Year 13 of the SuaChie Calendar, Eleventh month (January 1485).
Dawn City (Santiago de Cuba, Cuba), Caribá Region (FRFI).
The tropical sun beat down relentlessly upon the wooden deck, a dense, suffocating heat that clung to the skin like a second garment. John Cabot, the seasoned Genoese navigator in service to the English Crown, wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand as he watched the coastline draw near.
Beside him, Edmund Howard, son of Thomas Howard, the 2nd Duke of Norfolk, adjusted his doublet with evident discomfort. The aristocrat, a loyal partisan of King Henry VII, was not made to simmer beneath the Caribá sky, but the weight of his mission kept him standing tall.
Both men traveled aboard the flagship, leading a modest fleet of English caravels. They were sturdy vessels, recently acquired thanks to the injection of gold and the immense profits that trade with the Suaza Kingdom had showered upon England.
Henry VII had not only filled the royal coffers with this political-commercial treaty, but by betrothing his young daughter Margaret to the Leader of the Suaza Kingdom, he had cemented absolute power across the British Isles and cast a formidable shadow of influence over all of Northern Europe.
That same influence had drawn Cabot to the English court, and now it had him here, crossing the ocean in the wake of a Suaza merchantman that had served as their guide since their last layover to restock supplies in Europauba City (La Palma Island, Canary Islands).
It was the 25th of January, 1496—or the 11th Month of the SuaChie calendar, as the allied sailors had learned to call it—and after nearly four weeks of a blistering voyage, they had finally reached their destination: Dawn City.
Cabot gripped the portside railing, squinting his eyes. He had sailed through the ports of Genoa, Venice, and Bristol, accustomed to the chaos, the floating filth, and the deafening clamor. But what unfolded before them left him breathless.
"By all the saints..." Cabot murmured, unable to conceal his astonishment.
"It is... astonishingly pristine," Edmund seconded, forgetting the oppressive heat for a moment.
Upon docking, after patiently waiting their turn guided by a flag system that bordered on mathematical perfection, the Englishmen descended the wooden gangway. The pier of Dawn City was a marvel of engineering and order. There was no mud, no rotting fish, no beggars.
It was paved with clean, precise stone slabs. All around them, dozens of porters and stevedores moved with clockwork synchrony, utilizing pulleys and cranes of incomprehensible design to load and unload massive vessels that made their caravels look like mere rowboats.
Cabot and Edmund stood still for a moment, feeling like barbarian intruders in a celestial palace. Their disorientation was short-lived. A guard, clad in armor that was light yet incredibly resilient in appearance, detached himself from the flow of workers and marched directly toward them with a martial stride.
The man stopped at a prudent distance and addressed them with fluid, rhythmic words in the Suaza (Muisca) language.
Cabot furrowed his brow, completely lost, and shook his head, raising his hands in a gesture of peace. It was then that Edmund, recalling the long nights of study at court under the tutelage of ambassadors, stepped forward. Clearing his dry throat, he searched his memory.
"English..." Edmund pronounced, his accent harsh and his pauses deliberate. "Allies... mission."
The words worked a magical effect. The guard's rigid posture relaxed into an attitude of profound respect. He gave a crisp nod and gestured with his hand, signaling them to follow.
He led them away from the bustle of the docks, through streets of unreal cleanliness, until they reached an imposing building of carved stone: the House of the Council. As they crossed the threshold, the contrast in temperature was a blessing. The interior was cool, silent, and smelled of resin and paper.
They were guided to a spacious hall, where a man of serene bearing and elegant garments denoting high rank awaited them.
"Welcome to Dawn City, friends of the Crown," the man said with an affable smile. To Cabot and Edmund's surprise, the greeting resonated in clear English, barely tinged by an exotic accent. "I am Zasaba. It is an honor to receive you in our lands. Tell me, how has your journey across the great ocean been?"
Cabot, recovering his diplomatic instinct, offered a measured bow.
"It has been a grand voyage, Lord Zasaba. The sea has been merciful to us, but the merit is not ours alone. We arrived without incident thanks to the impeccable guidance of your merchant ship from Europauba. Your naval prowess is... truly worthy of admiration."
