Winter 1557
Hermana mia,
Tell me María if you have seen such glory in your country.
My father, my brother Martín, and myself rode through the country for the twenty-fifth birthday of my brother. It was as though the frigid temperature cleared the air of the slightest pinprick of dust.
And the scent, which is more like a perfume one wishes to collect and carry with him because none exists in the city, rising from the Earth and falling from the branches of the Olive trees is none less than God's unlimited power reaching out to awaken.
The hills never rolled with such emerald; the sun and sky never with more intent looked down on me with their most golden and bluest eye. There was a keen look in my father's own eyes, the blue more fascinating than the sky, it compares handsomely with the sash of Saint James in the stained glass window of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela and the eyes of my younger brother as well, for they have the same. Their noses and cheeks were crimson with cold, and their hands were pale gripping their Andalusian's reins except for their knuckles which were red—I have nothing to compare these to, but simply to tell you this was what I noticed as to how they were.
Much of the tour we gave ourselves was in silence. However the silence only remained as long as my stirring thoughts, which I now relate to the little brown Partridge heads that had a constant starting in and out of tall grasses. It always, for reasons I'm not aware, interests me to discover the small sounds' humble murmur beneath the coat of the noise of my mind.
I knew I was far outside castle walls and plaza confines when my senses animated this way and spoke of our Lord. The silent three of us together with God's hills and trees and grass was a heaven that is hardly known to me between us. I cannot tell what trouble will exist in the middle of us tomorrow as many times there existed in the past. I can solely say there was nothing like it and may never be again.
Blessed be the marvel of God's day.
Of our mother Doña Marina, your brother who loves you,
Martín Cortés
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