GARDENS OF PLENTY

GARDENS OF PLENTY

RON ARIAS

A Peace Corps Writers Book – an imprint of Peace Corps Worldwide

Copyright © 2024 by Ron Arias

All Rights Reserved

Printed in the United States of America

by Peace Corps Writers of Oakland, California.

No part of this book, a work of fiction, may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations contained in critical articles or reviews.

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are trademarks of PeaceCorpsWorldwide.org.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024904553

First Peace Corps Writers Edition, April 2024

Dedication

To my grandsons, Nene, Ren and Kino

Acknowledgment

I must first thank my son, Michael, for his editing help and encouragement in the completion of the novel. Several supportive friends and my partner, Karen de la Peña, also provided key suggestions for ways to bolster the story of Joseph Fields.

And I deeply appreciate the efforts of the following persons who helped me in the early stages of my research: UC Merced professor Manuel Martín Rodríguez for hosting me in his native Seville; John Emelin and Jane Hazen for driving me through the backlands of the Mexican state of Pachuca; John Wagner for giving me lodging in Jalapa, Mexico; Nick Viner, former director of the Jewish Museum of London, for a key suggestion; Todd Zonderman for driving me from Edinburgh, Scotland, to the Isle of Mull and the site of a Spanish Armada shipwreck; Alfred W. Crosby, Jr., author of The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492, for his encouragement; and University of Arkansas epidemiologist David W. Stahle, a coauthor of Megadrought and Megadeath in 16th Century Mexico in Emerging Infectious Diseases, for his research into the devastating effects of the pandemic scourge known as huey cocoliztli.

I also want to acknowledge my original inspiration in the creation of my main character and his tale: the account of Miles Phillips in Richard Hakluyt’s The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation. Beyond this book, I’ve of course relied on many other published sources. One was particularly helpful, The Queen’s Slave Trader: John Hawkyns, Elizabeth I, and the Trafficking in Human Souls by Nick Hazlewood.

Finally, I thank my meticulous copy editor, Eileen G. Chetti.

Drawn by Ron Arias

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgment

Chapter 1 – Scrivener

Chapter 2 – Bucket Duty

Chapter 3 – Darkness Below

Chapter 4 – Cast Away

Chapter 5 – Dancing Plant

Chapter 6 – Captive

Chapter 7 – Escape

Chapter 8 – Running

Chapter 9 – Emilio

Chapter 10 – Secrets

Chapter 11 – A Reunion

Chapter 12 – Pachuca

Chapter 13 – Devil’s Slave

Chapter 14 – Floating City

Chapter 15 – Pestilence

Chapter 16 – Black Clouds

Chapter 17 – Silver Road

Chapter 18 – Chichimecas

Chapter 19 – Zacatecas

Chapter 20 – Fugitive

Chapter 21 – Friends

Chapter 22 – Disguises

Chapter 23 – Armada

Chapter 24 – London

Chapter 25 – Home

About The Author

To withdraw is not to run away, and to stay is no wise action, when there’s more reason to fear than to hope.

-Miguel de Cervantes

Chapter 1 – Scrivener

Found yourself a home, eh, Ratso? All comfort and quiet, no one yelling in your ear, Scrub the deck, boy, scrub it hard, scrub in the wee cracks, scrub, scrub, scrub!

I hold the lantern steady. You’re watching me. Your eyes shine, and your whiskers are still. You’ve got it better than I do, my little friend. You can run and hide. I cannot, not really. Wherever I am, they’ll find me. Go on, disappear. No? Let’s see if I move my hand—ah, that’s it! Run, hide!

The Mynion rises and drops down with a thump. Up, up, up, then down, down, down with a thump. Over and over. Creaking, grinding sounds all around, moans and mutterings. I’m alone in the bow, leaning against the coils of tar-stinking rope, away from the crew, until it’s morning and I’m called to duty.

We’ve been in the storm for some ten days—since soon after leaving Plymouth on the second day of October 1567. We lost two sailors and a longboat, and the leaks in the hull planks won’t stop. They get plugged, and more appear. Ah, but now the skies are opening up, the seas are calming.

