Origins: Discovery

by Mark Henrikson

  An unfortunate turn of events my friend, Juan thought as the apprentice made his thrust into the back of his mentor. The effort was rewarded with the sound of a wet thump. It sounded just like a melon being cut open when the tip of his sword punched its way out the other side of the navigator’s chest.

  The mortally wounded man staggered his way over to the railing and looked back at Juan. To his great surprise, there was no hatred in his eyes, only the look of complete devastation. The boy he took under his wing to impart all that he knew had stabbed him in the back, and that betrayal hurt worse than the blade protruding from his chest.

  “Why?” the navigator gasped on the way to his knees.

  Because you were winning and I needed a favor from the man I rescued, Juan wanted to give as explanation. He realized, though, that such words would not go over well with the rescued captain. Instead, Juan hardened his heart to deliver a stone-cold reply as his eyes met those of his captain.

  “Dead men tell no tales,” Juan declared an instant before the navigator teetered to the side and collapsed to the deck, where he moved no more.

  “I was beginning to wonder whose side you were on,” the captain accused between labored breaths as he bent down to retrieve the navigator’s sword. Then he eyed Juan with a murderous glare as he made his way to the steering wheel while nursing his bloody nose.

  Juan pried his eyes away from the captain’s blade to look down at the main deck below to find it littered with crewmen who had died clawing at their own throats. With that much carnage already, what’s one more body, Juan thought as his eyes returned to the captain. His next words needed to be chosen and uttered perfectly or else that favor he just earned would be wasted while his dead body sank to the bottom of the ocean.

  “Sorry, Captain. That . . . that was my first time. I’ve never killed anyone before,” Juan offered in an intentionally shaky voice. It was not true but was still a perfectly plausible explanation. “I . . . I hesitated.”

  “You hesitated,” the captain repeated. “You, the one who two years ago convinced me to poison my crew of thirty-five men before returning to port, hesitated? I don’t buy it.”

  In that combustible moment, Juan’s pride considered pulling the sword from the navigator’s back to take on the captain. The practical side of his mind brushed the foolish notion aside in favor of a more humble course of action with a far greater chance of success.

  “Poison is a coward’s weapon for murder. Conceiving its use and watching while others carry it out is one thing, but having to wield the weapon yourself that kills a man is an entirely different matter,” Juan uttered with his head down and his eyes searching for redemption among the deck boards. “That sound, that wet, hollow crunch. I doubt I’ll ever sleep again without hearing it ringing in my ears.”

  To emphasize his disgust with himself, Juan dashed to the railing. With his back concealing the motion, he jammed two fingers down his throat and provoked a river of vomit to spew forth over the side. With the contents of his stomach emptied, Juan stood up and turned to find the captain by his side, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

  “Sometimes I forget that you’re only thirteen,” the captain said with understanding buttressing his words. “Life has not yet hardened you to such things. You do realize it is a weakness in you that we must remedy, yes? That moment of hesitation is all it takes to wind up dead.”

  “How?”

  The captain took Juan’s hand with a gruff motion to place the handle of his sword in it, “Take this blade and shove it through the chest and stomach of each body before you toss them over the side of the ship. That way the bodies will sink rather than float and the blood will attract sharks in case they don’t.”

  Right, plus it’s dirty work that you could not stomach doing yourself, Juan thought as he proceeded down the steps to get the bloody business over with. Halfway down the stairs he turned to the captain and asked, “And what will you be doing?”

  “I am going to run up the red flag to signal one of His Majesty’s ships to dock with us. We are a little early on our return timetable, but they should be waiting for our return to provide a replacement crew to help bring us into port. The two of us can’t very well accomplish that on our own now can we?”

  “I suppose not,” Juan answered just before plunging his blade into the chest of the nearest body. It was dirty work, but he was alive to do it and that was all that mattered. His circumstances would soon improve.

  Chapter 6: A Royal Affair

  JUAN REMAINED AN obedient three paces behind his captain as the two approached a side gate to the castle. A pair of royal guardsmen, who clearly took their protective duties seriously, manned the understated entrance.

  “State your business,” one of the guards demanded, while the other placed a hand on his sword and made ready to draw, if needed.

  “Captain Corde is here to see the king. His Majesty is expecting me,” the captain declared as he placed a letter into the expectant hand of the nearest sentry.

  The royal seal stamped into a glob of crimson wax at the top of the document immediately drew a set of raised eyebrows from the guard. He took his time reading the letter, his lips mouthing every word written upon it, before handing it back to the captain. “Everything is in order.”

  “Two entering,” the second royal guard shouted through the small arched doorway barred by a stout iron grate. A long, heavy groan of metal moving against metal preceded their emerging from the shadowy entrance into the corner of a large, terraced square that gave an impressive panorama of Lisbon down below.

