The sounds and scents of the sulking Indian women pounding and baking the cassava into bread* sent him almost insane with hunger. Back in Castile he would have scarcely entertained the idea of eating some island root pounded into flower by heathen hands. Today it smelled like manna from Heaven and the exotic women pounding it were, in his hunger-made-heretic heart, angels.

His clothes were ragged, but clean, he having spent his remaining pittance to have them rendered decent by a copper-hued laundress.

His cordovan boots, thankfully, he had had the presence of mind to cut down. He had retained the uppers to stitch over the exposed toes resulting from the ruinous conditions of these lands. Though his riding boots were now reduced to the lowliest footman’s shoes, he would not suffer the indignity of appearing before his haughty cousin with bare toes bursting forth and proclaiming his utter poverty.

His sword in its scabbard was suspended from a good baldric, one of the many left without an owner upon their return last year. The sword itself he kept diligently free of rust, using rendered pork fat to polish and coat it in this land where good honing oil was so scarce.

His cuirass was another matter. It seemed there was nothing one could do to keep the dented, gouged and scratched back and front plates that were a dozen times over his saviors from the rust that cursed this sweaty climate.

The plume on his helmet** had been replaced twice, now with the plumage of some bird he could scarcely name. The dent above his ear troubled him and rubbed. But the smith had snarled at him when he had begged for a repair on debt, so it rubbed his head bald at the point where that sling stone would have dashed out his brains.

He yet walked stiffly from the arrow wound to his thigh. However, thanks be to God, his every breath was no longer an agony. The arrow-stuck rib under his right arm that had saved his lung from puncture—and him from a torturous end such as befell his Captain—was healed.

He breathed freely.

He was young and strong.

He lived where many had died.

* As late as Soto's expedition 20 years later the Spaniards were still predominantly dependent on Indian women for their carbohydrates, with cassava bread forming the staple of their diet. Taino Indian women were brought along as bread makers even into the North American interior. It was not until well after the conquest of the mainland civilizations of South, Central and North America, which cultivated maize as their staple crop, that that American vegetable grain—cultivated in over 80 varieties—became the bread crop that sustained Spanish fighting men. The conquistadors were well-provided with protein, having successfully bred pigs on Hispaniola and Cuba and would introduce them to Florida. The current feral boar epidemic in the Southern United States is a direct legacy of the Spanish Conquistadors.

**This was not the distinctive morion, which did not come into use until 20 years later.

As he approached the house of his cousin, which was the seat of power for the Council of the Indies upon this island, the savory scent of cassava gave way to the scent of charred flesh. The Cuban heathens had risen again and been put down, two of their number having been roasted at the stake, one to the left, and one to the right, of the gate to the Governor’s House.

He found himself wondering if there could be soldiering worth paying for still to be done on this hunted island. And, if so, would he who had failed to return his Captain in good health, find favor with a retainer of fighting men?

Among the shield-bearing swordsmen, brawny pike men and sure-eyed arquebusiers idling about the house grounds none were familiar from among the men of The Expedition. These were all hardened fellows who had been in the Indies since the early years, or those members of his cousin’s inner circle who had come here with him when he had assumed the governorship. If Bernal Diaz had the good fortune to join this company, he would be the first of the late Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba’s company of adventurers to do so.

The ship’s boy he had sent ahead to announce his coming sat on the veranda, shaded from the sun by the cotton canopy, and fanning himself with a broad prickly leaf. The boy merely raised an eyebrow up at him. So much for the loyalty a promise bought in this cruel land of adventurers and gold seekers.

An Indian sat against the wall of the house stoically regarding his two broken feet. Bernal thought that he could gain a lesson by that heathen’s example and steeled himself. He would not merely be the little man before the big man, but would be the big man’s cousin—perhaps a might haughty himself, as befitted a man who had actually discovered a new land, rather than having claimed the prize bought with other men’s blood.*

*Bernal's cousin, Governor Diego Velazquez, had reported to the Royal Council for the Indies that he had personally discovered the new lands explored by Bernal and his companions, and exaggerated the expenses he had incurred in financing the expedition. In the first act of the Conquest of the New World Columbus was the fool hero and villain rolled into one tragic figure. In the second act DaVilla was far and away the villain. In looking for a villain in this third act, we need look no farther than Bernal's own cousin, whose first suggestion for a profitable undertaking had been raiding new lands for slaves.

To be concluded with Bookmark 3: Between Two Grinning Devils