Columbus came home after dark in the chilly night, weary to the bone -- not from the walk home, for it wasn't that far, but rather from the endless questions and answers and arguments. There were times when he longed to simply say, "Father Talavera, I've told you everything I can think of. I have no more answers. Make your report." But as the Franciscans of La Rabida had warned him, that would mean the end of his chances. Talavera's report would be devastating and thorough, and there would be no crack left through which he could escape with ships and crew and supplies for a voyage.

There were even times when Columbus wanted to seize the patient, methodical, brilliant priest and say, "Don't you know that I see exactly how impossible it looks to you? But God himself told me that I must sail west to reach the great kingdoms of the east! So my reasoning must be true, not because I have evidence, but because I have the word of God!"

Of course he never succumbed to that temptation. While Columbus hoped that if he were ever charged with heresy, God might intervene and stop the priests from having him burned, he did not want to put God to the test on this. After all, God had told him to tell no one, and so he could hardly expect miraculous intervention if his own impatience put him in danger of the fire.

So it was that the days and the weeks and the months stretched on behind him, and it seemed that the path ahead would have at least as many days and weeks and months -- why not years? -- before at last Talavera said, "Columbus seems to know more than he's telling, but we must make our report and have done with it." How many years? It made Columbus tired just to think of it. Will I be like Moses? Will I win consent to launch the fleet when I'm already so old that I will only be able to stand on the coast and watch them sail away? Will I never enter the promised land myself?

No sooner had he laid his hand upon the door than it was flung open and Beatrice greeted him with an embrace only slightly encumbered by her thick belly. "Are you mad?" asked Columbus. "It could have been anybody, and you opened the door without so much as asking who it was."

"But it was you, wasn't it?" she said, kissing him.

He reached behind him, shut the door, and then managed to extricate himself from her embrace long enough to bar it. "You're doing no good for your own reputation, letting the whole street see that you wait for me in my rooms and greet me with kisses."

"You think the whole street doesn't already know? You think even the two-year-olds don't already know that Beatrice has Cristobal's baby in her womb?"

"Then let me marry you, Beatrice," he said.

"You say that, Cristobal, only because you know that I'll say no."

He protested, but in his heart he knew that she was right. He had promised Felipa that Diego would be his only heir, and so he could hardly marry Beatrice and make her child legitimate. Beyond that, though, was the reasoning that she always used, and it was correct.

She recited it even now. "You can't be burdened with a wife and child when the court moves to Salamanca in the spring. Besides which, right now you come before the court as a gentleman who consorted with nobility and royalty in Portugal. You are the widower of a woman of high birth. But marry me, and what are you? The husband of the cousin of Genovese merchants. That does not make you a gentleman. I think the Marquise de Moya wouldn't be as taken with you then, either."

Ah, yes, his other "affair of the heart," Isabella's good friend the Marquise. In vain had he explained to Beatrice that Isabella was so pious that she would not tolerate any hint that Columbus had dallied with her friend. Beatrice was convinced that Columbus slept with her regularly; she pretended elaborately that she didn't mind. "The Marquise de Moya is a friend and a help to me, because she has the ear of the Queen and because she believes in my cause," said Columbus. "But the only thing that I find beautiful about her is her name."

"De Moya?" teased Beatrice.

"Her Christian name," said Columbus. "Beatrice, just like you. When I hear that name spoken, it fills me with love, but only for you. He rested his hand on her belly. "I'm sorry to have burdened you like this."

"Your child is no burden to me, Cristobal."

"I can never make him legitimate. If I win titles and fortune, they'll belong to Felipa's son Diego."

"He will have the blood of Columbus in him, and he will have my love and the love you gave me as his heritage."

"Beatrice," said Columbus, "what if I fail? What if there is no voyage, and therefore no fortune and no titles? What is your baby then? The bastard son of a Genovese adventurer who tried to involve the crowned heads of Europe in a mad scheme to sail into the unknown quarters of the sea."

"But you won't fail," she said, comfortably nestling closer to him. "God is with you."

Is he? thought Columbus. Or when I succumbed to your passion and joined you on your bed, did that sin -- which I haven't the strength even now to forsake -- deprive me of God's favor? Should I repudiate you now and repent of loving you, in order to win his favor back? Or should I forsake my oath to Felipa and follow the dangerous course of marrying you?

"God is with you," she said again. "God gave me to you. Marriage you must forsake for the sake of your great mission, but surely God does not mean you to be a priest, celibate and unloved."

She had always talked this way, even at the start, so that at first he had wondered if God had given him at last someone to whom he could talk about his vision on the beach near Lagos. But no, she knew nothing of that. And yet her faith in the divine origin of his mission was strong, and sustained him when he was at his most discouraged.

"You must eat," she said. "You have to keep up your strength for your jousting with the priests."

She was right, and he was hungry. But first he kissed her, because he knew that she needed to believe that she mattered more to him than anything, more than food, more than his cause. And as they kissed he thought, If only I had been this careful of Felipa. If only I had spent the little time it would have taken to reassure her, she might not have despaired and died so young, or if she died anyway, her life would have been happier until that day. It would have been so easy, but I didn't know.

Is that what Beatrice is? My chance to amend my mistakes with Felipa? Or simply a way to make new ones?

Never mind. If God wanted to punish Columbus for his illegitimate coupling with Beatrice, then so be it. But if God still wanted him to pursue his mission to the west, despite his sins and his weaknesses, then Columbus would keep trying with all his strength to accomplish it. His sins were no worse than King Solomon's, and a far sight gentler than King David's, and God gave greatness to both of them.

Dinner was delicious, and then they played together on the bed, and then he slept. It was the only happiness in these dark cold days, and whether God approved or not, he was glad of it.

Tagiri brought Hunahpu into the Columbus project, putting him and Diko jointly in charge of developing a plan of action for intervention in the past. For an hour or two, Hunahpu felt vindicated; he longed to go back to his old position just long enough to say good-bye, seeing the envy on the faces of those who had despised his private project -- a project that now would form the basis of the great Kemal's own work. But the glow of triumph soon passed, and then came dread: He would have to work among people who were used to a very high level of thought, of analysis. He would have to supervise people -- he who had always been impossible to supervise. How could he possibly measure up? They would all find him lacking, those above him and those below.