Pastwatch

by Orson Scott Card

  She was surprised to hear Hunahpu laugh. She hadn’t heard him laugh before, and she turned to him. “What’s funny?”

  “I thought when you stopped me it was because you didn’t believe in me and you were being polite, with promises of meetings with Tagiri and Hassan and Kemal.”

  “Why would you think that, when I was saying that I thought this was important?” Diko was offended that he thought she was lying.

  “Because I never before met someone who would do what you did. Stop a presentation that you thought was important.”

  She didn’t understand.

  “Diko,” he said. “Most people want nothing more than to know something that people higher up don’t know. To know things first. Here you had a chance to hear all of this first, and you stop it? You wait? And not only that, you promise others who are below you in the hierarchy that they can be there too?”

  “That’s the way it is in Pastwatch,” said Diko. “The truth will still be true tomorrow, and everybody who needs to know it has an equal claim on learning it.”

  “That’s the way it is in Juba,” Hunahpu corrected her. “Or maybe that’s the way it is in Tagiri’s house. But everywhere else in the world, information is a coin, and people are greedy to acquire it and careful how and where they spend it.”

  “Well, I guess we surprised each other,” said Diko.

  “Did I surprise you?”

  “You’re actually quite talkative,” she said.

  “To my friends,” he said.

  She accepted the compliment with a smile. His smile in return was warm and all the more valuable because it was so rare.

  Santangel knew from the moment that Columbus began to speak that this was not going to be the normal courtier begging for advancement. For one thing, there was no hint of boastfulness, no swagger in the man. His face looked younger than his flowing white hair would imply, giving him an ageless, gnomic look. What captivated, though, was his manner. He spoke quietly, so that all the court had to fall silent to allow the King and Queen to hear him. And even though he looked equally at Ferdinand and Isabella, Santangel could see at once that this man knew who it was that he had to please, and it was not Ferdinand.

  Ferdinand had no dreams of crusade; he worked to conquer Granada because it was Spanish soil, and his dream was of a single, united Spain. He knew it could not be achieved in a moment. He laid his plans with patience. He did not have to overwhelm Castile; it was enough to be married to Isabella, knowing that in their children the crowns would be united forever, and in the meantime he gave her great freedom of action in her kingdom as long as their military movements were under his direction alone. He showed the same patience in his war with Granada, never risking his armies in all-or-nothing pitched battles, but rather besieging, feinting, maneuvering, subverting, confusing the enemy, who knew that he meant to destroy them but could never quite find where to commit their forces to stop him. He would drive the Moors from Spain but he would do it without destroying Spain in the process.

  Isabella, however, was more Christian than Spanish. She joined in the war against Granada because she wanted the land under Christian rule. She had long pressed for the purification of Spain by removing all non-Christians; it made her impatient that Ferdinand refused to let her expel the Jews until after the Moors were broken. “One infidel at a time,” he said, and she consented, but she chafed under the delay, feeling the presence of any non-Christian in Spain like a stone in her shoe.

  So when this Columbus began to speak of great kingdoms and empires in the east, where the name of Christ had never been spoken aloud, but lived only as a dream in the hearts of those who hungered for righteousness, Santangel knew that these words would burn like flame in Isabella’s heart even as they put Ferdinand to sleep. When Columbus began to tell that these heathen nations were the special responsibility of Spain, “for we are nearer to them than any other Christian nation except Portugal, and they have set out on the longest possible voyage instead of the shortest, around Africa instead of due west into the narrow ocean that divides us from millions of souls who will flock to the banners of Christian Spain,” her gaze on him became rapt, unblinking.

  Santangel was not surprised when Ferdinand excused himself and left his wife to continue the interview alone. He knew that Ferdinand would immediately assign advisers to examine Columbus for him, and the process would not be an easy one. But this Columbus—hearing him, Santangel could not help but believe that if anyone could succeed at such a mad enterprise, it was this man. It was an insane time to try to put together an exploratory expedition. Spain was at war; every resource of the kingdom was committed to driving the Moors from Andalusia. How could the Queen possibly finance such a voyage? Santangel remembered well the fury in the King’s eyes when he heard the letters from Don Enrique, the Duke of Sidonia, and from Don Luis de la Cerda, the Duke of Medina. “If they have such money they can afford to sink it in the Atlantic on pointless voyages, then why haven’t they already given it to us to drive the Moor from their own doorstep?” he asked.

