A nobleman named Costa helped Alvarado down from the horse. “What happened?” he asked, blanching at the wound.
Costa was an aristocrat of the middle tier. He’d agreed to fund the expedition in return for a third of all treasure recovered. Why he’d come along personally was anyone’s guess, perhaps for the adventure, or more likely to ensure he wasn’t cheated out of his profits. So far, he’d done little but complain.
“We’ve been tricked,” Alvarado said. “These people of the cloud are not amenable to our presence. They would rather kill us than join us even if it means they remain enslaved to other masters.”
“But what about Pizarro?” Costa asked. “These are his marks. He came this way. He said we would
find allies.”
Alvarado knew all about Pizarro’s marks. The would-be conquistador had carved inscriptions into some of the trees alongside the trail so that Alvarado and his reinforcements could catch up with Pizarro and his advanced guard.
He knew about Pizarro’s plans as well, to turn other natives against the ruling group. It had worked in other places, but not here.
“Something must have happened to him,” Alvarado said. “Either Francisco has been killed or . . .”
He didn’t have to finish. None of them really trusted Pizarro. He kept talking of gold, which no one had yet seen, kept promising wealth, which had yet to appear. He was a little man with big dreams. He’d been turned down by the Governor twice when requesting funds to assist his expeditions and in desperation had finally turned to Costa, and to his rival: Alvarado.
While Alvarado didn’t like or trust Pizarro, he did understand the man. Both of them were cut from the same cloth. They were men of inauspicious birth, both had come from Spain to make a name for themselves. But they’d been enemies only months before, and it was entirely possible that Pizarro had agreed to partner with them only to lead them to their doom.
“We must leave for the coast immediately,” Alvarado said.
Costa looked sick, at the thought.
“Something wrong with that order, my friend?”
“No,” Costa said. “It’s just that . . .”
“Spit it out.”
Costa hesitated. “Some of the men have fallen ill. Fever. It may be the pox.”
Alvarado could not imagine worse news. “Show me.”
Costa led him to the largest of the native huts, made of mud and grass, that might have been a communal gathering place. A fire in the center burned brightly, venting smoke through a hole in the roof. A group of Alvarado’s soldiers lay on the dirt floor around it, each of them in various states of distress.
“When did this begin?”
“Shortly after you left to find Pizarro.”
In the flickering light, Alvarado kneeled beside one of the men. The soldier was little more than a boy; he lay on his back with his eyes closed and his face toward the thatched ceiling above. His shirt was soaked with perspiration and small red sores had begun to appear on his neck, face and chest. His temperature was so high that kneeling over him felt like standing too close to an open flame.
“Smallpox,” Alvarado said, confirming the diagnosis. “How many are like this?”
“Eight are in the grips of it. Three others are less ill, but they can barely stand. They certainly can’t walk ten miles to the coast.”
With eleven of his men sick, several wounded and two dead, Alvarado had only twenty left who could fight. “We’ll have to leave them.”
“But Diego . . .”
“They’re too sick to walk and too heavy to carry,” Alvarado insisted. “And we’re greatly outnumbered. I count thirty huts around us. Each big enough for a large family. There must have been more than two hundred people living here before Pizarro came through. Even if half are women and children, we’ll never hold out. And who’s to say other villages are not allied with this one.”
Costa took the estimate grimly. “Perhaps Francisco will turn back and bring help.”
“It’s too late to pin our hopes on rescue,” Alvarado said. “You and the others must go while there’s still time.”
“Me and the others,” Costa repeated, suspiciously. “Surely you don’t intend to stay?”
Alvarado put a hand to his forehead and wiped a sheen of sweat from it. It might have been the heat or the wound in his leg, but he suspected it was the beginnings of the disease that was ravaging his men. “I would only hold you back. Now, round up the men and head for the ship. Sail with the current until you’re clear of the coast, then turn north and head back to Panama.”