Zasaba nodded, accepting the compliment with the natural grace of one who knows his own technological superiority, and, without losing his courtesy, cut straight to the point.
"I am glad to hear that, Captain Cabot, Lord Howard. Time is of the essence, and we know why you have come." Zasaba walked toward a polished wooden table, resting his hands upon it. "The preparations of our kingdom are fully complete. The territory suggested for your settlement awaits you. To ensure you arrive safely, a Tequendama II-class warship will escort you."
Edmund's eyes widened.
A Tequendama II? The stories of those Suaza floating fortresses were legend on the docks of Europe.
"Furthermore," Zasaba continued, handing them a parchment with a detailed inventory, "we have prepared several key supplies: tools, adapted seeds, and initial construction materials. Everything is loaded and ready so you may establish yourselves on the site immediately, should you so desire."
Cabot and Edmund exchanged a look laden with astonishment and relief. The level of preparation and efficiency of the Suaza Kingdom exceeded all expectations. There was no endless bureaucracy, no bribes to pay, no weeks of waiting in port taverns.
And, deep down, both Englishmen were profoundly grateful for such immediacy. They had spent nearly a month enduring a sweltering climate that melted their bones and clouded their judgment. Moreover, the economic reality of their expedition was no secret between them: the resources King Henry VII had sent them with were not exactly abundant. The heavy coins clinking in the flagship's coffers were just enough to purchase a small surplus of supplies, but nowhere near enough to fund prolonged stays.
Their plan was simple and strict: depart immediately, acquire the remaining provisions, sail to the suggested territory, and plant the English flag in the earth. Once the first fortified camp was established, Edmund would take command of the territory, and Cabot would return triumphantly to Europe to organize a regular supply route and coordinate the arrival of future colonists.
"Lord Zasaba," Edmund replied, straightening his posture and allowing the authority of his lineage to surface in his voice. "Your efficiency honors our alliance. If the ships are ready, then so are we. We shall set sail as soon as the order is given and we have restocked provisions for the remainder of the journey."
…
A week after setting sail from Dawn City, the naval pride of England found itself, to John Cabot's profound frustration, at the very limit of its capabilities.
The ocean opened before them in a vastness of turbulent, dark blue, but the Genoese navigator's gaze was not fixed on the horizon, but rather on the imposing stern of the Tequendama II that escorted them.
Even though the Suaza officers had assured them that this vessel was a modified version, somewhat slower and heavier than the original destroyers of its class, the robust English caravels groaned and creaked with every wave in a desperate attempt not to fall behind.
During the first half of the initial day, Cabot had clung to the helm of his flagship, utilizing every ounce of his vast experience, trimming the sails to perfection, and reading the wind to keep pace with that monster of the seas.
However, the structural strain on his ships and the exhaustion of his sailors forced him to hoist the flag to signal a slower pace. To his relief, the Tequendama II reduced its speed immediately, gliding along with a lazy elegance that felt almost like an insult to European technology.
The abyss of knowledge between the two cultures became even more evident on the second day.
Under a sky that seemed perfectly clear to Cabot, the Suaza vessel began to emit furious signals with lights and flags, ordering an urgent detour toward one of their coastal settlements in southeastern North Quyca.
When Cabot demanded explanations, shouting from ship to ship, an officer replied that their experts had detected a drastic drop in air pressure thanks to an instrument called a "barometer," a strange tube that predicted the weather.
Cabot had grumbled, skeptical, until twelve hours later, taking refuge in the settlement's bay, they watched a storm of apocalyptic violence pass by—a tempest that would have torn their ships to splinters in the open sea.
Finally, on the seventh day since their departure, the expedition reached its destination.
The midday sun hid behind a thick blanket of gray clouds, tinting the world in a leaden hue. The wind sweeping across the deck was no longer the suffocating breath of the tropics, but a biting, cold, salty breeze that carried the scent of damp earth and pine.
Edmund Howard, wrapped in his heavy English wool cloak, took a deep breath, filling his lungs with that frigid air.
