Ines of My Soul (44 page)

The battle continued the rest of the day. The Spaniards, wounded, thirsty, exhausted, in each turnover faced a rested and well-fed Mapuche horde, while those who had quit the field refreshed themselves at the river. The hours went by, Spaniards and Yanaconas fell, and still Juan Gómez's hoped-for reinforcements had not arrived.

There is no one in Chile who does not know the events of that tragic Christmas in 1553, but there are several versions, and I am going to tell you the one I heard from Cecilia's lips. While Valdivia and his reduced troops struggled to defend themselves in Tucapel, Juan Gómez had been captive in Purén, to which the Mapuche had laid siege until the third day, at which time there was no trace of them. The whole morning, and part of the afternoon, went by in anxious waiting, until finally Gómez could not stand the suspense any longer and rode out with a small party to reconnoiter the woods. Nothing. Not an Indian to be seen. He suspected then that the siege of the fort had been a maneuver to distract them, and to keep them from joining Pedro de Valdivia, as ordered. So while they were trapped in Purén, the governor was waiting for them in Tucapel, and if that fort had been attacked, as Gómez feared, their situation must be desperate. Without a moment's hesitation, Juan Gómez ordered the fourteen healthy men under his command to select the best horses and follow him immediately to Tucapel.

They rode the entire night, and the morning of the next day found them at the fort. They could see the hill, smoke from a fire, and scattered bands of Mapuche, drunk from war and
muday
, waving human heads and limbs, the remains of the Spaniards and Yanaconas defeated the previous day. Horrified, the fourteen men realized that they were surrounded, and that they could meet the same fate as Valdivia's men, but the intoxicated Indians were celebrating their victory and did not challenge them. The Spaniards spurred their sweating mounts up the hill, slashing their path through the few drunken Mapuche who stood in their way. The fort was reduced to a pile of smoking wood ash. They looked for Pedro de Valdivia among the corpses and quartered bodies, but did not find him. They sated their thirst, and that of their horses, from a large basin of dirty water, but they had no time for anything more because now they could see thousands and thousands of Mapuche swarming up the hillside. These were not the intoxicated warriors they had first seen; these had come from the woods, sober and orderly.

The Spaniards could not defend themselves in the ruined fort, in which they would be trapped, so they got back onto their long-suffering mounts and galloped down the hill in an attempt to burst through the enemy ranks. Within instants they were surrounded, and a cutthroat battle ensued that would last the rest of the day. It is impossible to imagine how men and horses that had galloped from Purén all through the night could fight hour after hour that fateful day, but I have seen Spaniards in battle, and I have fought alongside them. I know what we are capable of. Finally, Gómez's soldiers had thrust their way to a point where they could flee, hotly pursued by Lautaro's hordes. The horses were on their last legs, and the forest presented fallen trees and other obstacles that slowed the soldiers, but not the Indians, who darted among the trees and easily overtook the horsemen.

Those fourteen men, bravest of the brave, decided then to sacrifice themselves one by one and hold back the enemy while their companions attempted to get away. They did not discuss it; they did not draw lots; no one ordered them. The first one yelled his good-byes to the others, reined in his horse, and turned to face the pursuers. He struck sparks with his sword, determined to fight to his last breath; it would be a thousand times worse to be taken alive. Within minutes a hundred hands pulled him from his horse and attacked him with the very swords and knives that had been taken from Valdivia's vanquished soldiers.

Those few minutes that hero won for his friends allowed them, briefly, to pull ahead, but soon the Mapuche had caught up again. A second soldier decided to forfeit his life; he, too, called a last good-bye and turned toward the mass of Indians avid for blood. And then a third. One by one, six soldiers fell. The remaining eight, several of them badly wounded, continued their desperate flight until they came to a narrow pass where yet another must sacrifice himself if the others were to escape. He was dead within minutes. It was then that Juan Gómez's mount, drained and bleeding from arrow wounds in its flanks, dropped to its knees. It was completely black in the forest, making it nearly impossible to go forward.

“Climb up behind me, Captain!” one of the soldiers shouted.

“No! Ride on, don't stop for me!” Gómez ordered, knowing he was badly wounded and calculating that the horse could not bear the weight of two riders.

