The King's Fifth Read Free Page A

renowned in all the world."
    He looked down at the map.
    "What you do now has been done before," he said. "You add a little. You take away a little. Put in an island. A windrose. But still the map is much like the one made months ago during the voyage of Admiral Ulloa."
    "It will be better than his," I answered, boasting.
    "Yes,
señor.
But your map still remains a copy, which you must acknowledge when you come to sign your name to it."
    Mendoza drew the cape around his chin. "Enjoy your
lamb shank," he said. "As you do, consider my advice." He opened the door, scanned the deck fore and aft, then looked at me. "And make your choice quickly, by tomorrow at the latest."

    While I ate a tardy supper, the click of his heels sounded on the deck, to and fro. When I snuffed out the lantern and lay down in my bunk, I still could hear them. They were the steps of one who heeded nothing, who would grapple with anything or with anyone, be it a ship or an officer of the King. They were the steps of a man who would walk through the fires of hell to reach that which he coveted.

2
    M ORNING DAWNED CLEAR with a light wind at our stern. In the night the hills had given way to a line of jagged headlands. Black tailings seemed to flow from them into the sea to rise there in reefs and rocky mounds and pinnacles. It was a desolate scene that met our eyes, and awesome to behold.

    About an hour after dawn, Admiral Alarcón ordered the
San Pedro
brought up into the wind. The other two galleons of the fleet, as I remember, were astern and out of sight. He then ordered everyone to gather in the waist of the ship, those on duty and those sleeping.
    With his bronze beard blowing in the wind, hands on hips, his countenance without any emotion that I could note, he faced us.
    "Captain-General Coronado and his army," he said, "escape our watchful eye. Therefore, I am sending ashore a band of men to seek them out wherever they may be, east or south or north. The leader of this band is Bias de Mendoza, a captain of that lost army." He paused and made a slight bow toward Mendoza, then again addressed
the crew. "All those of you who wish to join the brave captain, step forward."

    I glanced at Captain Mendoza. He did not betray any emotion.
    A moment before, as on the days just past, the men had been alive and restless. But now every eye among them was fixed upon the nearby coast. They stared at the angry surf, the black mounds and pinnacles, the jagged headland, and beyond at the plain that stretched endlessly away to the horizon. Down the length of the deck there was not a sound. On their faces was the look of those who for the first time gaze upon the very entrance to Inferno.
    Then four stepped out, all of them soldiers who were bound to Captain Mendoza. One, Torres, was the keeper of his horses. The other three were his personal musicians, Lunes, Roa and Zuñiga. Not one of the crew followed after them.
    Alarcón repeated his command, "Those who wish to join Captain Mendoza, step forward." His eyes ran through the ranks, man by man, and at last rested upon me.
    For myself, I stood rooted on the deck, too surprised to move. I was not surprised that the Admiral had learned of Mendoza's plan to seize the ship. What did surprise me was that he had taken this cunning way to forestall it.
    Once more, for the third time, Alarcón repeated his command. As he slowly spoke the words in a bull-like
voice, his gaze ran through the ranks and again rested upon me.

    Uneasily I shifted my weight. Sweat gathered on my forehead and ran down my face. I looked away from him, along the ranks of unmoving men. Gladly would I have leaped the rail into the sea.
    By chance, then, my eyes met those of Captain Mendoza. He stood stiffly beside Alarcón, watching me from under his heavy lids. Of a sudden I was in the cabin and he was speaking. I heard his words clearly, as if he were speaking to me at this moment. "...the map you would make would be published in