Eric Flint: Grantville Gazette Volume XI

I resisted of course. But Esteban played me like a fish, and eventually I agreed to help him. I blame my sense of honor. For decades I had felt guilty about stealing from my uncle. But still, I was a wily fish, and I agreed to do only part of Esteban's bidding. The rest of it was negotiable. Thus the pelota match.

Esteban smiled at me. "My serve I believe?"

I tossed him the ball. "And none of your tricks this time, Esteban. Play by the rules!"

Esteban laughed and served.

We were playing the classical version, of course, partido. The first person to win five games, each game to seven points. Our front wall was the back of a church, the side wall the back of the church's brewery. We had started to draw a crowd after the sixth game, and a number of bookmakers were in the crowd. Along with a few tittering whores and the young bucks who were chasing them.

Esteban had used the pause well and reeled off three straight points before I got the serve. We were both tired by then, the crowd was getting more raucous, and we both wanted nothing more but to finish and go quench our thirst in the tavern a block away.

But we were both honorable. Neither of us gave an inch and we fought like lions in the afternoon sun.

Finally the score was tied at six apiece and Esteban's serve came at me. I'd seen this one before and had positioned myself well. It was then that the whores' cries broke my concentration.

"Miss, Catalina. Miss it!"

I missed. Esteban threw his arms up in triumph, then around me.

"A match well-played Antonio, well-played indeed!"

"Except for the last point," I grumbled.

The crowd began to disperse and Foxe and Father Amancio came forward. Esteban introduced me to the priest.

"Antonio, Father Amancio. Father Amancio, Antonio de Erauso, my cousin. A true adventurer who will be joining us on our expedition to the northlands."

I clasped Father Amancio's arm. He had strong hands. "A pleasure to meet you, Father."

"And you, Antonio de Erauso. So you are an adventurer?"

I shrugged modestly. "I have been a few places, I admit."

Esteban laughed. "A few! Father, there is no stone Antonio has left unturned in all of South America, especially in Peru and Chile! His exploits are famous!"

We had begun to move down the street towards the tavern, and one of the two whores still leaning against a wall, perhaps emboldened by the three young bucks she was trying to attract, called out to me.

"Senora Catalina, where are you going? Feeling lonesome tonight?"

"My dear whores," I said, drawing my blade, turning to face them, "I have come to give fifty strokes to your bottom and a hundred gashes to any man who would defend your honor." I advanced on them slowly.

Terrified, the harlots ran away, their bucks in tow.

Esteban grinned as they rounded the corner. "So fierce, Antonio! You have quite a temper, my dear cousin!"

I snorted. It was true, of course.

I turned to Father Amancio. "Sorry about that, Father. I have a certain notoriety in San Sebastian."

Father Amancio nodded. "I had not made the connection until the… uh, young lady had spoken. You are the famous transvestite, Catalina de Erauso, then?"

My smile was a thin smile, I admit, but a smile none the less. "Call me Antonio, Father. My life as Catalina ended long ago."

The priest looked at me thoughtfully, then smiled himself. "Of course, Antonio. And, if you would permit, let me offer to buy the first drink to ease the pain of your loss at pelota."

One maxim I had always lived by was to never turn down a free drink. I nodded graciously.

"Onward, my friends," Esteban said, putting his arms around my shoulder and Father Amancio's, "We have a night of drinking, plans, and stories ahead of us!"

The tavern was cool and dark. The owner, Manuel Ortega, escorted us to our usual corner table. Within minutes we were slaking our thirst on Manuel's beer. Rosalita, Manuel's wife, brought out bowls of stew and loaves of bread.

It was an hour before conversation got around to the topic of Grantville.

"So you have actually been to Grantville, Senor Foxe?" Father Amancio asked.

Luke nodded. "For three months. An intensive course of study set up for me by De Geer's niece, Colette Modi. Geology, mostly. But mathematics and geography as well. And as much as they had on Greenland, which wasn't a lot."

"So they aren't devils as some in the Church would have us assume?"

Luke laughed. "Not at all, Father. Except for the vehicles and roads, you might just think it to be an odd little German town, especially now that the German population outnumbers the original Americans."

He shook his head. "No, what is most startling about Grantville is the information you glean from their libraries and from just talking to the American residents. It is then that you truly start to believe that they come from the future… or some future."

"Some future?" I asked. "Not ours?"

Luke shrugged. "How could it be from our future? With the arrival of Grantville everything they knew about their past is changing, and changing rapidly. In Grantville's history Gustavus Adolphus died this past November, and there is nothing in their history books about the formation of the CPE with him as the emperor."

Esteban smiled and leaned in toward the center of the table, motioning us to do likewise. The tavern was beginning to fill now, and while the noise level had risen, it was still possible to understand conversations from other tables nearby.

"We are definitely going to be changing history from what is in the Grantville books," Esteban said quietly. "In their history the mineral we will be seeking, this cryolite, was not discovered by the Danes until 1794. If we can get there before anyone else and stake a claim… "

Father Amancio tilted his head. "Cryolite? Frozen stone?"

Luke smiled. "Exactly right! The mineral is very translucent. In fact, it was written that pure samples can almost disappear in water because of what is called it's 'refractive index.' Did your people know of this mineral?"

Father Amancio shook his head. "I don't know. Certainly not under that name."

"Your people?" I asked. "Are you from Greenland, Father Amancio?" And how would a native of Greenland have become a priest? There must be quite a story there.

"No." For a second Father Amancio's face darkened. "I am of 'The People' or the Inuit as they… we, call ourselves, but from across the Davis Strait in what is now labeled Labrador on the maps, although I was born further north, on what is now called Baffin Island."

"Inuit? Not Eskimo, Father?" Luke asked.

Father Amancio showed his teeth. "Eskimo is what the Abnaki call my people. An insult. It means 'eaters of flesh.'" Father Amancio's bared teeth turned into a grin. "As far as I can remember from the stories our angakok told us… " Seeing our looks of incomprehension, he waved his hand. "… Shaman, gentlemen. The most powerful member of the tribe, even more so than the village elders. Anyway, according to our angakok, it was only during the starving times when cannibalism was practiced. But before that point was reached we would eat our dogs and boil our sealskins to make soup."

Father Amancio's face turned thoughtful. "Although some say parts of my grandfather were eaten when he died, because of the strength of his spirit."

"Grandfather?" My skin crawled at the thought. Wonderful. Cold, dark, ice and now cannibals.

Father Amancio nodded. "One of my grandfathers was an Englishman, a member of the Frobisher expedition. Inuit women are promiscuous by European standards."

A darkness flashed across Father Amancio's face once again. I was beginning to become fascinated by this man. What inner demons were kept contained inside his head?

"So long as the woman does so with her husband's permission, it is accepted. But if the husband didn't know, the wife would be stripped, dragged outside the village, and beaten."