  Juan remembered three years earlier feeling like the king himself when he first set foot inside the royal compound. He saw the outer walls of the citadel every day of his life lording over the city from the highest hilltop. His childish imagination envisioned lavish celebrations and heroic jousting tournaments taking place every day within those secretive walls. Such were the daydreams of a young boy living with his mother inside a whorehouse without a father. It was a very nice whorehouse, frequented by the king himself in fact, but to Juan it represented everything ugly and wrong in the world.

  The brick exterior of his home was well mortared and maintained. The interior featured the finest furnishings to attract the finest gentlemen. His childhood home was kept spotless and grand, yet to him it was the dirtiest place on Earth.

  It was the place where his mother performed unspeakable acts of depravity for men with fat bellies and bulging purses. It was also the scene of Juan’s first murder at the ripe young age of ten; a ghastly old crow whose violent fetishes found his mother once too often.

  Some might feel remorse by breaking one of God’s commandments, but Juan found redemption believing that God’s laws did not apply to such animals. He took the marked improvement in his life circumstances since that fateful day as evidence the Almighty not only approved, but also rewarded Juan for his action. The world was a much safer and better place without that animal in it.

  “Take these two to see the king,” the guard still standing outside the castle walls instructed his counterpart on the inside as he closed and locked the gate behind Juan and the captain.

  “Follow me,” their overweight escort sighed, as if the effort was pulling him away from something more important than leaning against the wall all day long.

  As the group of three crossed the square, Juan glanced to his left. He observed that the main castle gates looked somewhat smaller, less imposing than they did on the day he and his mother rushed through them three years ago. He was just a boy then and still reeling from the shock of committing murder the day before.

  Juan remembered being terrified to the core that his mother was turning him into the authorities. Instead, they were spirited directly into the throne room to meet the king himself. At the time, Juan was too awestruck by his grand surroundings to contemplate how his mother could arrange an audience with the king on such short notice, or at all for that matter.

  Did his prostit
ute of a mother have influential friends in the king’s court, or was she a secret agent of the crown? The reality proved simpler than his exotic fantasies. That Juan enjoyed the benefit of a private tutor since the age of three should have been a tip-off that he was the bastard son of someone important. Just how important he could never have guessed, but he has thanked the lord every day since for rewarding him with the truth.

  At the crossroads, Juan felt his weight lean to the right in anticipation of heading toward the Royal Palace of the Alcáçova, whose decadent beauty stood in stark contrast to the otherwise militaristic surroundings. The guard continued leading them straight, however, until they reached the far end of the square, where they entered a garden framed by a perimeter of eight-foot-high hedges of evergreen trees. The vibrant garden had flowers matching every color of the rainbow, and standing among it all was John II, king of Portugal, along with six of his advisors.

  The guard led them to within ten feet of the royal gathering but moved no closer. There they stood for several minutes until the king finally acknowledged their presence with a glance and beckoned them forward with a casual wave of his hand.

  Their escort stepped forth and addressed the sovereign with a deep bow at the waist. “My Lord, a Captain Corde is here at your request.”

  “My request?” King John repeated with skepticism. The guard immediately handed him Captain Corde’s letter imprinted with the royal seal as evidence.

  Juan looked on in silence as the king studied the letter detailing his command that Captain Corde and his crew sail west to explore uncharted waters. He took a certain measure of pride when the king’s gaze moved away from the letter and onto him. It had been three years, but there was instant recognition in the king’s eyes that soon traveled to the corners of his mouth and turned them up ever so slightly in amusement.

  The lines of his face hardened once more as King John turned his attention to Captain Corde. “Tell me, what news do you bring from the waters to our west?”

  “I have made a wondrous discovery, Your Majesty,” the captain began without a hint of humility. It was as if Juan, the navigator, nor the rest of the ship’s crew had anything to do with it. “I reached new lands a little over two thousand miles past the Azores Islands.”

  “So there is truth to the rumors, then?” one of the king’s advisors interrupted.

  Captain Corde drew his head back, insulted by the question. “Of course they were true. You can’t expect to colonize an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with nearly two thousand adventurous persons for two generations without some of them venturing farther west. If not under the crown’s banner, then they would certainly do so for their own profiteering.

  “I told Your Majesty as much when you agreed to sponsor my voyage,” the captain went on with growing excitement in his voice, “and it is now proven to be the case. Vast tracts of land await your claim out west. I will proudly do so in your name if you would see fit to fund a full expedition for me to lead back to the new territories.”

  The king did not match the captain’s animated tone, instead choosing to say in a slow, quiet, almost sleepy voice, “Let us not get ahead of ourselves here, Captain. Did you happen upon a few new islands, or did you truly find a continuous stretch of land?”

  “Both,” Captain Corde answered with glowing pride. “I mapped a large cluster of islands before running into a main body of land that, by our own mapping as well as intelligence gathered from the local inhabitants, stretches north, south, and west seemingly without end.”

  “Islands with a main body of land farther west? That sounds like the East Indies and Asia to me,” one of the king’s advisors challenged. “I am afraid those territories have already been claimed a very long time ago.”

