Reign of Madness Read Free Page A

each had a gold ring in their nose, fish bones bristling from their earlobes, and dull brown hair, as long as a girl’s but stiff, atop which feathers were fixed. Colón’s men held tightly to the chains that bound them as they crept forward, now lurching, now crying out, now staring wide-eyed at the crowd gaping back at them.
    “Judas’s soul!” My brother Juan peered at the men crouched shakily before him. “What are they?” Armor clinking, he reached out to one of them in wonder.
    The creature flinched, then shouted at him in a foreign tongue.
    The nobles, the ladies, Juan’s boys, even the musicians, went rigid. Colón swelled up as if he would have liked to leap from his chair to murder the beast. This savage had shown disrespect to the heir of the crowns of the Spains. With held breath, everyone looked to Mother.
    She gazed thoughtfully upon the wildman, who now cowered as though he knew he’d done wrong. “So.” She tapped her finger against her lips. “These are my new subjects.”
    The hush in the chamber rose like a loaf of resting dough.
    Slowly, she brought her hands together in applause. “Bravo, Cristóbal Colón, bravo.”
    Papa pulled his glance from something in the crowd, then clapped along with her. “Yes. Bravo.”
    His enthusiasm rekindled by relief, Colón animatedly described how he had found the strange men on what must be an outer island of China—perhaps near the famed isle of Cipangu. These were Chinamen or Cipangos or some such persons of the Far East. Men of the Indies, or “Indios,” he called them.
    “The land is populated with thousands more, just like these,” Colón said.
    “Are they cannibals?” asked my brother.
    “In spite of their rough appearance,” said Colón, “no. These men don’t eat human flesh. Indeed, you have never seen a more gentle, childlike people. They are affectionate and without covetousness. They love their neighbors as themselves.”
    Yet they were chained as if dangerous. I did not understand. Only enemies of Mother or the Church were treated in such a way, like the Moors after Mother’s defeat of Málaga. When I was seven, most of the population of that town—men, women, and children—had been put into chains for defying her. She had said that it was necessary, that they hated her, and the Church, and even me, and were threats to our security. When I asked her if even the children hated me, she sent me to Fray Hernando to be instructed, though it did me little good. Fray Hernando, with his warm brown eyes and smooth skin, had been so handsome and kind that I could not bear to look at him, let alone hear a word he uttered.
    “Your Sacred Majesty,” Colón said, “you should hear them speak. My Indios—”
    “ Your Indios?” Mother said.
    Colón closed his mouth, then bowed. “Your Sacred Majesty, the deepest of pardons. My haste in marching to you from Seville must have weakened my brain. What I was trying to say was that your Indios have the sweetest speech in the world.”
    “Oh?” said Mother. “Have one speak.”
    Colón motioned for his man to rattle the chains of one of the Indios. He then said something to the creature in a foreign tongue.
    The Indio shivered, be it from the cold of the stone hall, bonechilling even in April, or from fear or illness, but he did not speak.
    “Your Sacred Majesty, I apologize,” said Colón. “As sweet a people as are your Indios, they must be taught how to behave. They are as unschooled and innocent as newborn babes.”
    Mother waved her hand. “Never mind. Tell us, how quickly can they be brought to the understanding of our faith?”
    I studied the shivering man as Mother, Colón, and Fray Hernando discussed the conversion of the savages both at hand and across the Ocean Sea. Did no one else notice that the man was miserable?
    Colón stopped speaking. Mother watched, puzzled, as he wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his blue velvet gown.
    “Your Sacred Majesty,” he said, composing