The Chronicle:

Constanza's Diary: The Invincible Armada (1647-1664)

I was born in Altamira, in the Castillan province of Soldano, on the twenty-first day of the month of Sextus in the year of the Prophet's Truth sixteen hundred and forty-seven.  My father, Simeon Rivera y Orduño, was of noble blood, and an officer of the Castillan Navy.  He travelled much, and in fact I was nearly one year old before he saw me for the first time.

I was seven when my mother, Esmeralda Santa Cruz Béjarano y Aldana, died in childbirth and with her the baby that would have been my brother.  My father was devastated; I think the loss was made more bitter by all those months he had spent away on duty.  He said he could not bear the risk of losing me as well.  I was never going to look much like my beautiful mother, but I suppose I was all that he had left of their happiness together.

In those days, he was still a lieutenant in the Navy.  He cut my hair, disguised me as a boy, and took me with him on his ship.  After the first few days of despair at losing my mother, the adventure of going to sea did much to distract me from my sadness, and I think it gave him something to hold on to.

Now that I am older, I have no doubt it must have been a poorly kept secret on board, but it seems that as long as appearances could be maintained, everyone was willing to pretend to be fooled.  My father was a good and humane officer, well-loved, so it must be for his sake that the men and officers all played along.  I gradually learned the rudiments of sailing, and over time became a tolerably competent midshipman.

Father was a keen sailor, and well-born, so he rose rapidly in the ranks.  He became captain, was given his own ship, and ever more prestigious commands.  By the time I was twelve, he was given command of the Armada's flagship, the Santa Cruz, a name which he felt was lucky because it reminded him of my mother.

Strangely, it seems that this is when luck abandoned him again.
 

The Castillan Armada

Old King Salvador decided to fling his Armada against the new Avalon Navy before it was ready.  One day, my uncle Andrès Béjarano de Aldana (mother's brother) and his son, cousin Lucas, got on board and I heard we were going to war.  Cousin Lucas was exactly my age, for his twin sister Miranda and he were born on the very same day I took my first breath.

As it was, we soon discovered that Miranda was also sailing with us: she had stowed herself on board by contriving to hide in Lucas's luggage.

While Lucas was already every bit the young Castillan nobleman, and a wicked swordsman for his age.  Miranda was a more elusive sort, ever fond of secrecy and tricks; she had also inherited from their Vodacce-born mother, aunt Lucia Lucani de Aldana, part of her talents as a Fate Witch.  Perhaps I should have spoken when I realized she had snuck on board.  If I had spoken while we were still in port...

But I did not.  Soon we took sail, a magnificent Armada of the finest ships Castille could build, like so many white-winged albatross.  And we had a witch aboard the flagship.

It was a proud departure, but both father and uncle Andrès looked preoccupied.  They, by the way, were not pleased when they discovered Miranda's presence.  But it seems they had far darker concerns about the lack of preparation for the campaign.  From what my cousins told me, aunt Lucia must also have had qualms about the endeavour, for she had given Lucas a special blessing before his departure.

Less than a day out of port, a terrible storm struck.  Like so many paper boats in a street puddle, the mighty ships of the Invincible Armada were tossed, scattered, battered, and for a third of them, sunk.

Yet my father's skill and the grace of Theus kept the Santa Cruz afloat, if barely.  But the elements' fury was not yet fully spent when we came across the path of an Avalon ship.  For all the good it did them, they had the weather-gauge of us.  The ship was small, but on the forecastle was a strange contraption that looked like a half-melted hunk of dull metal.  They were almost on top of us when they emerged from the unnatural fog bank that blanketed us despite the storm.  Before we could do more than minimal manoeuvring with our own wounded ship, the two vessels were locked in close combat.

We fought not to repel them, but to take their ship, since ours was barely staying afloat.  When the battle became desperate, father put out the life boats but of course someone had to protect our flight.  He talked uncle Andrès into carrying me forcibly into the boat, while he stayed with his ship.  I saw Avalonian sailors do something with the baffling object on their forecastle, and the thing started emitting a bright green glow and an eerie sound.

Meanwhile, some of the Avalonians started abandoning ship, for the Santa Cruz and the Avalonian ship were so locked that they were sinking together.  Some of these men fought us for the life boats.  One of them, merely a boy of my age though burly, swatted desperately at us with a wooden staff; yet he was gallant enough to help Lucas when my cousin started to fall.  Things happened very rapidly and in great confusion.  To this day I can only remember it as a jumbled nightmare.

The strange metal assemblage on the Avalonian ship started to glow brighter and brighter, so that it became unbearable to glance at it.  It emitted an unearthly keening noise, while all around us the horizon darkened almost to the blackness of night.  As we all struggled to keep the boats afloat, the green light engulfed the two ships and a wave of bone-shattering cold washed over us.  For a moment I vainly fought against uncle Andrès' hold, desperate to return to father's side.  The Avalonian boy fell overboard and nearly drowned, but Lucas grabbed his arm and pulled him aboard.

And then all went blank.

