However, the next part of the text drew out certain differences, even divergences, between the two monarchs: ‘He was able with the money of the Church and of the people to sustain his armies, and by that long war to lay the foundation for the military skill which has since distinguished him. Further, always using religion as a plea, so as to undertake greater schemes, he devoted himself with a pious cruelty to driving out and clearing his kingdom of the Moors; nor could there be a more admirable example, nor one more rare.’
So, what this Ferdinand of Aragon had done, Atahualpa had now undone. Yet the Inca felt closer to this man than to any other. He discovered his story with an avid curiosity: ‘Under this same cloak he assailed Africa, he came down on Italy, he has finally attacked France; and thus his achievements and designs have always been great, and have kept the minds of his people in suspense and admiration and occupied with the issue of them. And his actions have arisen in such a way, one out of the other, that men have never been given time to work steadily against him.’
Atahualpa made a sign with his hand to silence the servant who had been reading to him. He had decided to attack Algiers.
44. Algiers
Admiral Doria advised him to hasten the invasion if he didn’t want to expose himself to the winter storms, and the Inca followed his advice.
He waited until after the festivals of Corn and the Sun, and then – unwilling to leave anything to chance – assembled an enormous armada.
The king of France, persuaded by Higuénamota that he deserved his share of the glory, was present.
Likewise the cream of the Spanish nobility, gathered under the Inca banner.
The Pope himself sent his personal geographer, a converted Moor by the name of Hassan al-Wazzan, known as Leo Africanus for his encyclopaedic knowledge of that continent.
Atahualpa also invited whole regiments of Moriscos, to whom he presented the invasion as a liberation from the Turkish yoke, and a regiment of Jews, drawn by the opportunity to rediscover their long-banished brothers.
The armada occupied the Bay of Algiers, and soon the sun and the cross replaced the crescent on the battlements of Peñón, the island that protected access to the bay.
The Christians were worried that Barbarossa would not be there, but the pirate was waiting, ensconced behind the city walls.
Pedro Pizarro was sent to meet him and negotiate an honourable surrender. He was accompanied by Puka Amaru, in the hope that their red hair would create a complicity, but this proved irrelevant: Barbarossa’s hair was actually white, and did not look as if it had ever been red.
Puka Amaru played his role nonetheless. Barbarossa contemptuously rejected the offer of surrender, showing breathtaking insolence in his response, addressed to Pedro Pizarro in these precise terms: ‘Tell your master that no Christian dog has ever taken or will ever take Algiers, and that if my master was told about your plans, he’d send one of his slaves, with a few hastily gathered troops, to sweep aside your army and throw the lot of you into the sea.’
So, Puka Amaru, after listening to the translator, jumped to his feet and pronounced these now famous words: ‘My master is no Christian, and you are a slave.’
Pedro Pizarro, thinking his time had come, was already reaching for his sword, ready to defend himself; but, respecting the universal rules of war and diplomacy, Barbarossa let them leave unharmed.
With only a handful of men, the pirate defended the city valiantly; nevertheless, it fell in a few weeks, under ceaseless artillery fire.
Francis I had a horse killed beneath him during one skirmish: the king of France was thrilled.
Atahualpa had first considered entrusting the city to the son of the former emir Salim at-Toumi, long ago expelled by the first Barbarossa, Oruç Reis. Following the death of his father (who was strangled in his bath), Yahia at-Toumi had taken refuge in Spain. After all this time, he welcomed Atahualpa’s proposal as a blessing from heaven. However, the Inca changed his mind when he was made aware that the father had not been especially popular during his reign. It was not enough to be a Moor to replace the Turk. The second Barbarossa had an even more legendary reputation than his brother, whom he had succeeded. Atahualpa wanted to break this line of pirates in the service of the Ottoman Empire, but equally thought it wise to keep some form of continuity. So he decided to appoint Puka Amaru as governor of Algiers, presenting him to the populace as a third Barbarossa – the real Barbarossa. In the Berber language, Barbarossa did not mean ‘redbeard’ or indeed anything else, and in any case Puka Amaru did not have a beard because beards, although not unknown in Tawantinsuyu, had always been considered an anomaly and a physical disgrace, albeit one often suitable for people with red hair. Amaru, on the other hand, was similar to a word that meant ‘red’ for the local tribes. The Inca had an emblem of a red snake created for his new governor and gave him some Valencian Moriscos for his personal guard. He named Hassan al-Wazzan the vizir, to help Puka Amaru in his task (although, in fact, Leo Africanus was originally from Granada). Atahualpa thought it wise to have these countries governed by Moors from Spain, who had supported him ever since the Seville Edict, while sharing the same beliefs as the people of this land. The leader of the guard was a Morisco by the name of Cristobal, who had been the slave of a woman in Burgos, a town in the north of Spain, before joining the Inca to escape his condition.
