Ines of My Soul (22 page)

“You are our constable, Don Juan. Do something, please,” I begged.

“I can't go against Don Pedro de Valdivia's order,” he answered, his eyes wide with alarm.

“I am embarrassed to remind you of this, Don Juan, but you owe me a favor. . . .”

“Señora, are you asking this because you have a special interest in the soldier Escobar?” he asked.

“How can you think that! I would ask the same for any man in this camp. I cannot allow Don Pedro to commit this sin. And don't tell me that this is a matter of military discipline, because we both know it is nothing but pure jealousy.”

“What do you suggest?”

“The chaplain says that this in the hands of God. What would you think if we helped the divine hand along a little?”

The next day, after mass, Don Benito convoked a gathering in the central plaza of the camp; the gallows had already been used to execute the hapless Ruiz, and it was waiting with a new rope. That was my first time to attend a hanging, because up until then I had managed to avoid witnessing tortures or executions. The violence of the battles and the suffering of the wounded and ill I was responsible for were enough. I carried Nuestra Señora del Socorro in my arms where everyone could see her. The captains stood in front in a rectangular formation, then the soldiers, and behind them the work bosses and the throngs of Yanaconas, the Indian serving girls, and the concubines. The chaplain had spent the night praying, after having failed in his mission with Valdivia. His skin was sallow and there were dark circles under his eyes, as was often the case when he flagellated himself. His penance made the Indian girls laugh; they knew too well what a real lashing was.

The execution was announced by a town crier and a drumroll. Juan Gómez, in his role as constable, read the sentence: the soldier Escobar was guilty of a serious infraction of discipline; he had entered the tent of the captain general with malicious intent to stain his honor. No further explanations were needed; no one doubted that the youth would pay for his puppy love with his life. The two blacks charged with executions escorted the criminal into the plaza. Escobar was not chained; he walked head up, tranquil, eyes straight ahead, as if he were sleepwalking. He had asked to be allowed to bathe, shave, and put on clean clothing. He knelt, and the chaplain gave him extreme unction, blessed him, and handed him the holy cross to kiss. The blacks led him to the gallows, tied his hands behind his back and bound his ankles, then looped the noose around his neck. Escobar refused a hood. I think he wanted to die looking at me, to defy Pedro de Valdivia. I held his gaze, trying to console him.

At the second drumroll, the blacks pulled the support from beneath the prisoner's feet and he dropped a short distance, hanging in the air. The camp was as silent as the tomb, the only sound the drums. For a time that seemed eternal, Escobar's body swung from the gibbet as I prayed desperately, clutching the statue of the Virgin to my chest. And then the miracle happened: the rope parted and the youth fell to the ground, where he lay as if dead. There was a collective gasp of surprise. Pedro de Valdivia took three steps forward, pale as an altar candle, unable to believe what had happened. Before he could give an order to the hangmen, the chaplain came forward, carrying the holy cross on high, as dumbfounded as everyone else.

“It is God's judgment! God's judgment!” he shouted.

As if it were a distant wave, I first sensed a murmur, then heard the frenetic jabbering of the Indians, and as that wave crashed over the rigid Spanish soldiers, one of them crossed himself and knelt on one knee. Another followed his example, and then another, until every one of us except Pedro de Valdivia was kneeling. God's judgment . . .

Juan Gómez, acting as constable, pushed the hangmen aside, and he himself removed the noose from Escobar's neck, cut the bonds around his wrists and ankles, and helped him to his feet. I was the only one who noticed that he handed the gallows rope to an Indian who quickly carried it away before anyone thought to examine it. Juan Gómez owed me no further favors.

Escobar was not set free. His sentence was commuted to exile. He would have to return to Peru, dishonored, on foot, with a Yanacona as his only companion. Should he manage to elude the hostile valley Indians, he would perish from thirst in the desert, and his body, dry as a mummy's, would never be given a decent burial. It would have been more merciful to have hanged him. One hour later, he left camp with the same calm dignity he had shown walking to the gallows. Soldiers who had teased him to the point of madness formed two respectful lines, and Escobar walked between them, not speaking, but slowly saying good-bye with his eyes. Many of them, shamed and repentant, shed tears. One handed him his sword, another a short hatchet, a third came leading a llama laden with a few bundles and skins for water. I observed from a distance, fighting the animosity I felt toward Valdivia, so strong it choked me. When the boy was already outside camp, I caught up with him, dismounted, and handed him my only treasure, my horse.

We stayed in that valley seven weeks, during which twenty more Spaniards were added to our numbers, among them two priests and a despicable man named Chinchilla. From the beginning, he had sedition on his mind, and conspired with Sancho de la Hoz to assassinate Valdivia. De la Hoz's fetters had been removed, and he roamed freely about the camp, perfumed and dressed like a prince, eager to have his revenge against the captain general but carefully watched by Juan Gómez. Of the one hundred and fifty men who now composed the expedition, all except nine were hidalgos, sons of rural or impoverished nobility, but acting the hidalgo to the hilt. According to Valdivia, that had no bearing—after all, Spain itself was swimming with hidalgos—but I believe that those founders bequeathed their arrogance to the Kingdom of Chile. To the haughty blood of the Spaniards was added the indomitable blood of the Mapuche, and from that mixture has come a people of demented pride.

