Pedro responded. “The derivation’s Greek, but we’re Spaniards like yourself.”
“Ro-ble-do,” he said again, drawing out the syllables. “Oak grove, isn’t that what it means? That’s very different from most names and much better than Rodriguez.”
“Thank you,” Pedro responded, knowing that this man now knew more about him than he had cared to share. “Perhaps it’s a place name like Robledo de Chavela or Robledo del Buey.”
“Perhaps,” the man responded while tearing a leg off the rabbit they were eating. “But is it not also like Carvajal, which means ‘oak field,’ or even Zarate, an Arabic word which means essentially the same thing?”
Pedro said nothing, and the man seemed not to notice as he continued with his naming.
“My mother—God rest her soul—said that I should have been a Marquez for my ambitions to become a marquis,” the man continued, his thin lips working but silent. “But my father reminded her that the name may also designate one who works as a servant in house of a marquis. He judged me to be one of the latter,” he said, demonstrating that he could still laugh at himself. “You know, Robledo,” the man went on while requesting another cup of wine. “I would have preferred to have been named Bustillo, or Jaramillo, or Losada, or even Serrano. Preferred to have been named for a pasture for bullocks, a field of orach, an area paved with flagstones, or one who lives on a saw-toothed mountain.”
“Or how about Hinojosa, Vasquez, or Pedroso?” asked Pedro, growing weary of the name game. “A field of fennel, a shepherd, or a place of stones could also be drawn. Those are strong names which conjure up pictures of glory . . . although de hinojos could also refer to kneeling.”
“And you could draw them?” the odd man questioned.
“And you could draw them,” Pedro responded.
Senor Torre and Pedro stood as Catalina excused herself from the table to take the children, Diego and Lucia, and retire to their room. As the man stood there speaking to Catalina who looked pale and worn from their day of travel, Pedro had his first opportunity to really examine him. Pedro made him out to be about 40-years-old, perhaps no older than himself, a serious man of medium stature, earnest but full of pretensions. His pride, he had said, was in being a gentleman and a Catholic, a gentleman as a descendant of those who had re-won the land from the Moors, and a Catholic, in sharp distinction to the New Christians of Moorish blood. He demonstrated the incredible combination of poverty and pride, which, in Pedro’s mind, were so characteristically Castilian. He had nothing, yet he conducted himself with such a comely grace that one unacquainted with him would have taken him for the kinsman of a count. He lived a life of semi-starvation, however, sharing the bread of travelers such as Pedro, probably inhabiting a house of indescribable poverty and squalor and just surviving. Yet here he was with his cloak and his staff, searching for a sword and speaking grandly of his honor and of the estates he would obtain once he became an hidalgo.
After kissing Catalina’s hand and bidding her a good night, the odd man returned to the table in front of the open door that he shared with Pedro. There, they continued their review of Iberian patronymics, place names, and ornamentals from Arechuleta to Zaldivar.
“You’ll notice,” the odd man said, “that neither of us spoke of Herrera or Ferrer, the only two names I’m aware of which designate an occupation.”
“Well there’s Varela, also,” Pedro replied, “even if it is a nickname. It designates a keeper of animals and the rod with which he works.”
“Ah Senor Robledo,” the odd man said, his eyes glazing over from his third cup of wine. “There you have it! If I were to be named Varela, it would be for the varra which I carried as a symbol of my office, or, more importantly, for the rod I take to bed.”
They both laughed at this latter designation, and Pedro reconciled himself to the fact that it was going to be a long night.
* * *
The mule train carrying Pedro, Catalina, and the children rode through a sunlit forest amid fragrant gray shrubs with, here and there, massive boulders draped in luminous foliage. They continued in shadowed silence as they listened for the sounds of horsemen, not knowing who, if anyone, might be pursuing them. However, the only sound they heard was the creak of leather against leather and the heavy breathing of their beasts as they plodded the flinty paths.
After they left the forest, the valley widened and became lush and more fertile. The vale and hillsides, which were awakening from winter’s sleep, were replete with fruit trees now coming to bud. After a day of travel along the ridge of this valley, the mule train crowned the top of a hill in brilliant sunshine, and they could see the village of Punto Llano that lay in a green hollow below them. The houses, which gave the appearance of ancient rocks thrown together under a blazing sun, were shuttered and the doors, over which small family shields had been carved, were locked. Not a soul was to be seen, although the village reeked of tannic acid from cork bark, which was boiling in unattended vats. A lone cow, strangely hobbled by a rope tied to its horns and to one leg, and a small herd of goats wandered in the fields alone, their neck bells ringing in the stillness.
The Robledo party searched the village and could find no one until they came upon an old woman hiding in a hayloft. The woman, whom Pedro referred to as “a woman with a hundred weight of years”—that is a centenarian—told them that the village had been attacked by a group of bandits who had driven off their sheep. Although she was only armed with a thick staff made from the wood of the holly, she had refused to leave with the villagers. The villagers, she told them, were hiding in the hills and would return by nightfall. Although the Robledos were reluctant to leave her there, she insisted they do so, and they hurried away.
Below the village of Punto Llano, the Robledos were overtaken by a small party of two families who, following the same road, were coming along behind them. They were, they said, escaping the village they had left behind and asked to join the Robledos for the trip to Merida. Two of the men in this party carried matchlocks with which to protect themselves. With the safety provided by numbers and with the worn but serviceable arms the party carried, they felt a safe passage would be assured.
From Punto Llano they rode to Logrosan and then down a wide valley, generally following the course of the Rio Ruecas. This route took them through Medellin, formerly the home of Hernando Cortes who had opened the West Indies to colonization. In a bleak landscape commanded by a low hill, they found a crumbling castle with nothing to protect but a string of poor houses fronting a filthy street. Although Cortes had brought the riches of the Aztec Empire to the country of his birth, little of it had remained there, and none of it had stuck to his poor village of Medellin.
From Medellin to Merida was a fine journey of eight days through hills of gray boulders, regal stands of majestic pines, and enormous flocks of partridges, quail, and doves that filled each afternoon’s sky.
* * *
* *
Merida was an ancient city. The Romans, who were later to establish it as the capital of their vast and powerful province of Lusitania, had, in 25 BCE, founded it as Augusta Emerita (Augustus’ Veteran Colony). These were the meritorious veterans of his fifth and tenth legions that had asked to retire from active service and take farms in the area.
The ride was beautiful. Now and then, the travelers saw an ancient noria or hydraulic water wheel with buckets attached. Burros were pulling them around. There were frequent rectangular storage bins of stone or wood, raised off the ground to keep the grain away from rodents. They also
