Higuénamota loved this bright young man whom she had taken under her wing. Atahualpa appreciated him for his knowledge of this country and this world. It was in this way he learned that Spain was at war with a country called France.
At an inn in Tejares, they found a little negro boy. His mother was a mistreated servant there. Pitying the child, Atahualpa’s wives decided to take him with them.
Finally, Salamanca appeared on the horizon. They discovered a city whose beauty surpassed that of Toledo. Ruminahui showed the letter of safe-conduct to the local authorities, who welcomed the foreigners with a display of honours and a hint of fear. Once again, they were looked after by shaved men, a category of the population that seemed responsible for a wide range of activities: worshipping their god, making the black drink, storing and maintaining the talking sheets. They were priests, archivists, but also amautas, since they argued about the mysteries of the world and told many tales; they were also haravecs, since some of them wrote poems that followed very orderly systems of verses and stanzas. In addition to all this, they sang a lot, always in unison: slow, sad melodies, never accompanied by any instrument other than their voices. As in Lisbon, they lived in the most magnificent buildings despite apparently having made a vow of poverty.
In the doorway of one of these buildings, some students were playing a game where they had to find a stone frog hidden among the interlaced sculptures. Atahualpa, who had stopped to admire the work, did not see the frog. A blindman who was begging nearby told him: ‘Quien piensa que el soldado que es primero del escala tiene mas aborrecido el vivir?’ The Inca, who had descended from his litter, did not take offence at being addressed in this way; he asked Higuénamota to translate (even though he, too, was beginning to understand snatches of Castilian now).
The beggar’s words were strange: ‘No writing must be destroyed or thrown away unless it is truly odious; instead, it should be shown to everybody, especially if it won’t do any harm and they might get some good out of it.’
The shaved man who had accompanied them wanted to make the blindman shut up, but Atahualpa overruled him with a wave of his hand. And so the blindman was free to follow the thread of his obscure thoughts: ‘If this were not so, there would be very few people who would write for only one reader, because writing is hardly a simple thing to do. But since writers go ahead with it, they want to be rewarded, not with money but with people seeing and reading their works, and if there is something worthwhile in them, they would like some praise. Along these lines, Cicero says: “Honour promotes the arts.”’
And Pedro Pizarro, who had done some studying, explained in a low voice that Cicero was a very great amauti who had lived long ago.
‘Does anyone think that the first soldier to stand up and charge the enemy hates life? Of course not; a craving for glory is what makes him expose himself to danger. And the same is true in arts and letters.’
And, sensing the presence of the shaved man, the old blindman turned to him: ‘The preacher gives a very good sermon and is really interested in the improvement of people’s souls, but ask his grace if he minds when they tell him: “Oh, what an excellent sermon you gave today!”’
The blindman burst out laughing. Atahualpa took off one of his earrings and put it in the man’s hand. Then they continued their visit, while the shaved man talked about index, heretico, and auto da fe.
There was one thing they had witnessed that never ceased to surprise Atahualpa and Higuénamota: among the inhabitants were certain men replete with everything they needed and desired, and, begging at their doors, other men stripped bare by hunger and poverty. Atahualpa – and Higuénamota, in particular – found it strange that these poor men could suffer such injustice without strangling the rich men, or setting fire to their houses.
Pedro Pizarro knew how to decipher the talking sheets. He had got hold of a work secretly translated by a shaved man, and discreetly passed from hand to hand, and he would read extracts of this book to the Inca emperor and his Cuban mistress: ‘For the nobles, seeing that they cannot resist the people, begin to have recourse to the influence and reputation of one man, and make him prince, so as to be protected by his authority.’
It was a political treatise freshly arrived from a country called Florence, and young Atahualpa, with his atavistic wisdom, sensed that this book could be useful to him in the future when he read this passage: ‘Moreover, you cannot satisfy the nobles with honesty, and without wrong to others, but it is easy to satisfy the people, whose aims are ever more honest than those of the nobles; the latter wishing to oppress, and the former being unwilling to be oppressed.’
