Civilizations

by Laurent Binet

  Fugger explained to him the value of these coins: one florin could be exchanged for 25 chickens, 2 pounds of pepper, 21 pints of honey, 180 pounds of salt, or 10 days of work for a skilled labourer.

  Atahualpa could believe it: he was going to need a lot of florins.

  The Inca had listened attentively, and now he continued to sit in silence. He refused to ask the question. He knew the banker would answer it anyway.

  What did he want in exchange?

  Fugger poured out two glasses of the black drink from a carafe on his desk and handed one to the Inca, who accepted it without offence. The wine was from Tuscany, the region around Florence. The banker seemed proud of this. During all the years he had spent in the New World – in fact, ever since the civil war with his brother – Atahualpa had learned not to be upset by others’ ignorance of the respect owed to his royal birth. So he had long before allowed people to speak directly to him, rather than from behind a veil. He had also had plenty of time to familiarise himself with the customs of the Fifth Quarter: here, he knew that offering someone a drink was a token of friendship and goodwill, a rite that generally took place between equals to celebrate a providential meeting, a special occasion or the conclusion of an agreement. It could also be a trick to poison the guest. But this German really had no motive to poison the foreigner who had made him the richest man in Europe, enabling him to definitively supplant his great rival Welser, the other banker in Augsburg, as well as the Genoese and the merchants of Anvers.

  In all probability, the German had hesitated before backing the Inca. It would have been natural for him to support Ferdinand, Charles Quint’s designated heir as head of the Empire. But two factors had determined his choice: Atahualpa’s solvency, due to his seemingly inexhaustible reserves of gold and silver. And the prospect of new markets.

  Fugger was not asking for much, really. Years before, the king of Portugal had granted Fugger’s uncle the authorisation to trade with the city of Goa, in the Indies, in the distant East. Then he had withdrawn that authorisation. What Anton Fugger wanted from the king of Spain was a similar licence to be allowed to buy products from beyond the seas. The Fuggers were a family of weavers who had grown wealthy. Anton particularly wished to trade in alpaga wool, which was of higher quality than anything to be found in Europe. He also had it in mind to import rubber, which he saw as a promising investment, because the weeping wood from which this material was extracted could not be found on this side of the world.

  Atahualpa agreed. He was about to clink glasses to seal the deal, as he knew was the custom, but Fugger raised a hand to suspend his gesture.

  He had one more condition.

  He wanted the Inca to get rid of Luther.

  Atahualpa was surprised that his host should care so much about religion.

  But the truth was that Luther was bad for business. The rebel priest had always vilified what constituted the heart of a banker’s activities: loans with interest. And it was he, this little monk from Wittenberg, who had ruined the lucrative trade in indulgences, which Rome had extended to pay back the colossal debts racked up with Uncle Jakob.

  The nephew said there was nothing personal, but he wanted Luther dead, within two moons, or their agreement would be null and void and he would suspend all payments.

  With no clear idea of how achievable this part of the contract actually was, or of its potential political repercussions, Atahualpa, blinded by his imperial dreams, agreed. At last they clinked glasses, toasting friendship between peoples and the universal Empire.

  The Inca left with a chest filled with five thousand florins – only a thousandth, it was said, of the Fugger fortune.

  53. The Protestant Princes

  Now, using force or persuasion, he had to bring to heel the German princes from the east and the south, most of whom were in favour of Luther’s reforms.

  Essentially, this meant the Margrave of Brandenburg, Joachim- Hector; his cousin, Albert of Brandenburg, the Duke of Prussia; the Landgrave of Hesse, Philip ‘the Magnanimous’; and, most importantly, Luther’s personal protector, nephew of Frederick the Wise, elector of Saxony, John Frederick, who was also known as ‘the Magnanimous’ (a quality apparently very common among these princes).

