THE YOUNGEST NAVIGATOR
by Mary Louise Clifford
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 Mary Louise Clifford
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-1-4657-2768-8
Chapter 1: Lagos, Portugal
Live in a palace? Me?
Airas's thoughts tumbled around in his head, as muddled as the crowd of jubilant men milling around him. He had just watched Prince Henry reward his father with a small leather pouch that clinked as it changed hands. Airas knew the sound of coins, and surely his father deserved them. After all, hadn't he designed and supervised the building of the splendid new caravel now anchored just offshore? Airas had watched for weeks as the ship took shape on the stocks in their patron's shipyard.
Prince Henry, usually so serious, came ashore beaming after the first trial run. "This vessel is faster than any I have ever seen," he told Airas's father—no small boast, for Lagos on the south coast of Portugal was a supply stop for all ships of every nation that traveled to and from the Mediterranean. "This is exactly what I wanted, Tinoco. Shallow draft that can pass over reefs and shoals. The lateen rigging is perfect—I've never seen a vessel run so close-hauled into the wind. A proper exploring ship. You've done a splendid job!"
The carpenters and cord-makers and metal-workers in the shipyard cheered. Airas too yelled with joy at his father's success. Later Airas saw the Prince pause, before he finally left the yard, looking around as though there was something more he should do to reward the ingenious shipwright. Suddenly he felt the prince's eyes on him. He heard him say, "Who is this lad whom I have seen shadowing the carpenters, eagerly handing them their tools?"
"That's my youngest son, Airas," his father answered.
The Prince's next words were a thunderbolt. "Why don't I take this bright lad back to Sagres with me? He can serve me as a page—be instructed in the manly arts. Learn to read, if he wishes."
Luis Tinoco didn't hesitate an instant. "Run home quickly," he told his son. "Tell your mother to make a bundle of your clothes. Tell her you are going with Prince Henry to Sagres to live in his palace."
Airas obeyed his father, as he always did, but his mind was racing as he ran. Leave his family? Live in a palace? He had never even seen a palace. What would it be like?
When her husband's instruction was repeated to Airas's mother, her mouth opened in dismay. "Go to Sagres with Prince Henry? But Airas, you are only nine years old," she protested.
The boy hunched his shoulders and shook his head, as astonished as she. "Prince Henry says I can be a page," he answered, although he didn't have any idea what a page was. "Father thinks it a splendid opportunity. Hurry, Mother. The Prince is waiting."
He ran back to the shipyard with his small bundle, and before he knew it, was swung up onto the rump of a horse by Prince Henry's equerry. He had never been on a horse before, and slid tight against the rider's back, grasping his belt. The man's back was too broad to see around, and even if it weren't, they rode directly into a blinding sun, slowly descending toward the western horizon. So as they trotted off, Airas turned his head to watch his father's shipyard recede behind him.
Chapter 2: Sagres, Portugal
When Lagos slid out of sight behind a hill, Airas turned his attention back to the three horsemen. He couldn't see ahead of them, but he could study the somber Prince riding beside him. The sunlight shone on his sleek tunic of rich silk and glinted off the heavy gold chain around his neck, making the stunning jeweled case that dangled from it gleam. Airas's father had told the boy that the medallion contained a true piece of the Holy Rood, given to the prince by his mother before she died.
Airas knew that Prince Henry's oldest brother Duarte was King in Lisbon. This youngest of the Avis princes had left the busy distractions of the royal court there to live at the small naval arsenal called Sagres, on nearby Cape St. Vincent. Airas's father had told him about Sagres and Cape St. Vincent, where land ended and the unknown ocean began.
Airas remembered the many times Prince Henry had come riding over to his shipyard at Lagos with two or three of his squires, or sometimes no more than his Stirrup Boy. Airas had watched the prince and his shipwright father, engaged in long conversations about hull shapes and altered rigging and the set of sails. After he left one day, Airas had asked his father, "What does he seek?"
Luis Tinoco was not much of a talker, but he always gave his small son serious answers to serious questions—although Airas was not always sure he understood those answers. "Prince Henry wants a ship that can determine the shape of Africa—discover whether it is truly an island, as the ancient Phoenicians claimed."
"I heard you telling him about the Arab dhows that sail up and down the Nile River," Airas said, proud that his father had traveled so far and seen so much.
