Ines of My Soul (6 page)

Valdivia had very quickly risen to the rank of captain because of his exceptional courage and his ability to command but, despite his brilliant career, he was not proud of his past. After the sacking of Rome, he had been tormented by recurrent nightmares in which a young mother embracing her children was preparing to leap from a bridge into a river of blood. He had witnessed the extent of human degradation and the dark depths of the soul. He had learned that men exposed to the brutality of war are capable of terrible acts, and he felt that he was no different from the rest. He went to confession, of course, and the priest always absolved him, giving him a minimal penance. Faults committed in the name of Spain and the church were not sins. Hadn't he been following his superiors' orders? Did the enemy not deserve the worst?
Ego te absolvo ab omnibus censuris, et peccatis, in nomine Patri, et Filii, et Spiritis Sanctis, amen.

For anyone who has tasted the excitement of killing, there is no escape or absolution, Pedro thought. He had acquired a taste for violence. That was every soldier's secret vice, otherwise it would be impossible to wage war. The crude camaraderie of the barracks, the chorus of visceral roars the men uttered as they rushed into battle, the shared indifference to pain and fear, made him feel alive. The savage thrill of running a man through with his sword, the satanic power of cutting short another's life, the fascination of gushing blood were very powerful addictions. One began killing as a duty and ended up using violence as a way to satisfy one's penchant for cruelty. Nothing could compare to it. Once unleashed, the instinct to kill was stronger than the instinct to live, even in Pedro, who feared God and prided himself on being able to control his appetites. Eating, fornicating, killing—that was what life was all about, according to his friend Francisco de Aguirre. The only way to save his soul was to avoid the temptation of the sword. On his knees before the main altar of the cathedral, he swore to dedicate the rest of his life to doing good, to serve the Church and Spain, not to indulge his hungers, and to rule his life by strict moral principles. He had been on the verge of dying more than once, and God had allowed him to live in order that he might expiate his sins. He hung his Toledo sword beside the ancient sword of his ancestor, and prepared to live a quiet life.

The captain became a peaceful citizen, concerned with everyday matters: his cattle and harvest, droughts and freezes, the intrigues and jealousies of the townsfolk, and masses and more masses. As he was interested in law, people consulted him about legal matters, and even judicial authorities sought his counsel. His greatest pleasure was books, especially chronicles of journeys, and maps, which he scrutinized in detail. He had memorized the poem of the Cid, and he had drawn pleasure from the fantasy chronicles of Solino and the imaginary voyages of John Mandeville, but his true passion lay in the stories published in Spain about the New World. The feats of Columbus, Magellan, Vespucci, Cortés, and many others kept him awake at night, staring at the brocade canopy over his bed, dreaming while awake. Oh, to explore the far corners of the planet, conquer them, found cities, carry the cross to barbaric countries for the glory of God, and to engrave his name with fire and steel in the annals of history. In the meantime, his wife embroidered chasubles with gold thread and prayed rosary after rosary in a never-ending litany. Even though Pedro ventured several times a week through the humiliating opening in Marina's nightgown, the desired children did not appear. And so the slow and tedious years went by in the stupor of burning summer and in the sheltering by the fire of winter. Extreme harshness, Extremadura.

Several years later, when Pedro de Valdivia had resigned himself to growing old with his wife in the silent house in Castuera and never knowing glory, a traveler stopped by one day to deliver a letter from Francisco de Aguirre. The stranger's name was Jerónimo de Alderete, and he was a native of Olmedo. His agreeable face was framed by a thatch of honey-colored curls, the pomaded tips of his Turkish mustache turned upward, and he had the burning eyes of a dreamer. Valdivia received him with the hospitality that is the obligation of every good Spaniard, and offered him the welcome of his house, which had no luxuries but was safer and more comfortable than the inns. It was winter, and Marina had ordered a fire in the fireplace of the main room, though the flames did not mitigate either the drafts or the shadows. In that Spartan room, nearly empty of furniture and adornments, the couple passed their lives; it was there he read and she worked at her embroidery, there they ate, and there, before the altar set against the wall, they prayed on two prie-dieus. Marina served sausage, cheese, and bread, and the harsh wine of the house, then retired to a corner to sew by the light of a candelabrum as the men talked.

