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for that.’
    ‘For what?’ Pepillo squeaked, backing away, still clutching the bags.
    With horrible grunts the sailor levered himself onto one knee, struggled upright and lurched forward with his hands outstretched. Pepillo was already running. He heard footsteps closing rapidly behind him, then a sudden change in rhythm, and as he turned to look back over his shoulder he saw the drunk stumble, lose his balance and tumble to the cobbles again. There were hoots of derision, jeers and roars of laughter from the growing crowd of onlookers and the sailor glared up in fury at Pepillo.
    Short, small-boned and delicately built for his fourteen years, Pepillo kept hoping for a growth spurt that would make him tall, robust and formidable. Now, he thought, as the sailor spat curses at him, would be an excellent moment to gain a span or two in height, and an arroba or two of solid muscle in weight. It would also be good if his hands doubled in size and quadrupled in strength in the process. He would not object to facial hair, and felt that a beard would endow him with an air of authority.
    His arms aching, his fingers stiff, Pepillo hurried on, weaving through the thick crowds thronging the pier until his drunken attacker was lost from sight. Only when he was sure he was not pursued did he allow himself to set down the two enormously heavy bags. They clunked and clanged as though they were filled with hammers, knives and horseshoes.
    How strange
, Pepillo thought. It was not his business to wonder why his new master would travel with more metal than a blacksmith, but for the twentieth time that morning he had to suppress an urge to open the bags and take a look.
    It was just one of the mysteries that had exploded into his life after Matins when he had been informed he would be leaving the monastery to serve a friar who was not known to him, a certain Father Gaspar Muñoz who had arrived that night from the Dominican mission in Hispaniola. There had been some sort of dispute with Customs officials, and after it Father Muñoz had gone directly to another vessel waiting in the harbour, a hundred-ton carrack named the
Santa María de la Concepción
. Although Pepillo could not yet really believe his good luck, it seemed he and the Father were to sail in this vessel to bring the Christian faith to certain New Lands recently discovered lying to the west. Pepillo was to present himself to Muñoz on board ship, after first passing the Customs House and collecting four leather bags, the good Father’s personal belongings that had been detained there.
    Pepillo flexed his fingers and looked at the bags with hatred before he picked them up again. He hadn’t been able to carry all four at once, so there were two more exactly like them he would have to return for when these were delivered.
    As he walked he scanned the dockside through the milling, noisy, crowd. There was no breeze, and a cloying smell of fish, decay and excrement clung thick in the muggy morning air. Above, in the cloudless blue sky, seabirds wheeled and shrieked. There were sailors and soldiers everywhere carrying sacks of supplies, tools, weapons. Gruff Castilian voices shouted abuse, instructions, directions.
    Pepillo came to a big three-masted carrack that loomed to his left like the wall of a fortress. Five massive cavalry horses were being led up a rickety gangplank onto the deck, where a noble lord, dressed out in great finery, with a mane of blond hair falling to his shoulders, was directing operations. Pepillo squinted to read the ship’s faded nameplate:
San Sebastián.
Then, beyond it on the right, almost at the end of the pier, he spotted another even larger carrack with jibs and derricks set up all around it and teams of men loading supplies. Pepillo walked closer. This ship had a high aftcastle and the new design of low-slung forecastle for better manoeuvrability against the wind. Another few steps and he made out the name:
Santa María de la Concepción.
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