Paintings representing Puka Amaru’s exploits at the gates of Tunis were hung on the walls of his palace. And, so that everyone would understand that Algiers had a new master, the pirate he had succeeded was decapitated and his head planted on a spike on the battlements.
With Barbarossa gone, the clean-up of the coast was easy. Bougie, Ténès, Mostaganem, Oran … The fleet led by Doria seized all the Berber forts like a child picking wildflowers. For the Spanish, Atahualpa was now a conquistador. For the Moors, a liberator. But when the Genoan admiral wanted to ride this irresistible momentum, suggesting that they retake the island of Rhodes, further east, Atahualpa decided it was time to bring this venture to an end. He had no interest in pursuing Suleiman from the Inner Sea, preferring to leave Ferdinand something to occupy him on his eastern borders. Rhodes had no real strategic value to Spain. From Naples to Cadiz, the route to Cuba was free for the ships of the Fifth Quarter: Atahualpa could not ask for more. Francis I approved of this decision too: in the past, inadequate preventive measures against the Turk in his war with Charles Quint had cost him dearly. Soon afterwards, the king of France would sign a trade agreement with the Sublime Porte.
45. Flanders
The story could have ended there. But humanity is a river and nothing, short of the sun dying, can halt its flow.
Ferdinand was on his way to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Aix-la-Chapelle.
We have said that Atahualpa was not interested in Germany, and it was true, up to that point. But then an event occurred and his attitude changed.
Mary of Hungary, regent of the Netherlands, was from the house of Austria; she was Ferdinand’s sister. She was a Habsburg. She saw her brother’s arrival as an opportunity to break with the Spanish crown and return to the bosom of the family empire. Anticipating a reaction from France, Spain’s ally, she had levied a new tax to pay for an army of mercenaries. But the bourgeoisie of Gand, the very city where Charles Quint was born, believed they had already spent enough on other people’s wars. They rose up against this new tax.
Word of this revolt reached Seville, and with it the rumour of a Habsburg conspiracy.
Atahualpa had not forgotten the harsh welcome received in the Netherlands by Manco and the Valencian Moriscos. He would have happily left Germany to Ferdinand, regarding it as a mishmash of turbulent kingdoms that weren’t really governed by the emperor anyway. But the Netherlands constituted Charles Quint’s Burgundian heritage and, all things considered, despite never having set foot there, he felt attached to it. The Inca decided to go there himself.
He led his army across France and into Flanders.
46. G
and
Wherever he went, he forbade his men to live off the fat of the land, which meant that his army required a colossal supply chain to keep them fed. And so the imperial army stretched out endlessly in a cloud of dust, as it had done in the days of the civil war with his brother Huascar. There were fewer caged parrots and cuys now, fewer llamas, fewer tame jaguars and pumas, but more sheep and cattle, more artillery, cannons and carts loaded down with barrels of gunpowder, and still a similar number of falcons in the sky and dogs running alongside the ranks of soldiers.
He had barracks built, warehouses that he filled, first of all, with food brought from Andalusia, some of it all the way from Tawantinsuyu.
When they arrived outside Gand, they set up a gigantic camp.
