Elizabeth I (43 page)

“When they aren’t practicing their native superstitions,” said Hunsdon. “A lot of moonlit rites, fairies, and such.” He shuddered.

“Call Raleigh here. We want a full report about his expedition, and what he’s found. Tell him to bring his ores, or whatever they are,” said Robert Cecil. “We need to consult with him about this new Armada, and how we can counter it.”

“Why are his ideas any better than ours?” asked Essex.

“Because he’s an adventurer and has had lots of firsthand experience with Spaniards. He’s just come from their territory,” said Robert Cecil.

“And because you are dazzled by him,” snorted Essex.

“As you, without the goods, wish us to be by you,” muttered Hunsdon. Only I was near enough to hear him.

My head was spinning. Everything seemed to be moving so quickly I had the sensation of standing on a tilting board. I sent for Raleigh straightway and prepared to hear his tale and, when that was done, to plumb his mind for our next step against Spain. We would meet privately in my inner chamber. While I waited, I forced myself to read the dispatches and petitions that had accumulated during my brief absence.

While I was shuffling through the papers, a message arrived from Raleigh. Could I possibly come to him? He had objects to show me privately that he could not transport to Whitehall. I was just as relieved to get out of the palace.

His residence, Durham House, lay near Whitehall, a bit downstream. They were so close I need not bother with a boat but could walk, flanked by my guards. It was a fine residence, a mansion whose turrets rose almost out of the water.

The spacious ground floor was gleaming but empty, and I was shown up to his turret room, climbing a winding staircase to reach at last the door that opened into his secluded study. Inside, he was waiting, a native of Guiana beside him.

“Welcome home, Sir Walter,” I said, taking him in. He looked ravaged—his face gaunt and sun blasted, his body thinner by half, or so it seemed. His voluminous breeches could not hide the shrunken frame within them. “It was a hard voyage?” I asked, saving him the trouble of explaining.

He knelt, his movements still agile. “Indeed it was, but it was the voyage of a lifetime.”

“Rise,” I said. “What did you find? You went looking for El Dorado.”

“I found a country as virgin as the Garden of Eden,” he said. “Utterly untouched. It is a thing of fragile splendor, filled with plants and animals unknown to us, growing peacefully. Waiting for us, as it were.”

“Waiting for us?”

“Waiting for us to reach out and pluck them. I have brought some home to show, for no one would believe me otherwise.”

“I gather there are people there as well? Is he one?” I indicated the motionless man.

“Yes, he is the son of a chief, a
cassique
. His father was eager for him to return with us. At the same time, two of our boys were so taken with the New World that they decided to stay.”

“Not Dudley’s boy?” Robert Dudley’s son and namesake was among those who had signed up for the voyage. The thought of his remaining there was displeasing to me.

“No.” Raleigh shook his head. “He is much like his father, interested only in the world he already knows.” His tone managed to convey his disdain for such people.

The world we already knew. From Raleigh’s high turret window I could see the river shining in the sun as it rounded its bend for Westminster. Across it the gentle green hills of Surrey rose in the distance. Fluffy clouds floated over the fields. The world we knew was sweet enough, and I must preserve it.

“Did you find gold?” I blurted out. “I need not ask, for had you done so, you would have presented it first thing.”

He coughed. Clearly he was still recovering. “We found a place where gold can be mined, along with abandoned metalworking tools,” he said. “We did not want to start digging, as the river was rising fearfully and would have trapped us. But we marked where it was. And we’ve brought back ores.” He presented a box brimming with rough rocks. “And here, look at these stones.” He hoisted another box, this one filled with dull stones of various shapes and hues. “We found these lying in open fields, waiting to be picked up. We think they are sapphires and diamonds, but they and the ores will have to be examined here by assayers.”

Neither of these samples might prove worth anything. Certainly they would not repay the cost of having sent the expedition. The stockholders, including the Cecils, would howl at being cheated.

All this time the Indian was standing stiffly. “Are you going to let him move?” I said. “Tell me of his tribe.”

“Let me tell you how I found him.” He moved to a table and unrolled a map.

“Pray be brief,” I said. “You can explain at length to the other holders in the company.”

He looked disappointed. “First, I must say this fine virgin land should be claimed by England.”

“I already have one Virginia. Persuade me I need another.”

“This region abounds in beauty and resources. The flatlands are covered in jungle, crisscrossed by rivers in the delta, lush beyond words. Let me show you one of the birds—the forest is full of these creatures, with vivid plumage such as we have never seen here.” He picked up a cage from the floor and held it aloft. Inside were several small birds with an array of feather colors—turquoise, elixir green, sulfur yellow. “There are much larger ones. Imagine the trees filled with them! And growing directly on the ground near the riverbanks are these fruits.” He showed me a shrunken one, an oblong object covered in hexagonal segments, with a bristly crown of spiky leaves. In picking it up, I pricked my finger. “Here, taste the dried flesh,” he urged me, handing me a plate of yellowish chunks. I bit into one and it was very sweet. “Better than sugar,” he said. “And the fresh ones, juicy and tender. I regret I can only present this mummified specimen.”

“Have you named it?”

“Yes, the name ‘pineapple’ seems most fitting, as it looks like a huge pinecone.”

Something stirred in a corner, too slow for a mouse.

“Allow me to present another denizen of this exotic country,” he said, scooping up a grayish creature that looked like a huge locust. He put it on a table, where it rolled up into a ball. Proudly he tapped on it, and it made a metallic ring. “The Spanish call them
armadillos
—‘little armored ones.’ ”

“I know what
armada
, and all its derivatives, means,” I snapped. “I suppose they serve Philip?”

“If you claim this area of Guiana, they shall serve
you
,” he responded. “Perhaps we can train them to attack.”

