Yesterday, Thursday, we came to know what we had never wanted to know and heard what we had never wanted to hear: it is fitting to know that Guzmán has burned down the very loyal town of Medina. As God the Lord is our witness, if he burned the houses in that town, he will roast our entrails. But hold, señores, as true that as Medina was lost for Segovia, either no memory shall remain of Segovia, or Segovia will avenge the injury to Medina. We have been informed that you battled against Guzmán, not like merchants, but like captains; not as if unprepared, but defiantly, not like weak men, but like strong lions. And as you are sane men, give thanks to God for the burning, that it afforded you opportunity to achieve such glory. For beyond comparison you must hold greater the fame you earned than the properties you lost. The disasters of war stir us to move the General Junta from Avila to Valladolid, and from there to continue the struggle for the general remedying of the kingdom, occasioned by bad governing and the counsel our Señor the King has received, conquered in Medina, conquered in Segovia, conqueror in Torresillas and in Torrelobatón, my defeats and victories are all victories, for I provoked and goaded the townsmen to war with tears in their eyes and affronted dignity, bad judges of cold military calculation, but what do such victories and calamities mean to me if I still have not vanquished you? Guzmán had said to the young pilgrim of the new world brought once again by Guzmán to the site of the first hunt on the spurs of the Cantabrian range, and in view of the coast, you see that I am loyal, youth, you came from here, I bring you again to this very spot, on a clear day from this height one can see the beach and the Cabo de los Desastres, El Señor told me, set him free, one of his brothers sleeps forever, fast in bed in Verdín, and the other purges his pleasure and heresy in a prison of mirrors, the prophecy has been defeated, there are not three now, or two, but only one, let him go free, there is no way he can harm us, and all our efforts must be directed against the rebellious townsmen, who in truth are threatening us, not against a poor wretch who dreamed a new world, he says you were three, that is what the blind flautist and the girl with the tattooed lips led us to believe, but Guzmán is not so easily deceived, I know the truth, there was only one, I never saw the three together, and what the eyes do not behold, the mind does not understand, I saw the same one every time, in different places, in different attires, and with different persons, they are all you, you are all three, I asked El Señor, Sire, let me set him free in my own manner, with as much justice and as much chance as the hart is given in the hunt, and he agreed, and that is why, now, you, the last youth, blond, pursued, you, trembling with cold, in ragged clothing, you, who knew the dangers of the high seas, the beach of pearls, the town beside the river, the virgin jungle, the sacred wells, the smoking pyramids, the snowy volcano, the entrails of the white hell, the city of the lake, the palaces of gold of the new world, that is why you have been running, walking, falling, struggling to your feet, since yesterday, Guzmán said he would give you one day’s start, then would follow to hunt you, it has snowed all day, first that fact frightened you, all the footsteps of your route through the mountains, toward the sea, would leave a trail, he had warned you of that, you will have one day’s start, but it is snowing, snow erases old trails, one easily finds the fresh track, the wind blows snow from the branches, a good time to run new game, the dogs will be well baited, but by dusk the wind began to blow strong from the knife-edge ridges of the mountain and looking back you saw that it was hidden beneath a cape of white snow and with it the track of your feet; you had won or lost a day’s advantage: you can see the signal tied to a lance by the lookouts on the highest point of the mountain, placed so that everyone sees it, even you: it is the call to flush the stag; you stop for a moment in the midst of the storm that as it muffles the sound of horns and trumpets seems to impose an illusory silence over the snowy clearing through which you have fled from the mountain; but suddenly the storm died down, Guzmán loosed one pack of dogs, and then another, and then a third; you count each wave of barking behind you, Guzmán told you, freedom, freedom, you came here to speak of freedom, freedom for the new world beyond the sea, freedom for the new world here, you will see how long your freedom lasts, here or there, you will hear