Crack! Her hand blurred at his cheek, struck it like a pistol shot. The big man blinked his eyes and grinned. "So you have spirit, do you? Well, it"s more than I can say for that father of yours, too yellow and too drunk to carry out the Queen of Castile"s bid--"
The hand flashed out again but this time the big man caught it in one of his own and twisted sideways against the girl, forcing her back against the table"s edge. "I like my girls to struggle," he said, and the girl"s face went white as she suddenly let herself go limp in his arms.
The man grinned. "Oh I like "em limp, me la.s.s. When they"re pretty as a rose, like you, who"s to care?"
"Papa!" the girl screamed. The big man"s face hovered over hers, blotting out the oil-lamp lights, the thick lips all but slavering....
"Just a minute, man!" Danny cried, striding boldly to them. Hardly pausing in his efforts to kiss the again struggling girl, the big man swatted back with one enormous arm and sent Danny reeling. Whoever he was, he was a popular figure. The laughter was still louder now.
Everyone was having a great time, at Danny"s expense now.
Danny crashed into a chair, upending it. A bowl of soup came crashing down, the heavy bowl splintering, the hot contents scalding him. He stood up and heard the girl scream. Instinctively, he grasped two legs of the heavy chair and hefted it. Then he sprinted back across the room.
"Behind you, Pietro!" a voice cried, and at the last moment the big man whirled and faced Danny, then lunged to one side, taking the girl with him.
Danny couldn"t check his arms, which had carried the heavy chair overhead. It came down with a crash against the edge of the big plank table. The chair shattered in Danny"s arms. One leg flew up and struck the big man in the face, though, bringing blood just below the cheek bone. He bellowed in surprise and pain and came lumbering toward Danny.
Danny was aware of the girl cowering to one side, aware that another of the chair"s legs was still grasped in his right hand. He was but a boy, he found himself thinking quickly, desperate. If the giant grabbed him, grabbed him just once, the fight would be over. The man was twice his size, twice his weight. Yet he had to do something to help the girl....
The giant came at him. The big arms lifted over the heavy, brutal face.... And Danny drove under them with the chair-leg, jabbing the tip of it against the man"s enormous middle. Pietro--for such was the man"s name--sagged a few inches, the breath rushing, heavy with garlic, from his mouth. But still, he got his great hands about Danny"s throat and began to squeeze.
Danny saw the wood rafters, the window, a bargirl standing, mouth open, watching them, the drunken man and his daughter, then a blurry, watery confusion as his eyes went dim. He was conscious of swinging the club, of striking something, of extending the club out as far as it would go and then slamming it back toward himself, striking something which he hoped was Pietro"s head. He felt his mouth going slack and wondered if his tongue were hanging out. Exerting all his strength he struck numbly, mechanically, desperately with the chair-leg.
And slowly, the constriction left his throat. Something struck against his middle, almost knocking him down. Something pushed against his legs, backing him against the table. He looked down. His eyes were watery, his throat burning. The giant Pietro lay, breathing stertorously, at his feet.
A small hand grabbed his. "Father will come now," a voice said. "I don"t--don"t even know who you are, but I want to thank you. I thank you for myself and the Queen, and G.o.d, senor. You better come quickly, with us. Does it hurt much?"
Danny tried to talk. His voice rasped in his throat. The girl squeezed his hand and together with her and the drunken man who was her father, he left the tavern. The giant Pietro was just getting up and shaking his fist at them slowly....
It was a small top-floor room in an old waterfront building in the Spanish port of Palos. Or, Danny corrected himself, the Castillian port of Palos. Because, in this year of our Lord 1492, Spain had barely become a unified country.
"Are you feeling better, Martin Pinzon?" the beautiful girl asked him.
He had given the name he had heard, Martin Pinzon, as his own. The room was very hot. The August night outside was hot too and sultry and starless. The girl"s father was resting now, breathing unevenly. The girl"s name was Nina. One of the small caravels in her father"s three-ship fleet was named after her. Her full name was Nina Columbus.
Nina brought another wet cloth and covered Danny"s swollen throat with it. "Does it hurt much?" she said, and, for the tenth time, "we have no money to thank you with, senor."
"Any man would have--"
"But you were the only one. The only--never mind. Martin, listen. I have no right to trouble you, but ... it"s father. Tomorrow is the second day of August, you see, and it is all over Palos that tomorrow he sails with the Queen"s charter...."
"Then if you"re worrying about that big man, Pietro, you can forget it.
If you"re sailing, I mean."
"That"s just it," Nina said desperately. "Father doesn"t want to sail.
Martin, tell me, do you believe the world is round?"
Danny nodded very soberly. "Yes, Nina," he told her softly. "The world is round. I believe it."
"My father doesn"t! Funny, isn"t it, Martin?" she said in a voice which told him she did not think it was funny at all. "All Spain--and Genoa too--think that tomorrow morning my father, Christopher Columbus, will journey to the unexplored west confident that he will arrive, after a long voyage, in the East--when really my father, this same Christopher Columbus, lies here in a drunken stupor because he lacks the courage to face his convictions and ... oh, Martin!" Her voice broke, her pretty face crumpled. She sobbed into her hands. Gently, Danny stroked her back.
"There now, take it easy," he said. "Your father will sail. I know he"ll sail. Do you believe the world to be round, little Nina?"
"Yes. Oh yes, yes, yes!"
"He will sail. He will prove it and be famous. I know he will."
"Oh, Martin. You sound so sure of yourself. I wish I could ..."
"Nina, listen. Your father will sail."
"You"ll help us you mean?"
"Yes. All right, I"ll help you. Now, get some sleep if you want to wake up and say goodbye to him in the morning. Because I"ll be getting him up before the sun to--"
"Are you a sailing man too? Are you going with him?"
"Well ..."
"Wait! Martin, I remember you now. Martin Pinzon. At the meeting of the organization to prove the Earth"s round shape. You! You were there. And once, once when he was not drunk, father said that a Don Pinzon would command one of our three ships, the Nina it was, the caravel which bears my name. Are you this Don Pinzon?"
Slowly, Danny nodded. He remembered his history now. The Nina _had_ been commanded by one Don Pinzon, Don Martin Pinzon! And he was now this Martin Pinzon, he, Danny Jones. Which meant he was going with Columbus to discover a new world! A nineteen-year-old American youth going to witness the single most important event in American history....
"Yes," Danny said slowly, "I am Don Pinzon."
"But--but you"re so young!"
Danny shrugged. "I have seen more of the world than you would believe, Nina."
"The Western Sea? You have been out on the Western Sea, as far as the Canary Islands, perhaps?" she asked in an awed voice.
"I know the Western Sea," he said. "Trust me."
She came very close. She looked long in his eyes. "I trust you, Martin.
Oh yes, I trust you. Listen, Martin. I"m going. I"m going with you. I have to go with you."
"But a girl--"
"He is my father. I love him, Martin. He needs me. Martin, don"t try to stop me. I want you to help me aboard, to see that he ... oh, Martin, you"ll have so much to do. Because the rest of our crew--some of them being hired even now by the three caravel pursers--will be a crew of cut-throats and ne"er-do-wells embarking into the unknown because they have utterly nothing to lose. Father needs you because the others won"t care."
"The three caravels will sail west," Danny told her. "Believe me, they"ll sail west. Now, get some sleep."
Her face was still very close. Her eyes filled with tears, but they were not tears of sadness. She took his cheeks in her hands and kissed him softly on the lips. She smiled at him, her own lips trembling.