Tides From the New Worlds

by Tobias S. Buckell

  The officers all immediately wiggled into the quarterdeck cabin.

  • • •

  It took three days before everyone on board started moving around confidently. Pedro, not really wishing to dwell on his circumstance, took up much of his time tying knots in spare pieces of string.

  Others began to mutter.

  The Santa María, the Niña, the Pinta, all caravels together had enough provisions and water for a year of travel. But the crews of all three ships worried, about what would happen next, now that they had fallen over the edge of the world.

  “Can we ever get back to España?” Another crewmember, who shared Pedro’s name, asked quietly.

  “I don’t know,” Pedro replied honestly.

  “Are we falling towards hell?” Rodrigo asked.

  “You shouldn’t talk of such things. Trust in the Lord. Somehow he will see us through.”

  A devout follower, Pedro found men talking to him. He prayed with them, calming them. They told him about their minor sins, such as ‘hacerse una paja’, whispered to him with a descriptive flick of the wrist. Pedro didn’t know how evil masturbation was, but he said he would pray for them.

  For some unstated reason Cristóbal had not taken any holy men aboard for the journey. Pedro was the next best thing.

  • • •

  Pedro could not say that things ever fell into a routine. There never felt like any time for that. He watched the physician floating at the edge of the crowd of men clustered around the mast on the main deck. Juan Sánchez was wrapping twine around something Pedro could not see.

  “We will never get back to España. Not unless we demand that Cristóbal step down,” Rodrigo announced one day.

  “Rodrigo!” Pedro made to grab the boy by the ear, but Juan de la Placa grabbed his hand.

  “Let the boy be.”

  Rodrigo glared at Pedro. “He is cursing us all, no?” Others in the crew agreed. Pedro saw Alonso Clivijo nodding.

  Antonia de Cuellar, the carpenter, spoke up. “Maybe if he takes away the title, and renounces his title as Admiral, we will find ocean again. Take this curse away from us!”

  The crew started yelling, loud enough to bring El Almirante floating out of his cabin. He spoke over the scream of wind. Pedro felt his heart race.

  “We aren’t many leagues from the Canaries,” El Almirante said. Confident, he continued. “I expect land soon. For the first man to sight land there will be, not only the reward of the Queen, but a silk jacket. Provided by me. Men, soon we will find new lands, and gold.”

  With that he returned to his cabin.

  Pedro thought he caught a hint of trouble brewing in El Almirante’s eyes, but he did not say anything.

  Some of the crew grew quiet, thinking of gold. Others still protested.

  “We have been falling for days!” Rodrigo said, still angry. “We should do something.”

  “You should obey Colón,” Pedro snapped, and received a jab to the ribs from Antonia. The fools could not mutiny! It would be pointless; they were all in the same situation together.

  Juan Sánchez shouted and got their attention.

  “Mira.” He hoisted the carcass of a bird up above his head. The bird’s wings were forced open by small struts made of whittled plank. Twine dangled from its beak. The crew watched as Juan tossed it into the sky, snapping back on the twine as it flew up into the air.

  “A kite,” someone laughed.

  Sánchez tugged, and the seagull dipped and dove around the boat, effectively distracting the crew’s mind from thoughts of mutiny.

  Pedro winced when the bird finally twisted off of the twine and fluttered away into the distance.

  “We can imitate that,” Juan Sánchez said, his dark eyes dancing with delight.

  Pedro offered up another prayer for their safety.

  • • •

  El Almirante summoned both Juan Sánchez and Pedro into his quarterdeck cabin. His piercing eyes, Pedro thought, seemed worried. Cristóbal carried an aura of driven intensity, a man of purpose. It worried Pedro to realize that El Almirante was a man. Nothing more. Maybe, he thought, looking at the eyes, a dangerous man. They were falling off the Earth, and El Alimirante still spoke of gold with a gleam in his eye.

  “I saw your demonstrations, and thought long about our predicament,” El Almirante said to Juan. “Por favor, tell me if you think that it’s really true we can mimic the flight of a bird.”

  Juan fidgeted in the air for several seconds.

