Chapter 36 Columbus by Rafael Sabatini
TE DEUM
“From the King and the Queen
“To the High and Mighty Don Cristobal Colon, their Admiral of the Ocean-Sea and Viceroy and Governor of the Islands discovered in the Indies.”
Thus ran the superscription of a letter from the Sovereigns handed to Colon by a royal envoy who met him at Seville on the morrow of his arrival there.
He had paused in that city, housed in the palace of the Count of Cifuentes, who entertained him as if he were royal.
In itself the superscription conveyed a foretaste of the more than nattering terms in which the Sovereigns wrote to him. Never perhaps was royal letter to a subject penned so lovingly and gratefully, or with such unmeasured acknowledgment of the debt in which his achievement placed the crown. For nowhere was the delirium of wonder at this acquisition by Spain of an empire of illimitable possibilities higher than in the hearts of Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand. It was a letter to intoxicate a man less eager than Colon for the pomp and vanities of the world. But if his heart swelled and his pride was inflated, he suffered no sign of it to appear. There was no need now for jactancy in an attempt to magnify himself. Sufficiently had his achievements magnified him. There was no need to stand upon his dignity so as to increase his stature, for already the events had lent him in the eyes of the world a stature more than royal.
The terms of the Sovereigns’ letter were not merely gracious: they were affectionate. He was bidden by them to hasten to the Court at Barcelona, there in person to render an account of this new empire. He was urged to take order at once for the equipment of a fresh and vastly greater expedition, and the treasury, from which erst a few maravedis had so laboriously been wrung, was now virtually placed with all else in Spain at his command. With an assurance of the welcome awaiting him, the letter closed on a promise of new titles and dignities.
He reached Barcelona by the middle of April, after a progress across Spain which Las Casas likens to the triumph of a returning victorious Roman Emperor.
Nothing, however, on that journey could match the arrival.
Out from Barcelona to meet him and escort him into the city came by command of the Sovereigns a courtly cavalcade, including representatives of the best blood in Spain. Triumphal arches, draped balconies, blaring of trumpets, booming of guns, and blossoms showered upon him marked his passage through the crowded streets to the Palace.
Under a canopy of cloth of gold, set up in the main hall so that his reception should be as public as possible, the Sovereigns awaited him. The entire Court was in attendance: grandes of Spain in velvet and brocades, mantled knights of Calatrava and Santiago, prelates in purple, the Cardinal of Spain in scarlet, captains in glittering steel, were ranged in a crescent broken by the canopy, the ladies ranged at the foot and to the right of the dais, beside the Queen.
A flourish of trumpets heralded his coming, and sent a rustle of expectancy through the noble assembly.
The arras was drawn aside from the arched entrance by two tabarded ushers, and he appeared, tall, commanding, his head high, his countenance a mask of composure upon his inward agitation. He was studiedly dressed for effectiveness in two shades of red, his wide-sleeved surcoat edged with sable.
With calculation he paused a moment on the threshold, focus of every eye in that vast hall.
Immediately behind the Queen, the Marchioness of Moya considered him with a heightened colour and a sparkle of excitement in her fine eyes, exulting in this supreme triumph of one who, had she so willed it, she might once have claimed for her own. Near the King, Santangel found his sight dimmed by a tear of pride in this man who so richly had repaid his affection and support. At the side of Prince Juan, a well-grown stripling of a dozen years, young Diego Colon, much petted in these last days for his great father’s sake, grinned broadly as he looked upon that princely figure.
After that moment of impressive, unembarrassed pause, Colon came forward towards the throne, with a brisk, elastic step, and then occurred a thing without precedent in the memory of the oldest courtier. Their Highnesses rose from their gilded chairs of state, to receive the Admiral standing.
It made him quicken his step to the royal dais, where he knelt to kiss the royal hands so eagerly extended to him, whilst royal eyes smiled benevolent welcome. By those hands he was immediately raised, and not only from his knees. The Queen turned to Fonseca, the yellow globe of whose hairless head and face was craned forward the better to view the upstart whose achievement marked the presumption in which the priest had once opposed him.
“Don Juan,” was her incredible command, “be good enough to advance a chair for Don Cristobal.”
The yellow face grew yellower, the beady eyes were baleful with disgust. Not only was this foreign adventurer to be seated in the royal presence, but a gentleman of Castile, a hidalgo born, was to play the lackey to him and set a chair. Perforce Don Juan must swallow his resentment, and obey.
“Pray sit, Don Cristobal,” the Queen invited, as she, herself, resumed her chair.
Even Colon’s audacity was daunted. “Too great an honour, Highness,” he deprecated.
King Ferdinand smiled, as warm to-day as Colon had ever known him frosty. “Too great for any but the greatest. Be seated, my Lord Viceroy.”
Colon conquered his awe, a transient emotion to which you will have gathered that he was not subject. He sat, and his glance, spuriously calm, swept round the semi-circle of standing nobles and prelates, more than one of whom was on the edge of consternation. Meeting at the end the smile of the Marchioness of Moya, there was in his light eyes the suspicion of a mischievous responsive twinkle.
“We are here,” said the smiling Queen, “to hear you, Don Cristobal, on your great adventure.”
His answer had been well-rehearsed. “May it please your Highness, by the grace of God, in whose hands I am but an instrument, as I have always protested, without always being believed, I am to lay at the foot of your noble throne an empire of a vastness and wealth that are still incalculable.”
Having thus, as he was ever careful to do, pointed to his own consequence, lest any part of it should be disregarded, he collected himself for a moment, and then began his tale.