Most of the crew stay below, still curled up in whatever space they can find, useless to climb into the rigging, pull lines, or work the bilge pump. They groan and whine, retching or relieving themselves belowdecks in tubs or tethered buckets. If they don’t reach them in time, the mess runs between barrels, sailcloth, and other stores. In the forespace of the deck below me, even the pigs, goats, and chickens are sickened by all the pitching and rocking.

Nicky and I never lose what we eat. He’s the other ship’s boy, younger than I am, nine or ten, I think. I’m thirteen or thereabouts. And there’s an older boy, the captain’s page, we call Hawk because of his hard stare.

We empty buckets over the side, keep the gun deck clean, especially around the powder kegs, swab the decks and fetch things like ropes, water, or hardtack for the sailors on the rigging and spars. I like climbing the lattice of lines, feeling the ship rise and drop with each swell, swaying through the air like a seagull swooping from side to side, up and out and then down, again and again.

It’s how I imagined my time on a ship going to the Spanish Indies. Free as a bird in the air, free to sing, to dream, and, in Deacon Brown’s words, to seek a good and fortunate life. My mates and I were busy doing our sums when the town crier shouted from over the Greyfriars wall about the return of mariners from across the ocean. They suffered storms and scurvy but came back laden with silver, gold, and pearls, telling tales of marvelous new lands filled with strange beasts and a bounty of new foods.

Who would like to go to sea? Deacon Brown asked us.

We all shouted, Me!

As Deacon Brown waved his hands for us to settle down, I imagined climbing up to the crow’s nest, searching the horizon for this wondrous new land. The mariners had survived the journey to paradise and back—why shouldn’t I sail across the sea to such a place?

Our teacher blasted us for dreaming that we might easily cross the ocean, saying it was not for the fainthearted. But someday one of you lads might sail with the likes of Captain General John Hawkyns.

I vowed to myself that I would be that lad. I would leave England just as I promised Father. He said I should flee my homeland. I thought he meant that I run from the plague, the same pestilence that took him, Mother, and Sister Mary.

On my thirteenth birthday, almost two years after the Queen’s men snatched me off the street in Southwark and put me in Greyfriars, I decided to escape because I feared a flogging. On that day, I was to be made an apprentice to a stonemason who liked to whip his new boys as a grisly kind of welcome. The thought of a whip cutting stripes into my back scared me more than catching the plague.

So I left London, going to Gravesend, courtesy of a kindly boatman. Then I walked on the Roman road going to Rochester, stopping only to muck out a pigsty for a widow named Millie in exchange for a bowl of cabbage, carrots, and a chicken leg, which I ate under the sad, watchful eyes of her long-eared hound, Scout.

On the way to Rochester, an old charlatan robbed me of my sole possessions—Mother’s wooden spoon and nit comb and the penknife given to me by my dying father, a scrivener. But with the help of a minstrel in a Chatham tavern, I found the thief and recovered my things. Then by good fortune I was taken aboard the Mynion, a man-of-war with four masts in the Hawkyns fleet bound for Plymouth. There, with the Queen’s blessing and more vessels, the ships gathered to set sail for Africa to capture Negroes to sell in the Spanish Indies. My plan was to stay in the New World. But an old mariner, a veteran of two runs with Hawkyns, scoffed at my scheme. When I asked him if I could stay in the Indies, he laughed. Only slaves stay behind. We sell them for hides, silver, and pearls, and that’s it. They stay; we go.

None of us gets to stay?

He shook his head and laughed again. We’re English, boy. In the Indies they call us heathen Lutherans. To the Spaniard, we’re all devils. So you tell me if you want to jump ship and throw the dice. The Spaniard’s more than happy to make you a slave or put your bum in prison. Better yet, put the torch to you. Big public thing is the stake. Cheers and jeers, that’s what you’ll hear!

I hear the sailors and soldiers who are too sick to rouse themselves cry out. Nicky is among the sickest. He’s weak and feverish. I try to revive him with soggy hardtack and broth, but he refuses to eat. I pray that he can be treated on land and given proper meals.

I move away from my sleeping spot and curl up next to a cannon carriage to listen to crewmen go on about the need for repairs and fresh water. Joey, a voice whispers. I feel a tap on my hand. In the dim light, I see a familiar figure reaching for my arm. Joey, write me a will.

