Reign of Madness Read Free

the pounding of kettledrums, Colón entered the hall.
    Though he had met with my parents several times before his voyage, this was the first that I had seen the sailor. He was tall like Mother, and big-boned. He had her red-gold hair, too, but his chin-length locks, limp and darkened from the drizzling rain, were liberally shot with pale gray. He had a strong hooked nose and thick proud-set lips, and though he swept off his velvet cap in deference, he held up his chin when he dropped to his knees before Mother. Perhaps she recognized something of her own proud self in him, and favored him for it, for she raised one corner of her mouth in a smile. Papa, however, buckled his dark brow at Colón’s arrogance. As with so many things, my parents’ opinions differed markedly, and we children were left to take sides. My lot, as ever, was with Papa. I frowned at the puffed-up mariner.
    Mother let him kiss her hand, then Papa’s, then drew him up. “Cristóbal Colón, please show us what you have brought from the Indies. Come sit. Sit.”
    The grandees glanced at one another as Mother beckoned for a page to bring a chair. None of them had ever been offered a seat in my mother’s presence. Nor, I realized at that moment, had I.
    The crossed gilt legs of the chair groaned as Colón eased his large person onto the leather seat.
    “Your Sacred Majesties Doña Isabel and Don Fernando, I thank you. With God’s great blessings, I have brought you all nature of wondrous things.” He clapped his hands. As the crowd murmured with approval, sailors dressed in red breeches and white shirts brought forth treasures: An open chest filled with nuggets of gold. Lengths of precious aromatic wood. Screeching green parrots in a silver cage. Exotic foods. One shriveled red fruit was so spicy that tears came to Mother’s eyes when she tasted it, though she liked the toasted seeds called maiz . How she laughed when a pair of long-legged rodents were led in on leashes.
    Colón grinned at her delight. “ Hutias, they are called . Very good to eat. They taste much like rabbit.”
    Papa sat back as the hall stirred with increasing excitement. He was a listener, and a thinker, and, I thought then, the kindest person I knew. There was a reason he took the anvil as his personal emblem—you can strike it all day and it will remain silent and unbreakable. As much as Mother and others made of the perfection of their marriage, I did not think she appreciated him enough. Tanto monta, monta tanto— did it ever occur to her that he might be the stronger one?
    “Did you bring back any other Eastern beasts?” Papa asked. “Marco Polo talked of monkeys, tigers, elephants. I don’t recall any tales of edible rats.”
    “In truth,” said Colón, “they are more like rabbits.”
    Papa studied him calmly. “Perhaps these rats were too unimportant for him to mention.”
    The smile faded from Colón’s heavy lips. He gazed at Papa as if judging him anew. “Your Sacred Majesty, in the lands I claimed for you and Her Sacred Majesty the Queen, there were plenty of monkeys—a very loud type, as a matter of fact. I would not wish for their howling to disturb your peace.”
    Papa looked unmoved. “You are most thoughtful, Colón. Perhaps these, these—what did you call these rats?”
    “Hutias.”
    “—these hutias came from the City of Gold that Marco Polo referred to. Perhaps they are known to the Great Khan of Cathay.”
    “Perhaps,” Colón said warily. “I have not had the privilege of meeting him yet, as I have already written in my letter to you. I did not linger in the Indies, for I wished to hurry home as quickly as possible to share the good news with Your Sacred Majesties. However, I was able to bring you these.” He nodded at a sailor standing at the door.
    The sailor disappeared for a moment. When he reappeared, everyone fell silent. Six wildmen, naked save for red breeches, edged into the chamber at the point of their captors’ pikes. They