"If we replace the square sail we use now on our barcas and varinels," his father nodded, "with a triangular sail as the Arabs do, hung on a spar that touches the gunwale, a ship can reach much closer into the wind. The rowers could be eliminated, greatly reducing the size of the crew."
"Less water and food would be needed."
"That's right—and very important on long voyages."
"Is that what you're building now, Father?"
"Exactly."
Airas had studied the form of the half-finished vessel. "Why aren't you overlapping the hull strakes as you usually do?"
"Putting them edge to edge will smooth the hull," his father replied. "That should permit more speed."
When his father's attention was claimed by a workman, Airas crouched beside the hedge, out of the way, drawing with a twig in the dust, his mind wrestling with his father's words. He had been told that Africa was another land like their own, beyond the water that rimmed the southern horizon. But, if that was so, why was Prince Henry seeking its shape? How could Africa have any shape other than that of the land on which he squatted?
Now Airas was riding beside Prince Henry, listening to him talk about his new caravel. "I shall have to choose the man to captain this fine new ship—someone with the courage to finally pass Cape Bojador."
Airas felt the deep voice rumble in the chest of the man whose back he hugged. "Any of your knights or squires would welcome the chance to try."
"This must be someone really bold. I've been sending ships down the African coast for twenty years now, but not a single captain has dared pass those treacherous reefs and uncharted shoals that extend so far out into the sea."
"Many still believe the tales told by the Moroccans—that beyond Cape Bojador the ocean boils and white men turn black."
"I need a captain who knows better—and is determined to prove those tales are false."
Airas listened and thought back to his puzzlement about the shape of Africa. Now he understood that Prince Henry wanted to know the shape of the shore of Africa, and where it ended. The boy was sorting out this new insight when the dark outline of the castle loomed up before them. It stood on a high headland jutting out into the ocean, and, as they rode through the narrow stone gate, Airas could hear the booming of wild waves pounding on the rocks far below.
Chapter 3 Sagres, Portugal
Inside, grooms came running to take the horses' bridles as their riders slid to the ground. Stables and granaries lined the interior wall of the castle. Men were pouring out of the palace. Prince Henry snapped his fingers at one of the young boys milling around them. "Dinis, this is Airas Tinoco, who is to join you and the other pages. Look after him."
As the Prince led his men across the paved square, Airas stared at the length of the stark stone walls surrounding Prince Henry's palace and caught his breath. He had never seen a building so vast. It was far larger than the church in Lagos, or any of the warehouses that lined the wharves there.
Dinis, wiry and impatient, beckoned and called sharply. "Come on, come on."
Airas hurried to catch up with him as the men passed through the vestibule and turned into the audience hall. Airas could see a servant arranging a row of bowls down the length of the trestle tables set up along the sides of the long hall. Prince Henry strode to the tall carved chair at the end of the hall and sat down surrounded by a cluster of his courtiers. "That's where he receives his important visitors," Dinis told Airas.
"I've never seen a room so large," Airas breathed.
"Huh," a voice beside him snorted. "This is nothing. You should see the King's palace in Lisbon." Airas turned to find a slender boy about his own age standing beside him. "There the audience hall is so long you can barely see from one end to the other, so big that the ceiling is held up with long rows of columns. Why, this audience hall at Sagres would fit into one side aisle of the hall at Alcazova."
Dinis was plucking his sleeve on the other side. "Come on."
"Who was that?" Airas asked as he followed Dinis out of the audience hall.
"Pedro Machado. He thinks he's so superior because he has been to Lisbon and stayed in the palace of the King."
"Is he a page too?"
"Yes. His father is a count from Evora, a fidalgo with royal ancestors. Pedro's uncle, Diego Machado, always travels with Prince Henry, and he brought Pedro to Sagres to be his equerry." They started down a long corridor. Dinis indicated the first doorway. "Prince Henry's scrivener works in there." At the next doorway, Dinis murmured, "His scribes." At the next, "His secretary." The corridor opened into an interior courtyard.
"Don't you like Pedro?" Airas asked.