  “It will take some doing, Don Cristóbal. I will need canvas to replace feathers, and strong spars. We will need to get rid of much of the weight of the boat.” He spoke quickly and with excitement.

  El Almirante considered it for several seconds, floating calmly in the cabin. Pedro looked around. The officers sharing the cabin with Cristóbal had spread out, sleeping on the roof of the cabin as well. It made no difference what part of the room one slept on. The wall, the roof, the floor; it all seemed the same.

  “Use whatever materials you must from the Niña or Pinta, Don Sánchez, to undertake this transformation.”

  “Señor. It will be done.”

  “It will be done quickly,” Don Cristóbal Colón, El Almirante, continued. “I wish to continue this appointed journey with all possible haste.”

  After they left the cabin, Juan Sánchez turned to Pedro.

  “The other captains, Martín and Vincent Pinzón, they are scared too. They want Colón to step down and admit he made a mistake.”

  “I pray they are the ones in error.”

  “You pray; I have other ideas. Hopefully between the two of us something will happen.”

  • • •

  Juan had the resources of the crews from all three different ships.

  “Lope the joiner, Antonio de Cuellar the carpenter, and Domingo Vizcaino,” he called out from the quarterdeck. The physician floated above the railing, tied to it with a long piece of rope. He held a roll of parchment in his left hand.

  “What is this?” they complained.

  “We are going to fly!” Juan Sánchez said.

  “We’re already floating.”

  “Be quiet. I need all the canvas you can find. All the sail, and the lightest woods. Lope, give men needles and stout threads.”

  Eight men drifted over from the main deck and down into the hold of the Santa María to look for canvas. More men drifted over the rails onto the other ships. Lope headed off to find his toolbox.

  “You men,” Juan pointed at a group tied to the mast. “Your job is to empty the Niña’s holds. Antonia, after they scoop out all the water, rip out as much of the extra bulkheads as you can. Then you will need to chop off the quarterdeck and forecastle.”

  “Why?” Antonia asked.

  “Because we need the Niña to be as light as possible.”

  Don Vincente Pinzón stuck his head out of the corner of his cabin as men swarmed over his ship. Under Antonia’s orders they began to hack out the rails with axes.

  “What are you doing!” he cried out, pushing off to stop the nearest axe.

  “Let them continue.” Cristóbal pushed into the air.

  “This is my command,” Pinzón shouted.

  “No. It is mine,” Cristóbal said. Pinzón glared for a moment, then slumped in midair.

  “I will get my things from the cabin.” Pinzón pulled his way back in. The sound of axes hacking at timber resumed.

  Juan Sánchez paused briefly, then chuckled. “Pedro. We need all the rope you can find,” he said. “Go in the hold and see what extra you can find.”

  Pedro nodded and kicked off to land by the hatch. He looked in. It was dark and smelly, and he could hear the high-pitched squeals of dying rats and laughing sailors. He waited for them to move yards of yellowing canvas up through the hatch before he went down to look for rope.

  • • •

  The gray haze had melted into dark night. Pedro rested, tied to netting against the side of the ship.

&nb
sp; “Someone, come quick!” Cristóbal’s voice, unmistakable even above the ever-constant roar of the wind, pierced Pedro’s ears. He untied himself and pushed back along the torn deck, past the huddle of tired, sleeping men. Off to the right the Niña did not resemble anything of its former self. The two boxy structures on either end were gone. No railing, no masts, no tiller or rudder, it looking nothing like a ship. Hundreds of yards of canvas stitched together sat bundled across the long flat deck.

  In the dark, Pedro could barely make out the Cristóbal’s figure, and almost ran into him.

  “¿Sí?”

  El Almirante turned to Pedro excitedly.

  “Look, over the edge, I think I can see a flicker of a light.”

  Pedro looked, squinting hard against the wind. Maybe. It eluded him. Hearing speech, Diego de Arana joined them.

  “A light?”

  He also leaned over.

  “Do you see anything?” Don Cristóbal demanded.

  “I think so. Yo miro, si.” Diego’s voice sounded breathless with hope.

  El Almirante looked pleased.