Atahualpa quickly visited all the lands that had rebelled, leaving governors and soldiers in each. Then he returned to the camp to let his men rest and, without even taking the time to change his clothes, entered the city with a reduced escort, flanked by his two generals, Ruminahui and Chalco Chimac. (Quizquiz, shaken by Philip’s death, had remained in Seville to watch over the kingdom’s capital.)
He and his men scaled a small fort whose drawbridge had been raised, then he led them along a deserted path lined by houses with closed shutters until they reached a large square containing one of those stone temples with a bell tower reaching into the sky. Atahualpa never ceased to be astonished by buildings with multiple storeys. Here, the stone was red, as it was in Granada, but the roofs were more pointed and crenellated. Each region had its own style, and Atahualpa liked this one.
A rudimentary canal ran through the square.
A crowd was gathered there.
The women and children went before him, holding green branches and shouting in the language of the French: ‘Our only lord, son of the Sun, saviour of the poor, forgive us.’
(News of the reforms that he had instituted in Spain had reached these lands.)
The Inca received them with great mercy and told them that his deputies in Flanders had been the cause of their own troubles. He told them, moreover, that he completely forgave all the rebels; that he had been to see them in person so that they, hearing his pardon from his own lips, would be satisfied and would lose all apprehension of being punished for their sins. He ordered that they should be given everything they needed, that they should be treated with love and charity, and that all the widows and orphans of men killed in the fight against the regency should be looked after.
The inhabitants had been afraid that Atahualpa would massacre them in their houses (Toledo was still fresh in their memories), so this speech was greeted with great joy and applause. As the Inca approached the great temple, some people kissed him, some wiped the sweat from his face, and others dusted him off or threw flowers and fragrant herbs at his feet. Inside the temple, in accordance with the rites of the nailed god’s followers, a ceremony was performed in his honour. Then he went to visit the city’s nobility and assured them that they would not be asked to pay any more taxes. In exchange, he demanded only part of their time and their work to supply his warehouses.
Atahualpa spent three days in Charles’s palace. Then he left for Brussels, to find Mary of Hungary and her council.
47. Brussels
Mary’s troops were not ready: poorly equipped and badly paid, they were easily swept aside.
The members of the council were paraded naked through the city, a noose around each of their necks. The regent begged to be spared this indignity, but Atahualpa would suffer no exceptions. Higuénamota, for that matter, would not have let him.
Mary of Hungary looked like her brother Charles, but her lips were thicker, her cheeks fuller, her hips wider. Her breasts were still firm, and the Inca found her to his taste; he made her his concubine, and soon she was pregnant.
Ferdinand would have paid a ransom for his sister’s return. But Chalco Chimac saw certain advantages in that union and advised his master to marry the regent. Mary would be the king of Spain’s second secondary wife, after Isabella.
And so was born an heir who would be half-Inca, half-Habsburg.
A ceremony was organised in the St Gudula cathedral, Brussels’ greatest temple. Atahualpa, wearing the scarlet wool crown, watched as his regent and new wife, Mary, knelt before him and put his sandals on his feet as a sign of allegiance. In each hand he held a golden cup filled with the black drink, and he handed her the one in his left hand as a sign of friendship. Then the Inca and his new wife drank together as a sign of mutual respect. The contents of the other cup were poured into a golden bowl to be offered to the Sun.
This scene is depicted today on a stained-glass window in the St Gudula temple, with Atahualpa’s qualities listed in the language of knowledge reserved for the Levantine amautas: Atahualpa Sapa Inca, Semper augustus, Hispaniarium et Quitus rex, Africae dominator, Belgii princeps clementissimus, et Maria ejus uxor. It is true that the Barbary Coast, where Tunis and Algiers were located, was also known as Africa, and that the inhabitants of Brussels were known as Belgians because they believed themselves descendants of a tribe of that name. Those who are curious about languages will probably not be annoyed if I mention such details. May the others forgive me.
Eight thousand of the rebellion’s ringleaders – those who had fought for the regent, organised the resistance or disseminated opinions hostile to the Inca’s arrival – were sent from Brussels to Spain, where they were settled in an under-populated province called La Mancha.
