THE door giving upon the great corridor opened. One said, “The King, Madam!” King Ferdinand entered quietly, in the sober fashion of a sober and able man. He was cool and balanced, true always to his own conception of his own dues. The Queen rose and stepped to meet him. They spoke, standing together, after which he handed her to her chair and took beside her the other great chair which the pages had swiftly placed. After greeting his daughter and the Archbishop he looked across to the painter. “Master Manuel Rodriguez, good day!”
There fell a moment of sun-drenched quiet in which they all sat for their picture. Then said the King, “Madam, we are together, and here are those who have been our chief advisers in this affair of discoveries. Master Christopherus is below. We noted him in the court. Let us have him here and see this too-long-dragging matter finished! Once for all abate his demands, or once for all let him go!”
They sent a page. Again there was sunny silence, then in at the door came the tall, muscular, gray-eyed, silver-haired man whom I had met the day King Boabdil surrendered Granada.
He made reverence to the Queen and the King and to the Archbishop. It was the Queen who spoke to him and that gently.
“Master Christopherus, we have had a thousand businesses, and so our matter here has waited and waited. Today comes unaware this quiet hour and we will give it to you. Here with us are the Archbishop and others who have been our counsellors, and here is Don Alonzo de Quintantella who hath always stood your friend. In all the hurly-burly we yet took time, two days ago, to sit in council and come to conclusion. And now we give you our determination. In all reason it should give you joy!” She smiled upon him. “How many years since first you laid your plan before us?”
He answered her in a deep voice, thrilling and crowded with feeling. “Seven years, Madam your Highness! Like an infant laid at your feet. And winter has blown upon it, and sunshine carrying hope has walked around it, and then again the cold wind rises—”
The King spoke. “Master Christopherus, in war much else has to cease! In much we have had to find patience, and you have to find it.”
“My lord King, yes!” replied the tall man. “It is eighteen years since in Lisbon, looking upon the sea one day, I said to myself, ‘Is there a question that is not to be answered? This ocean is to be crossed. Then why do not I cross it? There is Cipango, Cathay and India! Gold and spices are there, and here lie ships, and between, when all is said, is only sea! God made the sea to be sailed! Yonder they worship idols, here we worship Christ. There are idols, here is Christ. Once a Christopherus carried Christ across water!’ Eighteen years ago. I said, ‘I can do it!’ I say it to-day, my lord and my lady. I can do it!”
Of the seated great ones only the Queen’s spirit appeared to answer his. He seemed to enchant her, to take her with him. But the King’s cool face regarded him with something like dislike. He spoke in an edged voice. “Saint Christopher asked no great wage. That is the point, Master Christopherus, so let us to it! At last the Queen and I say ‘We agree’ to this enterprise, which may bring forth fruit or may not, or may mean mere empty loss of ships and men and of our monies! Yet we say ‘yea.’ But we do not say ‘yea ‘, Master Christopherus, to the too great ferry fee which you ask! I say ‘ask’, but verily the tone is of command!”
The man whom they called Master Christopherus made a slow, wide gesture of deprecation. The Archbishop took the word. “Too much! You ask a hundred times too much! I must say to you that it is unchristianly arrogance. You talk like a soldan!” An assenting murmur came from the other ecclesiastics.
The Queen spoke. “Master Christopherus, if it be a great thing to do, is not the doing it and thereby blessing yourself no less than others—is not that reward? Not that Castile shall deny you reward, no! Trust me that if you bring us the key of India you shall not find us niggardly! But we and they who advise us stumble at your prescribing wealth, honors and gifts that they say truly are better fitting a great prince! Trust us for enrichment and for honor do you come back with the great thing done! Leave it all now to Time that brings to pass. So you will be clearer to go forth to the blessed carrying of Christ!”
She spoke earnestly, a Queen, but with much about her of womanly, motherly sweetness. I saw that she greatly liked the man and somewhere met his spirit. But the King was gathering hardness. He spoke to a secretary standing behind him. “Have you it there written down, the Italian’s demand?”
The man produced a paper. “Read!” But before it could be unfolded, Master Christopherus spoke.
“‘Italian!’ Seven years in Spain and ten in Portugal, and a good while in Porto Santo that belongs to Portugal, a little in England and in Ultima Thule or Iceland, and long, long years upon ships decked and undecked in all the seas that are known—fourteen years, childhood and boyhood, in Genoa and at Pavia where I went to school, and all my years of hope in Christ’s Kingdom, and in the uplands of great doers-and your Highness says to me for a slighting word, ‘Italian!’ I was born in Italy, but to-day, for this turn, King Ferdinand, you should call me ‘Spaniard’! As, if King John sends me forth be will call me Portuguese! Or King Henry will say, ‘Christopher the Englishman’ or King Charles, to whom verily I see that I may go, shall say, ‘Frenchman, to whom all owe the marriage of East and West, but France owes Empire!”’