  “Have someone stay on watch. Tell me of everything.”

  “We will see land again,” Diego said, his voice choking somewhat. Pedro found himself trembling despite himself.

  “Thank God,” he said. “Our prayers are answered.”

  “Indeed,” Diego said. “Thank God.” He wandered back, and Pedro could swear he heard a choked sob come from the master of arms.

  Pedro trailed away, choosing instead to lean over and look at the Niña. The bundled length of canvas was attached to various points of the Niña by the ropes Pedro had collected.

  Juan Sánchez had shown him a drawing. When the canvas was released it would fly up over the ship like a massive sail.

  “Sails catch the wind,” Juan explained. “This will be similar. Only much larger. It will catch the wind coming from below, just like the wings of a bird, or the sails of any ship.” He beamed.

  Pedro marveled at the physician’s mind. How he came up with such things!

  • • •

  By morning Cristóbal ordered everyone over to the strange remains of the Niña. The flicker of light now revealed clouds beneath them that stretched far out in all directions, the haze having been swept away sometime in the night by better weather conditions.

  “Cut loose the other two ships,” Cristóbal said. And as the ropes were slashed the Santa María and the Pinta drifted away.

  “Pedro Yzquierdo!” Juan smiled and floated over. “We almost have the wings done. Soon we can extend them fully, and see if we can fly.”

  “It would be a wonderful gift,” Pedro replied.

  Pedro wondered if the clouds were a result of the waterfall of ocean hitting the fires of hell. But as a fundamentally good man, and a follower, he had trouble believing that God would have condemned him to hell in such an obtuse manner.

  “Would you like a prayer, Juan?”

  Juan laughed. But it sounded hollow and forced.

  “You take yourself too seriously, Pedro. Have some hope. We’ll try soon and see what happens.”

  Pedro nodded. As the rest of the crew asked, he would pray for them too. Although he did not have the official blessing of the church, he did remember a bible verse quoted by a Bishop he traveled once to hear speak; Wherever there are more than one gathered, there also would the spirit be.

  He felt it a major oversight on El Almirante to have forgotten the holy men. Maybe some of this would not have occurred if it weren’t for that arrogance.

  “The clouds are approaching,” called the watch, peering over the side of the ship. Juan held up an arm and shouted a command.

  “Ahora, sí.”

  “Hang on, Pedro Yzquierdo,” Juan said. Then, “Throw it out!”

  Crewmen cut ropes, and suddenly the world turned dirty gray as canvas snapped and billowed up past them. Ropes sizzled and whipped past. Out of the corner of his eye Pedro saw Andrés de Yruenes caught by the leg with coiled rope. Like a puppet he was snatched up screaming with the canvas.

  “Wahhh…” He lost his leg and spun out of their sight still screaming.

  Then the rope snapped short as the canvas reached the ends. The jolt shook every bone in Pedro and smacked his face against the deck. The Niña screeched and splintered in protest. Ropes snapped, hemp fibers filling the air and making breathing almost impossible.

  Pedro realized he now lay on the floor, and when he tried to move, he could feel his weight pressing against him. He sat up, wincing from bruises, blood flowing down his upper lip. He smiled.

  He looked up and saw nothing but the dirty gray canvas, with wooden ribs running from fore to aft to keep it open and stable. It creaked and groaned, but stayed. Moans from crewmen drifted around as they passed through the clouds.

  Pedro liked it, a sudden wet feeling, like passing through a fog, and then just as suddenly they were through. He looked back up at the underside of the clouds, just as someone near the prow of the ship yelled.

  “Land Ho!”

  • • •

  Juan and Cristóbal ordered all the men down into the hold.

  “I’ll stay to help you,” Pedro offered, then scrabbled his way to the edge and looked out.

  A marvelous sight.

  Green and brown patches spread out in patterns over the land. It reminded Pedro of looking at a map; in the same manner he could perceive coastlines, bays, inlets, even towns. He saw ocean.

  The Niña aimed for the ocean, away from the land.

  “If we could touch the sea, and sail again, we aim for one of those bays,” Cristóbal announced.

