Pastwatch- The Redemption Of Christopher Columbus - By Orson Scott Card Page 0,137

her. "You're as dark as a Moor."

"I am an African," she said. "Not a Moor, but from farther south."

"How did you come here, then?"

"Do you think you're the only voyager? Do you think you're the only one who can be sent to faraway lands to save the souls of the heathen?"

He rose to his feet. "I can see that after all my struggles, I have only now begun to face opposition. Did God send me to the Indies only to show me a Negress with a magic lamp?"

"This is not India," said Diko. "Or Cathay, or Cipangu. Those lie far, far to the west. This is another land entirely."

"You quote the words spoken to me by God himself, and then you tell me that God was wrong?"

"If you think back carefully, you will remember that he never said Cathay or Cipangu or India or any other such name," said Diko.

"How do you know this?"

"I saw you kneeling on the beach, and heard you take your oath in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost."

"Then why didn't I see you? If I could see the Holy Trinity, why were you invisible?"

"You dream of a great victory for Christianity," said Diko, ignoring his question because she couldn't think of an answer that would be comprehensible to him. "The liberation of Constantinople."

"Only as a step along the way to freeing Jerusalem," said Cristoforo.

"But I tell you that here, in this place, there are millions of souls who would accept Christianity if only you offer it to them peacefully, lovingly."

"How else would I offer it?"

"How else? Already you have written in your logbooks about how these people could be made to work. Already you talk about enslaving them."

He looked at her piercingly. "Who showed you my log?"

"You are not yet fit to teach these people Christianity, Cristoforo, because you are not yet a Christian."

He reached back his hand to strike at her. It surprised her, because he was not a violent man.

"Oh, will hitting me prove how Christian you are? Yes, I remember all the stories about how Jesus whipped Mary Magdelene. And the beatings he gave to Mary and Martha."

"I didn't hit you," he said.

"But it was your first desire, wasn't it?" she said. "Why? You are the most patient of men. You let those priests badger you and torment you for years, and you never lost your temper with them. Yet with me, you felt free to lash out. Why is that, Cristoforo?"

He looked at her, not answering.

"I'll tell you why. Because to you I'm not a human being, I'm a dog, less than a dog, because you would not beat a dog, would you? Just like the Portuguese, when you see a black woman you see a slave. And these brown people -- you can teach them the gospel of Christ and baptize them, but that doesn't stop you from wanting to make slaves of them and steal their gold from them."

"You can teach a dog to walk on its hind legs, but that doesn't make it a man."

"Oh, that's a clever bit of wisdom. That's just the kind of argument that rich men make about men like your father. Oh, he can dress in fine clothing, but he's still a country bumpkin, not worth treating with respect."

Cristoforo cried out in rage. "How dare you speak of my father that way!"

"I tell you that as long as you treat these people even worse than the rich men of Genova treated your father, you will never be pleasing to God."

The flap of the door opened wide, and Pedro and Escobedo stuck their heads into the house. "You cried out, my lord!" said Escobedo.

"I'm leaving," said Cristoforo.

He ducked and walked through the door. She turned off her lamp and followed him out into the afternoon light. All of Ankuash was gathered around, and the Spaniards all had their hands on their sword hilts. When they saw her -- so tall, so black -- they gasped, and some of the swords began to rise out of their sheaths. But Cristoforo waved the weapons back into place. "We're going," he announced. "There's nothing for us here."

"I know where the gold is!" cried Diko in Spanish. As she expected, it brought her the complete attention of all the white men. "It doesn't come from this island. It comes from farther west. I know where it is. I can take you there. I can show you so much gold that stories of it