"It is like being home, isn't it, John?" Edmund commented, a satisfied smile peeking through his beard. "I feel as though, if I walk just beyond those trees, I will find the shores of Cornwall."
"It is a fine natural harbor," Cabot conceded, observing the cove protected by high, dark stone cliffs with a clinical eye. "Deep waters, shelter from the windward gales... The perfect site."
Since the beginning of the Suaza Kingdom's continental explorations, the directives of the Chuta had been strict: Suaza ships were not to venture into waters of extreme cold, with the sole exception of the vital Suaza Strait (Strait of Magellan) in the south.
Therefore, the mapping of these high northern latitudes was broad, lacking the obsessive topographical precision they applied in the Caribbean or on the central continent. Nevertheless, they knew enough.
Through indigenous trade networks stretching southward, the scholars of the Simte Academy had documented the existence of local populations and had even deciphered the rudiments of their language.
Upon confirming through spyglasses that there was no visible presence of natives on the beaches, nor smoke from campfires in the nearby woods, the Tequendama II hoisted the flags authorizing disembarkation by boat.
The maneuver took nearly half an hour.
The rhythmic sound of oars cutting through the icy water culminated with the crunch of wood against the coarse sand of the coast. Soon, a sizable contingent of English soldiers and colonists, alongside a small and select Suaza escort, found themselves stepping onto solid ground.
The contrast between the two entourages was comical.
The Englishmen, clad in their heavy doublets, woolen hose, and thick leather boots, walked along the beach with revitalized ease, overjoyed to have escaped the blistering hell of the south.
Conversely, the Suaza delegation, despite being bundled in treated fur coats and insulated footwear, could not suppress a slight, constant shiver. Their bodies, forged in the eternal spring of the high plateau and the tropical summers, protested against the freezing climate of these altitudes.
Edmund and Cabot walked along the shore until they approached the military officer in charge, Quemuen, a man with a stern face and scars on his jaw, and Fuhupqua, the lead researcher and guide of the expedition.
Fuhupqua was no longer the astonished boy from the Simte Academy; he was an erudite man of serene bearing and analytical eyes, whose mastery of constructions of all kinds, alongside a remarkable command of English, had made him a linchpin in the kingdom's machinery for this expedition.
"Gentlemen," Fuhupqua greeted in impeccable English, though his breath formed small white clouds of vapor in the frigid air. "You have reached your destination. The land is auspicious."
Edmund, whose eyes gleamed with the fever of conquest, rubbed his gloved hands together. He looked at the virgin forest looming a few hundred meters away, already calculating in his mind how many trees they would need to fell for the palisade.
"It is magnificent, Master Fuhupqua. Perfect," the English nobleman said, taking a step toward the researcher. "I suppose that, since the area appears clear, we should unload the tools. Shall we proceed to erect the provisional settlement immediately, or do you suggest we establish an exploration perimeter first? My men are ready to dig."
Fuhupqua slowly shook his head, keeping his hands hidden beneath the folds of his thick coat to conserve heat.
"You shall not raise a single plank just yet, Lord Howard. The first thing we must do is venture into the forest, find the leaders of the local clans, present ourselves with respect, offer the gifts we have brought, and formally negotiate our presence in these lands."
Edmund blinked, taken aback. Diplomacy with savages was not included in the colonization manuals he had studied in London. His brow furrowed in a mixture of confusion and slight indignation.
"Negotiate?" Edmund repeated, looking around as if searching for an invisible enemy army. "But... the land is empty, and King Henry has granted me command of this territory. To my mind, upon stepping on this sand, we are already on English soil. Why should we ask permission from wandering natives?"
Fuhupqua's expression did not waver. He had deeply studied the history and mentality of the nations beyond the great sea. He knew how Europeans operated. He sighed softly and locked his gaze with the aristocrat's pale eyes.
"Lord Howard," Fuhupqua spoke, with a disarming calm. "Ask yourself a question: what would the English Crown do if, one morning, a fleet of Suaza ships landed on an unoccupied coast of the British Isles—say, in the north of Scotland or on the moors of Wales—and began felling your trees and building a stone fortress without prior notice? Would you accept that the land was ours simply because no one was standing on the sand at the time of our arrival?"