Jerónimo de Alderete was traveling around Spain recruiting volunteers to take to the Indies, and to tempt them he would exhibit in the taverns and plazas a necklace of heavy gold beads strung on fine silver. The letter Francisco de Aguirre had sent his friend Pedro was about the New World. Ebullient, Alderete told his host about the breathtaking possibilities of that continent that by now were common knowledge. He said that there was no longer any room for noble endeavors in a corrupt and war-weary Europe torn by political conspiracies, court intrigue, and heretical doctrines like those of the Lutherans, who were dividing Christianity. The future lay on the other side of the ocean, he assured Pedro. There was work to be done in the Americas—a name given those lands by a German cartographer in honor of Amerigo Vespucci, a swaggering sailor from Florence who had not been the one to discover them. That honor belonged to Columbus, known to the Spanish as Cristóbal Colón. According to Alderete, the new lands should have been called the Cristobals, or the Colonias. Ah well, what was done was done, and that was not the point, he added. What was most needed in the New World were hidalgos of indomitable heart, with a sword in one hand and the cross in the other, eager to discover and conquer.

It was impossible to describe the vast space of those places, the endless green of the jungles, the numbers of crystalline rivers, the depths of the lakes of calm waters, the opulence of the gold and silver mines. There a man could dream, not so much of treasure as of glory, he said; he could live a full life, combat savages, fulfill a higher destiny, and, with God's favor, found a dynasty. That and more was possible on the new frontiers of that empire, where there were birds with jewel-like feathers and naked, complaisant women the color of honey—“Begging your pardon, Doña Marina, that is merely a manner of speaking.” There were not enough words in the Spanish tongue to describe the bounty of those lands: pearls as big as partridge eggs, gold that fell from the trees, and so much land, and Indians to work it, that any ordinary soldier could become the master of a king-granted hacienda the size of a Spanish province. Most important of all, he added, were all the peoples awaiting the word of the One True God and the gifts of our Spanish civilization. He added that Francisco de Aguirre, the friend they had in common, definitely wanted to go. In fact, his thirst for adventure was so great that he was prepared to leave his beloved wife and the five children she had given him in that same number of years.

“And do you believe there are still opportunities in that Terra Nova for men like us? It has been forty-three years since Colón landed, and twenty-six since Cortés conquered Mexico,” Valdivia pointed out.

“And also twenty-six since Magellan set out to navigate the globe, Pedro. As you see, the earth is growing larger, the opportunities are infinite. It is not only the New World that is open to exploration, there is Africa as well, and India and the Philippine Islands, and much, much more,” young Alderete insisted.

He repeated what was being talked about in every corner of Spain: the conquest of Peru and the extravagant treasures to be found there. A few years before, two soldiers no one had ever heard of, Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro, had joined in the adventure of pushing forward to Peru. Defying Homeric perils on land and sea, they had made two voyages, starting from Panama and advancing along the ragged coastline of the Pacific, with no maps, feeling their way, heading south, always south. They were guided by rumors from Indians of several tribes who told of a place where cooking utensils and tools were crusted with emeralds, where the streams ran with liquid silver, and where beetles and tree leaves were living gold. Since they had no accurate idea of where they were, they had to anchor and leave their ships to explore land never before trod by a European. Many Spaniards died along the way, and others survived by eating snakes and insects.

On the third voyage, which Diego de Almagro did not participate in because he was recruiting soldiers and raising funds for another ship, Pizarro and his men finally reached the territory of the Incas. Walking dead, fatigued and sweating, wanderers strayed from sea and sky, the Spaniards debarked from their battered ships to find themselves in a benign land of fertile valleys and majestic mountains, very different from the noxious jungles farther north. They were sixty-two ragged, filthy cavalry and one hundred and six exhausted foot soldiers. They set out cautiously, clad in their heavy armor, cross in the lead, harquebuses loaded, and swords bared. They were met by a wood-colored people who dressed in colorful woven garments and spoke a language of sweet vowels. They were frightened because they had never seen anything like those bearded beings that were half man and half beast. The surprise must have been equally great on both sides, since the Spaniards had not expected to find a civilized people. They were astounded by the works of architecture and engineering, the textiles and jewels.

