To the Edge of the World (15 page)

Again I said nothing, my heart suddenly hammering.

“Pray with me, Mateo. Kneel beside me and find the words that elude me. Pray with me.”

So I prayed with Espinosa. But instead of peace, a terrible uneasiness grew within me, wormlike and crawling. As I prayed, thunder rumbled in the distance. And when I uttered “Amen,” it began to rain.

For days this uneasiness did not leave me. Instead it grew stronger, clutching my heart with the same icy hand that clutched Espinosa’s.

I watched and listened as Magallanes went ashore each day to extol the doctrines of Christianity. He spoke of the Trinity, the Immaculate Conception, Adam and Eve, and honoring one’s father and mother. The padre baptized so many people that, come nightfall each day, he lacked strength to raise his arms in blessing. And with each baptism, my unease mounted. As if the stage were set. The actors poised to begin. I knew not what to make of my feelings, whether they be imagination or warning, and so, unsure, I did nothing. Said nothing.

Then, one evening, the curtains opened and the play began.

A nearby chieftain refused to pay tribute to Rajah Humabon. With a wave of his hand, Magallanes dispatched Espinosa and his marines, who burned the chieftain’s village and returned to the flagship with livestock and plunder. Magallanes sent messengers once again. “Tell all the chiefs who refuse baptism and who refuse to recognize Humabon’s authority that the same arm that struck this village will strike them also.”

One of the messengers returned. Even before he spoke, I knew what he would say. “My captain-general, the chieftain of the island of Mactan has this message for you. He refuses to be baptized into the religion of strangers. He refuses to pay tribute to Humabon, a man he despises. He says that if the Spaniards come to burn his village, he will be waiting for them.”

Enraged, Magallanes stormed the deck. All night I listened to his uneven steps, unable to sleep, imagining that strange glare in his eyes that I had seen of late. My skin turned icy and my insides crawled. When the next day he called the crew together, I stood before him with my shipmates, the planks of the deck hot beneath my feet.

The final act.

“The wrath of God is terrible and His divine purpose among these islanders will not be thwarted!” He spat his words and his eyes gleamed and he was frightful to behold. “Tomorrow, prepare to invade Mactan! We will force the ruler to his knees. And on his knees he will taste Spanish steel!”

XXI

April 27, 1521

Midnight.

A stark slice of moon.

Stars white as salt.

The soft slap of water.

My hands, sweaty already, pulled against the oars.

From the shore of Cebu, a bird cawed, its cry shattering the stillness. Dogs began to bark.

“It is an evil omen,” Enrique whispered, his dark face hidden in the night.

We pulled away from the island of Cebu and started across the narrow channel separating Cebu from Mactan. The barking of the dogs followed us, seemingly forever, barking, barking, until finally, after perhaps an hour, there was silence. Naught but the slap of oars.

Twenty of us bunched together in one of three longboats. At our feet lay pikes, harquebuses, crossbows, and swords. For myself, when it was not my turn to row, I clutched my crossbow and fingered the edge of my sword. A knotted fear writhed within my bowels. Would I live to see the morrow? Or would the screaming, painted face of a savage be the last I would see? I prayed to the Virgin for courage.

Through the darkness the island of Mactan loomed like a predator hidden in the brush. Rocks jutted like fangs through the waters and we hove to, not daring to row any closer. It would be three hours until daylight. A quick conference was held among the captains of the three longboats and Humabon, who commanded one thousand warriors in thirty large canoes.

It was decided. We would wait until dawn. The shore was too treacherous to navigate under cover of darkness.

I shivered. While we waited, a light mist descended. Coldness seeped into me, slithering beneath my armor like a serpent. Mosquitoes plagued me, biting my face, my neck, my hands, and I swatted them constantly.

I looked to the prow of the longboat where the captain-general sat. Oblivious to the insects, he stared unmoving and unblinking at the dark mass of land.

When Magallanes had announced his intention to attack Mactan, there had been immediate and loud opposition. The other two captains, Serrano and a young man with a jagged scar across his nose, had pleaded with the captain-general to reconsider. “Our mission is not to meddle in the local affairs of natives,” cried Serrano, his older, softened features suddenly turning hard. “We are not missionaries. We are not settlers of new colonies. We have been commissioned by the king to seek the Spice Islands and to bring home spices.”

The younger captain agreed and called the mission foolhardy. “Remember the fate of the explorer devoured by cannibals! You should not leave your ships for such an unimportant venture. The loss of our commander would devastate our voyage. I beg you to reconsider!”