Edmund's mind stopped dead. The image of massive Suaza ships dropping anchor in the Thames estuary without permission sent a shiver down his spine that had nothing to do with the polar wind.
The imperialist arrogance drained from his face, giving way to a profound and humbling realization. The right of conquest, viewed from the other side of the blade, was sheer insolence.
Slowly, Edmund lowered his gaze and nodded, swallowing his pride.
"I see your point, Researcher. It is... impeccable reasoning. We shall proceed with caution and courtesy."
Satisfied to have smothered a conflict before it was born, Fuhupqua turned to the stoic officer Quemuen, who had been observing the exchange in silence.
"Captain Quemuen," Fuhupqua said in Suaza, shifting his weight from foot to foot to keep warm. "Secure the boats. Form the honor guard with the presents in the crates. We may proceed with the approach toward the forest."
…
Half an hour after the boats were secured on the beach, the thicket of the North Quyca forest had swallowed the expedition.
The group, composed overwhelmingly of Suaza soldiers and a small retinue of nobles and officers sent by Edmund Howard, advanced beneath a canopy of giant pines and ancient oaks that filtered the scarce midday light.
At the head of the column marched Officer Quemuen.
His boots crunched against the bed of dry leaves and frost at an accelerated, almost punitive pace. As the vapor of his breath condensed in the freezing air, his jaw remained tense.
To the Englishmen, that march might have seemed like a diligent exploration, but Quemuen knew the truth: this bone-chilling cold was nothing more than a punishment. A 'slip-up' in front of the Chuta's wives had earned him this cold and silent reprimand.
Being relegated to this frozen latitude, escorting arrogant Europeans and a band of scholars, was his penance. And Quemuen, like the disciplined soldier he was, intended to carry it out with ruthless efficiency to reclaim his honor.
The forest seemed asleep, plunged into a sepulchral silence interrupted only by the wind and the clumsy footsteps of the English nobles tripping over roots. However, upon crossing the threshold into a wide clearing ringed by birch trees, Quemuen's instincts flared like an ember in the dark.
He raised a clenched fist, stopping his march dead in its tracks.
Almost at the same instant, one of the veteran Suaza guards covering the right flank emitted a low click of his tongue, the tactical signal of alert. To the untrained eyes of the Englishmen, the clearing was just tall grass and pale trunks.
But Quemuen's trained gaze deciphered the language of the underbrush: the bark of three consecutive trees bore slight horizontal indentations, precise gashes that had not been made by an animal's claws. Further on, shrub branches had been braided and bent in an unnatural direction.
They were not alone. They were on someone else's frontier.
"Shield wall formation," Quemuen ordered, his voice low but cutting through the air like a whip. "Cargo and tongues in the center."
The Suaza soldiers moved with a terrifying fluidity. In a matter of seconds, their shields locked together and spears pointed toward the brush, forming an impenetrable ring.
The English officers, bewildered and suddenly pale upon noticing the tension, were unceremoniously shoved into the center of the circle, alongside the two essential translators: the one who spoke English and the expert in the local Algonquin tongue.
They advanced a couple of dozen meters further with calculated slowness, like a single organism bristling with steel. It was then that the lead researcher, struggling to march beside Quemuen, tugged at his coat sleeve.
"Captain, the recent marks... the crossing of the streams... we are on their hunting line. They are close, very close. We must stop here."
Quemuen nodded and gave the order to halt. The officer knew that battle was not the objective; survival and trade were. Under the hurried yet precise instructions of the researcher, the soldiers deployed a small folding wooden table they had brought disassembled.
Upon it, they draped a white linen cloth and carefully arranged the tributes: finely woven sacks brimming with grain, an assortment of tools with sharp, black obsidian blades that captured the forest's scarce light, and a handful of bright, polished stones from the southern mines.
"Sound the horn," the researcher instructed, swallowing hard.
