He had royal authority behind him.

Within the framework of sixteenth-century colonial governance, his authority to discipline members of his expedition — including members of his own family — was essentially unchecked.

He did not need to explain himself to anyone.

The absence of any documented accountability is consistent with the broader pattern of how male authority over women was exercised and not questioned in this period.

The queen of Navarre’s tale — the sixty-seventh story of the Heptaméron — offered an implicit criticism of the captain who abandoned the woman, but it did not name him and it could not call him to account.

The most that literary culture could do was preserve the story in a form that preserved the injustice along with the survival.