  “No,” Captain Corde insisted and snapped his fingers at Juan to produce the maps he was carrying.

  In his left hand, Juan unfurled a well-known map of the Orient. In his right hand, he produced a hand-drawn map of the new territories. The navigation chart featured precise detail in the center where the islands and eastern coastline of the main continent took shape. The rendering grew less detailed to the north, south, and west as the mapping relied more on imprecise stories from the locals rather than firsthand measurements.

  “As you can clearly see, the series of islands and coastlines on the two maps look nothing alike. These are, without a doubt, two completely different landmasses,” the captain concluded, but still faced a skeptical audience in the king and his advisors.

  When Juan felt the loaded silence had lingered for far too long, he decided to chance his own input into the discussion. “If you recall, Your Majesty, there is some debate about the true circumference of the globe.”

  “That’s enough, Boy,” Captain Corde snapped and made ready to slap Juan into the ground before the king’s words put a stop to the aggression.

  “Let him speak,” the king said. “I am curious what a thirteen-year-old thinks he can add to this highly technical debate. Please, proceed.”

  Juan mentally pushed aside the harsh stares from the group of men who clearly anticipated something profoundly stupid to come out of his mouth. He drew a deep breath and spoke with a confidence that defied his youth.

  “In the third century BC, Greek astronomers calculated the globe’s circumference by observing the geometry of shadows cast by objects in different cities. Every sailor in the learned world now relies upon their calculation, even though the specifics of their technique have been long since forgotten. The problem is that some believe the calculation was performed using Arabic miles, while others insist the shorter Roman miles were used.”

  “Go on,” King John prompted with his mocking tone now replaced with genuine intrigue.

  “That means the circumference of the earth is either eighteen thousand, or twenty-five thousand standard miles,” Juan explained. “The shorter distance would indeed put our discovery at the shores of Eastern Asia. The more widely accepted and longer distance would leave room between our known western shores of Europe and those of the East Indies for an entirely new landmass with vast bodies of water on either side.”

  “Tell me, how did a boy so young come to acquire such worldly knowledge?” King John asked with an amused wonder framing his words.

  Juan allowed a confident smirk to cross his lips before answering, “My benefactor provided the best tutors for me as a child, plus I studied under one of the most skilled navigators in the world for the last two years.”

  “It would appear the resources dedicated to your education were not misplaced,” the king commended before turning his attention back to Captain Corde. “Very well, I am convinced that you have indeed discovered new lands. The question now is what to do with them?”

  “Claim it. Profit from it by establishing colonies to reap the abundant resources of your new lands,” the captain urged.

  “Land is indeed power, Your Majesty. The only way to acquire new lands here in Europe is through expensive warfare. Settling new lands abroad would be cheap by comparison,” one of the king’s advisors offered with the others adding their agreement.

  “What about the local inhabitants? They will resist, will they not? That will require soldiers and warfare just as it would here,” the king challenged.

  Realizing that he now had allies in the king’s advisors, Captain Corde pressed his agenda without a moment’s hesitation. “The locals are rustics wearing loin cloths and wielding homemade bows and arrows, Your Majesty. They would stand no chance against our muskets and armor.

  “Besides, everywhere we went in the new territories, we were received by the locals as gods arriving from the sea in our powerful ships. I am confident that subjugating the locals will not be any obstacle of note in this endeavor,” the captain concluded and elicited a chorus of agreement from the king’s advisors.

  Amid the chatter, King John’s eyes drifted away from Captain Corde to look about his royal compound. Juan could not be certain, but he thought there was
a hint of disappointment in the royal’s face as he visually took in the palace grounds. Juan could not figure out for the life of him why. The royal citadel looked like a walled off slice of heaven on earth to Juan, but then again he only had his prior living accommodation in a whorehouse as reference. What did he know about real opulence and what truly projected an air of wealth and prosperity to the outside world?

  The king slowly raised his right hand to induce silence from those around him. He then clasped his hands together with the index fingers forming a point, and lowered his head until the two extended digits touched the skin between his nose and lips. He held that contemplative pose for a minute before finally speaking as a tutor might to his student.

  “The timing of your discovery could not be better, Captain. Your friend, Bartolomeu Dias, recently returned from his voyage south, where he managed to round the southern-most tip of Africa. He deemed that point the Cape of Good Hope because of the potential his discovery holds for trade with Asia.

  “Ten years ago, it was out of respect for my vision for our country that my father retired to his monastery and yielded the throne to me. We would follow the example set by the Venetians and expand our nation’s wealth and influence through trade. We would trade European steel, wool, and glass for Indian and Chinese spices, silks, and ivory.

  “We would buy the merchandise cheap in one location and sell it high at the end point, and then turn around and do the same for the return journey,” the king went on as he led the group out of the garden and into the main courtyard of the citadel. “Trade routes over land are now too expensive to protect against bandits and to pay for rites of passage. There is no profit in it any more. If we established a water route to Asia and back, well, then our nation of modest means would become rich beyond all measure of avarice.