Civilizations

by Laurent Binet

  Thanks to the Berber’s greed, Christianity again had two popes – one in Rome, the other in Venice. But that did not help our unfortunate heroes, Miguel and Doménikos.

  To add to their despair, they were informed that – since nobody had paid their ransoms or seemed likely to do so – they were being sold to Spain.

  When they told their fellow prisoners this news, the men from Seville and Cadiz warned them that Tawantinsuyu was eager for manpower to work in its silver mines, the greatest of which was named Potosi, where conditions were so bad and the slaves so mistreated that they would die of exhaustion within a few years, or even months. They said that some of the slaves preferred to take their own lives. Either way, Potosi was a death sentence.

  If they were sent to Seville, they might have a chance of remaining on Spanish soil, where they could serve as slaves to the Ibero-Inca nobility. Cadiz, however, was inescapably the last stopover before they were shipped to the Americas.

  They were taken to the oars in a galley bound for Cadiz.

  5. Of their adventures at sea, so extraordinary and unprecedented that no sailor or navigator in the entire world could have completed them with less peril to his person than did the valiant Cervantes and his friend the Greek

  However, fate was so capricious in those troubled times, when empires collided amid the crash of oars and ships sank in storms, that it was perhaps no surprise that it should hold further surprises in store for our two friends.

  The galley, transporting its cargo of spices and prisoners, sailed towards Cadiz. Miguel and the Greek rowed in silence, indifferent to the lashes of the whip, resigned to the miserable destiny that awaited them.

  But as they approached the Spanish coast, the entire crew was stunned by the rumble of thunder that they heard in the distance. Why? Because the sky was cloudless and the sun was shining down on them.

  And as the Barbary galley entered the Gulf of Cadiz, a murmur began to arise among the rowers. ‘Drake! Drake!’ Suddenly, the guards turned pale and redoubled their efforts with the whips. ‘Port side! Port side! Head north!’ yelled the captain, who was a son of the famous pirate Barbarossa.

  But the prisoners grumbled. Miguel and the Greek were sharing their bench with a Spanish captain who had been taken prisoner long before them and whose name was Hieronimo de Mendoza. He was skinny, of course, as they all were, and he had a long white beard and sunburned skin. His gaze, however, was still full of life, and in that instant it blazed with even more urgency than usual. As his two companions questioned him, he told them that they were being raided by the famous pirate Francis Drake. ‘The sea is like an immense forest, belonging to everybody,’ he said, ‘where the English seek their fortunes.’ Since England had been invaded by the Mexicans from the south and the Scots from the north, Queen Elizabeth had fled with as many men as could find a shipworthy vessel – galleys, galiots, schooners, frigates, fluyts, brigantines, brigs, even little fishing boats. At first they had taken refuge in Ireland, and then in Iceland. From there, the famous pirate Drake had built a fleet to raid the Atlantic, concentrating on the French, Portuguese and Spanish coastlines. That day he had once again launched a surprise attack on a coastal town, having ventured further south than ever before. Now, if the ship from Algiers did not want to find itself battling these pirates, it had to turn back to sea immediately. According to Hieronimo de Mendoza, who knew the way merchants’ minds worked, they would undoubtedly try to reach Lisbon rather than returning to Algiers, as that way they would be able to sell their cargo, and would not have made the journey in vain. To Miguel and the Greek, the prospect of going to Lisbon, however uncertain, seemed infinitely better than Cadiz, because it did not doom them to death in Potosi.

  But fate was no keener on Lisbon as a destination than on Cadiz. When the captain, Barbarossa’s son, saw that an English galley had spotted them and was coming from the port to pursue them, he redoubled his exhortations, and the whips lashed down like rain as the Algerian guards started to panic.

  But when the rowers realised that the English galley was gaining on them, they all dropped their oars in unison and seized the captain, who was on the rear fo’c’sle yelling at them to row faster, and passed him from bench to bench, from the stern to the bow, biting him so savagely that – before he had made it past the mast – his soul had already departed for hell: so great was his cruelty towards them and the hate they bore him in return.