the cry of Spain every time they offer you your freedom: Long live chains! you hear the steadily approaching horns, Guzmán had instructed the crossbowmen, these are dogs that will not follow a trail if they do not smell blood, kill that boar to excite them, you are a stag, pilgrim, Guzmán had told you, the easy way to kill an animal is from a distance, aiming at its side, the longest part of its body, but more audacious and fatal is to wound it face-on, to drive in your lance to the hilt, turn it, and then allow the hart to be subdued by the dogs, run, youth, run, pilgrim, run, founder, run, first man, run, Plumed Serpent, you do not know the wiles of the wild boars that as they come down from the mountain to graze in wheat fields send two or three little ones ahead, and as they enter the wheat they give them two or three quick thrusts of their tusks, making them squeal, then return to high ground where they can survey the field; they do this three times, until they are assured there is no hunter about, and the fourth time they descend without caution, and are easily hunted; you, no instinct, no wile, you run toward the sea, packs of dogs close behind you, Guzmán mounted, his favorite hawk upon his forearm, wrapped in dark-brown cape, hooded and heavily booted, I told you, hawk, beautiful hawk, fierce hawk, your hour would come, that hour is now, I prepared you for the great hunt, remember Guzmán, brave hawk, you are my weapon, my devotion, my child and my luxury, the mirror of my desires and the face of my hatred, and you see the sea before you through cobwebs of fog, the Cabo de los Desastres, the beach of Celestina’s and Pedro’s, Simón’s and Ludovico’s former dreams, the beach of Felipe’s deceit, the beach that received you and your two brothers in order to hasten history, destinies, the millennium, in the land of eternal vespers, Spain, Vespers, Hesperia, land of Venus, its own twin, in anguished and interminable search of its other countenance, Spain, you are running, again returning to that beneficent sea, your heart tells you that the sea will save you, in spite of everything, how near the terrible horns, barking, hoof beats, panting, you run like the hart, the fringe of desert between the mountains and the sea narrows, besieging greyhounds block any exit to the right, whippets to the left, the whippets must contain the greyhounds so they will not capture you too soon, you are trapped between two lines of menacing dogs, Guzmán knows his office well, the passage to the sandy beach narrows, you scramble down between icy-crusted dunes, you fall face down upon the beach, your arms flung in a cross, you rise, barking, horns, Guzmán on the height of the sand dunes, laughing, before you the misty sea, behind you, Guzmán and the huntsmen, Guzmán frees the hawk, go, hawk, beautiful hawk, I promised you, I did not deceive you, I swore to you, I will offer you the freshest flesh, that is your prey, soar into the skies with the swiftness of a prayer and swoop down with the speed of a curse, the hawk soars, the dogs run, you have not reached the sea, a greyhound’s jaws close about your arm, his fangs sink deep, tear your flesh, a whippet chases away the greyhound, you are free for a moment, you fall, you rise, your feet sink in the slime of the shore, turbulent waves break and die around your knees, the hawk soars, speeding like an arrow, it swoops swift as a curse, fastens onto your arm, digs its steely talons into your flesh, fixes upon your arm with its long tarsi, sinks its beak into the wounds opened by the dog’s fangs, you run into the sea, the bird still clinging to you, you struggle, you roll over, you beat at the bird, the falcon is devouring your arm, you try to swim, you cannot with a single arm, you try to drown this ferocious falconet, Guzmán, on horseback, is laughing from the dunes, you plunge the arm in the iron grip of the hawk into the sea, you sink, in the obscured heavens you seek the light of your star, Venus, the sailor’s guide, and in the depths of the sea, St. Elmo’s fire, flame of inseparable brothers, Marquis, kinsman: I write to apprise you that Tuesday last, the day of St. George, near the village of Villalar, our army joined battle — in which participated all the viceroys and governors of our kingdoms — against the army of rebels and traitors, in which it pleased Our Lord and His Blessed Mother to give us the victory without any harm to the men of our army, and from the enemy we recaptured the artillery they had taken from us and usurped, and all the ringleaders of the General Junta were taken prisoner and killed. Captain Don Guzmán was outstanding in this action, galloping