Tag: procelytism

Arrows

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Excerpt

“I’ll talk because the time for our farewells is near,” I said, “and I
don’t want us parting like this.”
“Try me.”
He turned to look at the ship. His aftershave aroma of lavender
and storax, mixed with our sweat, filled my nostrils and sharpened
my senses. Watching him reminded me of my own looks, a sort of
discovery. Over the years, although he was four years older,
Bartolomé and I had become more alike, despite the inequality in
weight and his hooked nose. The main difference was the ripple of
his strong muscles visible under his shirt. Sometimes it was like
watching the movements of a powerful horse.
When I had come to board the ship, we were shocked to see each
other again. We always wrote and knew everything about the other,
but six years had passed since our last encounter. He took me by the
shoulders and looked me over from head to toe. Apparently
satisfied with my growing into manhood, he patted me on the
shoulder and grabbed my tonsure, shaking me softly before
squashing me in a bear hug.
Now we would soon be taking our leave of each other, and only
God knew when we would be reunited. I realized I was staring at
him and turned to face the sea.
Illuminated by the rising moon, the ship swayed, two lanterns
glowing on the castle decks. I watched the white spume of the waves
breaking, their hissing claim on the beach. The breeze carried the
voices of the men still sitting around the fire.
“Why the hell did you flog yourself?” Bartolomé asked.
“To purify my heart.”
“Purify your heart? Salvador, you haven’t done a bad thing in
your life!”
I snorted, shaking my head and reaching back to pull at my habit
and detach it from my wounds.
“I beat him,” I said. “I beat Pánfilo. He was having his way with a
girl. She wanted to resist. I don’t know what came over me. I
couldn’t believe my eyes, and before I knew it I was beating him up.
I didn’t mean to.”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073522

Arrows

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Excerpt

Bartolomé let him go, patting him on the shoulder. Pánfilo bent over
and coughed, hand on his throat as though choked instead of rattled.
I crouched beside Antonio and tilted the flask. I wasn’t sure how
much would suffice; a few drops would have to do as more would
kill him. I concentrated on balancing against the movements of the
ship and tilted the flask just a little more until a few droplets fell into
Antonio’s limp mouth. The potion squirted between Antonio’s lips.
He coughed from the bitterness and tried to sit up.
I gasped and tried to clean the excess with a rag, but it was too
late. Antonio had swallowed it all. I uttered unconfessable
commentaries under my breath and glanced at Bartolomé. He
looked at me, and I shrugged helplessly. We took our positions in
silence. I buried my nostrils in my armpit while positioning my
hands on Antonio’s chest, bewildered by the stench.
Benjamin knelt beside me, arms straight down, squashing
Antonio’s good leg. I was sweating, we all were.
Bartolomé produced a leather bundle and carefully spread it on
the floor, revealing a number of surgical instruments. Rag strips
were neatly folded in a small pocket. In the monastery, Fray
Bernardo had taught us to cure wounds. A few times we saved the
life of one of the animals by cutting an infected limb. We had always
proceeded faster when we placed a board underneath for support. I
found one and put it under the leg with a subtle nod to my brother.
He acknowledged with the sharp knife, ready to cut.
“Lord, have mercy.” I said.
In the uncertain light given off by two candles, Bartolomé crossed
himself and began cutting with long swift movements. Antonio’s
drunkenness and my potion failed to stop him from becoming a
struggling, swearing beast, but finally he passed out when
Bartolomé began sawing the bone.
We loosened our grip. Pánfilo gawked at the wound. Better he
keep his mouth shut for, whenever he talked or breathed, the foul
odor of his remaining teeth made me want to vomit.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073522

Arrows

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Excerpt

Despite it all, I felt gratified to be useful. Rats were a frequent
nuisance on ships; they woke us up at night, walked on us, dug their
teeth into our flesh. Many sacks had holes, and in some the rats were
still feeding. What to do? Benjamin was wiggling a stick in his hand.
He snuffled repeatedly while throwing me a similar weapon.
We took the hideous fruits of our slaughter to the upper deck,
spilling them overboard. The bodies of the rats floated on the surface
until two small sharks appeared and devoured them.
“Do what’s bad and expect it back,” Benjamin said, waving an
accusatory finger at the rats. I couldn’t tell whether he was joking.
Normally he was laughing. His eyes turned into a glittering line
whenever he laughed—but for several hours he had seemed almost
despondent.
“Something bothering you, my friend?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I’ve been from here to there and back all my life,
not knowing where night would find me. I thought life at sea would
be better, but . . . I should never have come.”
Our work together below decks had brought us together. This
was a different sort of confessional than I was accustomed to
hearing. I felt the solution was not necessarily in God’s hands.
“Why don’t you come with me to join the expedition? I’m sure
they will need a strong man like you.”
He looked up, eyes brighter, then his shoulders slumped again.
“I’ve signed on for five years with the captain,” Benjamin said. “I
have to stay.”
“You leave that one to me,” I said. And so devised a simple plan,
knowing I would soon be losing my brother’s companionship.
Although I felt I did not need my older brother as a protector, I knew
Bartolomé liked to feel he was necessary to me in that way.
Therefore, if Benjamin went to Bartolomé and volunteered to act as
my guardian in the New World, my brother might allow Benjamin
to leave the ship to accompany me, for my benefit…