  Isabella was also a practical sovereign, who never let her personal wishes interfere with the needs of her kingdom or overtax its resources. Nevertheless, she saw this matter differently. She saw that these two lords had become believers in this Genovese who had already failed at the court of the King of Portugal. She had the letter from Father Juan Perez, her confessor, attesting that Columbus was an honest man who asked for nothing more than the opportunity to prove his beliefs, with his own life if necessary. So she had invited him to Córdoba, a decision that Ferdinand patiently indulged, and she listened to him now.

  Santangel now watched, staying as the agent of the King, to report to him all that Columbus said. Santangel already knew half of his report: We can spare no funds for such an expedition at this time. As King Ferdinand’s treasurer and chief tax collector, Santangel knew that his duty required him to be absolutely honest and accurate, letting the king know exactly what Spain could afford and what it could not. Santangel was the one who had explained to the king why he should not be angry at the dukes of Medina and Sidonia. “They are paying all the tax they can afford to pay year in and year out. This expedition would happen but the once, and it would be a great sacrifice for them. We should see this, not as proof that they are cheating the Crown, but as proof that they truly believe in this Columbus. As it is, they pay as much toward the war out of their estates as any other lords, and to use this as a pretext to try to extract more from them would only make enemies out of them and make many other lords uneasy as well.” King Ferdinand dropped the idea, of course, because he trusted Santangel’s judgment on matters fiscal.

  Now Santangel watched and listened as Columbus poured out his dreams and hopes to the Queen. What are you actually asking for? he asked silently. It wasn’t until three hours into the interview that Columbus finally touched on that point. “No more than three or four ships—they could be mere caravels, for that matter,” he said. “This is not a military expedition. We go only to mark the path. When we return with the gold and jewels and spices of the east, then the priests can go in great fleets, with soldiers to protect them from the jealous infidels. They can spread forth through Cipangu and Cathay, the Spice Islands and India, where millions will hear the sweet name of Jesus Christ and beg for baptism. They will become your subjects, and will look to you forever as the one who brought them the glad news of the resurrection, who taught them of their sins so they can repent. And with the gold and silver, with the wealth of the East at your command, there’ll be no more struggling to finance a small war against the Moors of Spain. You can assemble great armies and liberate Constantinople. You can make the Mediterranean a Christian sea again. You can stand in the tomb where the Savior’s body lay, you can kneel and pray in the Garden of Gethsemane, you can raise the cross once more above the holy city of Jerusalem, over Bethlehem, the city of David, over Nazareth, where Jesus grew under the care of the carpenter and the Holy Virgin.”

 
It was like music, listening to him. And whenever Santangel began to think that this was nothing more than flattery, that this man, like most men, was out only for his own benefit, he remembered: Columbus intended to put his own life on the line, sailing with the fleet. Columbus asked for no titles, no preferment, no wealth until and unless he returned successfully from his voyage. It gave his impassioned arguments a ring of sincerity that was largely unfamiliar at court. He may be mad, thought Santangel, but he is honest. Honest and clever. He never raises his voice, noted Santangel. He never lectures, never harangues. Instead he speaks as if this were a conversation between a brother and sister. He is always respectful, but also intimate. He speaks with manly strength, yet never sounds as if he thinks her his inferior in matters of thought or understanding—a fatal mistake which many men had made over the years when speaking to Isabella.

  At long last the interview ended. Isabella, always careful, promised nothing, but Santangel could see how her eyes shone. “We will speak again,” she said.

  I think not, thought Santangel. I think Ferdinand will want to keep direct contact between his wife and this Genovese to a minimum. But she will not forget him, and even though at this moment the treasury can afford nothing beyond the war, if Columbus is patient enough and does nothing stupid, I think Isabella will find a way to give him a chance.

