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well, but the man with the bleeding stump was soon overtaken by sharks. So were others. The sea boiled red. Meanwhile the boarding party killed several more before Ruiz could cross to the foreign ship and stop them. Pizarro stayed where he was, looking on from the caravel’s rail, absorbed yet indifferent, as if watching a second-rate cockfight.
    The Pilot cannot quell the scenes before his eyes. The women’s shrieks and tears, the futile valour of men armed only with small blades. And the worst: an old man, his belly opened by a sword, cradling his innards in his arms, spilling them in panic, snaring his feet with his own guts and toppling into the sea.
    The worst was done when he himself boarded the craft, though he found three swordsmen ploughing a woman—in truth a mere girl—on a bale in the deckhouse. Strange how the act of death spurs the act of love. How love—if for decency’s sake one may call it that—becomes a thing of war. Upon being freed, the young girl took to the sea, wild-eyed as a mad horse. And bleeding. The sharks ended her ordeal. Ruiz crosses himself. How easily Christians become savages.
    Alone in his cabin, the Pilot still smells the gore, still hears the screams. He’s seen his share of mayhem in the Indies. And in Spain. He has killed, but only when he had to. He is not among those who delight in it. Killing pains Our Lord. Even the killing of heathens. Ruiz crosses himself again. He shuts his eyes. But the scenes are not darkened. They play on in the theatre of his mind.
    The Pilot struggles with his conscience until the candle gutters.What of this day to set down in the log? From the other side of a thin partition in the sterncastle come rhythmic snores like the sound of sawyers ripping oak. Pizarro! How does such a man sleep soundly after that? The answer, Ruiz concludes, is
because
he is such a man.
    â€œBe sure to make a list of the loot,” the Commander told him before retiring. “Be sure to write it in your log, including the gold and silver. In broad terms only, mind. Don’t burden yourself with details like weight and purity. We can’t know what we have until it’s assayed.”
    As your grace commands, Ruiz said to himself.
Let’s see you check my list!
The Commander can’t read or write a word beyond his name. Though that doesn’t make him a fool. One-fifth of all treasure found in the Indies belongs to the King. Royal tax gatherers will be sure to inspect the ship’s hold—and the ship’s log—when the
Santa Elena
puts in at a Spanish settlement. No wonder Pizarro wants to keep things vague.
    It is the blood, not the gold, that worries the Pilot. What can be said? What must be left unsaid? On the advice of learned churchmen, His Catholic Majesty the King has forbidden his subjects from staining his royal soul with innocent blood. Even the blood of infidels. It is therefore unlawful to attack new-found peoples unless they first harm Christians. Unlawful, that is, without due warning. Before the boarding party was dispatched, Ruiz should have read the strangers the Requirement, offering the chance to yield in peace to King and Cross. A mere formality, perhaps—especially when there’s no interpreter. But the King’s law should have been followed to the letter.
    The Pilot allows himself a cup of vinegary wine from the last bottle in his sea-chest. Thus fortified, he concludes that all things are known to God. But not all need be known to men.
    December 16, 1526
    The Santa Elena
    Pilot Ruiz
    About the middle of the forenoon watch we spied a strange vessel carrying more than twenty souls and thirty tons of freight. The ship was of a size and quality never seen before among the natives of the Indies, having masts of fine woodwork and sails like our own.
    They were bringing goods for trade: mirrors, plates, and drinking cups of burnished silver; crowns, pendants, bracelets, armour, greaves, and