“Silence! I will hear no opposition! I refuse to listen while you sow seeds of fear and cowardice! Did God lead us so far only to desert us now? Are we to quail when faced with battle? Did Moses submit to Pharaoh? Did David quake before the Philistines? With God on our side, we cannot fail!”

“I refuse to be party to such a venture!” cried Serrano.

“I also refuse,” said the scar-nosed captain, “and I urge you most vehemently to forsake this madness.”

Magallanes’s face twisted with fury. “Madness? You dare to call God’s holy work madness? Upon my honor and with God’s holy sword, I tell you that were I to have a handful of untried men, boys even, I could defeat one hundred times their number.”

“You would be annihilated,” said Serrano. He sounded tired, beaten.

“It is impossible for an army of God to be annihilated!” Magallanes roared, his eyes aflame, and in that moment I was terrified of him. “And to prove it, I shall have no man by my side who does not volunteer, who does not willingly side with me, knowing that I do the work of God Almighty.”

“That is insane!” cried the younger captain.

“None!” Magallanes bellowed. “Even Espinosa and his marines will remain behind! I will prove to you that even with an army of untried men, we shall show these natives the power of our might. With a few we shall conquer many, and when we are victorious, none shall dare oppose Humabon. These islands shall belong to Spain. There shall be none mightier than the king!”

Espinosa pushed his way forward through the crew. “Captain-General, please, you must listen. I cannot allow you to follow such madness. I will lead the battle. You must stay with—”

“Do not speak to me of madness! We cannot fail! Do you understand me? Failure is impossible when we are led by God’s holy light and the presence of the Divine Virgin! With my cross and my sword I shall prevail!”

When Humabon heard of the impending attack on Mactan, he also begged Magallanes to reconsider. And when Magallanes again refused, Humabon said, “Let me attack Mactan first with a thousand of my best warriors. We know their defenses. We know the look and feel of the island in the darkness. When we signal, then you come with your armed men. They will be fresh and ready to fight. In this way we will defeat Mactan.”

Magallanes had bowed before Humabon. “My honored friend, you may bring your thousand warriors, but I forbid them to leave their canoes. You must keep out of battle. And from the comfort of your canoes, Rajah Humabon, you and your warriors will see how Spaniards fight. You will see how our enemies scatter before us like chaff in the wind.”

A fighting force of sixty volunteers was assembled. Barbers, cabin boys, seamen, dignitaries. Men who had never before fired a crossbow or a harquebus. Men who had never before held a sword while it pierced the body of another.

As I had hurried across the waist deck to fetch a suit of armor from Espinosa, I saw Rodrigo. He stood bare-chested, his feet wide apart, swinging a broadsword from side to side, grunting with the effort. The air whistled as the blade sliced up and down.

“Then you are going, too?” I had asked, surprised.

“Yes, I am going.”

“But why?”

Rodrigo ignored me, saying nothing, still swinging the sword. Finally he stopped, glistening with sweat. His chest heaved. He looked at me then, as serious as I had ever seen him. “Because the captain-general has gone mad.”

I said nothing.

“Because, mad or not, he has led us this far, and if I let him go into battle without my sword to protect him, then I am not a man. A man of honor, anyway.”

I blinked, stunned.

He peered down the length of his sword, as if to check its straightness. He ran a finger along its edge. “Besides,” he continued, his mouth curving into a half grin, “I can’t let you have all the adventure, can I?”

A lump grew in my throat as we clasped hands.

“I’ll watch your back, brother,” he said.

“Aye, and I yours.”

Later Espinosa helped me into my armor. His face looked harsh in the lantern light, and when he spoke, his voice broke, as if already grieved. “Stay by the captain-general’s side, Mateo. Protect him at all costs. Put all doubts aside. This is battle and you are a warrior. Do not hesitate to kill. Remember, Mateo. You are a warrior.”

You are a warrior . . . you are a warrior . . .

Red-orange streaks of light.

The stink of fear.

The creak of the boat.

The clank of steel.

Rodrigo across from me. Knuckles bone white against the hilt of his sword. Forehead beaded with perspiration.

With a wave of his hand, Magallanes said, “Take the longboats in as far as you can.”

The longboats moved—silent, gliding birds—into a small bay, leaving the canoes of Humabon and his thousand warriors behind. Forbidden by Magallanes to enter into combat, they would observe the battle from a distance. In the shelter of the bay a village slept, unaware.

Still far from shore, the longboats’ passage blocked by a coral reef, Magallanes ordered us to drop anchor. “The tide is too low. From here we walk. Remove your leg armor.”

