Who Saw Land First?

THE VELVET DOUBLET (351 pp.)--James Sfreet--Doubleday ($3.50).

"I am almost sixteen," I said. "A man's age in Andalusia."

"I, too, will soon be sixteen," she said. "A woman's age in any land."

Historical fiction addicts should be able to take it from there. And James Street, a veteran drugstore romancer, will help them along, for he has stuffed The Velvet Doublet with a raucous blend of heroics, villainy, historical eavesdropping and heaving bosoms.

Lepe grew up at the end of the 15th century, when Europe dreamed of a sea route to India. He had been sent to a monastery, but his mind wandered. When he heard a geographer lecture on the mysterious oceans, his heart pounded. It pounded still more when he saw the luscious Jewish girl Maraela. And once the Inquisition had forced Maraela to flee, Lepe had no reason to remain in Spain.

So, after a long interval of historical filibustering, Novelist Street sends Lepe off with Christopher Columbus in search of India. The gaunt Genoese captain promises an annual pension of 25,000 maravedis to the man who first sights land, and Lepe is the lucky fellow. But his luck turns to wormwood when Columbus cheats him of the money. Embittered, Lepe settles in North Africa, marries somebody less fascinating than Maraela, and grows rich. At the end, Lepe earns the satisfaction of having a broken Columbus beg him for money, and a broken Maraela beg him for pity.

Both Spain and Columbus come off rather entertainingly in The Velvet Doublet, but the English language takes a beating. Novelist Street has chosen to write in a pretentiously archaic and gaudy style, which sometimes reads like a burlesque of Ernest Hemingway in his pidgin-Spanish phase.

James Street, who is best known for his rawboned bestsellers about the antebellum South (Mingo Dabney, Tap Roots), is modest enough not to confuse his merchandise with literature. "Those of us who write for profit," he once said, "must never forget that if we drink the punch we must take the pokes." The book business being what it is, Novelist Street is pretty sure to get another bowlful of punch for The Velvet Doublet.

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