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  Contents

  Title Page

  CHAPTER 1

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  CHAPTER 2

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  CHAPTER 3

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  CHAPTER 4

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  CHAPTER 5

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  CHAPTER 6

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  CHAPTER 7

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  Thanks for Reading!

  BROTHERS AND KINGS

  BOOK 1:

  CONQUISTADORS TRILOGY

  Dennis Santaniello

  Copyright © 2016 Dennis Santaniello. All rights reserved.

  CHAPTER 1

  “All we had left were our swords and our rags. We were starved and we ran out of miracles.

  I remembered many things about that day. The sounds the waves made when the tide came in, how they pulsed and pulled. I remembered the sounds the men made as they cheered the boat onto shore, how they shrieked and hollered and cried. But what I remembered most was the sound Francisco's sword made when he marked the sand and drew his line, for it was quick and sharp and sacred, and has been etched into my mind ever since.

  Before Peru, before the riches and kingdoms and wars that followed, there was that godforsaken beach with old Francisco and his dream. It all started with the dream. That used and terrible dream. That horrible dream.

  The dream that drove us there was the dream of the city in speech. It was a city of millions, and we dreamt of its silver and rubies, its turquoise and emeralds, its sapphire, and its pearls. But most of all we dreamt of its gold. Gold as far as the eye could see. Gold beyond and gold above. Gold that would make us all kings. Only because it was rare, and only because it was beautiful.

  But the dream remained only in rumor, and it lost almost all of its luster when the days of absolute failure piled up.

  And on that day, and on that beach, the sane had finally separated from the insane, and all knew that this time it was for good.

  It had been two years since we left Panama and headed down the coast to the great land of the South to find that illustrious city, and in those two years, we found absolutely nothing. At the time, hopes were at their highest, for Cortés returned to Spain the richest man in the world. But to keep that hope alive the price was a hefty sum, and after two years of endless marches through endless jungles we ended up on that godforsaken island of misery where all there was to eat were rats and bitter fruit.

  For the sane, rationality finally won out, and the rules of sanity soon followed, and this was the majority. They should have died along with Balboa, and indeed, some wanted to, for they were diluted and broken, and ravaged and starved, and they knew their limitations. I could see it in their eyes as they staggered along the beach with defeated leans and languished on in their dirty, filthy rags, and I could hear it from their grunts and swears and sighs that they had given up a long time ago. Every day they watched the shore in hopes their rescue ship would come along and take them away from this hell.

  And on that day, they got their wish.

  For the rest, they still couldn't let go of the dream. These demented souls still believed in all their hearts that they'd find their lands of gold, and nothing could convince them otherwise.

  And as Francisco made his line in the sand, it was clear as day to which side he belonged. He kept his armor on as long as I could remember. Even in stifling heat he wouldn't take it off. But he knew what he was doing, and indeed aside from Soto, Francisco Pizarro was the shrewdest man I ever met. Everything he did or said was intentional. At the time, I didn't know if he was a guiding light or the angel of desolation, but I knew one thing was for sure. He was a leader. He looked the part, and when our expedition started all of us fully bought in and believed his Gospel.

  I stared into Francisco’s eyes for the longest time that day. It was an evil, burning madness and it was contagious, and it awoke the demon in my soul. As the noonday sun blistered on, I saw him muttering to himself. He was practicing his speech. The rage was settling in. The words came into his mind, complete, and pure. Francisco. Poor Francisco. The man who lost it all. And when I saw him that morning and glanced, I knew the madness had taken complete control over him, for it did the same for me.

  Then the ship came to shore and the great divide began.

  About half of the men rushed towards the boat and piled on all at once. They cheered and hollered and shouted, and I was afraid that the boat would capsize over.

  The other half of the men remained on the sand, and Francisco stood furthest from shore. I watched him smile as he approached us, and there was that familiar glimmer in his eye.

  "Comrades." He began. "Comrades. This will be the last time."

  I couldn’t let go of my stare. I swirled in his eyes, enraptured by the symphony of the impossible. He reminded me of Christ, and perhaps he was, at least for that moment. Perhaps this was his Beatitudes.

  Blessed are the Mad, for they will find gold others will not.

  But Francisco went on and made his line in the sand, and finished his preposterous speech.

  "And now is the time."

  The image of Christ remained, as I stood with my boot placed firmly on the sand. The rest of the men sneered and cursed under their breath. They stayed and listened, and it felt as if they were paying their last respects to a dying man who had completely lost his mind.

  "Comrades. There's an empire waiting for you. It's just beyond here."