The soldiers had to obey him and ride on, and so feeling his way through the darkness, disoriented, he plunged deeper into the undergrowth. After many terrible hours, the six survivors reached the fort at Purén and warned their comrades before collapsing with fatigue. They stayed there long enough to stanch the blood from their wounds and give a rest to their mounts, before undertaking a forced march toward La Imperial, which then was only a village. The Yanaconas carried anyone with a breath of life in hammocks, but they had to give the dying a quick and honorable death so that the Mapuche would not find them alive.

In the meantime, Juan Gómez was sinking into mud up to his ankles; the recent winter rains had turned the area into a swamp. Though he was bleeding from several arrow wounds, depleted, thirsty, without food for two days, he did not give in to death. Unable to see, he laboriously felt his way through trees and rank growth. He could not wait till dawn, night was his only ally. He could hear the Mapuche's cries of triumph when they discovered his fallen horse, and he prayed that the noble animal that had accompanied him through so many battles was dead. The Indians often tortured wounded beasts to wreak revenge on their masters. The smell of smoke indicated that his pursuers had lighted torches and were searching for him in the thick vegetation, certain that he could not have gone far. He took off his armor and clothing and buried them in the mud, and naked, walked deeper into the swamp. By now the Mapuche were very close; he could hear their voices and glimpse the flare of their torches.

It is at this point in her narration that Cecilia, whose macabre sense of humor seems entirely Spanish, doubled over with laughter as she told me about that horrible night. “My husband ended up buried in a swamp, just as I warned him he would,” the princess said. Juan Gómez cut a reed with his sword and submerged himself completely in the putrid ooze. He did not know how many hours he lay there, naked, with open wounds, commending his soul to God and thinking about his children and Cecilia, the beautiful woman who had left a palace to follow him to the end of the world. Mapuche brushed by him several times, never imagining that the man they were searching for lay buried in the mud, clutching his sword, gasping for breath through the hollow reed.

At midmorning of the following day, the men marching toward La Imperial saw a nightmarish vision covered with blood and mud pushing his way through the heavily wooded forest. By his sword, which he had never let go of, they recognized Juan Gómez, captain of the famed fourteen.

For the first time since Rodrigo's death, I slept restfully for several hours last night. In the halfsleep before dawn, I felt a pressure in my chest that weighed on my heart and made it difficult for me to breathe. I did not feel any anxiety, only a great calm and a sense of blessing because I realized it was Rodrigo's arm, and that he was sleeping at my side, as he had in the best of times. I lay without moving, with my eyes closed, grateful for that sweet weight. I wanted to ask my husband if he had at last come for me, to tell him how happy he had made me through the thirty years we shared, and that my one regret had been those long periods when he was away at war, but I was afraid that if I spoke he would disappear. During these months of solitude, I have learned how timid the spirits are. When the first light of dawn sifted through the chinks of the shutters, Rodrigo went away, leaving the mark of his arm on me and his scent on the pillow. By the time the servants came in, there was no trace of him in the room. Despite the happiness that unexpected night of love gave me, I must not have looked well when I awoke because the women went to call you, Isabel. I am not ill, daughter, I have no pain; I feel better than ever, so don't look at me with that dreary face. I will, though, stay in bed a little longer; I feel cold. If you don't mind, I would like to use the time to dictate to you.

As you know, Juan Gómez came out of that ordeal alive, although it took several months to recover from his infected wounds. He gave up the idea of the gold, returned to Santiago, and is still living with his magnificent wife, who must be at least sixty, though she looks thirty. She has no wrinkles, no gray hair, and whether that's by a miracle or witchcraft, I couldn't tell you. That fateful December was the beginning of the Mapuche uprising, a merciless war that has gone on for forty years and seems to have no end. As long as one Indian and one Spaniard are left, blood will flow. I should hate them, Isabel, but I can't. They are my enemies, but I admire them because I know that if I were in their place, I would die fighting for my land, as they are doing.