  The land slowly rose to meet them. Juan and Pedro grabbed the ropes on the left, all wrapped around series of ten pulleys, and used the capstan to winch them in. The Niña shook and shivered and began to slowly spiral.

  “Let it out!”

  They reversed their path and the Niña straightened out. The wind rushed fiercely across the deck, tearing Pedro’s eyes.

  And now Pedro could see wave tops, and sea foam.

  Not such calm sea, as it seemed from further up, but still very easy.

  Pedro felt a surge of relief. They had come home, back to a more normal world. The one to which he belonged. This wasn’t hell.

  The wave tops came closer, and Pedro suddenly realized that the Santa María was moving forward too fast. Faster than any ship had the right to go. The wave tops blurred.

  Pedro’s pulse raced.

  They hit.

  • • •

  The impact stunned and deafened Pedro. It seemed like the world moved away. He pitched across the length of the deck, hitting fractured planks. Water rushed up through the floorboards, the hold, and he could distantly hear screams of human anguish over the shattering Niña.

  It was the canvas that saved him. He was flung and bounced in an instant over the deck, and then out into midair. The large soft billowing canvas caught him, and even then it knocked him out.

  Pedro woke up underwater, trapped in swathes of restricting material and rope. He fought to escape. He fought for what seemed forever, but was probably only a minute. When he finally broke the surface he gasped for air, black spots dancing across his vision.

  Pieces of plank floated all over, as well as dead bodies. But Pedro barely noticed. He grabbed a hold of a large piece and then passed out again, his entire body numb from pain.

  • • •

  Pedro could not lay claim to understanding the darker skinned men around him. He knew they washed up in Gujarat, a land of Saracens, followers of the doctrines of the prophet Mohamet. They had translators who spoke European languages, and the ruler of the city granted them the hospitality of his own palace guest rooms, as well as his best doctors. Pedro was surprised they did not outright kill him for being a Spaniard, and a Christian. Pedro pointedly avoided any talk of doctrine, choosing instead to relate only his fantastic voyage.

  It took two months before Pedro recovered enough to s
tand on his own. His legs, fractured by the impact, would have been amputated back home, but miraculously he had them. He still bore marks all over from bruises. Every once in a while he still suffered from dizzy spells and fainted.

  Once he recovered his health, he made a point of seeking Juan Sánchez out one last time. Pedro found him in a large marble-tiled room surrounded by parchments laid on shelves, an ecstatic look to his face.

  “Juan. ¿cómo está?”

  “Good, thank you, Pedro.” He set down the parchment scroll in his hand. “And you, you are making plans to leave, no?”

  “Sí. Verdad. I betray God every day I stay in here. The sheik gave me leave, and a ‘Bat’, to travel to Turkey with. And then from there I’m hoping to find a merchant to take me to Italia.”

  “A Bat?”

  “A tribe of men, the sheik tells me, who keep you safe by killing themselves on the point of a knife if you are harmed in your journey. The attacker is cursed by the suicide and their sons and family will be killed. It’s a strange land, Juan.”

  “Indeed, Pedro Yzquierdo, but so much can be learned from them.”

  “I don’t share you enthusiasm. Please, Señor Sánchez,” he dropped into the formal, “you must return to España. Leave these unholy parchments alone. Our Holy Father didn’t spare your life so that you could convert to these people’s ways.” And Pedro believed more than ever before. He was alive, he’d been chosen. His faith had carried him here.

  “No, Pedro, I’m staying here. There is a great deal of important work to be done. Look.” Sánchez showed Pedro a piece of parchment. “See this strip of parchment?”

  “Sí.”

  “Imagine it’s the world. Edges, here, and here. Now imagine you are sailing across the surface.”

  “You would fall off the edge.”

  “Verdad, Pedro, but listen further. No interrupting, por favor.” Sánchez drew the edges of the paper slowly together, forming a ring. “Imagine that once the world was flat, or slightly curved, but now it is slowly being drawn together as our sailors begin to move out towards the Canaries, and even further out towards the West. We left to explore too soon, too hastily. We fell in between the edges, back into the world underneath.”