Chapter 3 Columbus by Rafael Sabatini
THE SPONSOR
Nothing in years of his peaceful conventual life had kindled such a fever in Frey Juan as the words and person of Cristobal Colon. He spent, as he afterwards confessed, a night in which distracting wakeful thoughts alternated with fantastic dreams of golden-roofed Zipangu—by which name it is universally accepted that Marco Polo designates Japan—and of glittering jewelled islands dense with monstrous canes that gushed forth wine when tapped. It distressed his Spanish soul that empire over such lands should be lost to the Sovereigns, who had such need of treasure to repair the ravages of their war against the Infidel. His feelings in the matter were at once patriotic and personal. It was natural that having once been the confessor of Queen Isabel, his devotion to her was not merely that of a loyal subject; it included an affectionate paternal regard, reciprocated in her, he liked to believe, by a measure of filial piety. Representations from him on behalf of his odd guest might induce her to give the man’s claims that consideration which Colon complained had formerly been denied them.
Pondering this as he lay wakeful on his hard pallet, the good Prior was ready to perceive the hand of God in the strange chance that had brought Colon to La Rabida. He was not to suspect that here was no chance at all; that Colon, as coldly calculating in furthering his aims as he was fiery in expounding them, well aware of Frey Juan’s interest in cosmography and of the link that bound him to the Queen, had made his way of deliberate intent to the convent, there to dangle a bait before the Franciscan’s eyes. The Prior’s curiosity, aroused by the ring of the wayfarer’s sonorous voice, had simplified the course. Had it been lacking—and it is clear that Colon cannot have counted upon it—the request for a little bread and a drink of water for his child would have been followed by a prayer for a night’s lodging. In the course of that he must have made an opportunity for just such an interview as Frey Juan’s interest had spontaneously supplied.
Suspecting none of this, the Prior asked himself was there a miraculous quality, a divine intervention, in the sequel to the hospitality he had offered. It was, however, in the nature of Frey Juan to temper enthusiasm with prudence. Before committing himself to sponsoring Colon’s case, he would seek confirmation by others, more competent to judge, of the faith the man inspired in him.
The others whom he had in mind were Garcia Fernandez, a physician of Palos whose learning extended far beyond the healer’s arts, and Martin Alonso Pinzon, a wealthy merchant who had followed the sea, who owned some ships, and who was known for a mariner of great experience.
To his persuasions that Colon should postpone departure for at least another day, his guest yielded with a lofty air of bestowing favours, and on that second night after supper, when little Diego was abed, the four assembled in the Prior’s cell. They crowded the narrow little room, whose furniture included no more than three chairs, a table, a writing-pulpit and Frey Juan’s truckle-bed, with two shelves of books against the whitewashed wall.
There Colon was invited to repeat the exposition with which he had entertained Frey Juan last night. He came to it with hints of a vague reluctance be it to weary these gentlemen, be it to weary himself. But having begun and being caught up in the glow of his own ardour, the manifestly eager attention of his audience came to feed it. Expounding, he left his chair to pace the narrow limits of the cell, fiery of eye and liberal of gesture. He spoke in withering scorn of those who had disdained his gifts, and with haughty confidence of the irresistible power within him ultimately to open purblind eyes to a dazzling vision of those gifts.
Already before he came to those details which had so impressed Frey Juan, both the physician and the merchant were held by that power, which Bishop Las Casas, who knew him, tells us that Colon possessed, easily to command the love of all who beheld him.
Fernandez, the physician, lean and long, with a head shaped like an egg and as bald under his skull-cap, combed a straggling beard with bony fingers as he listened, his pale eyes wide, his body hunched within the black gabardine that clothed it. Sheath by sheath the scepticism in which he had been wrapped was being ruthlessly stripped from him.
Pinzon, on the other hand, yielded himself up readily to that fierce sorcery. He had come in unsuspected eagerness to the Prior’s invitation because the matters upon which he was told that he was to hear this voyager were matters that had long lain within his own speculations. A square, vigorous, hairy man in the prime of life, bow-legged, with eyes vividly blue under thick black eyebrows, he had something of the mariner’s traditional easy, hearty manner. His lips showed very red within the black beard, but the mouth was too pinched and small for generosity. His sober affluence was advertised in a wine-coloured surcoat of velvet edged with lynx fur and the boots of fine Cordovan leather that cased his sturdy legs.
By the time the exposition reached its end these two who had been brought to sit in judgment scarcely needed for their conviction that Colon should unfold a chart on which to the known world he had added those territories of whose existence he was persuaded by his own inner light, besides Marco Polo and the Prophet Esdras. Nevertheless over that map, spread upon the Prior’s table, they came reverently to pore at his bidding.
Fernandez, from his studies, and Pinzon, from his wide experience, were able to appraise not merely its clear perfection as a piece of cartography, but, save in one detail, its scrupulous exactitude in delineating the known world.
Upon this detail the old physician fastened. “Your chart gives two hundred and thirty degrees of the earth’s circumference as the distance from Lisbon to the eastern end of the Indies. That does not accord, I think, with Ptolemy.”
Colon received the criticism as if he welcomed it. “Nor yet with Marinus of Tyre, whom Ptolemy corrected, just as Ptolemy stands corrected here. I correct him also, you’ll observe, in the position of Thule, which I, having sailed beyond it, found farther to the west than Ptolemy judged it.”
But Fernandez insisted. “That is your authority. Your sufficient authority. But for the position you give to India what authority exists?”
It was a moment before Colon replied, and then he spoke with a slow reluctance, as if something more were being dragged from him than he cared to give.
“You’ll have heard of Toscanelli of Florence?”
