"But he's a man," said Chipa, with a laugh. "Should I let them in?"

"Who is with Cristoforo?"

"All the big-house people," said Chipa. "Segovia, Arana, Gutiftrez, Escobedo. Even Torres." She giggled again. "Did you know that they brought him along to be an interpreter? He doesn't speak a word of Taino."

He didn't speak Mandarin either, or Japanese or Cantonese or Hindi or Malay or any of the other languages he would have needed if Cristoforo had actually reached the Far East as he intended. The poor myopic Europeans had sent Torres because he could read Hebrew and Aramaic, which they considered to be the matrices of all language.

"Let the Captain-General come in," said Diko. "And you can bring in your page, too. Pedro de Salcedo?"

Chipa did not seem surprised that Diko knew the name of her page. "Thank you," she said, and then stepped outside to bring in the guests.

Diko could not help feeling nervous -- no, why quibble? She was terrified. To finally meet him, the man who had consumed her life. And the scene they would play would be one that had never existed before in any history. She was so used to knowing what he would say before he said it. What would it be like, now that he had the capacity to surprise her?

No matter. She had a far greater ability to surprise him, and she used it immediately, speaking to him first in Genovese. "I've waited a long time to meet you, Cristoforo."

Even in the darkness inside her house, Diko could see how his face flushed at her lack of respect. Yet he had the good grace not to insist that she call him by his titles. Instead, he concentrated on the real question. "How is it that you speak the language of my family?"

She answered in Portuguese. "Would this be the language of your family? This is how your wife spoke, before she died, and your older son still thinks in Portuguese. Did you know that? Or have you spoken to him often enough to know what he thinks about anything?"

Cristoforo was angry and frightened. Just what she was hoping for. "You know things that no one knows." He was not speaking of family details, of course.

"Kingdoms will fall at your feet," she said, imitating as much as possible even the intonation of the voice in Cristoforo's vision from the interveners. "And millions whose lives are saved will call you blessed."

"We don't need an interpreter, do we," said Cristoforo.

"Shall we let the children go?" said Diko.

Cristoforo murmured to Chipa and Pedro. Pedro got up at once and went to the door, but Chipa didn't move.

"Chipa is not your servant," Diko pointed out. "But I will ask her to leave." In Taino she said, "I want the Captain-General to speak about things that he won't want anyone else to hear. Would you go outside?"

Chipa got up at once and headed for the door. Diko noticed with pleasure that Pedro held the flap open for her. The boy was already thinking of her, not just as a human, but as a lady. It was a breakthrough, even if no one was aware of it yet.

They were alone.

"How do you come to know these things?" asked Cristoforo at once. "These promises -- that kingdoms would fall at my feet, that--"

"I know them," said Diko, "because I came here by the same power that first gave those words to you." Let him interpret that how he would -- later, when he understood more, she would remind him that she hadn't lied to him.

She pulled a small solar-powered lantern from one of her bags and set it between them. When she switched it on, he shielded his eyes. His fingers also formed a cross. "It isn't witchcraft," she said. "It's a tool made by my people, of another place, where you could never voyage in all your traveling. But like any tool, it will someday wear out, and I won't know how to make another."

He was listening, but as his eyes adjusted, he was also looking at her. "You're as dark as a Moor."

"I am an African," she said. "Not a Moor, but from farther south."

"How did you come here, then?"

"Do you think you're the only voyager? Do you think you're the only one who can be sent to faraway lands to save the souls of the heathen?"

He rose to his feet. "I can see that after all my struggles, I have only now begun to face opposition. Did God send me to the Indies only to show me a Negress with a magic lamp?"

"This is not India," said Diko. "Or Cathay, or Cipangu. Those lie far, far to the west. This is another land entirely."

"You quote the words spoken to me by God himself, and then you tell me that God was wrong?"

"If you think back carefully, you will remember that he never said Cathay or Cipangu or India or any other such name," said Diko.

"How do you know this?"

"I saw you kneeling on the beach, and heard you take your oath in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost."

"Then why didn't I see you? If I could see the Holy Trinity, why were you invisible?"

"You dream of a great victory for Christianity," said Diko, ignoring his question because she couldn't think of an answer that would be comprehensible to him. "The liberation of Constantinople."

"Only as a step along the way to freeing Jerusalem," said Cristoforo.

"But I tell you that here, in this place, there are millions of souls who would accept Christianity if only you offer it to them peacefully, lovingly."

"How else would I offer it?"

"How else? Already you have written in your logbooks about how these people could be made to work. Already you talk about enslaving them."

He looked at her piercingly. "Who showed you my log?"

"You are not yet fit to teach these people Christianity, Cristoforo, because you are not yet a Christian."

He reached back his hand to strike at her. It surprised her, because he was not a violent man.

"Oh, will hitting me prove how Christian you are? Yes, I remember all the stories about how Jesus whipped Mary Magdelene. And the beatings he gave to Mary and Martha."

"I didn't hit you," he said.

"But it was your first desire, wasn't it?" she said. "Why? You are the most patient of men. You let those priests badger you and torment you for years, and you never lost your temper with them. Yet with me, you felt free to lash out. Why is that, Cristoforo?"

He looked at her, not answering.

"I'll tell you why. Because to you I'm not a human being, I'm a dog, less than a dog, because you would not beat a dog, would you? Just like the Portuguese, when you see a black woman you see a slave. And these brown people -- you can teach them the gospel of Christ and baptize them, but that doesn't stop you from wanting to make slaves of them and steal their gold from them."

"You can teach a dog to walk on its hind legs, but that doesn't make it a man."

"Oh, that's a clever bit of wisdom. That's just the kind of argument that rich men make about men like your father. Oh, he can dress in fine clothing, but he's still a country bumpkin, not worth treating with respect."

Cristoforo cried out in rage. "How dare you speak of my father that way!"

"I tell you that as long as you treat these people even worse than the rich men of Genova treated your father, you will never be pleasing to God."

The flap of the door opened wide, and Pedro and Escobedo stuck their heads into the house. "You cried out, my lord!" said Escobedo.

"I'm leaving," said Cristoforo.

He ducked and walked through the door. She turned off her lamp and followed him out into the afternoon light. All of Ankuash was gathered around, and the Spaniards all had their hands on their sword hilts. When they saw her -- so tall, so black -- they gasped, and some of the swords began to rise out of their sheaths. But Cristoforo waved the weapons back into place. "We're going," he announced. "There's nothing for us here."

"I know where the gold is!" cried Diko in Spanish. As she expected, it brought her the complete attention of all the white men. "It doesn't come from this island. It comes from farther west. I know where it is. I can take you there. I can show you so much gold that stories of it will be told forever."