I say nothing, thinking of Father. Would I remember the words he taught me? And I have no quill, no ink nor paper for the task.

Joey, please.

I can’t.

For the love of God, please.

I’ve nothing to write with.

You say you write.

Yes, but I need a quill, a bit of ink, paper.

I know him as Budgie, a shepherd from Devonshire. He told me he lost his flock of sheep in a card-game wager, then left his wife and two children for work at sea, hoping she would survive by mending clothes and washing other people’s laundry.

Now I hear Budgie catch his breath before repeating his plea. Three other men move closer. I’ve a gull’s feather, one of them says. The quill is soon produced, and I move to the morning light coming from the open hatch. From the cloth around my waist, I pull out Father’s penknife. I sharpen the blade on a clay jug, then I move to sit before a small wooden chest with a flat top. I strip most of the feathers on the quill’s shaft, leaving a brushlike fan of bristles on one side near the tapered end. Finally, I fashion a split point.

When I finish the quill, I call for lampblack and water. Now the ink, I say to the onlookers. The circle of sailors and soldiers that has formed around me grows quiet.

How much do you need? a seaman asks.

Depends on how much paper I have. Got paper?

I’ll ask the bos'n.

A while later, Hawk comes down from the main deck with his usual superior air and drops two sheets of paper onto the sea chest. Captain wants you to know this is good use of idle time, says the page with a snort and walks away. Soon enough I have what I need: paper, quill, and a cup of soot.

From what I understand, most of the crew and soldiers have left behind their last wills and testaments in England so that if they die at sea they will leave something to their family, friends, and debtors. But many of the newer, first-time voyagers do not have such documents and regret not leaving written word on how to dispose of their things.

Budgie, I say, just so you know—I’m not a notary, nothing official. I only write.

I don’t care, just put it down. Got to have something.

His reason for leaving home, it seems to me, is no less desperate and urgent than mine. He lost his sheep and ran away. I lost my family and ran away. And I kept my promise to Father. Near death, he gave me his penknife and whispered, You must flee England. Promise me.

I asked him why and all he said was to ask Jacob, the London apothecary who sold him ink.

Joey, Budgie says, the will.

Aye.

I tell the nearest sailor to hold the pewter cup with the ink steady, and I begin to write on the sheet of paper before me. It’s the first time I’ve done scrivener work since I wrote for the women of the stews in Southwark.

I ask Budgie to say his full Christian name. Before the silent stares, I begin to pronounce the words as I write them.

In the name of God Amen.

After these words, the rest flows from the nib as if the quill were guiding itself.

I Roger Parker being in parfytt mynde & memorye make here my laste will and testament. First I bequeathe my soule unto the hands of the lyving God and my bodye where yt shall please my company. I will that my wif Sara dwelling in Topsham in the countie of Devonshyre shalbe myne executrix to recyve all sayd parcels and duties as belongit vnto me. I give to her a cut Jerkin and lynnon clothe, a cut dublet, a shirte & a newe paire of shewes.

I stop writing and blow on the page. I've done most of the talking, often pausing to dip the quill into the cup. I wait for Budgie to correct himself, and when he doesn't, I say, New shoes? Really?

As God’s me witness. Won ’em fair ’n’ square.

The seamen, many without shoes, laugh, and someone says, Swears you and the devil!

Aboard the Mynion any sort of footwear is for officers, soldiers, or those standing watch. Wet leather shoes and boots aren’t of much use on a wooden deck awash with seawater and would certainly hinder men in the rigging. Suddenly, what I’m doing at this moment feels as if I’m performing a sacred ceremony for Budgie and for all the men gathered under the light coming from the open hatch. Even Nicky, still sick and doubled up next to a cannon carriage, watches with glistening eyes. I pronounce each word aloud, as Father did with his clients, so that what I call the testator hears what I’m writing.

Please, Budgie says, touching my writing arm.

Yes, new shoes, I say. What else?

Me home, every stick of it.

All to your wife?

That’s me wish.

I finish and feel pleased. I’ve kept the attention of my audience with words and tiny marks, curves, dots and lines. All that’s left is a signature. I ask Budgie to make his mark at the bottom of the page, and he slowly draws the letters R and P. Several sailors also sign as witnesses, one man with an eye patch who makes various odd marks that he says are his given names.