  There was also Maurice of Saxony, John Frederick’s cousin and rival, but given that he was neither an elector nor openly Lutheran, and also had considerable military resources to defend himself if it came to it, Atahualpa decided to concentrate his efforts on the others.

  The Lutheran princes were faced with a dilemma. They were instinctively opposed to Ferdinand, as they had been to Charles, because, just like his dead brother, the new emperor was scornful of the religious reforms they were demanding. In fact, what they wanted was a German equivalent of the Seville Edict that would guarantee the same religious freedoms in the Empire that Atahualpa had brought to Spain.

  At the same time, though, welcoming the Inca into Germany and putting him in charge of the Empire in place of Ferdinand essentially meant importing that religion of the Sun, which was not merely heresy, but – as far as they could tell – pure heathenry.

  However, they were no strangers to the notion of compromise. First they had depended on Charles, and then on Ferdinand, to help them put down the peasant revolts. But, it seemed to them, Atahualpa’s army would do the job just as well.

  What worried them was this programme of political reforms that Atahualpa had implemented in his kingdoms, and the concessions he had made to the Alsatian peasants. Under no circumstances were the princes willing to forsake the substantial revenues that they drew from the resources of their lands and the labour of their peasants, which was the basis of their civil life, with its privileges for the nobility dating back to time immemorial. Now, Atahualpa’s presence in the area risked kindling the flames of revolt, as did the hope offered by his reforms, based on the twelve articles that were secretly transmitted throughout the Saxony and Prussian countryside. There seemed something dangerously harmonious, too neat in its accounting, between Atahualpa’s plans and the peasants’ aspirations. At most, the princes could envisage freeing their serfs, who were peasants that had been reduced to a state of slavery. But the very thought of redistributing land to the communes, or to anyone, struck them as absolutely inconceivable. Yet that was what had happened in Alsace, in Westphalia, in the Rhineland, in Swabia and certain provinces of the Palatinate.

  So the princes who met Atahualpa were utterly bewildered, with no idea of what they should do next. Once again, the Inca called upon the cunning Chalco Chimac to lead the negotiations. The general used that crafty mix of threats and promises, that iron fist in a velvet glove, which he always found so effective in helping the other party make the right decisions.

  Even so, the protestant princes remained hesitant to commit.

  To put an end to these procrastinations, they suggested to the Inca that he organise a personal meeting with Luther. He would tell them which path to follow, and they promised they would comply with his instructions. That, of course, did not exclude the numerous emoluments that they would claim from the new emperor, and which Atahualpa was prepared to grant them, nor the gigantic bribes he would have to pay to assure himself of their support and their vote, and which Fugger would have to advance him.

  Atahualpa gave his agreement. A summons was sent to Wittenberg, where Luther lived. The religious leader was asked to report immediately to the Diet of Augsburg in order to meet the king of Spain, the new pretender to the title of emperor, to hear his arguments and decide if they were worthy; in other words, to determine whether his candidacy was compatible with the Gospel.

  The response arrived a few days later: Dr Luther thanked the honourable assembly for its invitation but regretfully declined. The monk wished to respectfully remind the gentlemen of the Diet of a precedent that they certainly had not forgotten: having presented himself to the Diet of Worms before Charles Quint, Luther had found himself banished from the Empire, abducted by strangers in a dark fore
st, and had thought that his final hour was upon him. Consequently, he begged the princes, his benefactors, to forgive his refusal, and recommended everyone to God.

  Atahualpa, well known and often praised for his legendary self-control, nevertheless began to manifest a few signs of impatience. So the Duke of Saxony suggested that he make the journey to Wittenberg. He would personally ensure that the Inca would be welcomed there with all the reverence due to his rank, and he would organise the meeting between Atahualpa and Luther.

  The Inca instinctively distrusted this fat man with his half-moon eyes, red beard and short hair. But, after a brief consultation with his general staff, he gave his agreement. The call of the Empire was too strong to be ignored.