  A chance for what? To die at sea, lost with three caravels and all their crews, starving or dying of thirst or broken up in some storm or swallowed up in a maelstrom?

  Columbus was dismissed. Isabella, weary but happy, sank back in her throne, then beckoned to Quintanilla and Cardinal Mendoza, both of whom had also waited through the interview. To Santangel’s surprise, she also beckoned to him.

  “What do you think of this man?” she asked.

  Quintanilla, always the first to speak and the last to have anything valuable to say, merely shrugged. “Who can tell whether his plan has merit?”

  Cardinal Mendoza, the man that some called “the third king,” smiled. “He speaks well, Your Majesty, and he has sailed with the Portuguese and met with their king,” he said. “But it will take much examination before we know whether his ideas have merit. I think his idea of the distance between Spain and Cathay, sailing west, is grossly wrong.”

  Then she looked at Santangel. This terrified him. He had not won his position of trust because he spoke up in the presence of others. He was not a speaker. Rather he acted. The King trusted him because when he promised he could raise a sum of money, he produced it; when he promised they could afford to carry out a campaign, the funds were there.

  “What do I know of such matters, Your Majesty?” he asked. “Sailing west—what do I know of that?”

  “What will you tell my husband?” she asked—teasingly, for of course he was an open observer, not a spy.

  “That Columbus’s plan is not as expensive as a siege, but more expensive than anything we can afford at present.”

  She turned to Quintanilla. “And can Castile not afford it, either?”

  “At present, Your Majesty,” said Quintanilla, “it would be difficult. Not impossible, but if it failed it would make Castile look foolish in the eyes of others.”

  No need to say that the “others” he referred to were Ferdinand and his advisers. Santangel knew that Isabella was always careful to retain the respect of her husband and the men he listened to, for if she gained a reputation for foolishness, it would be an easy matter for him to step in and take over more and more of her power in Castile with little resistance from the Castilian lords. Only her reputation for “manlike” wisdom allowed her to remain a strong rallying point for the Castilians, which in turn gave her a measure of independence from her husband.

  “And yet,” she said, “why did God make us queen, if not to bring his children to the Cross?”

  Cardinal Mendoza nodded. “If his ideas have merit, then pursuing them would be worth any sacrifice, Your Majesty,” he said. “So let us keep him here with the court, so he can be examined, so his ideas can be discussed and compared to the knowledge we have from the ancients. There’s no hurry, I think. Cathay will still be there in a month or two, or a year.”

  Isabella thought for a few moments. “The man has no estate,” she said. “If we keep him here, then we must attach him to the court.” She looked at Quintanilla. “He must be allowed to live as a gentleman.”

  He nodded. “I already gave him a small sum to keep him while he waited for this audience.”

  “Fifteen thousand maravedis out of my own purse,” said the Queen.

  “That is for the year, Your Majesty?”

  “If it takes more than a year,” she said, “we’ll speak of this again.” She waved her hand and looked away. Quintanilla left. Cardinal Mendoza also excused himself and took his leave. Santangel turned to go, but she called him back. “Luis,” she said.

  “Your Majesty.”

  She waited until Cardinal Mendoza had gone. “How extraordinary, that Cardinal Mendoza chose to listen to all that Columbus had to say.”

  “He’s a remarkable man,” said Santangel.

  “Which? Columbus or Mendoza?”

  Since Santangel wasn’t sure himself, he had no ready answer.

  “You heard him, Luis Santangel, and you are a hard-headed man. What do you think of him?”

  “I believe him to be an honest man,” said Santangel. “Beyond that, who can know? Oceans and sailing vessels and kingdoms of the east—I know nothing of that.”

  “But you do know how to judge whether a man is honest.”

  “He’s not here to steal from the royal coffers,” said Santangel. “And he meant every word that he said to you today. Of that I’m certain, Your Majesty.”