How did you learn to write? the man with the eye patch asks.

I tell him my father was a scrivener and taught me in Greenwich. I used to sit on a stool by his side on the street, listening to him recite letters and petitions that people asked him to write. When he wasn’t writing, he would watch me mark my board as I learned to write sounds and read words. Later, after the Black Death took my family, I went to London and wrote for food and bed on the streets of Bankside.

And how’s it you speak so proper? a voice asks.

For the same reason, my father. He sought to speak correctly. English was a gift from the Queen, he would say, something to respect.

Returning to my little ceremony of words, I write my own name, Joseph Fields, at the bottom of the two sheets of paper I used for Budgie’s will. When I’m done, I hand over the sheets to the gambling shepherd from Devon. He thanks me, and I stand to leave the men gathered around the chest. The ship doesn’t pitch and shudder as much as it did during the storm, but I still must spread my legs and be careful of my balance.

Hold on there, boy, says another voice. I turn to see the scowling gunner with the red beard and Irish accent. For some reason, I ignite the nasty in him.

My turn, he says and orders me to write his will and testament, a short one because he possesses almost nothing. But I have no more paper and say so, which earns me a hard slap on the side of my head. Before I can suggest we ask the ship’s officers for more paper, an excited voice from above deck calls out, Land ho! Land ho! Everyone cheers. Even little Nicky stirs. He lifts his head and utters a faint Land, land ho.

Chapter 2 – Bucket Duty

We’re anchored in a bay. The calm waters seem to have revived Nicky’s spirits, so much so that he goes over the rail for a swim with Carlos to check the state of the hull planks. The ship’s carpenter and caulker tells us he came from Essex and his birth name is Charles. But he spent some years mending hulls in Spain and likes being called Carlos and boasts that he speaks the language he calls cristiano.

After Nicky’s swim, we lie on the main deck warming ourselves, but Nicky keeps scratching and picking at his scalp. So I tell him to sit up, and I’ll get rid of his lice with my mother’s nit comb.

Earlier in the morning, the captain and most of the crew and all the soldiers rowed to the port of San Sebastian in longboat runs. The few men left behind sit on the fore- and aftdecks, mend sailcloth, sing ditties, or throw dice, while the red-bearded gunner fishes off the aftdeck, cursing the tangles of kelp he hooks again and again.

I pull out Mother’s comb from my waist cloth. As soon as I begin running it through Nicky’s shaggy blond hair, I sense his agitation drain away. After I finish catching lice and nits in the comb’s tiny, narrowly spaced teeth, we stand by the rail and watch the screeching seagulls whirl overhead, some of them touching down on a spar or on the tallest of the three crow’s nests. Nicky says that the birds look small and are nothing special, not when compared to the graceful white-bellied pelicans that glide over the water near his home in Cornwall.

As he’s telling me this, I feel drawn to him as a friend I can count on to be my mate in anything we do, someone I can trust with my life. Years ago, Father told me that people are collectable, like interesting stones—some good, some bad, some a bit of both. He said I should try to collect only the good stones, saving them in a make-believe bag tied around my waist.

I tell Nicky about my bag of imaginary stones and that he’s now in a bag with Father, Mother, Sister Mary, a few steady mates at Greyfriars, a wherryman who took me down the Thames, and a farm woman who fed me. Nicky thanks me for the gesture. It’s an honor, he says with a laugh, as long as I don’t lose the bag in the sea.

We watch a pelican dive into the water and moments later surface with the pouch beneath its bill bulging with its catch.

Teach me to write, Nicky says.

My eyes are stuck on the pelican, and Nicky repeats himself.

I’ll teach you, I answer, but you have to show me this. I stretch out my arms, moving them forward one after the other, then pulling them back one at a time.

What’s that? he asks.

Guess.

Pulling lines?

Swimming.

Not like that, Nicky says, giggling.

Then show me.

We stand, and he asks me if I’ve ever been in deep water.

Never.

He climbs onto the rail and invites me to join him. Time to get wet, he says.

Careful, lads! Red Beard yells from the stern. Sharks about.

