Free Michener, James A. by Texas

with you his three weaknesses. First, he has been in Mexico only briefly. Second, he is extremely ambitious, but are not, also, you and I? I cannot hold this a disqualifying fault. Third, he is not a Spaniard, but then, most of our emperor's subjects are Austrians, Lowlanders or Italians. The emperor himself is a German, or, if you wish, an Austrian.'
    When the viceroy showed signs of accepting the friar, the bishop seemed eager to disclose even the smallest weakness lest he later be called to account: 'The final point, Excellency, is a delicate one. The boy you saw with him, this Garcilaco, stays by his side constantly, and who he is I cannot say for certain. Some claim he accompanied Marcos from Peru, and these insist that Garcilaco is his son. Others say he was acquired in Guatemala, in which case the boy must have been eight or nine when Marcos got him. Such suppositions are foolish, for we know he was already in Mexico traveling with Cabeza de Vaca. Others, with the better argument, I feel, say that the boy was an alley rat in the sewers of Vera Cruz when Marcos rescued him. You've seen the lad and he seems to show promise.'
    'I think we had better question the friar and his boy more closely,' the viceroy said.
    Garcilaco would always remember how proud he was of his father that day as the two faced Mendoza and Zumarraga. Marcos wore a voluminous robe made of the heavy fabric favored by the Franciscans, who were often called in the streets of the city 'Christ's little gray chickens,' a phrase he did not find amusing. He was obviously a serious man, and if upon first appearance he had any defect, it was his piercing gaze which revealed him to be a

    fanatical believer, though what he believed in—the mystery of Christianity or his own destiny—no one could guess.
    'Are you a Spaniard?' Mendoza asked bluntly.
    'I'm a servant of Christ, and of the emperor, and of you, Viceroy, should you employ me.'
    'But you were born in France, they say.'
    'No, Excellency. In the city of Nice.'
    'So you're a Savoyard 7 '
    'No, Excellency, I'm Spanish. Through service to my church and emperor, I've made myself so.'
    'Those are good words, Fray. Now tell me, who exactly is this lad who stands beside you?'
    'I was ordered to bring him, Excellency.'
    'Indeed you were,' Zumarraga broke in. 'Now explain.'
    In the moment of silence which followed this abrupt command, all in the room looked at Garcilaco, and they saw the mystery in the boy. He was one of the first of Mexico's mestizo children, half Spanish, half Indian, that durable breed which even then seemed destined to take over Mexico and remote Spanish territories like the future Texas. In the audience room that day Garcilaco represented the future, a first ripple in the tremendous flood that would one day remake his land.
    The boy heard Fray Marcos speaking: 'I have worked in lonely places, Excellencies, and one morning as I stepped off a boat in Vera Cruz, I saw this child here, a lost soul, no parents, no home . . .' He said no more.
    'Who were your parents, son?'
    Garcilaco shrugged his shoulders, not insolently but in honest ignorance: 'Excellency, here I am, just as I stand.'
    For the first time the viceroy smiled. He then turned to Fray Marcos: 'If I gave you Esteban as your guide, could you scout the Seven Cities and then give some would-be conquistador, Coronado for example, instructions as to how to reach them?'
    'I would be honored,' Marcos said with no hesitation, and so it was agreed, but after Bishop Zumarraga had taken his charges, and Esteban, from the hall, the viceroy mused:
    Who are these strangers who just left my office? Is the friar a faithful Catholic or has he been corrupted by modern ideas? Why should Spain put its trust in such an unknown? And this Esteban, what is he? Dorantes when he sold him assured me he was a Moor. But what's a Moor? The Moors I knew were not black. They were white men bronzed by the sun. Look at him. He's not black. He's brown. And