  He took his sword, pointed it to the line, and with a deep thrust he planted it into the sand.

  "But it's beyond this line. It’s on this side. It's nightmarish and cruel, but it's there and it's yours if you want it. Stay on your side, and, yes, you'll survive. But you'll be back in Panama, and you'll be forever poor."

  He took out his sword again and pointed inland to the abyss.

  "But cross over this line, and you'll be rich beyond your wildest dreams. The choice is yours."

  The men on the boat snickered and shouted. They were enraged but not all too surprised.

  "Screw you, Pizarro!" I heard one man jeer.

  "We heard that two years ago! There's nothing here!"

  But the rest of the curses remained unheard. And as we stared at the line, the choice stared back at us.

  In all, twelve men crossed the line and joined Francisco.

  And I was one of them.

  It was a very easy decision. In my mind, going back to Spain meant I failed. I couldn't imagine returning as a broken man with only a sad story that no one wanted to hear. If I were to return, I wanted to come back as the victor. Not as the pauper. Not as poor as my father. I wanted to return as Cortés’s men had done, celebrated by all in
parades, lauded by the entire world, and treated as if they were kings themselves. I wanted that and nothing else.

  So I crossed the line and never looked back.

  As the day ended, we marched back inland and left the rest on shore. In all, there were only thirteen men. The Glorious Thirteen some had called us. We didn't think so at the time. We were thirteen idiots. Thirteen fools who lost all semblance of rational thought, but we made our decision, and we made it clear.

  “Dreams, Sardina.” I could hear Soto say.

  He was right. That’s all it was. Dreams.

  It was Peru or death. I was still lost in the dream, and I was glad.”

  II

  “But of course, we needed more than thirteen men to conquer an empire, so Pizarro returned to Spain to obtain funds for the expedition. "The Third and the Last Return," he said, reminding us over and over again, and he told us that he would return in less than a year.

  Our orders were to simply wait until Francisco had returned, and wait we did until we bled from our eyeballs. Waiting for a year doesn't seem that long, but when the illness of gold is firmly placed in a man's mind, a year might as well be a thousand.

  For the time being, we stayed with a friendly tribe of villagers that was primarily composed of farmers and fishermen. They were good people to us. They never asked questions, and we liked them very much. They were a major important factor in our stay, for they confirmed the rumor of a land south that was rich in gold and other precious metals, but our stay only made us more restless.

  So I waited, along with twenty other men, while tales of Cortés entered and captivated our minds, but this was our own tale and our own adventure, and we knew it too well, and each day we spoke in the language of gold, for we kept hearing rumors of the grand land of the South, and each day we dissected each rumor, and asked unanswerable questions. How close we were. How further we had to trek. How big the city was. But after a few weeks, we gave these thoughts a break, until the silence was too much to bear.

  During the mid-point of our stay, I made my last confession with the friar, Fray Rodriguez. I wasn't ready for confession, but he pleaded and begged me every day, as priests are accustomed to doing, and after a while I finally took his offer. I was hesitant at first because when I thought about my life until then, I had broken all ten commandments, and if there were more I would have broken them too, and as the sins burned through my memory I told the friar one by one. But I did so only because I felt pity for him, for the simple fact that he was the loneliest man I have ever met, and it felt as if he just needed someone to talk to.

  We walked to the secluded part of the land, and I told what I could remember before Peru. The year that my body left Spain and my mind left Reason.

  The friar did his best to understand.

  "Was it lust, Sardina?”

  "Lust, Friar. Yes, it was."

  Lust of all things. Lust of women to begin with. The native women who I saw in between the skirmishes were naked as the day they were born, but they were beautiful in every sense of the word. It had been a year since I saw a woman in the flesh. And as we reached Panama, the women greeted us as gods, and gods we were.

  Those I wanted, I took. And those who ran, I chased. I chased until I got, and when I got, I devoured.

  The want was all I had. But the want was tremendous.

  "Are women the only thing you lusted for?"

  "No."

  "What else, my son?"

  "Blood."

  "Blood?"

  Blood. The blood from the natives and everyone I killed, and every bone I pierced through, and every face that suddenly went cold. If I told you I didn't enjoy it, I would be lying.

  Thou shall not kill. Within reason. Was it wrong? I couldn't tell anymore.

  But blood was only proxy to the real lust that brought me here, and as my confession continued my earliest memories swirled in my mind. What I thought about most was the memory of Cortés returning to Spain, and that parade might have been the happiest day in of my life, for it showed me what could be done, and what men were capable of doing. And there they were. Men amongst men. Men of honor. These were the heroes. The conquerors. The conquistadors. They did so for Spain. But if they were honest to themselves, they did so because they were once told it was impossible.