  And so, as the English sailors boarded the galley, the rowers greeted them with shouts of ‘Long live England! Long live Drake!’ because, for them, this piracy was synonymous with freedom. The English flag was hoisted and, after a few days in port filling up on water and biscuits, the galley sailed towards Iceland, driven forward by the lusty oarstrokes and the songs of the prisoners freed from their chains.

  On the way there, however, to their great misfortune, they encountered a Scottish ship. The lookout alerted the crew with yells of ‘Red legs!’ (this was the English nickname for the Scots, since they wore Tartan skirts) and the rowers immediately redoubled their efforts. This was difficult for poor Miguel, of course, since his left hand was disabled. In any case, the rowers could not prevent the Scottish ship from catching up with them and, after another violent confrontation – in which young Cervantes, despite being one-handed, distinguished himself once again with his remarkable bravery – they were taken prisoner.

  They assumed then that they would be taken to Scotland, ruled by Queen Mary, and this did not seem so bad, but they were soon disillusioned: they were ordered to row in the direction of France, and the galley entered the mouth of a very broad river that could only lead them to Bordeaux.

  Once again, fortune was against them. The Scots were delivering them to the Mexicans, and this – according to their bench companion Mendoza – was worse even than Potosi.

  The Mexicans, he explained, were less interested in manpower than in human flesh that could be sacrificed in their barbarous rites.

  So Miguel would not die in a silver mine on the other side of the world, but at the top of a pyramid in France, and his last sight would be of his own heart, still beating after it was ripped from his chest.

  6. Which treats of how Providence allowed Cervantes and the Greek to escape death and how they found refuge in a tower

  The port of Bordeaux was nestled in a fold of the Garonne, in the shape of a half-moon. The captives disembarked, watched by a crowd of Gascons – a rustic, debauched people who jeered at them and called them maggot-bags, an insult that did not seem to augur well for their future prospects. Cervantes kept a stoic silence as he descended the gangway amid these taunts, but the Greek, incapable of such forbearance, called them fucking goats and cursed all Christians who consorted with heathens, the French foremost among them. Hearing this, one of the Gascons suddenly raised the butt of his arquebus, and would undoubtedly have smashed it into the Greek’s face, had a Mexican captain not ordered him to stop. Mendoza, walking beside them, did not find this particularly reassuring. ‘They want sacrificial victims who can walk on their own two legs,’ he whispered.

  The docks of Bordeaux were as lively as the docks in Seville; from dawn till dusk, the air was filled with the rumble of rolling wine barrels, punctuated by the yells of the porters. The Gascons, leading their prisoners, used spears to shove these people aside as they made their way through the crowds.

  They entered the fortified city through the Cailhau Gate, with its spiked watchtowers, which opened on to the square where the Mexicans had built their pyramid. When the captives saw the dried bloodstains that ran all the way to the foot of the steps, a sigh of lamentation arose from their ranks. They were led to the prison in the Chateau de l’Ombrière, where they awaited their fate with resignation: the barrels of wine being loaded on to ships heading for the New World had a better chance of surviving than they did. At least they were well fed: the jailors brought them bread and soup every morning and evening. On Sunday, ten of them were chosen to be executed, and the noise of the
drums that reached them from the square petrified them all with horror. That day, all the prisoners were allowed a glass of wine. Young Miguel did not fear death, but he would much rather have died in action. The Greek yelled furious insults until he was exhausted.

  One day, however, twice as many prisoners were chosen, and the sound of the drums was twice as loud. They had different guards now. Then, the next week, nobody came, and the drums fell silent. A few more days passed and the guards stopped bringing food. They could not hear a single sound from the city beyond the walls. They remained in the darkness of their cells, enveloped in silence. When hunger and thirst began to torture them, they decided to leave, whatever the dangers, so they sharpened their iron spoons and used them to saw open the doors.