  Among the seven electors who voted for the emperor’s appointment, there were three priests and four princes. The three archbishops of Trier, Mainz and Cologne had come under his control during the war of Little Johan, which he had won alongside the peasants. So he already had those three votes. Ferdinand had inherited the kingdom of Bohemia, and the count palatine of the Rhine had taken refuge in his lands to the east after his defeat to Ruminahui’s army. Those two votes were beyond his grasp. So he needed one more vote. There remained the two Lutheran electors. The Duke of Saxony and the Margrave of Brandenburg held the fate of the empire in their hands.

  He would go to Wittenberg, accompanied by Higuénamota and Chalco Chimac. The other Lutheran princes would go too, to be present for that historic meeting. In fact, people would come from all over Germany, and even from Denmark and Poland, to see Atahualpa meet Luther.

  54. Wittenberg

  They learned a great deal during the journey. They passed poor peasants, starving families, sick children. They saw men without noses and men without ears. Some had two fingers missing from their right hand. The women did not speak or weep, they just stared out hatefully at everything around them, like cats caught in a trap, ready to hiss.

  A blinded beggar held out his bowl as the Inca passed. The Yana guards wanted to kick him out of the way, but Atahualpa ordered his litter to be carried over to where the man sat. The beggar shook the bowl as if it were a bell. Staring at the Inca with his white eyes, he said: ‘Compassionate God, support the rights of the poor.’ He left with a gold ring and two florins.

  Soon afterwards, the procession paused in the imperial city of Nuremberg, the magnificence of its buildings offering a stark contrast to the poverty of the surrounding countryside.

  The rest of the journey, which included a stop in Leipzig, a city famous for its markets, provided the same sights and provoked the same thoughts. Here, noseless men; there, stunning opulence.

  Finally, they arrived.

  Wittenberg was a renowned centre of learning, but it looked nothing like Salamanca.

  The city was populated by monks in robes, who bustled around like busy little ants, holding stacks or cases of talking sheets in their hands, carrying suckling pigs or loaves of bread or kegs of beer under their arms, and wearing wooden crosses around their necks.

  The castle church was topped by a fearful tower – circular, with a crown of spikes, like the bulb of a black rose with its own stem growing up out of it – which cast its gloomy shadow over the surrounding city.

  In the market square, monks rubbed shoulders with students, merchants and farmers’ wives. Sheep and pigs weaved in and out between all those human legs.

  The castle itself had been uninhabited since the death of Frederick the Wise. His nephew and heir offered to lodge the Inca and his men there; he sent them his cooks, whom they quickly sent back. They occupied the empty castle, then Chalco Chimac went straight to see Philip Melanchthon – Luther’s right-hand man, who had visited Atahualpa long before in Granada – to prepare for the big meeting.

  Melanchthon could speak many languages. The interview took place in Castilian. He was a man of unremarkable size, who smiled affably from behind his little red beard. Although prematurely wrinkled, his face wore a childlike expression that generally inspired immediate trust and sympathy. These, however, were not feelings to which Chalco Chimac was particularly susceptible. What the Inca general noticed was the intelligence that lay behind the affability.

  The professor and the general clinked glasses and drank the beer that Luther brewed himself. This seemed to amuse Melanchthon, although he wasn’t, he admitted, much of a beer-drinker.

  The interview lasted a whole afternoon. The two men ignored the agitation of the household around them: the old servant who kept coming back to refill the carafe of beer, the students passing by to drop off or pick up sheets, intrigued by the sight of this unusual visitor whom they observed on the sly, overhearing snatches of dialogue that they could not understand.

  When the Inca general returned to his master, this was the report he made: the people of this place were called ‘Protestants’. They demanded the freedom to practise their religion as they saw fit. They wanted to make changes to the way the nailed god was worshipped. They were very attached to certain rites, and dismissive of certain others. They wanted their priests to be free to marry, as they already did: Luther himself, although a priest, had a wife and children, which was theoretically forbidden, as was all carnal intercourse. They were obsessed by the question of where they would go after death and the best way of being saved; in other words, going to heaven to rejoin their nailed god (although he was supposed to return to the earth at some indeterminate date, which made Chalco Chimac worry that they might meet him) and not under the earth where the dead were burned for ever, except for one transitory place where souls could emerge after a certain time, but certainly not by putting florins in the right hands during one’s lifetime.

