Pastwatch

by Orson Scott Card

  Why do I care so much?

  His eyes were looking across the table, toward the wall, but he was not seeing the crucifix there. Instead a memory washed through his mind. Of his mother huddling behind a table. Murmuring to him, as someone shouted in the distance. What was this memory? Why did it come to him now?

  I had a mother; poor Diego has none. And no father either, in truth. He writes to me that he’s tired of La Rábida. But what can I do? If I succeed in my mission, then his fortune is made, he will be son of a great man and therefore he will also be a great man. And if I fail, he had better be well educated, which no one can do better than Franciscans like these good priests. Nothing he would see or hear with me in Salamanca—or wherever I go next in pursuit of kings or queens—would prepare him for any life he is likely to lead.

  Gradually, as Cristoforo’s thoughts drifted toward sleep, he became aware that under the crucifix was a blackamoor girl, simply but brightly dressed, watching him intently. She was not really there, he knew, because he could still see the crucifix on the wall behind her. She must be very tall, for the crucifix was placed quite high. What should I be dreaming of blackamoor women, thought Cristoforo. Only I’m not dreaming, because I’m not asleep. I can still hear Father Perez and Father Antonio arguing about something. About Perez going to the Queen himself. Well, that’s an idea. Why is that girl watching me?

  Is this a vision? he wondered idly. Not as clear as it was on the beach. And this is certainly not God. Could a vision of a black woman come from Satan? Is that what I’m seeing? Satan’s dam?

  Not with a crucifix visible behind her head. This woman is like glass, black glass. I can see inside her. There’s a crucifix inside her head. Does this mean that she dreams of crucifying Christ again? Or that the Son of Mary dwells always in her mind? I’m not good at visions and dreams. I need more clarity than this. So if you sent this, God, and if you mean something by it, I’m not understanding it well enough and you’ll have to make things much clearer for me.

  As if in answer, the blackamoor girl faded and Cristoforo became aware of someone else moving in the corner of the room. Someone who could not be seen through; someone solid and real. A young man, tall and handsome, but with questioning, uncertain eyes. He looked like Felipa. So much like Felipa. As if she dwelt in him, a continuous reproach to Cristoforo, a continuous plea. I did love you, Felipa. But I loved Christ more. That can’t be a sin, can it?

  Speak to me, Diego. Say my name. Demand what is yours by right: my attention, my respect for you. Don’t stand there weakly waiting. Hoping for a crumb from my table. Don’t you know that sons must be stronger than their fathers, or the world will die?

  He said nothing. He said nothing.

  Not all men have to be strong, thought Cristoforo. It is enough that some are simply good. That is enough for me to love my son, that he be good. I will be strong enough for us both. I have enough strength to hold you up as well.

  “Diego, my good son,” said Cristoforo.

  Now the boy could speak. “I heard voices.”

  “I didn’t want to wake you,” said Cristoforo.

  “I thought it was another dream.”

  Father Perez whispered, “He dreams of you, often.”

  “I dream of you, my son,” said Cristoforo. “Do you also dream of me?”

  Diego nodded, his eyes never leaving his father’s face.

  “Do you think the Holy Spirit gives these dreams to us, so we don’t forget the great love we have for each other?”

  He nodded again. Then he walked to his father, uncertainly at first; but then, as Cristoforo rose to his feet and held out his arms, the boy’s strides became more certain. And when they embraced, Cristoforo was startled at how tall the boy had become, how long his arms, how strong he was. He held him, held him long.

  “They tell me you’re good at drawing, Diego.”

  “Yes, I am,” said Diego.

  “Show me.”

  As they walked toward Diego’s room, Cristoforo talked to him. “I’m drawing again myself. Quintanilla cut off my funds a couple of years ago, but I fooled him. I didn’t go away. I draw maps for people. Have you ever drawn a map?”

  “Uncle Bartolomeu came and taught me how. I’ve mapped the monastery. Right down to the mouseholes!”

  They laughed together all the way up the stairs.

  “We wait and wait,” said Diko. “We’re not getting any younger.”

  “Kemal is,” said Hunahpu. “He works out constantly. To the neglect of his other studies.”

  “He has to be strong enough to swim under the ships and set the charges,” said Diko.

  “I think we should have a younger man.”

  Diko shook her head.

  “What if he has a heart attack, did you think of that? We send him back in time to stop Columbus, and he dies in the water. What good is that? I’ll be among the Zapotecs. Will you set the charges and keep Columbus there? Or will he sail back to Europe and make the whole effort a waste?”

  “Just by going we’ll accomplish something. We’ll be infected with the carrier viruses, you remember.”

  “So the New World will be immune to smallpox and measles. All that means is that more of them will survive to enjoy many years of slavery.”

  “The Spanish weren’t that far ahead, technologically speaking. And without the plagues to make them think the gods are against them, the people won’t lose heart. Hunahpu, we can’t help but make things better, at least to some degree. But Kemal won’t fail.”

  “No,” said Hunahpu. “He’s like your mother. Never say die.”

  Diko laughed bitterly. “He never says it, but he plans it all the same.”

