The Confusion

Minerva’s idlers were now idle no more, as the new foremast had to be stepped and rigged. That procedure might have been interesting to Jack if it had been done in mid-ocean where there was nothing else to look at, but as it was, being on land had reminded him of how much he hated being aboard ship. He spent those days ashore, making friends with diverse Vagabonds and ne’er-do-wells, learning which of them were idiots and which merely independent-minded. Amboe and his band were obviously of the latter type, but most of these beach-people did not have such informative Narrations to tell, and Jack could sound them out only through carousing with them over a period of weeks. Jack had long since lost interest in carousing per se, but he recalled how it was done, and could still put on a performance of carousing that looked sincere but was in fact wholly affected, shrewd, and calculating. He was helped in this by his two sons, who really meant it.

Gentlefolk liked to claim that horsemanship was a noble art. If that were true, then half of the renegadoes on the beach at Port Marques were bastard sons of Dukes and Princes. New Spain bred horses the way London bred fleas, and many of these mulattoes and mestizoes could ride like cavaliers, even bareback. Jack of course was the last man on earth who’d ever believe that riding well was a sign of superior breeding. But he did know that riding badly was its own punishment, and that spirited horses could smell fools and poseurs from a mile away. Some of the Port Marques crowd would entertain themselves by roping wild beach-mustangs and riding them up and down the sand, forcing them against their will to gallop into breaking waves. From a musket-shot away Jack could see the white teeth of those riders as they laughed, and later on, as they gathered around driftwood-fires to eat the food of the country (maize flat-bread wrapped around meager helpings of beans and spicy stews), he would seek those men out and try to learn something of them, and he would ply them with rum to see if they had a weakness for liquor. Of all of these, the best man, in Jack’s opinion, was an African named Tomba, a member of Amboe’s band. Tomba was not a refuse slave; he had escaped from a sugar plantation in Jamaica. The scars on his back confirmed part of his story, which was that he’d fled to avoid being beaten to death by an overseer. The time he’d spent on the plantation, and at the English settlement on Haulover Creek, had given Tomba some knowledge of English, and he spent several long evenings sitting by the fire with Jimmy and Danny Shaftoe talking about what sons of bitches Englishmen were in general.

Almost three weeks after Minerva had dropped anchor at Port Marques, Edmund de Ath came out alone one morning from Acapulco, bearing sealed letters from the Viceroy. One was addressed to van Hoek and another to the Viceroy’s counterpart in Lima. Van Hoek opened his in Minerva’s dining cabin, in the presence of de Ath, Dappa, Jack, and Vrej.

Moseh’s vow compelled him to remain ashore. Later Jack rowed in on a skiff and found the Jew eating a taco.

“These Vagabond-boots are longing to Stray,” Jack said. “I reckon that tomorrow we will round up a posse of these vaqueros and desperadoes and begin to assemble a mule-train.”

Moseh finished chewing a bite of his taco and swallowed carefully. “The news is good, then.”

“We are all vile hereticks and profiteers, says the Viceroy, and ought to be whipped all the way to Boston…but Edmund de Ath has put in a good word for us.”

“Is that Ed’s version or…”

“It’s right there in black and white in the middle of the Viceroy’s letter, or so literate men assure me.”

“Very well,” said Moseh, dubiously. “I do not like being beholden to that Jansenist, but-”

“We are beholden to him anyway,” said Jack. “Do you recollect the fellow we had dealings with in Sanlucar de Barrameda?”

“That cargador metedoro? It’s been a while.”

“You don’t have to remember him personally, but only the class he belonged to.”

“Spanish Catholics who front for Protestant merchants…”

“…because hereticks are barred from doing business in Spain. You’ve got it.”

“The Viceroy wants our quicksilver,” Moseh said, “but as long as the Inquisition is active in Mexico City, he cannot allow Protestants and a Jew to roam about transacting business in his country. And so he insists that we nominate a Papist to act as our cargador metedoro.”

“Just so,” Jack said.

“And-don’t tell me-Edmund de Ath is our man. I am uneasy.”

“You are always uneasy, and more often than not, for the best of reasons,” Jack said, “but for God’s sake look about you and consider our situation. We must have a Catholic and that is all there is to it. There are many to choose from, but as a Belgian Jansenist, Ed is the least Catholic Catholic we are likely to find, and at least we know something about him.”

“Do we? The only person who can testify as to his character is Elizabeth de Obregon, and she’s been under his spell ever since she came to.”