  Another question, which Chalco Chimac thought he had grasped a little better, concerned what they called good works. Should one, or should one not, do good things in the hope of obtaining salvation? The Protestants firmly believed that this was not the case, and that the conditions of their life after death were completely independent of their behaviour while alive. All good works must be accomplished in a disinterested fashion, motivated only by the example of their nailed god, and not by the desire to be rewarded for them. Chalco Chimac had resisted the urge to ask Melanchthon how, in that case, the nailed god could decide who to save and who to burn under the earth. In truth, the general was only interested in local superstitions to the extent that they could be used for his political advantage. The questions they raised and the moral problems that ensued left him cold.

  The same was not true in reverse. Melanchthon had asked many questions: he was curious about his visitor’s country, its customs, its gods; he had asked if they waged war, if they had slaves, if they’d ever heard of the nailed god before, if the Sun rewarded the good and punished the bad. He had seemed particularly curious about the location of Tawantinsuyu. He, more than the others, seemed to understand that the Quitonians were not Indians.

  Anyway, in conclusion, this man had struck Chalco Chimac as being open to dialogue and negotiation. But he had implied that Luther was not so easy-going; that the great priest of the reform movement had a somewhat inflexible character, which, everyone agreed, was not improving with the passing of time.

  The conversation had ended up dwindling into more peripheral subjects. Among other things, the red-bearded amauta had declared, after a large amount of beer: ‘Augsburg is the German Florence, and the Fuggers are the Medicis of our time.’ Chalco Chimac had considered this remark, made in passing, to be of sufficient interest to be reported to his master.

  55. Luther

  The first meeting took place in the large building that they called Universität, in front of an audience of a thousand people and in the presence of the Elector of Saxony.

  To Atahualpa, looking down at him from a stage where he sat enthroned between Higuénamota and Chalco Chimac, Luther resembled an angry bull. The priest’s words sounded harsh, like axe blows. Melanchthon translated them into Spanish. The speech he gave was rambling and incoherent, and the Qu
itonians had trouble following his meaning. He talked a lot about the Jews, whom he accused of terrible crimes and very much wished to harm. According to Luther, they were ‘filled with the devil’s excrement’, and it was a sin not to kill them. At the very least, they should be expelled from Germany like rabid dogs and their houses burned.

  Luther spoke on this subject without interruption for nearly an hour. Atahualpa listened in silence, impassive as ever in such circumstances (although this particular circumstance, it has to be said, was pretty much unprecedented), without betraying his total incomprehension.

  Then Luther began talking about his guests, these visitors from beyond the seas.

  There could be no doubt, he said, that Atahualpa and his men had been sent by God to punish sinners and purify the Church.

  The Sun they glorified was nothing more nor less than a metaphor for God, and Atahualpa was, perhaps, if not the reincarnated Messiah, then at least a new prophet, or an angel sent to earth.

  However, he, Luther, had also been appointed by God to bring justice to the world, and he could not remain silent. No, he could not. He had to warn the Inca: it was not good that this woman (here, he pointed at Higuénamota) should be beside him. Melanchthon had stopped translating at this point, but nobody doubted Luther’s meaning, even those who spoke no German.

  Higuénamota was wearing clothes, because it was colder in these lands. But clearly Luther had heard rumours of the famous naked princess. Naturally, he suspected her of being the devil’s envoy. Higuénamota thought this was funny. And so occurred the famous scene, immortalised by the painter Cranach, when the princess, who had got to her feet, let her dress slip down, revealing her naked body to the astounded audience.