  “I am, too,” said the Queen. “I hope he is able to make his case to the scholars.”

  Santangel nodded. And then, against his better judgment, he added a rather daring comment. “Scholars don’t know everything, Your Majesty.”

  She raised her eyebrows. Then she smiled. “He won you over, too, did he?”

  Santangel blushed. “As I said—I think him an honest man.”

  “Honest men don’t know everything either,” she said.

  “In my line of work, Your Majesty, I have come to think of honest men as a precious rarity, while scholars are rather thick on the ground.”

  “And is that what you will tell my husband?”

  “Your husband,” he said carefully, “will not ask me the same questions that you asked.”

  “Then he will end up knowing less than he should know, don’t you think?”

  It was as close as Queen Isabella could come to openly admitting the rivalry between the two crowns of Spain, despite the careful harmony of their marriage. It would not do for Santangel to commit himself on such a dangerous question. “I cannot begin to guess what sovereigns should know.”

  “Neither can I,” said the Queen softly. She looked away, a sort of melancholy drifting across her face. “It won’t do for me to see him too often,” she murmured. Then, as if remembering Santangel was there, she waved him off.

  He left at once, but her words lingered. It won’t do for me to see him too often. So, Columbus had struck deeper than he knew. Well, that was something the King didn’t need to hear about. No reason to tell the King something that would lead to the poor Genovese dying on some dark night with a dirk between his ribs. Santangel would tell King Ferdinand only that what King Fredinand would ask: Did Columbus’s idea seem worth the cost? And to that, Santangel would answer honestly that at present it was more than the Crown could afford, but at some later date, with the war successfully concluded, it might be both feasible and desirable, if it were judged to have any chance at all of success.

  And in the meantime, there was no need to worry about the Queen’s last remark. She was a Christian woman and a clever queen. She would not jeopardize her place in eternity or on the throne for the sake of some brief yearning for this white-haired Genovese; nor did Columbus seem su
ch a fool as to seek that dangerous avenue of preferment. Yet Santangel wondered if, in the back of Columbus’s mind, there might not be some small hope of winning more than the mere approval of the Queen.

  Well, what would it matter? It would come to nothing. If Santangel was any judge of men, he was certain that Cardinal Mendoza had left the court tonight determined to see to it that Columbus’s examination would be hellish. The poor man’s arguments would end up in shreds; after the scholars were through with him he would no doubt slink away from Córdoba in shame.

  Too bad, thought Santangel. He made such an excellent start.

  And then he thought: I want him to succeed. I want him to have his ships and make his voyage. What has he done to me? Why should I care? Columbus has seduced me as surely as he seduced the Queen.

  He shuddered at his own fragility. He had thought he was a stronger man than that.

  It was obvious to Hunahpu from the beginning that Kemal was annoyed at having to waste time listening to this unknown child from Mexico. He was cold and impatient. But Tagiri and Hassan were pleasant enough, and when Hunahpu looked to Diko he could see that she was perfectly at ease, and her smile was warm and encouraging. Perhaps Kemal was always like this. Well, no matter, thought Hunahpu. What mattered was the truth, and Hunahpu had that, or at least more of it than anyone else had put together yet about these matters.

  It took an hour to get through all that he had shown to Diko in half that time, mostly because Kemal kept interrupting at first, challenging Hunahpu’s statements. But as time went on, as it became clear that all of Kemal’s challenges were easily dealt with using evidence that Hunahpu had already intended to include a bit later in his presentation, the hostility began to slacken, and he was allowed to proceed with fewer questions.

  Now he had reached the end of the things that Diko had seen, and as if to signal that fact, she pulled her chair closer to the TruSite viewing area. The others who had watched yesterday also grew more attentive. “I have shown you that the Tarascans had the technology to establish a more dominant empire than the Mexica, and the Tlaxcalans were reaching for that technology. Their struggle for survival had made them more willing to embrace novelty—which we saw a bit later, of course, when they made alliance with Cortés. But this wasn’t all. The Zapotecs of the northern coast of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec were also developing a new technology.”