“Paolo del Pozzo Toscanelli? What student of cosmography has not?”
Well might Fernandez ask the question, for the name of Toscanelli, lately dead, was famous among cultured men as that of the greatest mathematician and physicist that had ever lived.
Pinzon’s deep voice boomed in: “Who has not, indeed?”
“He is my authority. The computation that corrects Ptolemy’s is his as well as mine.” Brusquely he added: “But what matter even if it be in error? What matter if the golden Zipangu should lie some fewer or some more degrees in either direction? What is that to the main issue? It needs not the word of a Toscanelli to establish that whether we go east or west upon a sphere, ultimately the same point must be reached.”
“It may not need his word, as you say, but your case would be immeasurably strengthened if you could show that this great mathematician holds the same opinion.”
“I can show it.” He spoke hastily, and would have recalled the words, for it offended his vanity that it should be supposed that his conclusions had been inspired by another.
The sudden, almost startled interest created by his assertion drove him to explanation.
“As soon as I could formulate my theories, I submitted them to Toscanelli. He wrote to me, not only fully approving of them, but sending me a chart of his own, which in the main corresponds with the one before you.”
Frey Juan leaned forward eagerly. “You possess that chart?”
“That and the letter setting forth the arguments that justify it.”
“Those,” said Fernandez, “are very valuable documents. I do not think a man lives with learning enough to dispute Toscanelli’s conclusions.”
Bluntly vehement, Pinzon swore by God and Our Lady that for him so much was not necessary. Master Colon’s speculations had pierced the very heart of truth.
The Prior, sprawling on the truckle-bed, purred now with satisfaction, declaring that it could not be God’s will that Spain, where He was so faithfully served, should lose the power and credit to accrue from discoveries vaster than any the Portuguese navigators had made.
From Colon, however, these protests evoked no further response. On the contrary, his manner became coldly forbidding.
“Spain has had her opportunity, and has neglected it. Engrossed in the conquest of a province from the Moors, the Sovereigns could not see the empire with which I offered to endow their crown. In Portugal a King who looked with favour on my plans, left decision to a Jew astronomer, a doctor and a churchman, a motley commission that rejected me, as I believe from malice. That is why I look afield. Too many years already have I lost.” He folded his map with an air of finality.
But the astute Pinzon, who knew his world far better than the other two, was less susceptible to awe of personalities. He asked himself why, if this man’s decision to go to France were as irrevocable as he pretended, he should have been at the trouble now of so full an exposition of his theories. In Pinzon’s view, what Colon sought whilst seeming to disdain it, was assistance in the execution of his tremendous aims. And so Pinzon addressed himself to the persuasion which he guessed to be invited.
He would be unworthy, he vowed, of the name of Spaniard, if, believing what they had now heard, he should neglect to endeavour to secure for Spain the possessions that would result from their discovery.
“I thank you, sir,” was the lofty answer, “for this ready faith in me.”
Pinzon, however, would not leave it there. “It is so solid, so much in accord with notions that have been mine, that I could even wish to bear some share in the adventure, to set some stake upon it. Give it thought, sir. Let us talk of it again.” There was about him an eagerness scarcely veiled. “I could muster a ship or two and the means to equip them. Give it thought.”
“Again I thank you. But this is no matter for private enterprise.”
“Why not? Why should such benefits be for princes only?”
“Because such undertakings need the authority of a crown behind them. The control of lands beyond the seas and of the riches they may yield demand the forces that only a monarch can supply. If it were not so I should not have wasted all these years in battering upon the doors of princes, suffering denial at the hands of numskull doorkeepers.”
The Prior, out of sympathy with, indeed momentarily dismayed by, Pinzon’s urgings, and relieved to hear them thus repelled, bestirred himself to intervene. “There I might assist you. Especially now that I know of the formidable weapon with which you are armed. I mean this Toscanelli chart. Humble as I am, I could perhaps command the ear of Queen Isabel. For the piety and goodness of her Highness maintains in her a kindness for one who was once her confessor.”
“Ah!” said Colon, as if this were news to him.
Inscrutable, he listened whilst Frey Juan pleaded now, echoing Pinzon’s sentiments that it were shameful in any Spaniard to suffer so great a thing to be lost to Spain and go to the magnification of any other kingdom. Let Master Colon be patient yet a little while. Having waited years, let him now wait but some few weeks. To-morrow, if Colon consented, Frey Juan would ride out to seek the Court, before Granada or wherever it might be, to use with her Highness such influence as by her goodness he possessed, to the end that she might accord an audience to Colon, and hear his proposals from his own lips. Frey Juan would be as speedy as lay in human power, and in the meantime at La Rabida Master Colon would be well cared for with his child.
The note of intercession deepened in the friar’s voice as he proceeded. He became almost lachrymose in his fervent endeavour to break through the cold aloofness in which the tall adventurer stood mantled.
When he ceased at last, his plump hands joined as if in prayer, Colon fetched a sigh. “You tempt me sorely, good father,” he said, and turned away. He paced to the window followed by two pairs of anxious eyes, the Prior’s and the physician’s. In the glance of the merchant Pinzon, who knew his world and the ways of bargainers, there was less anxiety than shrewd mistrust.
At the room’s end Colon slowly turned. He tossed his red head, and, majesty incarnate in a shabby coat, he conferred the favour asked.
“Impossible to refuse what is so graciously offered. Be it as you wish, Sir Prior.”
The Prior bore down upon him, smiling his gratitude. Behind him Martin Alonso laughed outright. Frey Juan supposed it an expression of pure joy, as well it may have been, for there is joy in seeing fulfilled the predictions of our judgment.