Ines of My Soul: A Novel

by Isabel Allende

  Another of the toquis came forward, waved his weapons in the air, and leaped and uttered a long cry of rage, then announced that he was ready to attack the huincas, to kill them, to devour their hearts to absorb their power, to burn their rukas, to take their women—there was no other way. Death to them all. When he had spoken, a third toqui occupied the center of the amphitheater to maintain that the entire Mapuche nation had to join together against that enemy and choose a toqui among toquis, a ñidoltoqui, and make war.

  Great Father Ngenechén, we ask only that you give us aid in overcoming the huincas; help us to tire them, badger them, and not let them sleep or eat, make them fear us, let us spy on them, set traps for them, steal their weapons, crush their skulls with our macanas. This we ask of you, Great Father.

  The first toqui again came forward to say that they did not have to hurry, they had to fight with patience, the huincas were like a bad weed that when cut sends out more vigorous shoots than before; this would be a war with them, with their children, and the children of their children. Much Mapuche blood and much huinca blood would be spilled before the end. The warriors lifted their lances and from their throats came a long chorus of approving yells. War! War! At that moment, the fine rain ceased, the clouds parted, and a magnificent condor slowly cruised across a strip of clear sky.

  At the beginning of September we realized that our first winter in Chile had come to an end. The weather improved and buds came out on the young trees we had transplanted from the forest to line the streets. Those months had been hard not just because of the Indians’ harassment and Sancho de la Hoz’s conspiring, but also for the forsaken feeling that frequently overwhelmed us. We wondered what was happening in the rest of the world, whether there had been Spanish conquests in other territories, new inventions, what was the state of our emperor, who according to the last news to reach Peru a couple of years before was losing his sanity. Madness ran in the veins of his family; one had only to think of his unfortunate mother, Juana, the madwoman of Tordesillas.

  From May to the end of August the days had been short; it had grown dark about five o’clock and the nights had seemed eternal. We used the last ray of natural light to do our work, after which we had to gather in one room of the house—masters, Indians, dogs, even the fowl from the hen yard—with one or two candles and a brazier. Each of us looked for a way to help pass the evening hours. The chaplain started a choir among the Yanaconas to reinforce the faith through chants. Aguirre entertained us with his outlandish tales of womanizing and his risqué soldier ballads. Rodrigo de Quiroga, who at first seemed quiet and rather timid, loosened up and revealed himself to be an inspired storyteller. We had very few books among us, and knew them all by heart, but Quiroga would take the characters of one story and insert them into a different one, ending up with an infinite array of plots. All the books in the colony, except two, were on the black list of the Inquisition, and as Quiroga’s versions were much more audacious than the originals, they were a sinful pleasure, and for that reason much requested. We also played cards, a vice suffered by all Spaniards, especially our gobernador, who was also blessed with luck. We did not bet money, in order to avoid quarrels and not set a bad example for the servants, but also to hide how poor we were. We listened to the vihuela, recited poetry, and had spirited conversations. The men remembered their battles and adventures, applauded by everyone present. Pedro was asked again and again to recount the feats of the marqués de Pescara; soldiers and servants never tired of praising the marqués’s cleverness the time he had camouflaged his troops with white sheets to blend into the snow.

  The captains held meetings—also in our home—to discuss the colony’s laws, one of the gobernador’s basic concerns. Pedro wanted Chile’s society to be based on legality and the spirit of service of its leaders. He insisted that no one should receive payment for occupying a public office, least of all himself, since serving was an obligation and an honor. Rodrigo de Quiroga fully shared this idea, but they were the only two imbued with such lofty ideals. With the land and encomiendas that had been distributed among the enterprising soldiers of the conquest, they would in the future have more than enough to live very well, Valdivia said, even if for the moment their rewards were only dreams. Those who had the most land would have to do the most for other people in return.

  The soldiers were bored, because aside from practicing with their weapons, copulating with their concubines, and fighting when called upon, they had little to do. The work of building the city, growing food, and looking after the animals was done by the women and the Yanaconas. I did not have enough hours to do everything: taking care of my house and the colony, looking after the sick, the plantings, and the animal pens, along with my reading lessons with González de Marmolejo and the Mapudungu with Felipe.