His achievement was certainly one to make men marvel, and he would not have been true to himself had he permitted that to be overlooked or lessened. He spoke at length upon the islands discovered, giving—as he had done already in his letter—the size of Cuba as that of England and Scotland combined, and of Hispaniola as equivalent in area to the whole of Spain, besides the lesser islands, such as San Salvador where he had made his first landfall. He told of their delicious climate, the amazing fertility of their soil, the richness, abundance and variety of their fruits, of their great forests yielding magnificent timbers, of cotton, gums and spices to be had in incredible plenty, of their inhabitants who went naked in a state of primeval innocence, so meek of nature as to offer themselves as docile subjects ready for dominion and conversion to the Christian Faith. Then, having kept the best for the last, thus, cunningly, to provide a climax, he told of the inestimable wealth of those lands in gold and pearls and precious stones. The gold, he conveyed, was to be dug from the ground as readily as clay in Spain. There were mines to be established and worked with the abundant and ready labour their Highnesses’ new Indian subjects would supply. Pearls, he implied, were to be gathered by the bushel. And so far, he reminded them, no more than the fringe of his discovery had been touched, interrupted as it was by the loss of the Santa Maria and the propriety of returning home to report upon the lands of which he had so far taken possession. A multitude of islands, from what he had gleaned from his Lucayans, as primitively peopled, awaited occupation, together with the mainland of Asia beyond them.
Of the fact that he identified Hispaniola with the Zipangu of Marco Polo he cautiously made no mention yet. An element of doubt must have lingered with him to restrain him from an assertion that subsequent discovery might disprove.
Having at great length, heard throughout in hushed awe, painted in dazzling colours that astounding word-picture of his new world, he begged leave to present to their Highnesses the few tokens which he had brought home, so that they might obtain a glimpse of the actual substance of the marvels he related.
If he had cast a spell upon his audience by his words, he was further to astound them now by his exhibits.
Six Indians, three men and three girls, were marched in. Regrettably, as he explained, respect for their Highnesses and the Court prevented him from displaying them in their native nudity. The blankets mantling them had been supplied aboard. Even so they remained sufficiently startling to Spanish eyes.
The coarse, lank black hair of the men was adorned with parrot feathers, red and green. The red and black paint in circles round their eyes and in stripes along their cheeks lent their mild countenances an aspect of ferocity. The girls, slight, straight and golden-skinned, aroused a more admiring wonder.
Stalwart, and lithe as cats, the men advanced until Colon’s raised hand arrested them. Then they knelt and prostrated themselves before the Sovereigns so that their foreheads touched the ground.
When this was over, and these savages were ranged aside, to be stared at and to stare, a seventh was introduced. A stalwart handsome youth this, without any disfiguring paint on face or body. Save for a loincloth he was naked, his limbs like gleaming bronze. There was a tuft of parrots’ feathers in his black mane; round his right arm a flexible length of gold was coiled like a strap and he bore a green parrot hawk-wise upon his wrist.
He went down on one knee at the foot of the dais, and scratched the head of the parrot, murmuring softly to it. Under that stimulus the bird swayed on his wrist a moment like a dancer, and then gave tongue.
“Viva el Rey Don Fernando y la Reina Doña Isabel.”
At the miracle of a bird with human speech, the Queen shrank back startled, and there was a stir of amazement amounting almost to consternation in the courtly throng.
The white teeth of the Indian flashed in a wide smile as he came erect again.
“Viva el Almirante!” screeched the parrot. “Viva Don Cristobal!”
“Viva!” the King responded, dumbfounded into that polite echo of the bird’s salutation. “This is a strange, uncanny marvel, Don Cristobal.”
“A marvel in appearance only, Highness,” Colon deprecated. “Others, many others, of which I bring you word are marvellous in reality.”
He dismissed the Lucayan to join his fellows, and introduced now a troop of his men, bearing panniers. From these he took in handfuls gold in dust, gold in crude lumps, gold wrought into barbaric ornaments, and auriferous stones, which in turn he proffered for their Highnesses to handle and admire.
“These are but specimens.” Colon gave a free rein to his optimism. “To bring you enough to fill this hall from floor to ceiling all that I require is ship-space in which to carry it.”
“That, by my faith,” said Ferdinand, “it shall be our care to provide.” With glowing eyes he fondled a handful of those precious lumps.
The Queen’s voice trembled with emotion. “What a power for good have you delivered into our hands, Don Cristobal.”
“In that, Highness, I count myself the most fortunate of men.”
So, too, thought the Court. And not all of it with satisfaction. To the jealous soul of many a courtier it was no pleasant sight to behold this foreign upstart exciting the wonder of the Sovereigns and winning honours which they, for all their hidalguia, could never hope to reach. More than one noble brow was darkened as Colon continued to spread his marvels: the grotesque masks, the statues rudely carved in a wood that was as hard as iron, the balls of cotton, the hammocks, the bows and arrows, brilliant stuffed birds and the rest—like a pedlar, they thought, spreading his wares to gull a foolish housewife, whilst the Sovereigns purred over him, petting him and flattering him with boundless praise.
When they could praise him no more, they bethought them of praising God. They went down on their knees on the dais, compelling by that pious example the entire Court to kneel with them. With tears in her eyes the Queen uttered a short prayer.
“Humbly we give Thee thanks, O Lord, for a bounty which we pray Thee teach us to employ to the greater honour and glory of Thy Holy Name.”
Inspired by this, and the more fully to give expression to what he divined to be in the Queen’s heart, Talavera raised his voice to intone the Te Deum laudamus. Instantly it was taken up by the entire assembly, and the hymn of thanksgiving reverberated through the great hall, awakening the echoes of the vaulted ceiling.