Chapter 11 Columbus by Rafael Sabatini
THE AGENTS
In the best room, above stairs, in Cordoba’s best inn, the Fonda del Leon, the florid and flamboyant Messer Rocca held forth with more than a touch of vainglory to an audience of one.
“I brimmed him a full cup of the wine of flattery, and in his conceit he quaffed it to the dregs.” He quoted himself. “ ‘I was in the fight at Tunis, where your worthiness’s valour accomplished the rout of the Turkish galleys.’ ” And again: “ ‘This enterprise ahead of you: what honour to bear a part in it! What honour to serve under so great a captain!’ He gulped it so that he almost choked himself. It led me to offer to supply a ship. If he should yet succumb to that temptation, I might reasonably ask him to let me see his charts, and so we might find a short cut to our ends.”
He paused there for applause. But it did not come. His audience, a short square man, built like an ape for power rather than grace, was not by nature prodigal of applause. There was so much bone in his face, and so brown was it that it looked as if carved of walnut. Small eyes, like beads of jet, pierced the speaker with a steady look in which there was some contempt.
“To the devil with subtleties. Our orders are definite enough, and we’ll keep to them.”
Rocca was tolerant. “You can’t complain that I haven’t opened the way to it. Now that I’ve worked on his vanity to make him my friend, the rest should be easy. A warm man, if I’m a judge. We’ll keep to our orders, of course. But it need not prevent me from believing that the direct method would save a deal of time and trouble. Six inches of steel well placed between the ribs one evening, and . . .”
“And all might very well be lost if the chart were not upon him, as it wouldn’t be. The first thing to discover is where it is. He may have deposited it in the chancellery, as he did in Lisbon. In that case a deal of art will be necessary on the part of Beatriz. If on the other hand he keeps it by him, then we may use your direct methods. But first we must be sure. A false step and we ruin all by forewarning him. As Messer Sarasin made clear, the man is naught, the chart is all. You should remember that.”
“I’ve said that I’ll keep to the letter of the instructions.”
“You had better.”
“But time may defeat us. It is growing very short. That is what you do not know and Messer Sarasin did not take into account. I have it from Villamarga that the Sovereigns are about to become active in the matter. There’s a commission of Salamanca doctors being assembled to sit in judgment upon it.”
Momentarily the other’s attention quickened. It faded again at once. “A royal commission? And you ask if we have time? Bah! Royal commissions travel swift as snails, and never arrive. It is reassuring.”
“I am glad to hear it.”
“I am not saying that we should be dilatory. Precisely what relations have you established with this navigator?”
Della Rocca gave him details.
“A good beginning,” he was approved. “Now let it rest for a couple of days.” He was issuing orders rather than advice, and his flat voice had the ring of authority. For this man, who bore the ridiculous name of Gallina and whose god-parents, either with a sense of humour or the utter lack of it, had christened him Galeazzo, regarded by the Inquisitors of State as their shrewdest agent, was entrusted with the conduct of the affair. It was Rocca’s part to act as his coadjutor. Because of the difference between them, and because each possessed qualities which the other lacked, they might be said to complement each other, which was the very reason why Sarasin had associated them. Rocca, showy in dress and airy in manner, well able to carry off his assumptions of gentility, could move in Courts without appearing out of place. Gallina, of coarser fibre and ruder appearance and manner, was of a wider experience and proved ability in handling the darker business of the Inquisitors of State.
Rocca accepted his instructions. “At your pleasure.” Then he asked: “What of the girl?”
“She has settled with her Morisco, as she expected. She had worked for him before, and brought custom to his eating-house. He is glad to have her back.”
“Then all goes excellently. What’s for dinner?”
They were still at table in that upper room when La Gitanilla arrived.
She entered without ceremony, and they greeted her with none, not troubling to rise. She came forward, moving with her easy grace, thrusting back the hood that overshadowed her face. She unfastened and cast off her cloak, and took the chair at the foot of the table across which the two agents faced each other.
Her simple gown of clinging black, without adornments, stressed the pallor of her cheeks. There were dark stains under the hazel eyes, and a faint air of weariness hung about her, heightening the appeal of her unusual beauty.
“Gallina tells me that you have made your arrangements,” said Rocca.
She nodded. “It was not as easy as I thought. The times have changed since I was last in Cordoba. The Holy Office grows more vigilant of Moriscoes and Marranos, and Zagarte is nervous of the Dominican Brotherhood.” From her scornful drawl it might have been supposed that she was not, herself, a Christian. “He thinks it as well to supply what the Holy Office must approve. So he supplies a mystery—‘The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian.’ At first the good fool refused to introduce a profane interlude into this sacred spectacle. He was filled with horror; not at the profanity, but at the sacrifice of so rare a chance of profit.” She laughed on a note of some hardness. “With Cordoba full of soldiery, it would make his fortune to have me sing and dance for him again, whilst at present there are few who come to see his mystery, and those few eat little and drink less. He suffered, poor devil. He sweated in refusing me.”
“In refusing you?” cried Rocca. “But . . .”
“Oh, be easy.” She was derisive. “I overcame his difficulties for him. I have woven myself into his mystery. I am to be Irene, a young Christian who rescues Sebastian from death, and is herself martyred. I am to replace the lout of a boy who plays the part at present.”
Rocca looked none too pleased. “And do you think to forward matters by a nun-like mummery?”
“Nun-like! Vive Dios! I am to sing and dance. Is that nun-like?”
“In a mystery?”
“It supplies the occasion. My song will be a lament over the body of Sebastian, to the tune of Debajo de mi Ventana, which Venice loved to hear.”
Rocca goggled at her in horror. “You’ll end in the fire, my girl.”
“The piety of my words shall be my shield. Have no alarm. And my dance, too, shall be of the most pious.”
“Piety in a dance!” Rocca’s horror increased. “Holiness in Hell.”
She laughed at him. “We contrive it in Spain. You may see the seises in Holy Week danced before the High Altar in the Cathedral of Seville.”
Gallina grinned. “A crazy country in which any mad thing is possible. This may serve.”
“So far as the Holy Office is concerned, Zagarte has no misgivings. So you need have none. So far as this man Colon is concerned . . . Is he . . . . What manner of man is he?”
Rocca answered her. “Inflammable as sulphur. There’s a whisper at Court that his ardours all but brought him to ruin over the lovely Marchioness of Moya. Oh, a warm man, my dear. You’ve an easy task.”
“Easy?” Suddenly grave, she looked at him with dislike.
“Yes, easy. He’ll be wax in the hands of a girl of your spirit.”
She continued to frown upon his jovial, laughing face.
“It was in my mind to ask Zagarte to have a new mystery composed. The story of Samson. To the Philistine Delilah a dance would have come more naturally, a dance of allurement.” There was a bitterness in her tone, which escaped Rocca. He swore in his enthusiasm.
“Cospetto! That were well conceived. Nothing could serve better.”
He was warming to it when a sneer from Gallina that was like a blow came to enlighten him.
“She mocks you, you fool.”
Rocca’s prominent eyes were grave in wounded disapproval.
“Nay, sirs,” she told them, with a curl of her lip. “If I mock, I mock myself.”
Gallina condemned her. “That’s no proper spirit to bring to the work.”
“So that I perform it, what does the spirit matter to you? Give me to drink.”
He poured wine for her, to which she added water from an unglazed amphora of baked clay.