Quemuen signaled his horn-blower. A deep, hoarse, vibrating note erupted in the clearing, bouncing off the trunks and fading into the depths of the woods. Then, silence fell once more, heavier than before.
Minutes passed. The Englishmen broke out in a cold sweat beneath their cloaks. Quemuen kept his hand on the hilt of his sword, his eyes locked on the shadows between the trees.
Suddenly, as if materializing from the mist and trunks themselves, they emerged... They made no sound. A group of local warriors advanced with feline caution, wielding drawn wooden bows and stone-tipped spears.
They wore tanned hides that camouflaged them perfectly, and their faces and torsos were adorned with ochre pigments and earth-toned feathers that defied the winter's gray. They were imposing, and an undeniable territorial hostility gleamed in their eyes.
At the head of the group, a tall man—whose status was evident from the intricate headdress of dark feathers and the heavy necklace of bone and shell he wore across his chest—stepped forward. His eyes swept over the Suaza military formation, ignoring the Englishmen trembling in the center.
The local leader clenched his jaw and let out a harsh cry, a torrent of rhythmic, guttural syllables that resonated with authority.
Quemuen did not take his eyes off the leader and tilted his head toward the Algonquin translator.
"What did he say?" the captain demanded in a whisper.
The translator, a scholar of the Simte Academy, blinked several times, processing the dialectal variant.
"It is... it is a warning, Captain. He asks what we are doing treading on the land of his ancestors. He said that, if we take one more step inland, our spirits will remain here forever... He is threatening us with an attack."
Not a muscle twitched in Quemuen's weathered face. His mission was clear, and his redemption in the eyes of the Chuta depended on this.
"Tell him we are warriors, but we come as merchants," Quemuen ordered, his tone like a block of ice, devoid of fear, yet full of resolve. "Tell him we bring gifts for the lord of these lands. We wish to trade. Peace, in exchange for wealth."
The translator stepped forward, raising his empty hands in a sign of submission, and began to speak in the local tongue. His pronunciation was somewhat rough, but the words seemed to land correctly.
The local leader furrowed his brow, tightening his grip on his spear, but his gaze drifted instinctively toward the table the Suaza soldiers had left in the neutral space between the two groups. His dark eyes scanned the sacks of grain, a promise of abundance for the harsh winter. Then, the light caught the glint of the polished stones.
But it was the obsidian that broke the ice. The leader knew the value of a stone capable of holding an edge that could slice through flesh and hide as if it were water, and the craftsmanship of those tools surpassed anything he had ever seen.
Slowly, the tension in the warrior's shoulders dissipated. He made a subtle gesture with his left hand, and behind him, his men's bows unbent with a faint creak of wood.
The leader looked back at Quemuen, the foreign warrior who had not backed down, and, lowering the tip of his spear toward the damp earth, he allowed a cautious and pragmatic smile to surface on his face.
.
----
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[A/N: CHAPTER COMPLETED
Hello everyone.
Thank you all for your support. Let's get straight to the chapter comments.
CHAPTER COMMENTS
First, as I mentioned before, the characters who will appear from now on are these men—for the moment, only men—who studied and specialized in areas of interest when establishing settlements in other places.
Second, while Fuhupqua has his own chapter recounting his origins, the others will not, as it would be repetitive. At most, there will be a brief reflection or flashback.
This section, "Abroad," will have a few chapters, and there will be more chapters in the future, obviously all separate depending on the location where the novel is set.
AUTHOR'S COMMENTS
First, I should mention that I prepared this quite some time ago; I've just adapted and improved it. I was also able to do more research to complement the chapter.
Second, as I mentioned before, it was impossible for Chuta to rule such a large kingdom, so conquering these territories was never part of his plan.
What he has planned is to help the local peoples or kingdoms grow. Unfortunately, large kingdoms like the Inca or the Aztec are difficult to 'help' or guide. So, as was obvious, they will learn the hard way.
For more dispersed peoples or those with 'less' advanced cultures, Chuta has tried, and will continue trying, to help them progress before they fall to foreigners or their own neighboring peoples.
---
Read my other novels.
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