I look at Nicky, who shakes his head and waves away the comment. Then he springs forward and dives into the water.

Nicky told me he comes from a poor family that lives near the shore. As long as he can remember, he loved being in water. His mother called him Fish Boy, and he was the only swimmer of her five children. His father had sailed the English and Dutch coasts most of his life, and after he died Nicky followed his example. With his mother’s blessing, he looked for maritime work in Plymouth and, like me, found it as a ship’s boy on the Mynion.

I’ve only touched open water in the river Thames. Now I’m faced with a jump into the ocean. I hitch up my pants, make sure my penknife and comb are secure in their pouch, and then I climb up on the rail and step into the air. I hit the water feet first, feeling cold and afraid I’ll never stop going down. Then I stop and slowly begin to rise. I can see Nicky’s legs next to the ship’s hull. Suddenly, my head’s above water, and I can breathe again. Nicky grabs my hand and pulls me to the webbing that hangs on the side of the hull.

Do this, he says, cupping his hands and beating the surface. Do like a dog, move your front paws up and down.

And my legs?

Move ’em like . . . like sheep shears, up and down, open and close.

I let go of the webbing and start to go under. I’m frantically kicking and moving my arms, swallowing water and spitting it out, gasping but staying afloat. My dog imitation isn’t working, as I go under again, swallowing and choking.

Here! Carlos shouts from above. He tosses down a small wooden block with a line attached to the ship.

I dog-paddle to the float.

Good, Nicky says, leisurely swimming on his back. Now let go of the wood and do it again.

I practice my kicks and strokes until I get tired and have to cling to the wood. Nicky waits for me to catch my breath. Let go of it, Joe, he says, urging me on with a wave of his arm. Kick-kick stroke! Kick-kick stroke!

I launch myself again, this time without clinging to the float but splashing about on my own until the coaxing begins to take effect. I swallow a lot of water. I’m determined not only to stay afloat and breathe but also to move forward.

After a while, Nicky says, Watch this, and he slips completely under the water’s surface. Minutes pass, and I finally call to Carlos, He’s gone!

Aye, but you needn’t worry about him, Carlos says, leaning over the rail and peering down. He likes to swim con los peces, he says.

What?

With the fish.

Carlos likes to pepper his speech with Spanish words.

Where’s Nicky?

Shark got him, Red Beard says and spits over the rail. Look for blood.

He’s teasing, Carlos says.

Did he drown? I ask.

No.

Just then Nicky appears. He swims toward me from the bow of the ship. He waves a hand, then resumes his strokes, moving with ease alongside the hull.

I thought you had drowned, I say.

Never! Not Fish Boy.

"All right, muchachos! Carlos yells down. Boats are coming back."

We scramble up the ropes, climb over the rail and collapse on the deck, both of us grinning and dripping wet.

Thank you, I say. I owe you some writing lessons.

"Let’s go, vámonos! Carlos shouts from the poop deck. Mop up the puddles!"

Then he tells the crewmen to gather the canvas and store the sails below.

While Nicky goes down the hatch ladder to fetch rags, I tug off my clothes and wring them out over the side, then pull them on again. I figure the sun will dry them soon enough.

Nicky climbs out of the hatchway and tosses me a rag, and we begin drying the wet spots. While we are doing this, we talk about my make-believe collection of stones. I tell him the first stone in the bag is my mother because my father used to say she was the heart of goodness. And she was.

Was your father your second stone? Nicky asks.

Yes.

Do you have many stones?

Not many. There’s my sister, Mary, a few mates from the streets, a boatman named Wayne, Millie the farm lady who fed me, and a minstrel who never gave me his name.

I told Nicky I was fooled by an old man with a limp, a fellow I met after leaving Millie’s place. I was on the Roman road to Rochester, and while I was washing myself at the edge of a stream, he took the knife, spoon, and comb from my bag, leaving stones in their place. Later, on the Rochester bridge, when I opened my bag, I discovered the theft. The minstrel saw me crying and carrying on over the loss, and he asked what was the matter. I told him, and he said I was lucky the man didn’t take my life as well.

When I got to Chatham, I saw the old thief enter a tavern without a limp. I followed him in and accused him, shouting that he’d