Pastwatch- The Redemption Of Christopher Columbus - By Orson Scott Card Page 0,153

I can tell people the things you told me. All the rest of you, go."

They hoisted Cristoforo up onto the stockade. He braced himself against the pain, and swung down and landed on the other side. Almost at once he found himself face to face with one of the Taino. Dead Fish, if he could tell one Indian from another by moonlight. Dead Fish put his fingers against Cristoforo's lips. Be silent, he was saying.

The others came over the wall much more quickly than Cristoforo had. The only trouble was with the chest containing the logs and charts, but it was eventually handed over the top, followed by Escobedo.

"That's all of us," said Escobedo. "The Basque is already heading back to the drinking before he's missed."

"I fear for his life," said Cristoforo.

"He feared much more for yours."

The Tainos all carried weapons, but they did not brandish them or seem to be threatening in any way. And when Dead Fish took Cristoforo by the hand, the Captain-General followed him toward the woods.
* * *

Diko carefully removed the bandages. The healing was going well. She thought ruefully of the small quantity of antibiotics she had left. Oh, well. She had had enough for this, and with any luck she wouldn't need any more.

Cristoforo's eyes fluttered.

"So you aren't going to sleep forever after all," said Diko.

His eyes opened, and he tried to lift himself from the mat. He fell back at once.

"You're still weak," she said. "The flogging was bad enough, but the journey up the mountain wasn't good for you. You aren't a young man anymore."

He nodded weakly.

"Go back to sleep. Tomorrow you'll feel much better."

He shook his head. "Sees-in-the-Dark," he began.

"You can tell me tomorrow."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Tomorrow."

"You are a daughter of God," he said. It was hard for him to speak, to get the breath for it, to form the words. But he formed them. "You are my sister. You are a Christian."

"Tomorrow," she said.

"I don't care about the gold," he said.

"I know," she answered.

"I think you come to me from God," he said.

"I have come to you to help you make true Christians of the people here. Beginning with me. Tomorrow you'll start to teach me about Christ, so I can be the first baptized in this land."

"This is why I came here," he murmured.

She stroked his hair, his shoulders, his cheek. As he drifted back to sleep, she answered him with the same words. "This is why I came here."
* * *

Within a few days, the royal officers and several more loyal men found their way up the mountain to Ankuash. Cristoforo, now able to stand and walk for a while each day, set his men to work at once, helping the villagers with their work, teaching them Spanish and learning Taino as they did. The ship's boys took to this humble work quite naturally. It was much harder for the royal officers to swallow their pride and work alongside the villagers. But there was no compulsion. As long as they refused to help, they were simply ignored, until they finally realized that in Ankuash, the old hierarchical rules no longer applied. If you weren't helping, you didn't matter. These were men who were determined to matter. Escobedo was the first to forget his rank, and Segovia the last, but that was to be expected. The heavier the burden of office, the harder it was to set it down.

Runners from the valley brought news. With the royal officers gone, Pinzyn had accepted command of the stockade, but work on the new ship soon stopped, and there were tales of fighting among the Spaniards. More men slipped away and came up the mountain. Finally it came to a pitched battle. The gunfire could be heard all the way to Ankuash.

That night a dozen men arrived in the village. Among them was Pinzyn himself, wounded in the leg and weeping because his brother Vincente, who had been captain of the Nina, was dead. When his wound had been treated, he insisted on publicly begging the Captain-General's forgiveness, which Cristoforo freely gave.

With the last restraint removed, the two dozen men remaining in the stockade ventured out to try to capture some Tainos, to make them into slaves or whores. They failed, but two Tainos and a Spaniard died in the fighting. A runner came to Diko from Guacanagari. "We will kill them now," said the messenger. "Only the evil ones are left."

"I told Guacanagari it would be obvious when the time