  When the locks finally gave, they found the palace abandoned, the guards’ weapons neatly stored on gun racks, and dozens of dead rats. There were leftovers on the tables, and the prisoners devoured them. Mendoza, used to surviving in a crowd of prisoners, got hold of a chicken leg; Cervantes and the Greek, less experienced in this regard, arrived too late. But they were in a hurry to breathe fresh air again: they walked over the rat corpses that littered the stone floors.

  Once outside, they quickly lost their appetite. Columns of smoke rose into the sky; a pestilential stink choked the air; crows fought over rotting human carcasses in the streets. The dying groaned as they were pushed along in wheelbarrows, and ghostly figures piled up corpses on handcarts. And, everywhere they looked, dead rats. At first Cervantes thought he was in a gigantic tannery of hell. But, in truth, there could be no doubt: it was the plague. They had to leave the city as quickly as possible or they too would die. They went to the docks, where all was chaos: guards were trying to prevent people leaving by sea. Mendoza, who had come with them, said they should head for the countryside.

  They walked through the dying city. The few survivors were hastily packing their goods on to carts or the backs of mules. The luckiest among them had a horse and were able to take off at a gallop. The situation was so bad that neither the city sergeants nor the soldiers paid any attention to our escapees. But the route to the west was closed: the soldiers garrisoned at the Fort du Hâ were still watching the roads and nobody could enter or leave that way.

  So they went back to the docks. The Greek knocked out two guards, or perhaps he killed them; the story is not clear on that point. At nightfall, they swam across the river, leaving the groans of the dying and the stink of the dead behind them.

  For a long time, they wandered through the plains around Bordeaux. Every time they entered a village, they were driven away with pitchforks by people fearful of the plague, or by the groans and the stink, when the plague had got there before them; in either case, they prudently skirted the settlement. For several days, all they ate was grapes picked from the vine, and soon they all had diarrhoea. The three men went on the ground, wherever they happened to be, leaving behind a liquid trail.

  Finally, they came to a chateau that appeared to have been abandoned by its owner. Only a handful of servants remained and at first they refused to grant asylum to the travellers. One of the servants, however, was more tender-hearted and, taking pity, offered to feed them if they would agree to leave immediately afterwards. Thus they were able to fill their bellies and drink to their hosts’ health. But when the meal was over, Mendoza suddenly started vomiting. Seeing this, the servants panicked and ran away from the chateau. By dawn, Mendoza was dead and the chateau genuinely deserted. Cervantes and the Greek burned the body in the courtyard and took possession of the premises.

  There were two small towers, each so arranged that it was habitable, and the two were connected by a curtain wall. One of the towers was fitted out like a retreat: it had a bed, a small chapel, modern facilities, a few trunks full of clothing, and – in the room at the top – a beautiful library containing many books; the beams on the ceiling of this room were engraved with inscriptions in Latin and Greek. As the chateau also had a well-stocked granary and a stable, in which they found a she-ass that gave them milk, the two friends decided that they would be better off here than anywhere else they were likely to find, so they moved into the tower. The Greek deciphered one of the inscriptions in his language on the library’s beams: ‘My wish: to live simply, without struggle.’ Cervantes, who knew Latin, translated another: ‘Wherever the wind blows me, I am a passing guest.’

  7. Of how Cervantes and the Greek met the owner of the tower and lived with him in great harmony for a time

  They were happy in their retreat and read many books. Although the Greek was not overly fond of Ecclesiastes, from which the quotation was taken, he did point out another inscription engraved on a ceiling beam: ‘Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?’ And that is what they did – they rejoiced in their own works, lived fully in the present – during the time when they were left in peace; in other words, while the plague ravaged the region, keeping all visitors away and forcing the inhabitants of the neighbouring village (those who had not already fled the country) to stay inside their homes.

  For several weeks, nobody dared go near the chateau, and their only company was the she-ass, who gave them milk, and a few hens who gave them eggs, until the day when a little man turned up in the library. He surprised Cervantes, who was reading a volume of the Chronicles of Atahualpa, and the Greek, who was drawing his friend’s portrait with a stub of charcoal.

  The man’s name was Michel de Montaigne and he was coming home.

