Pastwatch- The Redemption Of Christopher Columbus - By Orson Scott Card Page 0,158

eyes.

"Tell my father," said Diego, "that many a man has been separated from his family by fortune or fate, and only an unworthy son would ask his father to apologize for coming home."

The land was purchased, and seven thousand Caribians began trading and purchasing throughout southern Spain. They caused much comment and not a little fear, but they all claimed to be Christians, they spent gold as freely as if they had dug it up like dirt, and their soldiers were heavily armed and highly disciplined.

It took a year to build the palace for the father of Queen Beatrice Tagiri, and when it was finished it was clear that it was really more of a city than a palace. Spanish architects had been hired to design a cathedral, a monastery, an abbey, and a university; Spanish workers had been well paid to do much of the labor, working side by side with the strange brown men of Caribia. Gradually the women who had come with the fleet began to venture out in public, wearing their lightweight, bright-colored gowns all through the summer, and then learning to wear warmer Spanish clothing when winter came. By the time the city of the Caribians was finished, and the King and Queen of Spain were invited to come and visit, the city was populated by as many Spaniards as Caribians, working and worshiping together.

Spanish scholars were teaching Caribian and Spanish students in the university; Spanish priests taught Caribians to speak Latin and say the mass; Spanish merchants came to the city to sell food and other supplies, and came away with strange artworks made of gold and silver, copper and iron, cloth and stone. Only gradually did they learn that many of the Caribians were not Christians, after all, but that among the Caribians it did not matter whether a person was Christian or not. All were equal citizens, free to choose what they might believe. This idea was strange indeed, and it did not occur to anyone in authority in Spain to adopt it, but as long as the pagans among the Caribians did not try to proselytize in Christian Spain, their presence could be tolerated. After all, these Caribians had so much gold. And so many fast ships. And so many excellent guns.

When the King and Queen of Spain arrived -- trying their pathetic best to look impressive amid the opulence of the Caribian city -- they were brought into a great throne room in a magnificent building. They were led to a pair of thrones and invited to sit on them. Only then did the father of the Queen of the Caribians present himself, and when he came in, he knelt before them.

"Queen Juana," he said, "I'm sorry that your mother and father did not live to see my return from the expedition on which they sent me in 1492."

"So Cristobal Colyn was not a madman," she said. "And it was not a folly for Isabella to send him."

"Cristobal Colyn," he said, "was the true servant of the King and Queen. But I was wrong about how far it is to China. What I found was a land that no European had ever known before." On a table before their thrones he set a small chest, and took from it four books. "The logs of my voyage and all my acts since then. My ships were destroyed and I could not return, but as Queen Isabella charged me, I did my best to bring as many people as I could to the service of Christ. My daughter has become Queen Beatrice Tagiri of Caribia, and her husband is King Ya-Hunahpu of Caribia. Just as your parents joined Aragon and Castile through their marriage, so my daughter and her husband have united two great kingdoms into one nation. May their children be as good and wise rulers of Caribia as you have been of Spain."

He listened as Queen Juana and King Henrique made gracious speeches accepting his logs and journals. As they spoke, he thought of what Diko had said -- that in another history, the one in which his ships had not been destroyed, and he had sailed home with the Pinta and the Nina, his discovery had made Spain so rich that Juana had been given in marriage to a different man, who had died young. It had driven her mad, and first her father and then her son had ruled in her place. What an odd thing, that among