  “Plans what?”

  “He hasn’t mentioned it in years. I think I only heard him say it as a half-formed thought, and then he simply decided to do it.”

  “What?”

  “Die,” said Diko.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was talking, back in—oh, forever ago. About how the sinking of one ship is a misfortune. Two ships is a tragedy. Three ships is a punishment from God. What good will it do if Columbus thinks God is against him?”

  “Well, that’s a problem. But the ships have got to go.”

  “Listen, Hunahpu. He went on. He said, ‘If only they knew that it was a Turk who blew up the boats. The infidel. The enemy of Christ.’ Then he laughed. And then he stopped laughing.”

  “Why didn’t you mention this before?”

  “Because he chose not to mention it. But I thought you should understand why he isn’t taking all the other learning assignments seriously. He doesn’t expect to live to need them. All he needs is athletic ability, knowledge of explosives, and enough Spanish or Latin or whatever to tell Columbus’s men that he is the one who blew up their ships, and that he did it in the name of Allah.”

  “And then he kills himself?”

  “Are you joking? Of course not. He lets the Christians kill him.”

  “It won’t be gentle.”

  “But he’ll be taken up to heaven. He died for Islam.”

  “Is he really a believer?” asked Hunahpu.

  “Father thinks so. He says that the older you get, the more you believe in God, whatever face he wears.”

  The doctor came back into the room, smiling. “All very excellent, just like I tell you. Your heads are very full of interesting things. No one in all of history has ever had so much knowledge in their heads as you and Kemal!”

  “Knowledge and electromagnetic time bombs,” said Hunahpu.

  “Yes, well,” said the doctor, “it is true that when the signaling device is set off, it could cause cancer after several decades of exposure. But it does not signal until a hundred years, so I think you are nothing but bones in the ground and cancer is not a big problem for you.” He laughed.

  “I think he’s a ghoul,” said Hunahpu.

  “They all are,” said Diko. “It’s one of the classes in med school.”

 
“Save the world, young man, young woman. Make a very good world for my children.”

  For a horrible moment Diko thought that the doctor didn’t understand that when they went, his children would all be snuffed out, like everyone else in this dead-end time. If only the Chinese made more of an effort to teach their people English so they could understand what the rest of the world was saying.

  Seeing the consternation on their faces, the doctor laughed. “Do you think I’m so smart I can put phony bones in your skull, but so dumb I don’t know? Don’t you know Chinese were smart when all other people were stupid? When you go back, young man, young woman, then all the people of the new future, they are my children. And when they hear your phony bones talking to them, then they find the records, they find out about me and all the other people. So they remember us. They know we are their ancestors. This is very important. They know we are their ancestors, and they remember us.” He bowed and left the room.

  “My head hurts,” said Diko. “Don’t you think we could get more drugs?”

  Santangel looked from the Queen to his books, trying to figure out what the monarchs wanted from him. “Can the kingdom afford this voyage? Three caravels, supplies, a crew? The war with Granada is over. Yes, the treasury can afford it.”

  “Easily?” asked King Ferdinand. So he really hoped to have it stopped for financial reasons. All Santangel had to do was say, Not easily, no, it will be a sacrifice right now, and then the King would say, Let’s wait then, for a better time, and then the issue would never come up again.

  Santangel did not so much as glance at the Queen, for a wise courtier never allowed it to seem that, before he could answer one of the monarchs, he had to look to the other one for some kind of signal. Yet he saw out of the corner of his eye that she gripped the arms of her throne. She cares about this, he thought. This matters to her. It does not matter to the King. It annoys him, but he has no passion about it either way.

  “Your Majesty,” said Santangel, “if you have any doubts about the ability of the treasury to pay for the voyage, I will be glad to underwrite it myself.”

  A hush fell over the court, and then a low murmur arose. At a stroke, Santangel had changed the whole mood. If there was one thing people were sure of, it was that Luis de Santangel knew how to make money. It was one of the reasons why King Ferdinand absolutely trusted him in financial matters. He did not have to cheat the treasury to be rich—he was extravagantly wealthy when he came into office and had the knack for easily making more without having to become a parasite on the royal court. So if he was enthusiastic enough about the voyage to offer to underwrite it himself . . .

  The King smiled slightly. “And if I take you up on that generous offer?”

  “It would be a great honor if your majesty allowed me to link my name to the voyage of Señor Colón.”

  The King’s smile faded. Santangel knew why. The King was very sensitive to how people perceived him. Bad enough that he had to spend his life in this delicate balance with a reigning and ruling queen, in order to assure a peaceful unification of Castile and Aragon when one of them died. He did not like imagining the gossip. King Ferdinand wouldn’t pay for this great voyage himself. Only Luis de Santangel had the foresight to fund it.

  “Your offer was generous, my friend,” said the King. “But Aragon does not shirk its responsibility.”

  “Nor does Castile,” said the Queen. Her hands had relaxed.

  Did she know that I would see how she tensed before? Was it a deliberate signal?

  “Assemble this new council of examiners,” said the King. “If their verdict is positive, we will give this voyager his caravels.”