For several days I have been putting off the moment of telling about Pedro de Valdivia's death. For twenty-seven years I have tried not to think about it, but I suppose the time has come to do it. I would like to believe a less cruel version, that Pedro fought until he was clubbed on the head and killed, but Cecilia helped me discover the truth. Only one Yanacona escaped the disaster at Tucapel and told what happened that Christmas Day, but he knew nothing about the gobernador's fate. Two months later Cecilia came to see me and told me that a Mapuche girl who had just come from Araucanía was serving in her house. Cecilia knew that the girl, who did not speak a word of Spanish, had been found near Tucapel. Once again, the Mapudungu I had learned from Felipe—now Lautaro—was useful. Cecilia brought her to me and I was able to talk with her. She was a young girl of about eighteen, short, with delicate features and strong shoulders. Since she did not understand our language, she seemed slow-witted, but when I spoke to her in Mapudungu, I realized she was very bright. This is what I was able to find out from the Yanacona who survived Tucapel, and the Mapuche girl who was present at Pedro de Valdivia's execution.

The gobernador was in the ruins of the fort, fighting desperately with his handful of courageous soldiers against thousands of Mapuche; the enemy troops were regularly replaced with fresh squadrons, while the soldiers could never put down their swords.

The whole day passed in fighting. At dusk, Valdivia lost any hope that Juan Gómez would arrive with reinforcements. His men were totally drained, the horses were bleeding as profusely as the men, and new enemy detachments kept obstinately ascending the hill to the fort.

“Señores, what do we do?” Valdivia asked the nine men still standing.

“What would Your Mercy have us do but fight and die?” one of the soldiers replied.

“Then let us do so with honor, señores.”

Those ten tenacious Spaniards, followed by any able-bodied Yanaconas, went forward to fight and die face-to-face with the enemy, swords held high and with the name of Santiago on their lips. Within minutes, eight soldiers had been pulled from their horses by
boleadoras
and lariats, dragged across the ground, and massacred by hundreds of Mapuche. Only Pedro de Valdivia, a priest, and one faithful Yanacona were able to break through the lines and flee along the one route open to them; the others were blocked by the enemy. One other Yanacona was hidden in the fort; he endured the smoke from the fire beneath a pile of rubble, and two days later escaped with his life after the Mapuche had withdrawn.

The way open to Valdivia had been carefully prepared by Lautaro. It was a dead end, leading through the dark forest to a swamp in which the horses bogged down, exactly as Lautaro had planned. The fugitives could not turn back, for the enemy was close on their heels. In the afternoon light, they watched hundreds of Indians come from the trees and underbrush as they sank deeper and deeper into that foul mud, which emitted the sulfurous odor of hell. Before the swamp swallowed them up, the Mapuche rescued them; that was not how they planned to end the Spaniards' lives.

When Valdivia saw that all was lost, he tried to negotiate his freedom, promising that he would abandon the cities he had founded in the south, that the Spaniards would leave the Araucans' lands forever, and, in addition, that he would give them sheep and other rewards. The Yanacona tried to translate, but before he could finish, the Mapuche beat him then killed him. They had learned to distrust the promises of the
huincas.
The priest, who had formed a cross with two sticks and was trying to administer the last rites to the Yanacona, as he already had to the gobernador, was clubbed to death. And then began the martyrdom of Pedro de Valdivia, their most despised enemy, the incarnation of all the abuses and cruelties imposed upon the Mapuche people. They had not forgotten the thousands of dead, the burned men, the raped women, the slaughtered children, the hundreds of hands that had floated down the river, the sliced-off feet and noses, the whips, the chains, the dogs.

They forced the captive to witness the torture of the Yanaconas who had survived Tucapel, and the profanation of the Spaniards' corpses. They dragged Valdivia by the hair, naked, to the settlement where Lautaro was waiting. Along the way, stones and sharp branches tore his skin, and when he was deposited at the feet of the
ñidoltoqui
, he was a rag soaked in mud and blood. Lautaro ordered that he be given something to drink, to rouse him from his stupor, then had him tied to a post. As a symbolic insult they broke Valdivia's Toledo steel sword, his inseparable companion, in half and drove it into the ground at his feet. Once the prisoner was conscious enough to open his eyes and realize where he was, he found himself staring at his former servant. “Felipe!” he cried with hope; at least this was a familiar face, someone who could speak Spanish. Lautaro's eyes bored into his with infinite disdain. “Don't you recognize me, Felipe? I'm your
taita
,” the captive persisted. Lautaro spit in his face. He had been waiting for that moment for twenty-two years.