The King said, “It may be so, or it may not be so, Master Christopherus.—Read!”
The secretary read: The Genoese, Cristoforo Colombo, called in Spain Cristobal Colon, and in the Latin Christopherus Columbus, states and demands in substance as follows: Sailing westward he will discover for the King and Queen of the Spains the Indies and Cathay and Cipango, to the great glory and enrichment of these Sovereigns and the passing thereby of Spain ahead of Portugal, and likewise and above all to the great glory of Christ and of Holy Church. He will do this, having seen it clear for many years that it is to be done, and he the instrument. And for the finding by going westward of the said India and all the gain of the world and the Kingdom of God and of our Sovereigns the King Don Ferdinand and the Queen Dona Isabella, he bargaineth thus:
“He shall be named Admiral of the Ocean-Sea, whereby he means the whole water west of the line drawn by the Holy Father for the King of Portugal. He shall be made Viceroy and Governor of all continents and islands that he may discover, claim and occupy for the Sovereigns. And the said Christopherus Columbus’s eldest son shall hold these offices after him, and the heir of his son, and his heir, down time. He shall be granted one tenth of all gold, pearls, precious stones, spices, or other merchandise found or bought or exchanged within his admiralty and viceroyship, and this tithe is likewise to be taken by his heirs from generation to generation. He or one that he shall name shall be judge in all disputes that arise in these continents and islands, so be it that the honor of the Sovereigns of Spain is not touched. He shall have the salary that hath the High Admiral of Castile. He and his family shall be ennobled and henceforth be called Don and Dona. And for the immediate sailing of ships he may, if he so desire, be at an eighth of the expense of outfitting, for which he shall be returned an eighth of all the profit of this the first voyage.”
The secretary did not make the terms less sounding by his reading. Wind in leaves, went a stir through the room. I heard a page near me whispering, “O Sancta Maria! The hanger-on, the needy one! Since the beginning of time I’ve seen him at doors, sunny and cloudy days, the big, droning bee!” Manuel Rodriguez painted on. I felt his thought. “I should like to paint you, Admiral of the Ocean-Sea!”
The room recomposed itself. Out of silence came the King’s voice, chill and dry. “We abate so vast a claim for so vast reward! But we would be naught else but just, and in our ability lavish. Read now what we will do!”
The secretary read. It had a certain largeness and goodliness, as go rewards for adventure, even for great adventure, what the sovereigns would do. The room thought it should answer. The King spoke, “We can promise no more nor other than this. It contents you, Master Christopherus?”
The long-faced, high-nosed, gray-eyed man answered, “No, my lord King.”
“Your own terms or none?”
“Mine or none, your Highness.”
The King’s voice grew a cutting wind. “To that the Queen and I answer, ‘Ours or none!’” Pushing back his chair, he glanced at sun out of window. “It is over. I incline to think that it was at best but an empty vision. You are dismissed, Master Christopherus!”
The Genoese, bowing, stepped backward from the table. In his face and carriage was nothing broken. He kept color. The Queen’s glance went after him, “What will you do now, Master Christopherus?”
He answered, “My lady, your Highness, I shall take horse to-morrow for France.”
The King said, “France?—King Charles buys ever low, not high!”
The Sovereigns and the great churchmen and the less great went away together. After them flowed the high attendance. All went, Don Enrique among the last. Following him, I turned head, for I wished to observe again two persons, the painter Manuel Rodriguez and the Admiral of the Ocean-Sea. The former painted on. The latter walked forth quite alone, coming behind the grinning pages.
In the court below I saw him again. The archway to street sent toward us a deep wedge of shadow. He had a cloak which he wrapped around him and a large round hat which he drew low over his gray-blue eyes. With a firm step he crossed to the archway where the purple shadow took him.
Juan Lepe must turn to his own part which now must be decided. I walked behind Don Enrique de Cerda through Santa Fe. With him kept Don Miguel de Silva, who loved Don Enrique’s sister and would still talk of devoir and of plans, now that the war was ended. When the house was reached he would enter with us and still adhere to Don Enrique. But at the stair foot the latter spoke to the squire. “Find me in an hour, Juan Lepe. I have something to say to thee!” His tone carried, “Do you think the place there makes any difference? No, by the god of friends!”
I let him go thinking that I would come to him presently. But I, too, had to act under the god of friends. In Diego Lopez’s room I found quill and ink and paper, and there I wrote a letter to Don Enrique, and finding Diego gave it to him to be given in two hours into Don Enrique’s hand. Then Juan Lepe the squire changed in his own room, narrow and bare as a cell, to the clothing of Juan Lepe the sailor.
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