This is not to say that the young emperor was excessively concerned about the well-being of the people. He had, without hesitation, crushed the revolts of the Canaris, and those dogs of Tumbes, as he liked to call them, not to mention the ones in Toledo. But he sensed a responsibility towards his own people, this people of fewer than two hundred souls, the survivors of Chinchaysuyu. To save them, he knew that he would have to confront vast numbers of powerful adversaries, and to win this battle he would have to draw up a shrewdly political plan that used all the advantages of the terrain and a finely sharpened understanding of power ratios and balances. This Niccolò Machiavelli struck him as a rather good adviser.
Quizquiz pored over maps of the region: he wanted to know about the contours of the mountains and the valleys, the extent of the plains; he wanted to understand the nature of the rivers and marshlands. He gave a great deal of care to all this.
Chalco Chimac was being taught the discipline governing the application of laws and punishments by a famously erudite shaved man called Francisco de Vitoria.
Higuénamota was learning to decipher the talking sheets from her young protégé, who had also become her private tutor and – some said – rather more.
As for Atahualpa, he was discovering, to his fascination, the intertwined histories of the local kings.
All of them remained baffled by the shaved men’s explanations of the fables contained in the thick talking case, which they quoted at any opportunity, never let out of their sight, and seemed to regard with a sort of obsessional devotion. The sacerdotal hierarchy to which they belonged also appeared absurdly complex. Nevertheless, the Quitonians understood two things: there was a place called Rome, which all the shaved men held in reverence, and a priest called Luther who got them all worked up. Even Francisco de Vitoria, who seemed wiser than most, could not hide his agitation when this Luther was mentioned. Atahualpa and his people were baffled by the nature of the disagreement, but it was obviously important because wars were being fought over it in the north.
One fable especially annoyed them: the story of a shepherd who was stripped by his god of everything he possessed – wife, children, cattle, health, wealth – because of a bet that the god had made with a demon, out of boredom or pride, to prove the piety of this miserable wretch and to show how devoted he would remain under any circumstances. This god did not strike the Quitonians as a serious being, and the fact that he ultimately restored all the shepherd’s goods, wife, children and cattle (and gave him more wealth than he’d had before, as a sort of apology for the dirty trick he’d played) only increased their contempt for him. Never would Viracocha have done anything so puerile and cruel. As for the Sun, his implacable course set him far above such childish games.
On the other hand, they were interested in the ceremony of Mass. The sound of the organ struck their ears and touched their hearts. Little Cusi Rimay and Quispe Sisa, playacting as children do, learned to make the sign of the cross and said that they wanted to be baptised.
As the days passed, the shaved men of Salamanca grew more inclined than those in Lisbon had been to develop relationships with the young Quitonian women. Some of the girls became pregnant. Some of the shaved men became ill.
Atahualpa enjoyed listening to Francisco de Vitoria explaining natural law, positive theology, free will and other notions whose complexity – allied to th
e fact that the Inca still spoke very little Castilian – made understanding a matter of chance, and dialogue extremely limited.
Then, one day, the news reached them that Charles Quint had returned. Pedro Pizarro had told them so many stories of paladins that they were expecting to meet Charlemagne, king of the Franks, and his nephew Roland armed with his faithful Durendal. But this Charles wasn’t just anybody either, as they would soon realise. His army, which was supposed to be formidable, was approaching Salamanca, preceded by rumours of its victories in distant lands. (The reality was more ambiguous, but they would not discover that until later.)
They decided that a secret delegation would be sent to meet King Charles. Chalco Chimac and Quizquiz were put in charge of this embassy, but Atahualpa would not agree to let Higuénamota accompany them: he refused to let her become this Charles’s Angelica. In her place, as translator, they sent a shaved man who had begun learning the Quechua language. Anyway, the embassy was just an excuse for a scouting mission. All the same, Chalco Chimac thought it best to take Atahualpa’s puma with him, along with a few parrots, just in case.
