In Pena Palace, facing Columbus's ceremonious greeting, King John II remained calm and made no attempt to make things difficult for him. Though the royal scholars around them all looked disgusted, as if they wished they could immediately question him aloud, in a formal audience, without King John II speaking first, no one dared open their mouth at will.
Only after the opening rites of audience were completed did John II sit upright on his throne and question this "navigator" from Genoa, who had once lingered outside his court and sought an audience for nearly ten years.
"Castilian noble, Don Christopher Columbus. You previously proclaimed at the harbor that you had sailed west to reach India and Cipangu, and discovered a new sea route to the East?"
"Indeed! Honored His Majesty John, by command of the great Queen of Castile, in my capacity as Admiral, I led an exploratory fleet of three ships westward into the deep waters of the Atlantic Ocean... After hardship beyond compare, after weathering storms and the trials of the Lord, I was finally the first to stand upon the deck and behold with my own eyes the land of the East! This was the Lord's protection over me, and also His protection over the Queen, placing the most outstanding great navigator into the hands of a queen with eyes keen enough to recognize talent..."
At this point, Columbus lifted his head, self-satisfaction showing on his face. He insisted that he was the first person to discover the land. As for Juan, the sailor aboard the Pinta who had first shouted out and first spotted land, he had long since fallen into the hands of the natives of Cipangu; by now, he was most likely dead beyond dead. And this honor, destined to be recorded in