‘Meu Mapa’ by Atlas Weyland Eden

This short piece of historical fiction by Atlas Weyland Eden was inspired by digitised archival maps in AM databases, and written as part of the Imagining History UK programme. Read a blog post by the instructor, Liz Ferretti, here, explaining how historical maps were used as part of the summer course.

Prior to writing ‘Meu Mapa’, I spent a good while wandering the digital archives, leafing through old charts: imperial China, colonial Africa, Anglo-Saxon England… All of them offering vastly different settings, but presenting similar questions. Who made this, and why? Who used it? What stories could it have seen?

Then I stumbled upon the Cantino Planisphere, which came fully-furnished with stories. Smuggled from Portugal to Italy, ferried between cities, lost in a revolution, only to turn up on the wall of a butcher’s. But there were still gaps in the tale – just as the map itself is full of blank spaces, charting the edges of an expanding world. The true mapmaker remains a mystery. The most likely candidate is Pedro Reinel, a Portuguese cartographer whose work bears a striking resemblance to the Cantino Planisphere. But there are no definitive answers, only bouts of detective work, culminating in the most bizarre mystery: how did the map end up in a butcher’s shop? For that, I had to resort to a touch of imagination.

Meu Mapa

Lisbon, Portugal, 1502

How do you map the wind?

Well, it is less a matter of the wind, and more a matter of the sails and ships and men at the mercy of the wind. Knowing this, you draw. From port to port, kingdom to kingdom, Veneza to Jerusalém, around the Cape and on to Calicut. Little black lines spiderwebbing the world, held fast by so many roses. Until at last – if you know the legend and the chart is well-wrought – you may see all the secret alleyways of air and sea and spice…

So in order to map the wind, you must first map the waves.

You can hear it through the shutters, where the Tejo spills into the Atlântico like an open wound. The sound is a comfort: all cartographers are sailors at heart. A lone candle drowns in wax, barely enough to draw by, but even that light bears a risk. One stray spark would set my world ablaze.

A flag pokes from Portugal, feuding with the emblems of Espanha, but you are busy in the north, feeling your way over Escócia, edging westwards until you reach Greenlândia which, in a moment of rare desperation, you paint green.

You leave the landmass to dry. Pull forward another parchment.

A new shore rises from the mist, its coast flocked by fiery birds roosting in emerald trees that, according to the reports – and you know too much of sailors to believe all their claims – have wood the colour of Cristo’s fresh blood. Your hand shakes, just a little, with no one there to see, as you write the name Captain Cabral proclaimed upon that coast two years ago. The Island of the True Cross.

Vera Cruz.

Somewhere in the casa, a child awakes in tears. A woman’s voice moves to soothe. You listen a moment, then, with an air of exhausted acceptance, you assemble the parchments.

Finished? Are you sure?

Then why do I feel so small? Is this all: three continents, two-and-a-half oceans and a hazy coastline that may, or may not, be an island? It’s a disarmingly swift process, bringing me together, and when it’s done at last – and you wipe your brow and risk a smile – you reach for the quill. The smile fades faster than it was born.

No signature. Not this time.

You open the shutters and peer out, then return to our desk, and then back to the window, as if the King’s soldiers were waiting patiently without. With a steadying sigh, you roll me into blindness and cradle me under one arm.

Your feet on the stairs.

Your hand on the door.

Your wife’s voice and your wordless reply.

Then the sound of your shoes upon the cobbles of the street…

It is late. The flurry of Lisboa has dulled to a murmur. A sultry autumn evening of twilight brawls and drunken dancing, and quiet muggings and murders. You quicken your pace. I can smell the sea, which – considering the sea is all anyone can ever smell in the western port of this western city clinging to the west coast of Ibérica – doesn’t help narrow things down. Then I hear your hurried breath as you turn a corner, and the air muffles.

A voice that isn’t yours says, ‘Pedro, I presume?’

‘Senhor Cantino.’

‘A pleasure,’ he replies, his accent betraying a foreign flair. ‘Now, you have the map?’

You spread me on a table, showing me the faded patterns of the ceiling – an abandoned mosque? – and the eager wrinkles around Cantino’s eyes. He studies me with strained intensity. Finally he says, with the faintest exasperation, ‘I already know where Jerusalém lies.’ He waves a hand. ‘The city covers the whole of Pérsia, while Europa drowns in the waters of Veneza! And what of this lopsided tower, lying in ruins?’

‘It is Babel.’

‘The Tower of Babel? In África?’ He emits a short laugh. ‘Meanwhile, the new continent—’

‘The reports claim it to be an island,’ you interject.

‘—is little more than a coastline. No rivers, no ports. Only parrots. Parrots the size of Itália!’ He shakes his head. ‘Is this why Manuel let you go?’

You breathe a weary breath. Even though your hand no longer touches my skin, our thoughts align. How in maps of yore, when accuracy was a thing of little import, the world revolved around Jerusalém, when reality was a circle with Eden at its heart, a journey to Judgement Day and back. A map can never be a measure of truth: a map is made of empty spaces, and in those spaces you may glimpse the edges of your understanding, and in those edges is humility, a grace which may or may not be the grace of God.

‘You asked me to show you how Portugal sees the world.’ You gesture to my parchment. ‘This is what we see.’

‘An impressive coastline,’ he admits, at length. ‘And the fact you completed it so soon… Certainly a Herculean feat.’ Your gaze follows Cantino as he removes a purse, weighs the contents, dips his hand. Three golden coins tumble into your palm. Yet as you study them, hunger turns to horror.

‘You said six!’

Cantino raises his hands. ‘Complications arose. You will receive the rest once I return to Ferrara.’

‘By God, if you think—’

‘Venezian gold is hard to come by this side of Ibérica. But the Duke is a rich man, and generous to those who show patience. Shall we say, four more ducats, upon my safe arrival?’

You say nothing. You make no mention of your wife and son. Or of King Manuel, your old patron, who is also a rich man, and may well be interested in this Ferrarese spy at work in Lisboa. Cantino knows this already. He expels a sigh. ‘Six, then! Twelve in total, twice what I initially proposed.’

When the deal is done, and hands have shaken, you roll me back into blackness. And as I pass into Cantino’s grasp – six months of your life in six pieces of parchment, all the knowledge of the Empire of Portugal laid bare – you know deep down, with a silent and solemn contentment, that you will not be remembered.

About the author

Atlas Weyland Eden is a writer and poet living on the edge of Dartmoor. He started writing at the age of nine and hasn’t looked back since. He’s received various awards, including the Young Walter Scott Prize, the BBC Young Writers’ Award, and the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize. He loves stories of nature, history and myth.