down so close to me that I could smell his oily hair. (We had run out of soap a few days earlier.) What did he want from me? Was it not enough that he owned me and could dispose of me as he wished? Now he wanted that which had always been my own — my story.
Tell me, he said. I want to hear it.
Reader, the joy of a story is in its telling. My feet were throbbing with pain and my stomach was growling with hunger, so I could not resist the pleasure that a tale would bring me. I began with the Story of My Birth and continued until the Story of Ramatullai. Señor Dorantes listened to me with such curiosity and patience that I wondered if he would tell this chronicle to other people someday, to his wife, say, or to his children, so that it might continue to be told, even after my death. Telling a story is like sowing a seed — you always hope to see it become a beautiful tree, with firm roots and branches that soar up in the sky. But it is a peculiar sowing, for you will never know whether your seed sprouts or dies.
Later, when we resumed our march, and my exhaustion led me to hold on to his saddle for support, Señor Dorantes did not nudge Abejorro away.
IT WAS THE SMELL of smoke that reached us first, making our eyes water and our throats itch. As the day wore on, it covered the foul odor of unwashed men, the sweat of horses, the stench of corruption. The men coughed and covered their noses with rags; the horses whinnied and snorted and had to be whipped to compel them to continue. As we approached Aute, spires of black smoke appeared before us, each rising neatly into the gray sky like the towers of a city in Jehennam. Señor Narváez raised his right arm and we all stopped. Ahead of us, the world was made of shades of gray and black. No one spoke. When the governor pointed the way forward again, the gray metal of his armor seemed to disappear in the air around him.
By the time we reached Aute, the sun, barely visible in the smoke, was making its way to the edge of the horizon, taking with it the little light there was. What awaited us was a vision of hell, like something the men trembling with fever must have seen just before they closed their eyes. All of the houses in the village, some twenty of them, had been burnt to the ground, their beams broken and their thatched roofs reduced to mounds of ash. In the trees, the birds had deserted their nests. The only sound was the faint rustling of a river I could not see yet, somewhere farther ahead.