I laughed. “An army that rolls up into balls? What would that do?”

“Roll underfoot and cause the enemy to trip?”

I could not help being amused. “Very well, Walter, you have entertained me more mightily than any play or concert. But tell me more specifically of your exploration.” I nodded to the chair. “We may sit.” I could see he needed to.

Gratefully he sank down onto it. “We spent a month on shore. The Orinoco delta is very wide, but none of the rivers flowing through it are deep, so we had to leave the largest ship behind and proceed in barges and wherries. I took about a hundred men. It was in the delta that we found the mine equipment, abandoned by Spanish workers whom we surprised.”

“So the Spanish know of it?”

“Yes, they are also looking for gold. The natives hate them,” he added quickly. “They welcomed us as enemies of the Spanish.”

“The Indians were friendly and helpful?”

“Indeed they were, acting as guides and taking us to villages where we could get food. For as rich as the jungle was, it was hard to feed ourselves from it. The animals are swift and well hidden in the foliage and shadows, and unless you want to eat leaves, there is little on the trees to sustain you.” He paused. “As lovely as it is, it is not a healthy place, and festers in heat and damp. Many became ill, and we were glad to leave the jungle behind for the uplands. We followed the Orinoco—sometimes it was thirty miles wide—until it joined the Caroní. There we found the abandoned Spanish anchor my informant in Trinidad had described, confirming his story. We were elated. Once we were on the Caroní, we were told there were silver mines nearby, so we broke up into reconnaissance parties. One group surveyed the river, another set out to find the mines and any minerals, and my group sought the source of a pall of smoke hanging over the land. It turned out to be a series of dazzlingly high waterfalls. And all around them, what I can only describe as heavenly country—the Garden of Eden I told you about. Altogether we penetrated some three hundred miles into the heart of Spain’s colonial empire.”

“What about the silver mines?” I persisted.

“We pinpointed their whereabouts,” he said.

“But you did not actually find them?”

“No,” he admitted.

“What about El Dorado?”

“The chief of the village, Cassique Topiawari, knew of it. Did I tell you he is over a hundred years old, and has seen much? He said it lay at the foot of the highlands, many days’ journey hence. The inhabitants were fierce warriors; it would need a huge army to conquer them, certainly more than we had. On our next voyage, we can take adequate forces, and of course our guns will give us the advantage, but—”

“You haven’t found El Dorado,” I said flatly. “You haven’t even seen it. All you have is an old chief’s word for it.” I held up my hands, silencing him as he prepared to argue. “I am resigned to the disappointing news. But you had best practice delivering it to the shareholders, who were expecting better return on their investment.”

“Just owning the country would repay us a hundred, a thousandfold.”

“In what? Armadillos and pineapples? Interesting curiosities, but they do not finance wars against Spain.”

“Allow me to present Topiawari’s son, who has been waiting patiently.” He turned quickly and put his arm across the man’s shoulder. “He is eager to meet the great
cassique
of the north, Ezrabeta Cassipuna Acarewana, in whose name I made my voyage.”

The man stepped forward. Clearly he could understand the words. He bowed his head. He had the darkest, straightest hair I had ever seen, which even in the dim light shone like polished stone. It was bound with a headband woven with feathers bright as jewels. He was wrapped in a cloak also patterned in the feathers and looked as majestic as any European prince.

“Welcome, prince of Guiana,” I said. “Small wonder you do not search for gems, when you can pluck such beauty freely from birds of the air to adorn yourselves.”

He bowed again. “I come, I see great
cassique
.” A grin spread across his handsome face.

“Are all the tribesmen this fetching?” I asked Raleigh.

“In the villages we visited, yes. In the delta they retreat into tree houses when the water rises; on higher ground they have huts and cabins. They are a jolly people, always laughing, and seem content. But then, as I have said—”

“Yes, they live in the Garden of Eden.”

“Other tribes, though, they say are different. On a farther branch of the Caroní there is a tribe called the Ewaipanoma with eyes in their shoulders and mouths in their chests.”

I laughed. “And you believe this?” I looked at the native visitor to see if the tribal name had sparked his interest. “True? Ewaipanoma?” I encircled my eyes and then indicated my shoulders. He nodded vigorously. But perhaps he had been trained to entertain Europeans with such tales. And Raleigh, like all adventurers, had enough of the boy still in him to credit the possibility. “What of the Amazons? Aren’t they supposed to live along the river named after them?”

The man said, “Yes. Women. Strong. Once a year, warriors go. The women choose. Spend time of one moon. Men give jade, then leave. Baby boys, women send back to warriors. Girls keep, make strong. Grow up, also warriors. Next year, come again. More babies.”

“Have you gone to the Amazons?” I asked him.

“No. Never seen.”

Once again, a marvel that no one could verify. Perhaps the whole land was that way, a Garden of Eden indeed, vanishing upon closer inspection.

“You should have brought me an Amazon, Walter,” I teased him. “I should like to see this wonder.”

“
You
are the great woman warrior, our Amazon,” he said, diplomatically. “It is you who smashed the Armada.”

“Only acting through my admirals and my sailors,” I said tartly. That was a truth that hurt.

“Your admirals and your sailors
are
you,” he insisted.

“Alas, Walter, you have returned only to find the shadow of another Armada hanging over us. Rest now, and this afternoon come to Whitehall for our emergency meeting concerning this.” I smiled, to make it seem less grim and pressing. “Welcome back to England.”

37

L
ate afternoon, and we had convened in the council chamber. I looked up and down the table. The row of men on either side had divided themselves not according to age but according to politics. The bold ones—Howard, Raleigh, Essex, and Hunsdon—sat on the right; the cautious ones—the Cecils, Knollys, and Whitgift—on the left.