EARLY CHAPTER, UNDER DEVELOPMENT
The wind tugged at the jagged canvas of their improvised shelter, rattling timbers.
Estebanico, now calling himself Bilal, ran his fingers over the halo of owl feathers crowning his head. Each one whispered a warning the Loyolan couldn’t ignore.
Francois, seated cross-legged on a sand covered reed mat, glared at him with the severity of an inquisition, the patience of a man who’d memorized the entirety of the Psalms. Perhaps he also wished he hadn’t.
“You cannot wear that,” Francois said firmly. His voice was low, steady, priestly. “You’re not a shaman. You. Are. Christian. You’re property, under Dorantes. You are— ”
“Alive,” Esteban finished the sentence. “Everything else is a description. Description is not survival. Not in this land. But sometimes, symbols can be. I was schooled in Aristotle and algebra in the mosque. Greek, Arabic, Aramaic. I studied empires while these Conquistadores were learning to paint their shields.”
Francois scowled. “Instruments of the devil cannot help you survive. You are not negotiating with nature. You are submitting to sin. Beads, feathers, fetishes— these are not harmless ornaments. They’re gateways. You’re risking your soul with every adornment.”
Esteban lifted a wrist to inspect the array of Gulf Coast pouches dangling from his belt, each containing salt, herbs, bits of turquoise, and polished shells.
“I’m not bargaining with the devil. I’m bargaining with men who’ll kill me if I seem weak. I’m wearing signs they can read. You can’t see them, but they do understand.”
“They’re idols!” Francois snapped. “You call them signs. You call yourself a man of logic. But a Christian of reason cannot adorn himself with charms of the pagans and claim neutrality. You invite judgment. You invite wrath.”
Esteban smiled faintly, quick twist of his lips, a corner of irony. “Neutrality can't help those who die. I can’t afford it. Neither can you. Not here.”
Francois folded his hands. “You speak like a heathen, Estebanico. I have trained you in Latin, in the Gospel, in logic. I will not have my instruction mocked by the adoption of— ”
“Practicality,” Esteban interrupted, gesturing to feathers, beads, faint traces of paint along his forearms. “Call it what you want. I call it language. It's a language you refuse to learn because it has no Latin.”
“The soul is not a language,” Francois said. “It cannot be negotiated like a coin, measured like weight of silver, displayed like a mask. It's eternal. You risk everything for a symbol you do not comprehend.”
Esteban shrugged. “I comprehend. Enough to know. If I appear weak, I’ll be killed. Enough to know, if I appear powerful, I might survive. You call it sin. I call it math.”
Francois leaned forward, eyes blazing. “Mathematics? Comparing your charms and feathers to arithmetic? Do you even know what you’re doing, Estebanico?”
Bilal stood, adjusting his halo so it fanned evenly. “I know exactly what I’m doing. I’m speaking the dialect of power in this land. Translating threat into comprehension. You’d have me kneel and pray? I’ve prayed, Frere. I’ve been bound.”
He stood tall and looked to the brightening east.
“I’ve marched through The Sahel, nothing but water and guile in me. Subjugated by Tuareg. Sold to Portuguese, then Spanish. I’ve spoken to men with names I cannot pronounce, tongues I do not know. Here I am. Alive. You lecture of sin?”
Francois’ jaw tightened. “You mock salvation because you do not understand it. You flirt with heresy because it flatters your pride. You take the name, your Mali name, wear it like a banner and yet you carry the mark of Spain. You’re not two men. You’re a contradiction.”
Estebanico let the word sit. Then he bent to pick up a pouch, weighing a piece of polished turquoise in his palm.
“Better a contradiction that lives, than a certainty that dies. Me llamo Estebanico para España. For Mali, I’m Bilal. Here I am a Child of The Sun. Names are tools, not commandments.”
François hissed, French accent cutting sharp through the Spanish.
“It’s l’œuvre du Malin. The work of the Cunning One. Dressing yourself in this pompe diabolique, believing you’re master of it. You’re not. You are inviting l’Ennemi into this camp with all of us, by wrapping infernal signs around your very flesh.”
Estebanico, crouching, slipped the turquoise back into its pouch.
“You risk inviting the wrath of men who don’t know God, paladin. The Avaveres won’t answer Latin. They won’t answer Spanish. They'll answer what they understand. If I go in naked, they may kill me. If I go in dressed in symbols they respect or fear— I might survive. That's logic. That's survival. That's math.”
Francois pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling a long, weary breath. “And Estebán,” he said quietly, “your math repels me. I cannot follow it. I cannot bless it.”
Estebanico looked at him with an affectionate sharpness. “Don't follow it. Every man follows his conscience. I will. IF we survive, you might still learn to see the world in more than one language. I will give the willow bark. In a half hour, bring Maldonado to give the prayer. When their headaches abate, we'll have an escort.”
The wind shifted, again rattling canvas and timber. Somewhere in the predawn Gulf a gull screamed.
Bilal adjusted a feather behind his ear, tightened the beads around his wrist and muttered to himself.
“Names, signs, feathers… enough. Let’s see what speaks first.”
Francois regarded him, hands folded, eyes narrowing, muttering a prayer or a curse.
Estebanico could not tell which. The Gulf swamps whispered secrets neither man had yet learned, and both knew— survival
was the first commandment. The rest would either follow. Or not.