on horseback, face flushed red, sweat streaming from a brow blackened by the agitation of his soul, hoarse from shouting to our men: Kill the accursed rebels; destroy the impious and dissolute upstarts; pardon no man; you shall enjoy eternal rest among the just if you eradicate from the earth this accursed people; do not forbear in wounding either in the front or in the back these disturbers of tranquillity. Before night fell, one could see the townsmen fleeing for a distance of two and a half leagues; one hundred men were dead on the field, four hundred were wounded, a thousand captured. Not one of our soldiers lost his life. Of the townsmen the most nimble saved themselves, and some who had the foresight to exchange our white crosses for the red crosses fastened to their breasts and backs that distinguished them from us. There reigns in Villalar, the tomb of the townsmen’s rebellion, more silence than in a village of only three men. Your most abject servitor and servant, who kisses your hands, kinsman Marquis, your most fervent, faithful and humble adept, etc., etc., etc., Guzmán asked a single favor from his King Don Felipe in reward for his actions, and that was to lead an expedition that would cross the great ocean in search of the new world and thereby ascertain its existence or non-existence; El Señor heartily acceded, giving proof of grace and munificence, and urging Guzmán to take with him many of the troublemakers of his kingdoms, men of excessive energy capable of disturbing his calm, so that the prayers and peace of his necropolis would not again be perturbed by heretics, rebels, madmen, and lovers: “For your hand is harsh, Guzmán, you will know how to discipline these upstarts, and how to use them to best advantage in the undertakings of great risk that only those who have nothing to lose will attempt”; Guzmán supervised in Cádiz the construction of a fleet of three-masted caravels with triangular sails rigged on masts distributed along the longitudinal plan of the ships; these caravels were a great novelty, for formerly the varinel had been used on such expeditions, a ship with both oars and sail, and the barque, whose conformation and round sail greatly reduced its maneuverability and speed. As he directed the construction of these new ships, and smiling to himself, Guzmán recalled the labors of the aged Pedro on the beach of the Cabo de los Desastres, for these new ships were as long as the varinel but with decks high as the barque’s, combining the advantages of both hulls, eliminating their defects, for the Latin-style triangular sail permitted lying closer to the wind, thereby receiving better advantage of it, and its lighter design resulted in greater agility in speed and maneuverability. El Señor provided for the expenses of the expedition a fund of two million maravedis expropriated from three families of exiled Jews, the Santángel, the Santa Fe, and the Bélez, and as warranty ordered the authorities of towns and villages along the Andalusian coast to provide Guzmán whatever goods he asked for his flotilla, allowing them to collect excise taxes. As additional warranty, El Señor promised that all who signed on board the caravels would be given security, and his promise that no one could harm their persons or their goods because of any crime they had committed. Thus three hundred men signed on, and as he watched them board the caravels with their sparse belongings, Guzmán smiled, guessing that here was the conquered townsman and there the common criminal, in this one he saw an impoverished nobleman, and in that one the pretended convert, in one a laborer of the land, and in another a rancorous smith. If only they had waited a little: Jerónimo, Nuño, Martín, Catilinón … He had not again seen that servile rascal given to speaking in proverbs. Had he been killed by mistake in the palace slaughter? Distracted, Guzmán did not notice the strange couple who arm in arm boarded one of the caravels. A hooded man, walking slowly, bent over with pain, one hand protecting his sex and the other resting upon the shoulder of a Mozarab of short stature and effeminate gait dressed in rags, his head shaved and features obscured by grime. It was almost the hour to set sail. Through the narrow windows of Cádiz, from behind the green shutters of their houses, peered pale, suspicious faces. Guzmán knew what they were thinking: they are headed for disaster, they are mad, and we will never see them again. He hoisted the pennants of the caravels. A message arrived from El Señor: wait two more days. Brother Julián, the palace iconographer, will join your expedition. Guzmán’s mouth tasted of gall.