To outshine Gand’s tributes and consign the rebellion to oblivion, nine days of festivities were declared in the city. The centre of the celebrations was the Coudenberg Palace, home to the late Charles Quint and now to his sister, Mary: in a state room longer than any to be found in a single Cuzco palace, next to the sloping road that the regent and the members of her council had been forced to ascend, naked, with nooses around their necks, a great ball in the style of the Fifth Quarter took place. With bitter irony, the regent presided over it beside her new husband. Then they sacrificed black llamas in the gardens and the Inca’s troops paraded through the city.
At this point, I must briefly interrupt the narrative to return the reader to Seville where, day after day, ships were arriving from the Four Quarters, bringing gold and gunpowder, but also many men, come to try their luck in the New World. So, in addition to the 180 pioneers from Quito, Spain was now home to a considerable number of emigrants from Tawantinsuyu, most of whom had swelled the ranks of the Spanish army.
As commander-in-chief, Ruminahui had organised his army along lines of nationality. There could be no question of mixing the Chinchas with their old enemies the Yuncas, and even less so the Yuncas and the Chimus, given the bloody war that those two peoples had once fought; the same applied to the Quechuas, who hated the Chancas and would find it inconceivable to go into combat beside them.
So it was that the people of Brussels were able to watch each regiment march past, flying the colours of the peoples and tribes that comprised it.
The fierce Chancas, because of their distinction in battle, came first. They were followed by the Valencian Moriscos, horsemen from Andalusia, a regiment of Jews recruited from all over Spain. The Charas drew gasps from the crowd for the condor wings that decorated their backs. The Yuncas, with their hideous masks, scared those watching as they made the gestures and expressions of madmen, idiots or simpletons. They carried flutes and discordant drums with torn skins, which they used for all kinds of nonsense. As was customary, the procession ended with the mounted guard of Yanas, the Inca’s elite troops, led by Pedro Pizarro in place of the absent Quizquiz.
In the wake of the parade there came songs, dances and ball games on a vast lawn in front of the royal palace. Large white swans glided across the surface of a lake.
The beer – a sort of akha, made not from corn but from another cereal – flowed freely, since it was a beverage highly prized in those parts.
Atahualpa decreed that the former constitution would be replaced by the new
laws of Spain. It was proclaimed that Flanders and all the provinces of the Netherlands now belonged indissolubly to the kingdom of Spain, with the exception of the part already ceded to the king of France, including the cities of Lille, Douai and Dunkirk.
In that instant, Burgundy – as named by Charles the Bold and dreamed of by Charles Quint even until his death – ceased to exist.
Mary gave birth to a daughter, who was given the name Margaret Duchicela, after Margaret of Austria, née Habsburg, Charles Quint’s aunt and Mary of Hungary’s predecessor as regent, and after Paccha Duchicela, princess of Quito and Atahualpa’s mother. Later, the little girl would marry her half-brother Charles Capac.
48. Germany
Germany, however, while preparing for Ferdinand’s coronation, continued to tear itself apart. In Hesse, in Thuringia, in Pomerania, in the imperial cities of Strasbourg, Ulm and Constance, in the Hanseatic cities of Bremen, Lübeck and Hamburg, people believed that the Holy Roman Empire had exploited the credulity of the poor for long enough, and that if the body of the nailed god was contained in a wafer or a hunk of bread, that hunk of bread remained nevertheless a hunk of bread.
So it was that the Duke of Saxony, the Landgrave of Thuringia, the Margrave of Brandenburg, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, and all the other prince-electors of the German Holy Roman Empire, had no intention of welcoming Ferdinand, the defender of the old faith, as their returning messiah. The Landgrave of Hesse, a friend of Melanchthon’s known as Philip the Magnanimous, led the Schmalkaldic League in its mission to convert Germany to Lutheran ideas, or at least to persuade the emperor to tolerate them – by use of the sword, if necessary. All of them were covetously eyeing the Church’s riches, which they intended to confiscate, and plotting to strip away its excessive privileges and redistribute them more fairly.
Civilizations Page 17