After doing his bidding, I dropped into the sea. Water lapped around my thighs, cool at first, quickly turning warm. Rodrigo handed me my weapons and then lowered himself into the water.

In the pale light of dawn, forty-eight men followed Magallanes. The gunners stayed in the longboats to provide covering fire from the swivel guns. None of us spoke, but we all knew that once we reached but halfway to shore, we would be out of range of the swivel guns. I wondered why we had not waited for high tide.

It took us an eternity to wade to shore in the dim morning light. My legs grew heavy. I stumbled over coral, sharp as daggers, hidden beneath the shallows. Under my armor, moisture drenched my clothing, whether from sweat or from the splashing of water I knew not. My breath came in gasps and the thud of my heart sounded in my ears.

We reached shore silently, without opposition. Magallanes waited until all forty-eight men stood on the beach.

Then he ordered the village burned.

A seaman lit a torch and set the first hut ablaze. It caught quickly and the flames snapped and black smoke roiled as the seaman ran to the next hut. And the next. Soon, twenty huts burned like giant torches and still we saw no natives. The village was deserted.

As the seaman thrust his torch into yet another hut, a black object hurtled toward him. I stared while he staggered back and fell, an arrow protruding from his throat.

Immediately the woods to either side of us erupted with natives. They poured toward us like flame, their mouths open, screaming, terrifying. All became bedlam. Chaos. The whine of arrows. The crack of armor. The snap of crossbows. Screams of dying men. Stones falling like rain. The deafening roar in my ears. The smell of blood, sharp, sickening. My own fear. Knotted. Writhing in my bowels.

O Mother Mary! God in Heaven!

There were hundreds of them. Thousands.

“Retreat! Retreat!” cried Magallanes. He began to back away from the village toward the beach. He slashed at the natives with giant swings of his sword. Along with Rodrigo, Enrique, and several others, I flanked his side. Loaded my crossbow. Fired. Again. Again.

We reached the water. I ran out of crossbow bolts and tossed away the crossbow, pulling my sword from its sheath. I held it in front of me with both hands.
Protect him at all costs. You are a warrior.

I glanced behind us, toward the waiting longboats, and what I saw caused my heart to freeze with horror. The rest of our men, twenty, thirty of them, had fled in panic. Already they were halfway to the longboats. “Cowards!” I screamed to their backs. “Cowards!”

By now the natives knew which one was our leader. They hurled their spears at Magallanes, and when the weapons glanced off his armor, they picked up their spears and hurled them again.

Back we stumbled into the water. Warmth lapped around my knees.

They knocked off the captain-general’s helmet. I fetched it from the water and thrust it back on his head. My arms wearied. My muscles screamed. Still I raised my sword and slashed.

You are a warrior.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash. Heard a strangled cry. Then Rodrigo went down. A spear through his throat. I screamed, dropped my sword, and fell by his side. “Rodrigo!” I raised his head from the water. “He’s drowning! He’s drowning!” A wisp of blood spilled from around the spear.

“He is dead! Leave him! Re—” The voice of Magallanes cut off as an arrow pierced his thigh. He cursed with pain. “Mateo!” he gasped. “Retreat! I order you!”

I cried with anguish and laid Rodrigo back into the water. As I fished for my sword, a blow hit me on the back of my head, knocking my helmet away. Another blow, and the waters beneath me swirled in a haze of blue.

Someone grabbed me from behind and pulled me to my feet. Into my hands someone thrust a sword. Again I swung. Again. And with each swing I screamed like a man gone mad.

A man fighting in front of Magallanes twirled around suddenly, and a strange light entered his eyes. With a creak of armor, he crumpled to the waters and sank beneath them.

Magallanes bellowed like a bull and his sword flashed and the head of the native who had slain this man splattered into two pieces. Magallanes charged through the natives, away from the longboats, screaming for us to retreat.

Protect him at all costs!

I lurched toward him, but I was too late.

A flash of light.

A spear.

It flew through the air and struck the captain-general in the face. At the same time a native slashed Magallanes’s leg with a knife and he fell into the water. “Retreat!” was the last word we heard him cry.

I screamed.

Someone grabbed my arm. “Mateo! Hurry, or we will all be slain!”

As I followed, stumbling over coral, lurching toward the longboats, I glanced over my shoulder. A swarm of natives surrounded our captain-general, savagely thrusting their spears into his throat, his legs, his arms. Again a wail of anguish burst from my throat.

Magallanes was dead.