Rafael Sabatini - Columbus: A Romance

Title:Columbus Author:Rafael Sabatini
COLUMBUS
A ROMANCE
CHAPTER I
THE WAYFARER Aman and a boy climbed the slope from the estuary of the Tinto by a sandypath that wound through a straggling growth of pine-trees. It wasthe eventide of a winters day at about the time that the Spanish Sovereignswere moving to the investment of Granada, which informs you thatthese events fell out in the closing decade of the fifteenth century. Fromthe long line of dunes below them, the Arenas Gordas, stretching awayfor miles towards Cadiz, the sand was tossed and whirled like spindriftby a bitter wind that blew from the southwest. Beyond, the storm- lashedAtlantic was grey under grey skies. Theman was well above the common height, broad-shouldered and long- limbed,fashioned in lines of great athletic vigour. From under a plainround hat his hair, red, thick and glossy, hung to the nape of hisneck.

Grey eyes shone clear in a weathered face whose patrician mouldand stamp of pride were at odds with the shabbiness of his wear. Asurcoat of homespun, once black but faded now to a mournful greenish hue,clothed him to the knees, and was caught about his middle by a beltof plain leather. From this a dagger hung on his right hip and a leatherscrip on his left thigh. His hose was of coarse black wool; he wasroughly shod, and he carried his meagre gear bundled in a cloak andslung from his shoulder by a staff of quince wood. His age was littlebeyond the middle thirties. Theboy, a sturdy child of seven or eight, clinging to his right hand, lookedup to ask: Is it much farther? Hespoke in Portuguese, and was answered by his sire in the same tongue,on a note that was half-bitter, half-whimsical.

Now,God avail me, child, that is a question Ive been asking myself theseten years, and never found the answer yet. Then, abruptly changingto the commonplace, he added: No, no. See. We are almost there. Aturn of the path had brought into view a long, low building, irregularlyquadrangular, starkly white against the black wall of pine- treesthat screened it from the east. From the heart of it sproutedupwards like a burnt-red mushroom the circular tiled roof of achapel.

Forto- night that should be the end of our journey. If I am fortunate,Diego, it may also be a beginning. He resumed his whimsicaltone, as if thinking aloud rather than addressing another. ThePrior, I am told, is a man of learning who commands the ear of a Queen,having once been her confessor. To confess a woman is commonly tohold her afterwards in a measure of subjection. One of the lesser mysteriesof our mysterious life.

But we walk delicately, asking nothing.In this world, my child, to ask is to be denied and avoided. Itsa lesson youll learn later. In order to possess what you lack, studyto let none suspect that you seek it. Display to them, rather, theadvantages to themselves of persuading you to accept it. They will thenbe eager to bestow. It is too subtle, Diego, for your innocent mind.Indeed, for long it eluded even mine, which is far from innocent.We go to test it now upon this good Franciscan.

Itis among the obiter dicta of the good Franciscan of whom he spoke, FreyJuan Perez, who was Prior of the Convent of La Rabida, that the temperof a mans soul is commonly displayed in his voice. It is possiblethat Frey Juans was more subtly attuned than the common ear. Itis possible that his wide experience as a confessor-in which capacityhe commonly heard without seeing, so that his consciousness wouldbe centred in his hearing-had led him to discover a definitive affinitybetween the spiritual qualities and the tone and pitch of voiceof a penitent whose countenance was rendered invisible to him by thescreen of the confessional. Bethat as it may, certain it is that but for this settled conviction ofFrey Juans our wayfarer would not so easily have attained his ends. ThePrior was pacing the courtyard at about the hour of compline, whichis to say at sunset. The Borgia Pope, whose special devotion to theVirgin was to originate the Angelus, had not yet ascended St.

Petersthrone. As Frey Juan paced, breviary in hand, reading with movinglips, as is canonically prescribed, the office of the day, his attentionwas disturbed by a voice addressing the lay-brother who kept thegate. Ofyour charity, my brother, a little bread and a cup of water for thisweary child. Therewas nothing in the actual words, commonplace enough at a convent doorway,to claim the Priors notice; but the voice, and, more than thevoice, the contrast between the conscious pride that rang through itsveiling huskiness and the humility of the request it uttered, mighthave compelled the attention of an ear even less sensitive than FreyJuans. Its accent was definitely foreign, and the dignity of its intonationgathered increase perhaps from the precision with which a culturedman must be expressing himself in a language other than his own. FreyJuan, whom we are not to acquit of a very human curiosity, especiallyin any matter that promised distraction from the gentle monotonyof life at La Rabida, closed his breviary upon his forefinger,and stepped round an angle of the courtyard to view the speaker.

Ata glance he recognized how perfectly the voice became the man whom hebeheld. He discovered power spiritual and physical as much in his shapelyheight and upright carriage as in his shaven face with its strongline of jaw and aquiline nose. But it was chiefly his eyes that heldthe Prior: full eyes of a clear grey, luminous as those of a visionaryor a mystic, eyes whose steady gaze few men could find it easyto support. He had set down his bundle on the stone bench at the gate.But neither that nor the rest of the strangers shabby details couldobscure in Frey Juans discerning scrutiny the mans inherent distinction.Beside him the child, on whose behalf he sought that meagrehospitality, gazed upwards in round-eyed wistfulness at the approachingPrior. FreyJuan advanced with a clatter of loose sandals, a barrel of a man ina grey frock. His face was long and pallid, with a deal of loose fleshabout it, but made genial by the humour in the eyes and about theheavy-lipped mouth.

He greeted the stranger with a kindly smile, andin formal Latin, to test perhaps his scholarship, or perhaps his faith,for that aquiline nose above the full lips need not be Christian. PaxDomini sit tecum. Towhich the wayfarer answered formally, with a grave inclination of hisproud head: Et cum spiritu tuo. Youare a traveller, quoth the Prior unnecessarily, whilst the lay- brotherstood aside in self-effacement. Atraveller. Newly landed here from Lisbon.

Doyou go far to-night? Onlyas far as Huelva. Only?Frey Juan raised his thick brows. It is a good ten miles. And bynight. Do you know the way? Thewayfarer smiled. Direction should suffice for one trained to find hisway over the trackless ocean.

ThePrior caught a vaunting note in the answer. It prompted his next question.A great traveller? Judgeif I may so describe myself. Ive sailed as far as northern Thuleand southern Guinea, and eastwards to the Golden Horn. ThePrior sucked in his breath and scanned the man more shrewdly, as ifsuspicious of a claim so vast. The scrutiny must have reassured him,for at once he grew cordial. Thatis to have touched the very boundaries of the world.

Ofthe known world, perhaps. But not of the actual world. Not by many athousand miles. Howcan you assert that, never having seen it? Howcan your paternity assert that there is a Heaven and a Hell, neverhaving seen them. Byfaith and revelation, was the grave answer. Justso.

And in my case, to faith and revelation I may add cosmographyand mathematics. Ah!Frey Juans prominent eyes considered him with a deepening interest.Come you in, sir, in Gods name. It is draughty here, and theevening chill. Close the gate, Innocencio. Come you in, sir. We wereshamed if we had no better hospitality than that of your modest prayer.He took the stranger by the sleeve to draw him on.