  And so it began again, or so it seemed. Santangel, watching from a distance, soon realized that this time the fix was in. Instead of years it took weeks. The new council included most of the pro-Colón faction from the previous group, and few of the conservative theologians who had so vehemently opposed him. It was no surprise when they made a perfunctory examination of Colón’s proposals and returned with a favorable verdict. It remained only for the Queen to call Colón to court and tell him.

  After all those years of waiting, after it had seemed a few months ago that it was all wasted, Santangel expected Colón to be joyful when he heard the news. He stood in the court and instead of gratefully accepting the Queen’s commission, he began to list demands. It was unbelievable. First, this commoner wanted a noble title befitting the commission that was being given him. And that was only the beginning.

  “When I return from the Orient,” he said, “I will have done what no other captain has ever done or dared to do. I must sail with the authority and rank of Admiral of the Ocean-Sea, exactly equal in station to the Grand Admiral of Castile. Along with this rank, it will be appropriate that I be granted the powers of viceroy and governor-general of all lands that I might discover in the name of Spain. Furthermore these titles and powers must be hereditary, to be passed down to my son and his sons after him forever. It will also be appropriate that I be granted a commission of ten percent of all commerce that passes between Spain and the new lands, and the same commission on all mineral wealth found there.”

  After all these years in which Colón had shown not a sign of personal greed, did he now stand revealed before them as just another parasitic courtier?

  The Queen was speechless for a moment. Then she curtly told Colón that she would take his requests under counsel, and dismissed him.

  When Santangel took word of Colón’s requests to the King, he was livid. “He dares to make demands? I thought he came to us as a supplicant. Does he expect kings to make contracts with commoners?”

  “Actually, no, Your Majesty,” said Santangel. “He expects you to make him a nobleman first, and then make a contract with him.”

  “And he doesn’t budge on these points?”

  “He is very courteous, but no, he simply does not bend, not a jot.”

  “Then send him away,” said the King. “Isabella and I are preparing to enter Granada in a great procession, arriving there as liberators of Spain and champions of Christ. A Genovese mapmaker dares to demand the titles of viceroy and admiral? He does not even merit a señor.”

  Santangel was sure Colón would back down when he heard the King’s reply. Instead, he coolly announced his departure and began packing to leave.

  It was chaos all evening around the King and Queen. Santangel began to see that Colón was not such a fool to make these demands. For all these years he had to wait, because if he left Spain and went to England or France with his proposal, he would already have two failures behind him. Why would France or England be interested in him, when the two great seafaring nations of Europe had already rejected him? Now, though, it was widely known and witnessed by many that the monarchs of Spain had accepted his proposal and agreed to fund his voyage. The dispute was not over whether to give him ships, but rather what his reward would be. He could walk away today and be assured an eager welcome in Paris or London. Oh, were Ferdinand and Isabella unwilling to reward you for your great achievement? See how France rewards her great sailors, see how England honors those who carry the banners of the king to the Orient! At long last Colón was negotiating from strength. He could walk away from the Spanish offer, because Spain had already given him the first and most important thing he needed—and it had been given him for free.

  What a negotiator, thought Santangel. If only he were in trade. What I could accomplish with a man like that in my service! I would soon hold the mortgage on St. Peter’s in Rome! On the Hagia Sophia! On the Church of the Holy Sepulchre!

  And then he thought: If Colón were in business, he would not be my agent, he would be my competitor. He shuddered.

  The Queen vacillated. She truly wanted this voyage, and that made it very difficult for her. The King, however, was adamant. Why should he even have to discuss this foreigner’s absurd demands?

  Santangel watched how uselessly Father Diego de Deza tried to argue against the King�
�s inclinations. Has this man no sense of how to deal with monarchs? Santangel was grateful when Father Talavera soon drew Deza out of the conversation. Santangel himself remained silent until at last the King asked for his opinion. “Of course these demands are just as absurd and impossible as they seem. The monarch who grants such titles to an untried foreigner is not the monarch who drove the Moors from Spain.”

  Almost everyone nodded wisely. They all assumed Santangel was playing the game of flattery, and like any careful courtier they were quick to agree with any praise of the King. Thus he was able to win the general approval for his most important stipulation: “untried foreigner.”

  “Of course, after the voyage, which Your Majesties have already agreed to authorize and fund, if he returns successful, then he will have brought such honor and wealth to the crowns of Spain that he would deserve all the rewards he has asked for, and more. He is so confident of success that he feels he already deserves them. But if he is that confident, surely he will accept without hesitation a stipulation on your part—that he receive these rewards only upon his successful return.”

  The King smiled. “Santangel, you fox. I know you want this Colón to sail. But you didn’t get your wealth by paying people until after they delivered. Let them take the risk, is that it?”

  Santangel bowed modestly.

  The King turned to a clerk. “Write up a set of capitulations to Colón’s demands. Only make them all contingent upon his successful return from the Orient.” He grinned wickedly at Santangel. “Too bad I’m a Christian king and refuse to gamble. I would make a bet with you—that I will never have to grant these titles to Colón.”