  The fragrant spring breeze brought with it a wave of optimism; the terrors recently unleashed by Michimalonko’s warriors lay behind us. We felt stronger, even though following the slaughters at Marga-Marga and Concón and the execution of four traitors our small numbers had been reduced even further; we now had only one hundred and twenty soldiers. Santiago had emerged nearly intact from the mud and wind of the winter months, when we’d had to bail out water with pails; our houses had survived the deluge and our people were healthy. Even our Indians, who died if they caught a common cold, had come through the storms without serious problems. We plowed our garden plots and planted the seedlings I had so carefully guarded from the icy winds. The animals had mated and we prepared fenced pens for the piglets, foals, and llamas soon to be born. We decided that as soon as the mud dried we would dig the necessary drainage ditches, and even planned to build a bridge over the Río Mapocho to join the town with the haciendas that one day would lie on the town’s outskirts . . . but first we would have to finish the church. Francisco de Aguirre’s house was already two stories high, and still growing. We teased him because he had more Indian girls, and gave himself more airs, than all the rest of the men put together, and evidently he intended for his house to be higher than the church. “The Basque thinks he is above God,” the soldiers joked. The women of my household had spent the winter sewing and teaching their domestic skills to others. The morale of the Spaniards, always very vain regarding appearance, rose when they saw their new shirts, patched breeches, and mended doublets. Even Sancho de la Hoz, from his cell, for once interrupted his plotting. The gobernador announced that soon we would be building another brigantine, returning to work the gold beds, and looking for the silver mine the curaca Vitacura had reported—and which had been the most elusive prize of all.

  Our spring optimism did not last long, for in early September the Indian boy Felipe brought us news that enemy warriors were arriving every day in the valley, and that they were forming an army. Cecilia sent her serving girls to investigate, and they confirmed what Felipe seemed to know by pure clairvoyance, adding that there were some fifteen hundred camped fifteen or twenty leagues from Santiago. Valdivia summoned his most faithful captains, and once again determined to teach the enemy a lesson before they were better organized.

  “Don’t go, Pedro. I have a bad presentiment,” I pleaded.

  “You always have bad presentiments at times like these, Inés,” he replied. I detested that tone he sometimes used, like a father humoring a child. “We are used to fighting against a number a hundred times larger than our own; fifteen hundred savages are laughable.”

  “There may be more hiding in other places.”

  “With God’s favor, we will deal with them; have no worry.”

  To me it seemed imprudent to divide our forces, which were already quite thin, but who was I to object to the strategy of an experienced soldier like Valdivia? Every time I tried to dissuade him from a military decision, because common sense demanded it, he flew into a rage and we ended up furious with each other. I did not agree with him on this occasion, as I did not agree later, when he was inflamed with a fever to found cities we could neither populate nor defend. That ha
rdheadedness led to his death. “Women cannot think on a grand scale; they cannot imagine the future; they lack a sense of history; they concern themselves only with domestic and immediate realities,” he told me once, but he had to retract his statement when I recited the list of everything that I and other women had contributed to the mission of conquering and founding.

  Pedro divided his forces: fifty soldiers and a hundred Yanaconas under the command of his best captains, Monroy, Villagra, Aguirre, and Quiroga, to protect the town, while he himself would lead a detachment consisting of a little more than sixty soldiers and the remainder of the Indians. They left Santiago at dawn, with trumpets, flying banners, harquebus fire, and enough uproar to give the impression that they were more than their actual number. From the flat azotea atop Aguirre’s house, which had been converted into an observation post, we watched them ride away. It was a cloudless day and the snow-covered mountains that surrounded the valley seemed immense, and very near. Rodrigo de Quiroga was at my side, trying to veil his uneasiness, which was as great as mine.

  “They should not have gone, Don Rodrigo. Santiago is very vulnerable.”

  “The gobernador knows what he’s doing, Doña Inés,” he replied, not entirely convinced. “It is better to go out to meet the enemy; that way he understands that we do not fear him.”

  This young captain was, in my opinion, the best man in our small colony—after Pedro, of course. He was courageous, experienced in war, silent in suffering, loyal, and selfless. He had in addition the rare virtue of inspiring confidence in everyone who knew him. He was building a house on a property near our own, but he had been so busy fighting in the constant skirmishes with the Chilean Indians that his dwelling consisted of a few pillars, two walls, some canvas, and a straw roof. His home was so inhospitable that he spent a lot of his time in ours, since the house of the gobernador, the largest and most comfortable in the town, had become a meeting center. I suppose my determination that no one would want for food and drink contributed to our social success. Rodrigo was the only one of the soldiers who did not keep a harem of concubines and did not chase the other men’s Indian girls to get them pregnant. His companion was an Indian named Eulalia, one of Cecilia’s serving girls, a beautiful young Quechua who had been born in Atahualpa’s palace. She had the same grace and dignity as her mistress, the Inca princess. Eulalia fell in love with Rodrigo the moment he joined the expedition. When he arrived he was as filthy, ill, shaggy, and ragged as the other surviving ghosts of the Los Chunchos jungle, but with just one glance she was attracted to him, even before they cut his hair and bathed him. She could not stop thinking of him. With infinite cleverness and patience she seduced Rodrigo, and then came to me with her woes. I interceded with Cecilia and asked her to allow Eulalia to serve Rodrigo, using the argument that Cecilia had enough servants, while that poor man was skin and bones and might die if he was not cared for. Cecilia was too clever to be deceived by such tales, but she was moved by Eulalia’s love. She released her servant, and Eulalia went to live with Quiroga. They had a delicate relationship; he treated her with a fatherly, respectful courtesy unusual among the soldiers and their women, and she attended to his least wish quickly and discreetly. She seemed submissive, but I knew through Catalina that she was passionate and jealous.