15. Charles
There were about thirty horsemen on the road. A river barred their way, so they forded it. Then the camp appeared. Large tents covered the plain. Were they expected? Soldiers in breeches stepped aside to let them through. The horses advanced into a forest of lances and flags. They were taken to see a bald man with a white beard, draped in a black fur coat, a silver chain around his neck, a ring set with a red stone on his left hand. He invited Quizquiz and Chalco Chimac to enter a tent guarded by fourteen heavily armed soldiers. The two generals dismounted and walked inside, escorted only by their translator, their parrots and the puma on a leash.
Inside the tent, Charles Quint, surrounded by courtiers, sat on a wooden chair. He had a black beard, a red doublet and white stockings. The two visitors were struck by his crocodile jaw and his tapir nose. Chalco Chimac tried to step forward to give him the parrots, but two guards immediately blocked his path. The birds were taken away, which made the two generals think that their gift had been accepted, but the monarch had still not uttered a word, hadn’t even glanced at the multicoloured feathers. The man sat with his mouth open and seemed lost in his thoughts. At his feet lay a long white dog, which he stroked mechanically. The silence lengthened, broken only by the yowls of the puma; the dog responded with a faint growl, and for a long time this was the only dialogue. The two generals stood uncertainly, waiting. At last, the emperor gave a signal and the Quitonians were handed a cup of too-pale akha that only Chalco Chimac accepted. Charles himself was served in a gold cup, which he drained in a single swallow. He wiped the foam from his lips with the back of his hand. The drink was accompanied by a roasted chicken served on a silver platter: the king tore a thigh off the bird and began gnawing methodically at it. The Quitonians watched, fascinated, as grease dripped into his beard. Then he tossed the half-eaten meat to his dog and spoke in a strange voice, so quiet it was almost inaudible. He wanted to know if, as his wife had told him in her letters, Atahualpa’s men had come from the Indies across the Ocean Sea. He felt certain that they were not from the island of Vera Cruz, where the Portuguese got their wood, because according to his sister, the queen of Portugal, the men there were just cannibals and savages. While Chalco Chimac was trying to explain Tawantinsuyu and the war between Atahualpa and his brother, the monarch cut him off. He wanted to talk about his own wars against a very powerful foe named Suleiman. Chalco Chimac assured him that, if he wished it, Atahualpa and his men would go east and subdue this Suleiman. Charles Quint gave a high-pitched laugh. The men around him laughed too, but the Quitonians couldn’t tell whether their laughter was indulgent or whether they, too, thought the idea extravagant. At last, Charles Quint stood up from his chair (they saw that he was only of middling height) and yelled that Atahualpa must pay for the outrage in Toledo. Emboldened by its master’s anger and moved by the desire, characteristic of its species, to ape, please and defend him, the long white animal jumped to its feet and barked at the visitors. But in doing so, it came a little too close. The puma gave a deep hiss and, quick as lightning, clawed the dog’s muzzle. The dog whined and backed away. Instantly, Charles stopped bellowing and knelt down next to the animal. He spoke to it in a soft voice in an unknown language. He repeated ‘Sempere, Sempere…’ The dog licked its master’s fingers. A trickle of blood pooled on the ground.
Chalco Chimac said that Atahualpa wished to meet the king of Spain and that he would expect him tomorrow in the main square of Salamanca, in front of the San Martin church. The white-bearded bald man protested at the incomplete pronouncement of his lord’s titles, then began to list them – Emperor of the Romans, King of Spain, Duke of Burgundy – but Charles Quint, leaning solicitously over his dog, dismissed the visitors with an impatient wave.
16. Plaza de San Martin
Was he going to come? And when? Rumours spread and the inhabitants of Salamanca began leaving the city.