The Inca Atahualpa, the sovereign of that empire, along with thousands of his court, was at the time enjoying the curative waters of some hot springs, camped in a luxury comparable to that of Suleiman the Magnificent. One of Pizarro's captains went there to invite him to meet with the Spanish adventurers. The Inca, surrounded by his retinue, received him in a white tent decorated with flowers and fruit trees planted in pots of precious metals set amid the warm-water pools in which hundreds of princesses and swarms of children splashed and played. The Inca was hidden by a curtain, following the tradition that no one could look upon his face, but curiosity overcame protocol, and Atahualpa had the curtain removed so that he could observe the bearded stranger more closely.

The captain found himself facing a still-young monarch with agreeable features, seated on a throne of pure gold beneath a canopy of parrot feathers. Despite the strange circumstances, a flicker of mutual liking sparked between the Spanish soldier and the noble Quechua. Atahualpa offered the small group of visitors a banquet served on vessels of silver and gold inset with amethysts and emeralds. The Spaniard conveyed Pizarro's invitation to the Inca, secretly distressed, knowing that he would be leading the Inca ruler into a trap, the usual ruse of conquistadors. Within only hours he had come to respect the Incas, who were more civilized than many peoples in Europe. Amazed, he learned that they had an advanced knowledge of astronomy and had devised a solar calendar, that they had taken a census of the millions of inhabitants of their extensive empire, and that they commanded an efficiently run social and military organization. There were, however, strange omissions: they did not have a system of writing, their weapons were primitive, they did not use the wheel, and they did not have animals for riding or for labor—only a few delicate sheep with long legs and the eyes of a bride, which they called llamas. They worshipped the Sun, which demanded human sacrifices only during times of tragedies, such as an illness of the Inca or a defeat in war, when it became necessary to placate their god with offerings of virgins or children. Deceived by false promises of friendship, the Inca and his large court traveled without weapons to the city of Cajamarca, where Pizarro had set up the ambush. The Inca traveled in a gold palanquin carried on a platform by his ministers, and followed by his seraglio of beautiful maidens. After the Spanish killed the courtiers who had tried to protect him with their bodies, Atahualpa was taken prisoner.

“Peru's treasures are all anyone is talking about. It has spread like a fever, and infected half of Spain. Is it true what they say?” Valdivia asked.

“It is true, even though it sounds incredible. In exchange for his freedom, the Inca offered Pizarro all the gold that could be contained in a room twenty-two feet long, seventeen feet wide, and nine feet high.”

“That's an impossible sum!”

“It is the highest ransom in history. It was paid in jewels, statues, and vessels, but it was melted down and turned into bars marked with the royal seal. And it was all for nothing that Atahualpa's subjects, like diligent ants, brought that fortune from every corner of the empire, because after Pizarro had kept the Inca a prisoner for nine months, he condemned him to be burned alive anyway. At the last hour, in exchange for the Inca's agreeing to be baptized, Atahualpa had his sentence commuted to a less horrible death: the infamous garrote,” Alderete explained. He added that Pizarro believed he had good reason for what he did, since supposedly the captive had instigated an uprising from his cell. According to Pizarro's spies, there were two hundred thousand Quechuas on the way from Quito, along with thirty thousand Caribs—who were known to eat human flesh—all of them intending to engage the conquistadors at Cajamarca, but the Inca's death forced them to change their plan. Later it was learned that such an enormous army of insurgents had never existed.

“Whatever the case, Jerónimo, it is difficult to explain how a handful of Spaniards were able to defeat the advanced civilization you describe. And take control of a territory larger than Europe,” said Pedro de Valdivia.

“It was a vast empire, but it was fragile and young. When Pizarro arrived, it had existed only a century. Furthermore, the Incas were real voluptuaries; they did not have a chance against our courage, our weapons, and our horses.”