  "So you wanted to be like them?"

  "I did."

  "I see."

  I wasn't sure he could. How could he see?

  Though if he could see what I saw, he certainly couldn't feel I felt. The friar was too good of a man. He knew his flaws, but God and the fear of hell always kept him at bay.

  What he couldn't see was what I couldn't tell him. I couldn’t tell him that my God was replaced a long time ago. At least, I could see it this time, for this new God, never judged, nor commanded, it just glimmered, and each day I said a prayer and was ever more resolved to get closer to it. My God became Gold, and I held it sacred to it and worshiped and adored it. And in my mind, this journey was more than a pilgrimage. It was a crusade.

  And when I left the friar that day, he absolved me of all my sins and all the horrors, and I left him in peace and never spoke to him again.”

  III

  “Then one day, the Brothers Pizarro finally landed ashore. I was delighted to say the least. They returned two months early. It seemed ridiculous, but I suppose it was intentional. According to one man on the ship before they left Spain, Francisco and his brothers stole as many supplies as they could, promised to stay a little longer, then in the wee early morning took off and headed back west. I suppose it was his last goodbye to Spain.

  It was a great delight to see the men again, especially the brothers. I've long heard about them, but it was hard for me, at first, to accept them in the flesh. However, their allure didn’t last long, and their majesty wore off when they opened their mouths, for by then I realized they were only men.

  During the evening, they huddled near a fire. I studied them. Their eyes were wide and their stares were wider. They drew sticks in the sand.

  First there was Hernando who was reasonable and compassionate and the second oldest of the brothers. Then there was Gonzalo who was a little shorter and utterly cruel. And last there was Juan who was silent, but not the least timid, and indeed Juan might have been the smartest of all the Pizarros. God knows what he would have been if he remained in Spain.

  But what all the brothers had in common was their allegiance to their elder sibling, Francisco, and the dominant emotion they shared was fear. One could argue Francisco scared the hell out of him from such a young age and it was only natural for them to follow him halfway across the world to explore and conquer an unknown land, and I would agree with that argument. I guess certain things never change.

  As the night progressed, Francisco talked with them soberly and answered all their questions. Then he drank a jug of wine and told them the truth. After a while, things became a little clearer, though it took some more convincing. I remembered their conversation word for word.

  "The scouts say we're only a hundred miles away." Said Francisco.

  "Only a hundred miles?" Said Gonzalo. "You know how long that's going to take us?”

  "However long it takes." Said Francisco, slurring his words. "Because this is what we're going to find."

  He picked up a nugget of gold he kept underneath his cloak then passed it along to each of his brothers. They took turns examining it underneath the dim light of the fire, and although the nugget was coarse and rough along its edges, it glimmered, sparkled, and somehow floated in their hands as they turned it about. It was the only proof they needed.

  "Pretty isn't it? We found it this morning. There's more, brothers." Francisco said.

  The brothers asked more questions, and Francisco answered every one.

  When it was over, Francisco then turned away then finished the jug. Then he got up and left the fire. I watched him stagger and hobble as the waves subsided. He stared at the ocean and the full moon and doubted t
hem both. He spat and flared his nostrils. Then he gazed inland and his face turned into reverence. And I guess this was his prayer.

  He approached me not too longer, and instead of a speech, he merely gave me a smile.

  That demented, familiar smile that said more about life than any written book. It was pure and demonic. And Francisco knew I understood.”

  IV

  “Three days passed and not much was done. Then another boat came onto shore, a much larger boat with brighter sails, and there was no doubt in any man's mind that was Almagro's ship: the final piece to the puzzle.

  Almagro was Francisco's long time friend but he proved to be a better mercenary.

  Almagro was younger than Francisco by about ten years. His beard was dark and gray, yet he had what Francisco had an intangible thing. That certain type of madness. In all things, he never knew when to quit, and his arrogance was just as strong. But the way they interacted with each other was almost eerily similar to the way Francisco talked to his brothers, with shouts and swears and sneers and threats. Their relationship turned foul after Balboa’s expedition, but they had to come to terms with each other when they returned to Spain. It was no secret that in that time Francisco bargained for his soul. They hated each other, but for the expedition they complemented one another quite well, and we desperately needed both. For if it were just Francisco, we would repeat the same fate of two years ago, and if it were just Almagro, we'd survive all right, but we wouldn't have the panache to search deeper and risk everything in order to find exactly what we were looking for, but with them together, we had the best of both treacherous worlds.