Atahualpa gathered his council and they concluded that the Quitonians’ best chance, considering their situation – which was uncomfortable, not to say desperate – was to ambush this king of Spain. Furthermore, they had nowhere else to go, so they all agreed that they may as well stay where they were. Atahualpa recalled that he had already risked everything, on several occasions, against his brother Huascar, and that he had always somehow escaped. But nobody among his generals, his wives and his men believed that the mortal danger they faced now was in any way comparable to the situations they had experienced before. They had come to the end of the road, and that was that. The only thing left to hope for was a glorious death. The underworld awaited them.
Nevertheless, Ruminahui led the preparations. He gave Puka Amaru the task of collecting steel balls for the catapults, arrows for the bows, and all kinds of throwing weapons, with a preference for short, double-bladed axes, which, when thrown with sufficient strength and skill, could pierce the most solid armour. He set men on the roofs of houses overlooking the square and the alleys leading to it. He fitted bells to the horses to sow terror among the Levantines, then hid them in the San Martin church. He ordered all available artillery to be aimed at the enemy occupying the plain. He told his men to capture Charles alive.
Chalco Chimac wanted to believe in the possibility of a negotiated solution, but Ruminahui yelled at him: ‘What do you want to negotiate? What solution are you talking about? We have nothing to offer but our surrender. And what condition can we place upon that? That we’re strangled before they burn us? The underworld will not accept your ashes.’
Atahualpa knew that the time had come to inspire his men, candidly, without ceremony, without any intermediaries, because, after all, they were all going to die together, after sharing so many trials. So he spoke to them as if to companions. ‘Do any of you think that the first soldier to stand up and charge the enemy hates life?’ History, he told them, will record that a few men, in this far-off land, stood up to a mighty army. He had not been wasting his time in Salamanca’s monasteries. He told them about Roland in Roncevaux, about Leonidas at Thermopylae. But he also told them how Hannibal triumphed against the Roman legions in Cannes. If they died, the underworld of the serpent-god would welcome them as heroes. If not, history would celebrate the 183 warriors who, by bringing down an empire, covered themselves in glory and riches. The men roared, axes in the air. Then they went to their posts.
By morning, the city’s inhabitants had all fled, except for a few beggars and a handful of conversos. The stray dogs were surprised by their sudden loneliness. The silence was reminiscent of Lisbon before the storm. The waiting weighed heavy on the men’s shoulders. I heard of many Quitonians who were so frightened that they pissed themselves without even realising.
In the Plaza de San Martin, the buildings were arranged in a half-moon shape facing the church, which was on the southern side of the square. The northern and western sides were closed off by stone houses, the ones on the n
orth above arches. The eastern side was more open, blocked only by market stalls and by a tower with a dial at the top that divided the day into twelve equal parts. It was this side that worried the generals. They would have preferred a square that was completely enclosed, with narrow exits under the stone arches – as in Cajamarca, for example. But it was too late for that. Their lookouts were announcing the arrival of Charles Quint.
Infantrymen armed with long-bladed lances marched in front of the emperor, who rode on horseback with members of his court, under a large cloth canopy held up by servants on foot. On either side, in two columns, soldiers in multicoloured uniforms carried halberds and arquebuses. Horse-drawn carriages drew up the rear of the procession. In all, perhaps two thousand men. The main part of the army, which Quizquiz and Chalco Chimac had estimated at forty thousand, remained on the plain. So they would be fighting an enemy only ten times their number. Unlike in Toledo, however, where the civilian population was surprised in its sleep, this time they would be pitched against armed men ready for battle.
Charles Quint wore black-and-gold armour, and his black horse was draped in a red coat.
Higuénamota was sent, alone, to meet him. The Cuban princess had removed her bat-fur coat and advanced naked in the noon sunlight. A murmur ran through the ranks of soldiers. A shaved man who had come with the Levantine army walked towards her, holding up his talking case. ‘Reconoces el dios único y nuestro señor Jesus Christ?’ Higuénamota took the leather case and, knowing the words by heart, responded: ‘Reconozco el dios único y vostro señor Jesus Christ.’ Then she gave the priest an ironic look and opened the precious case. She read: ‘Fiat lux, et facta est lux.’ And she pointed at the sun above their heads.
Civilizations Page 10