  Rodrigo de Quiroga and I, up on Aguirre’s azotea, watched as more than half our forces marched away from Santiago. For some reason, I found myself wondering what Quiroga was like in his intimate moments, whether by any chance he satisfied Eulalia. I knew his body because I had taken care of him when he returned from Los Chunchos, and when he had been wounded in encounters with the Indians. He was slim, but very strong. I had never seen him completely naked, but according to Catalina, “You need to be seeing his piripicho, then, senorayy. Frisky as a colt.” The women servants, who never missed anything, agreed, assuring me that he was very well endowed; on the other hand, Aguirre, with all his woman chasing . . . well, what did it matter. I recall that my heart gave a little lurch when I remembered what I had heard about Rodrigo, and I blushed so violently that he noticed.

  “Is something the matter, Doña Inés?” he asked.

  I quickly said good-bye, perturbed, and went downstairs to begin my daily chores, while he went off to his.

  Two days later, on the night of September 11, 1541, a date I have never forgotten, Michimalonko’s men and their allies attacked Santiago. As was always the case when Pedro was away, I couldn’t sleep. It was not unusual for me to be awake all night. After I sent everyone else to bed, I had stayed up late, sewing. In that ambiguous hour a little before dawn, I felt the tension double that had tied my stomach in knots since Pedro rode away. I had spent a good part of the night praying, not from an excess of faith, but from fear. Speaking directly with the Virgin always calmed me, but during that long night she had not eased the ominous premonitions tormenting me.

  I threw a shawl around my shoulders and made my usual rounds, accompanied by Baltasar, who had the habit of following me like my shadow. The house was quiet. I did not meet Felipe, but I wasn’t worried; he often slept with the horses. Like me, he was an insomniac. I often ran into him in my nighttime prowls through the rooms of the house. He would be in some unexpected place, motionless and silent, his eyes wide open in the darkness. It had proved pointless to assign him a straw mattress, or a specific place to sleep; he lay down anywhere, without even a blanket to cover him. I went out front to the plaza, and noticed the faint light of a torch on the roof of Aguirre’s house, where they had assigned a soldier as lookout. Thinking that the poor man must be fainting with fatigue after so many hours on solitary guard duty, I warmed a bowl of soup and carried it to him.

  “Thank you, Doña Inés. Can’t you rest?”

  “I am a bad sleeper. Anything new?”

  “No. It has been a peaceful night. And as you can see, there is a little moonlight.”

  “What are those dark splotches over there by the river?”

  “Shadows. I’ve noticed them for a while now.”

  I stood watching a moment; it was a strange effect, as if a great, dark wave were overflowing the riverbanks to join another coming from the valley.

  “Those shadows are not normal. I think we should advise Captain Quiroga; he has very sharp eyes.”

  “I cannot leave my post, señora.”

  “I will go.”

  I raced down the steps, followed by Baltasar, and ran to the home of Rodrigo de Quiroga at the other end of the plaza. I waked the Indian guard, who was asleep across the threshold that would one day house a door, and ordered him to summon the captain immediately. Two minutes later Rodrigo appeared, half dressed, but with his boots on and his sword in his hand. We hurried back across the plaza and up the steps to Aguirre’s azotea.

  “No doubt about it, Doña Inés. Those shadows are humans creeping in this direction. I think they are Indians with something like dark blankets pulled over them.”

  “How can that be?” I exclaimed incredulously, thinking of the marqués de Pescara and his white sheets.

  Rodrigo de Quiroga sounded the alarm and in less than twenty minutes the fifty soldiers, who in those days were always primed for action, met in the plaza, each wearing armor and helmet, with weapons ready. Monroy organized the cavalry—we had only thirty-two horses—and divided it into two small detachments: one under his command and the other under Aguirre’s, both having decided to confront the enemy before they penetrated the town. Villagra and Quiroga, with harquebusiers and a few Indians, remained in charge of internal defense, while the chaplain, the women, and I prepared to supply the defenders and treat their wounds. At my suggestion, Juan Gómez took Cecilia, two Indian wet nurses, and all the nursing babies of the colony to the cellar of our house, which we had dug with the idea of storing provisions and wine. He handed his wife the small statue of Nuestra Señora del Socorro, kissed her on the lips, blessed his son, sealed the cave with some boards, and shoveled dirt over the entrance. The only way he had to protec
t them was to bury them alive.

  Dawn came on that eleventh day of September. The sky was cloudless, and at the moment the timid spring sun illuminated the outlines of the city, the Indians’ monstrous chivateo rang out, the war cries of thousands of natives rushing toward us in a solid mass. We realized that we had fallen into a trap; the savages were much cleverer than we had thought. The party of fifteen hundred men who formed the contingent supposedly threatening Santiago had been a lure to distract Valdivia and a large part of our forces; later the thousands and thousands hidden in the forest would use the shadows of night to approach the town under cover of dark blankets.