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073522

Arrows

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Excerpt

I gripped the lifelines, my habit soaked and
pasted to my body. He shook his head and curled his mouth as he
placed his bare feet on the steps.
Bartolomé glared when I came up to the quarterdeck. He and the
helmsman were fighting with the long tiller to steer the Isabella who
was surfing a wave downwind with increasing speed. He was too
busy to pay me attention.
I could see he was thinking hard, for he had seen men break their
bones when propelled by the long tiller as the waves jerked the
rudder.
The pilot concentrated on the movements of the needle in the
compass set in a wooden box fixed onto the binnacle. A sailor tried
to record the time and course while another minded the sandglass.
Every man there had a duty to perform; all others were tucked away
in the relative safety of the ship’s innards. Bartolomé chewed his
inner cheek, as he always did when considering his options.
The visibility was nil, no other ships were in sight. Every vessel
was on its own now, each full of men fighting for their lives and
praying, the galleons surely better off than the Isabella. They didn’t
have the wretched high castles fore and aft, taking all the wind and
making the vessel ungovernable.
Bartolomé growled, covering his eyes with one hand and
lowering his head without releasing his grip on the tiller. I saw his
lips move silently amid the roar of wind and sea. He could attune his
senses to the mood of the wind, feeling it on his nape, sniffing it out
of the air, hearing it on the sails and rigging.
Bartolomé knew I was adamant about staying on deck; nothing
short of an angel or God’s thunderous voice would send me down.
He aimed a sullen glare in my direction and yelled to the sailor
minding the sandglass to pass me a coil of line. I caught it in the air
and fumbled, keeping an eye out for waves until I found the end of
it. Bartolomé motioned me to bring it around my waist. I managed a
knot above my Franciscan cord and tied myself to the rail as the
others were to the binnacle, but he sighed, nodded to the pilot, let go
of the tiller and came to tie the knot to his liking.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073522

Arrows

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Excerpt

I retched again and leaned to one side to let out a stream of bitter
bile. I blinked in the darkness and looked around without the least
hope of standing up. The roof was low and the hot air impregnated
with damp and the smell of unwashed bodies, vomit and bilge; the
air seemed to congeal as I exhaled.
How long had we been rocking and shaking in this darkness? A
day? Two? “Eloí, Eloí, lama sabactani?” I quoted, meaning every
word our Lord had said when feeling forsaken on the Cross.
Trembling, I grasped a coil of rope. My tonsured head was bathed
in cold sweat; drops trickled down my forehead, slid down my neck
and soaked my grey cassock. The Seraphic Rosary dangled from my
cord, rippling monotonously. I took no more than shallow breaths,
distracting my mind amid the artillery, lines, water barrels and
cases, some knocked about by the sea’s fury despite having been
lashed down.
The hatches and portholes were kept closed to avoid water, and
the lighting of candles was strictly forbidden. I had withstood the
first hours by meditating on the Passion of Our Lord, but once
overcome by sickness, I could not stop vomiting.
The danger on deck had confined many men below: the carpenter
and his mates, the cook and his galley lads, the gunners, seamen
awaiting the change of watch. We sat close to one another, sweating
and praying, eyes fixed on the ceiling, following noises from the
upper deck. After making vows and promises to the virgin,
swearing to make penitence of fasting on bread and water the first
Saturday of every month, some wished to confess.
To my surprise it was Pánfilo, a wiry old midshipman who had
lost most of his front teeth, who came first. I dried my face with the
sleeve of my habit, uncertain of my strength, and passed my hand
across my wet chest and aching belly. My stomach was void, though
still assaulted by waves of nausea. “Move over, hombre! My sins are
only God’s to hear, you filth,” lisped Pánfilo. Others shifted. Pánfilo
knelt beside me.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073522

Arrows

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Excerpt

We threw together in a childish competition
that entertained not only us but also the lads kneeling in groups of
four holystoning the deck.
“Hey!” I turned and saw the weather-worn face of Pedro Mendez,
the ubiquitous bosun, obscured by the sun at its zenith, as he
glowered down at us from the quarterdeck. Already, everyone
knew better than to provoke him.
“Ballast is for ballast,” he snapped. He marched toward us, bare
feet turning inwards, glared at the bucket, snatched the stone from
my hand and shoved the bucket at Bartolomé’s page, a boy
nicknamed the Canary for his constant whistling. As the bosun
returned to his duties, my fellow passenger chortled, half-covering
his mouth with his hand. He took a big step back and bowed with
one hand on his belly, the other on his back.
“Gregorio de la Parra, at your service.”
I had seen Gregorio a couple of times before but had never talked
to him. To my surprise, I quite liked him. He was different from the
man who stood apart with a haughtiness around his jaw and neck
that went all too well with his inquisitive brown eyes.
“What did you do back in Spain?” I asked.
“I studied Canon Law in the University-College of Santa María de
Jesus in Seville,” he said. “But my godfather, who lives in Havana,
wanted me to join the next expedition to the land of the Caracas
Indians.”
“Why, God must have something in store for us, my friend!” I
said, “I was sent to join the same expedition!”
I assumed we might become friends but instead he briefly
frowned and looked me over as though for the first time.
“Did you finish your studies, then?” I asked, changing the subject
but keeping the smile in place. He pulled at his leather doublet to
make it fit more comfortably.
“No,” he muttered, straightening his back and looking away.
“Are you planning to finish them?”
I was mystified by his sudden solemnity. His eyes took on a
piercing intensity.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073522