  The Greek leaped to his feet, ready to fight, but Cervantes thought it wiser to explain the reasons for their presence. To do this, he recounted the adventures that had brought them there, omitting not a single detail.

  Monsieur de Montaigne was a man of average height, almost bald, with a small moustache and beard, a ruff around his neck, his clothes made of the finest materials but dirtied by his long journey. Nevertheless, his gaze was clear and his manners friendly. He spoke reasonable Tuscan, peppered with Latin expressions, so that his guests understood him quite easily, and he had even less difficulty when they spoke since he understood both Greek and Spanish. He was a member of parliament and an adviser to the king of France, Chimalpopoca. When Montaigne started listing His Majesty’s titles, the Greek wanted to grab a paperknife and stab his host in the throat, but Cervantes stayed his arm.

  His agile mind already having weighed up all the difficulties of the situation, Monsieur de Montaigne offered to let his guests remain secretly in his tower for as long as they liked, since, while he enjoyed solitude, he had the feeling that they would be pleasant company. Neither his wife, who lived in the next tower, nor his servants would be informed of their presence. He would put cushions and blankets in his office, where they could set up a bed, and he would make sure that his fruit bowl and his carafe of wine – placed at his guests’ disposition – would always be kept full.

  As they had little alternative – other than being pursued across fields like hares fleeing a pack of dogs in enemy territory, a prospect that did not enchant them – Cervantes and the Greek agreed to this deal.

  The office had a fireplace – Monsieur de Montaigne had sealed off the one in his library, fearing that the flames might devour his precious books – so the two friends were perfectly comfortable, particularly when they recalled that barely two months had passed since they were chained to a bench on a Barbary galley.

  And so they spent their days reading, eating and conversing with their host. In the evenings, they ate supper before falling asleep, without ever leaving the tower, except occasionally, at nightfall, to breathe some fresh air and stretch their legs in the chateau gardens under the watchful eyes of owls.

  Monsieur de Montaigne had a subtle mind, curious and extremely learned, which made for highly stimulating conversation. And, since our minds fortify themselves by the communication of vigorous and regular understandings,
young Cervantes liked to discuss poetry, theatre and all sorts of other things with the Frenchman for the pleasure of hearing him cite, always with great pertinence, ancient authors such as Virgil, Sophocles, Aristotle, Horace, Sextus Empiricus and Cicero.

  But what he liked even more was listening to their host arguing with the Greek, because this always gave rise to speeches of tremendous vigour and inventiveness. True, he also liked to devote himself to reading books from the library, but the study of books is a languishing and feeble motion, that heats not, whereas conference teaches and exercises at once.

  As a soldier of Christ and member of the Society of Jesus, the Greek vehemently reproached Monsieur de Montaigne – with no consideration for his obligations to him in the current circumstances – for compromising himself with heathens and, in so doing, betraying his fellow Christians.

  Young Cervantes tried to prevent his friend from going too far down this path, fearful that the Greek would offend their host and provoke him into withdrawing his protection, but he was wasting his time. Over and over again, the Jesuit returned to his obsessive recriminations: ‘Damned are those Christians who consort with the infidel!’ he bellowed.

  Far from taking offence, however, Monsieur de Montaigne seemed to encourage these remonstrances, and even to take pleasure from the Greek’s frank, unbridled familiarity. ‘No belief offends me, though never so contrary to my own,’ he said, to ease young Cervantes’s anxieties. ‘I can peaceably argue a whole day together, if the argument be carried on with method.’ And, with a laugh, he added: ‘In earnest, I rather choose the company of those who ruffle me than of those who fear me.’ It was as if, by violently disagreeing with him, you stirred not his anger but his interest.

  The Greek, it must be said, was all too ready to give his host satisfaction in this matter. One day, he would call Monsieur de Montaigne an infidel, the next a barbarian, because – in serving the usurper who had stolen the throne of the very Christian king of France – he not only worked for the advancement of those worshippers of the Feathered Serpent, but was complicit in the vile practice of human sacrifice; and no doubt he had accepted his position out of cowardice or greed, rather than a desire to champion the true faith.