"He never lets you forget that his father is of noble blood." Dinis sniffed as he pointed out the library and the chapel across the courtyard. "We have lessons in the scriptorium." Then he crossed a gallery and led the way up the stairs and down another hallway. "These are all sleeping rooms." The two boys walked past door after door, turned a corner and looked down another long hall. "More sleeping rooms."
Airas's mouth hung open. "How many people live here?" he asked.
"It varies. The knights and squires come and go between Lisbon and Evora and Coimbra—wherever the King is. Then there are always adventurers and explorers and scholars coming from outside Portugal—from Italy and Burgundy and Bruges—seeking Prince Henry's backing for their ventures."
Airas took a deep breath. He had no idea there could be so many rooms in one building.
Finally, as they turned another corner, Dinis opened a door. "You can sleep here with me and Gomez and Simon. The other pages are in the two rooms around the corner." The room they entered contained one huge bed piled high with feather mattresses and beside it a chest for clothing. A single, tall narrow window opened onto the central courtyard. A door led into a closet which contained a wash basin on a table and a chamber pot.
"How many pages are there?" Airas asked.
"That varies too. Eleven at the moment. You'll make twelve. We better go—it's time for afternoon prayers."
Airas was overwhelmed by the vastness of his new home. As they came back out into the hallway and turned the corner into another corridor, Airas shook his head and asked, "How do you keep from getting lost?"
Chapter 4 Sagres, Portugal
At dinner Airas and Dinis joined the other pages at the end table in the audience hall—the one farthest from Prince Henry's seat at the head of the room. Servants came carrying large pots from which they poured savory soup into the porringers strung along the table. As the boys drank their soup, more servants appeared, ladling thick stew onto the manchets of bread laid beside each porringer. Other servants brought mugs of watered wine.
As Airas waited for his stew, he made a rough count of the men at the upper tables. There must be over two hundred at dinner tonight. He watched the men unsheathe sharp knives from their belts and spear chunks of meat and vegetables, then carry them to their mouths. Airas was ravenously hungry. He hadn't eaten since early morning—that meal only bread and olives—and the day had been long and tiring. As soon as his stew was soaking into his bread, he picked it up with his fingers and gnawed at the hard crust until the thick chunk of bread and meat was completely gone.
When he glanced up, he found Pedro Machado watching him from across the table—nudging the boys next to him to draw their attention to Airas. He couldn't hear what he said, but he knew Pedro was making fun of him. Only then did Airas notice that all the pages had used knives to eat their stew. And no one else had eaten his bread.
Dinis too had seen Pedro's scornful look. He leaned against Airas shoulder and whispered, "The first thing we'll do is get you is a knife."
"I was really hungry," Airas whispered back.
"There's more coming." Dinis tipped his head toward the servants who were now placing platters of small roast birds, baskets of yellow pears, and bowls of nuts and raisins in the center of the upper tables.
"What happens to the bread?" Airas whispered.
"It's given to the hunting dogs."
Airas lowered his head to hide his embarrassment at having eaten his bread. But he also thought of the hungry blind man who begged for bread in the lane outside the shipyard in Lagos.
Airas lay awake after the other boys were sound asleep, thinking about Pedro's contempt and the strangeness of his new surroundings. He had thought that coming to Sagres would be such an adventure, but now he felt small and alone and very much an outsider. The other boys were all so self-assured, knowing that they belonged in a royal court. Maybe his mother had been right, and he should have stayed at home in Lagos where he understood how things worked.
Dinis had been friendly, but his other roommates Gomez and Simon ignored him. Even though he was now crowded together with their warm bodies in the big bed, he fell asleep wondering how he could ever win their friendship. When he was wakened at dawn by the chapel bell, he listened for the sound of his mother stirring the fire and starting the porridge until he remembered where he was. Dinis threw open the shutters that covered the window slit, and the boys shivered as they trooped into the closet. Simon prompted raucous laughter by imitating the hiss echoing in the chamber pot as the others splashed cold water on their faces.
In the hall they met more pages coming out of the rooms next door. The group raced to the chapel, then halted at the entry to assume correct postures of reverence. Airas, refreshed by his sleep, was calm enough now to covertly study the others and imitate their behavior as they knelt in prayer. He guessed that they ranged in age from about eight to fourteen. None of them paid any attention to him, and he wondered if his awkwardness put them off. He really had no idea of how to behave in a palace and seemed to stumble every time he turned around.