We were found almost a day later by a surviving Castillan ship, our drifting boat sole survivor of the Santa Cruz.  No trace was found of the vessels and my father.  Our Armada had been mercilessly slaughtered by the Avalon's ragtag navy.

We returned to Castille as a broken force.  Now entirely orphaned, I was welcomed with open arms by aunt Lucia and uncle Andrès.  They took me into their home and also offered their hospitality to the stranded Avalonian boy, Richard O'Bannon.  I lost the sailing life I had known with my father.  Instead, I was taught by the best preceptors alongside my cousins for the first few years.  In time, I stopped crying myself to sleep every night.  I even started enjoying my studies.  When we were old enough, we were all sent to the Universidad de San Cristobal and later to La Ciencia University in Ciudad Vaticine, where I studied natural sciences.
 

Entwined Fates

I was actually quite happy at university; I loved learning, and I loved the vibrant atmosphere.  I was reasonably successful, and I made new acquaintances.

In San Cristobal, I was lodging along with Miranda at the Residencia de Santa Sonia for young noble ladies, while Lucas and Ricardo stayed in a nearby young men's academy.  The Residencia was a pleasant, airy four-story building of pink brick, with a large enclosed garden which overlooked the mosaic courtyard through semi-circular arches.  One day, early in the fall at the beginning of classes, I was sitting under a tree reading don Diego Velazquez Arciniega's Tales of the High Seas, when a carriage made its way in the courtyard.  A pretty young girl scampered out, followed by a dapper-looking older man whom I assumed was her father.  The man gave orders to the coachman, directing the unloading of several carriage chests, from which I concluded that the girl must be coming to stay at the Residencia.

While her effects were being unloaded and transported inside, the girl skipped across the courtyard to take a look around.  She paused at the arch and peered into the garden.  She was extremely good looking, I would have placed a bet immediately that she was going to go one of the popular ones.  I looked down at my books, unwilling to be caught spying.  I was hoping she wouldn't notice me under my orange tree.  But she did, and at once made a bee line for me.  "You're reading Tales of the High Seas!" she exclaimed, apparently delighted.  "That's my very favourite book!  None of the other girls ever seem to read anything interesting!"  She plopped herself on the bench next to me.  "And you're almost three quarters of the way through, I see."

I fumbled to take my reading glasses away, looking down.  "Um, yes," I murmured, "I like Velazquez Arciniega a lot."

"Oh, did you read his Curse of the Black Freighter?  It was soooo spooky!" she chirruped, oblivious to my shyness.  "And I really loved don Miguel, he was so dashing..."  She sighed.

I raised an eyebrow.  "Isn't don Rafael supposed to be the hero in that one?"

She shrugged and made a face.  "Don Rafael was dense and self-centred.  I kept thinking of a gander strutting in the goose pen whenever he appeared.  It was don Miguel who really did all the work behind the scenes.  Don Rafael couldn't have saved a ship in a bathing tub!"

A giggle escaped me, taking me by surprise.  "I did like don Miguel best, you're right.  Don Rafael was not nearly as interesting."

"And what of The Laurel Knight?" she continued.  "Wouldn't it be great to have adventures like doña Catarina?"

I shook my head.  "I have not seen that one yet," I confessed.

"Oh!  But you must!" she exclaimed.  "It's the best ever, when doña Catarina steals a horse, and, uh... Wait, I shouldn't tell you about it, that would spoil it all.  But you simply must read it!  I will lend it to you!"

I laughed a little.  Her bubbly mood was very contagious.  "It's very kind of you," I answered.  "I would certainly love to read it."

At that moment, we saw the man who had accompanied her waved her back.  With him was standing the head dueña of the Residencia.  "Oh, it's father," the girl said.  "I must go, I'm sure he wants to introduce me to the headmistress and I am to have dinner on the town with him before he returns home."  She jumped to her feet, gathered her skirts, and ran back towards her father.  Halfway to the carriage, she stopped suddenly, and whirled back to face me.

"By the way, I'm Melisandre," she laughingly called out, "but you can call me Meli."

I laughed again.  "My name is Constanza," I answered, "Constanza Aldana y Orduño."  I hesitated.  Surely she would not lack for friends with her sunny disposition, but she was just arrived.  Perhaps she might not know anyone yet.  "Would you, uh, like to meet for lunch tomorrow?  I would be happy to take you around and show you La Universidad, if you have not visited already."

"Oh, that would be perfect!" she nodded vigorously.  "I'll meet you here!"  With this, she ran back to her father.

I was right about her.  Melisandre de Ramirez did indeed instantly become one of the popular girls – especially when we had classes with the men.  I was not.  It's not that I was disliked, but I was never a gregarious sort.  I preferred my books to the little parties the girls threw in the dormitories while our dueñas were not looking.  But for some reason Meli and I became best friends.  She managed to teach me to dance, and the basic elements of fashion; we studied together and traded books and stories.  We had much in common, for her father too was a sailor, and she too had lost her mother as a child.  And she too shared the same birthdate as I, the twenty-first day of Sextus 1647.

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