Following the expulsion of young Escobar, it took the camp a few days to settle back to normality. People were quick to anger, you could feel it in the air. In the soldiers' eyes, the blame was mine. I had tempted an innocent boy, seduced him, driven him out of his mind, and led him to his death. I, the shameless concubine. Pedro de Valdivia was merely doing what was demanded: defending his honor. For a long time I felt the rancor of those men like a burn on my skin, as once I had felt their lust. Catalina advised me to stay in my tent until the men's mood changed, but there was much to be done to prepare for the journey, and I had no choice but to confront the slanderous talk.

Pedro was preoccupied with indoctrinating the new soldiers and with rumors of treachery circulating through the camp, but he had time to take his rage out on me. If he realized that he had gone too far in his desire to avenge himself against Escobar, he never admitted it. Guilt and jealousy fired his lust; he wanted to possess me at every turn, at any time of day. He would interrupt his duties or his conferences with other captains, and drag me to the tent in full view of the entire camp; there was no one who did not realize what was going on. Valdivia didn't care; he did it partly to establish his authority, partly to humiliate me and defy the gossipers. We had never made love with such violence. He would leave me with bruises and act as if that pleased me. He wanted me to moan with pain, seeing that I did not moan with pleasure. That was my punishment, to suffer the fate of a whore, just as it was Escobar's fate to perish in the desert. I bore Pedro's abuse for as long as I could tolerate it, thinking that at some moment his anger would cool, but at the end of a week I lost patience, and instead of obeying when he wanted to do with me what dogs do, I slapped his face, hard. I don't know how it happened, my hand acted on its own. Surprise left us both paralyzed for a long moment, and immediately the spell in which we were trapped was broken. Pedro put his arms around me, repentant, and I began to tremble, as contrite as he.

“What have I done! What have I done, my love?” he murmured. “Forgive me, Inés, we must forget this, please . . .”

We lay with our arms around each other, our hearts full, murmuring explanations, forgiving each other, and finally falling asleep exhausted, without making love. From that moment, we began to recover our lost love. Pedro courted me with the passion and tenderness of the first days. We took short walks, always with guards, because at any moment we might be attacked by hostile Indians. We ate alone in our tent; he read to me at night; he spent hours caressing me, to give me the pleasure that only a short time ago he had denied. He was as eager for a child as I, but I did not get pregnant despite the rosaries I prayed to the Virgin and the potions Catalina prepared. I am sterile. I had no children by any of the men I loved—Juan, Pedro, Rodrigo—or any with whom I enjoyed brief and secret encounters. But I believe that Pedro, too, was sterile, because he never had children, not with Marina or any other woman. “To earn fame and leave memory of my name” was his motivation for conquering Chile. That may have been his way of substituting for the family dynasty he could not found. He left his name to history, since he could not bequeath it to descendants.

Pedro had the foresight and the patience to teach me to use a sword. He also gave me a horse to replace the one I had given Escobar, and assigned his best horseman to train it. A warhorse must obey instinctively, for its rider is occupied with his weapons. “You never know what will happen, Inés. You have had the courage to come with me, so you must be prepared to defend yourself like any of my men,” he warned me. It was a prudent move. If we had hoped to recover from our fatigue in Copiapó, we were soon disenchanted, for every time we dropped our guard, the Indians attacked.

“We will send emissaries to explain that we come in peace,” Valdivia announced to his principal captains.

“That would not be a good idea,” said Don Benito. “They undoubtedly will remember what happened six years ago.”

“What are you saying? What was that?”

“When I was here with Don Diego de Almagro, the Chilean Indians not only offered us signs of friendship, they also brought us the gold intended for their tribute to the Inca—they had already learned that he had been overthrown. The adelantado, suspicious, and not satisfied, made them promises, and invited them to a meeting, and as soon as he had gained their trust he gave us orders to attack. Many died in the fray, but we captured thirty caciques, whom we promptly tied to stakes and burned alive,” the field marshal explained.

“Why did you do that! Wouldn't peaceful dealings have been much better?” Valdivia asked indignantly.

“If Almagro hadn't acted first, the Indians would have done that to us Spaniards later,” Francisco de Aguirre interrupted.

The thing the native Chileans wanted most were our horses, and what they most feared were the dogs, so Don Benito kept the first in corrals, guarded by the second. The Chileans were under the command of three caciques, who in turn were directed by the powerful Michimalonko. He was an astute elder, and he knew that they were not strong enough to rush the camp of the
huincas
, so he opted to wear us down. His stealthy warriors stole our llamas and horses, destroyed our stores of provisions, kidnapped our Indian women, and attacked the parties of soldiers who rode out to look for food and water. We lost one soldier in that way, and several of our Yanaconas, whom we had, out of necessity, taught to fight, for otherwise they would all have perished.

Then spring appeared in the valley and on the hills, which came alive with flowers. The air turned warm, and Indians, mares, and llamas began to give birth. I have never seen a more adorable animal than a baby llama. The spirit of the camp improved; the new births brought a note of happiness to the weathered Spaniards and bone-weary Yanaconas. Rivers that ran dark in winter became crystal clear, and very rapid with the snowmelt from the mountains. There was abundant pasture for the animals, hunting and vegetables and fruit for us. The air of optimism ushered in by spring caused us to relax our vigilance, and then when we least expected it, two hundred Yanaconas deserted, followed by four hundred more. They simply evaporated like smoke, and no matter how many lashes Don Benito ordered as punishment for the work bosses' carelessness, and to the Indians for helping, no one ever learned how they had escaped or where they had gone. One thing was obvious: they could not have gone far without the help of the Chilean Indians; without a previous arrangement they would have been slaughtered. Don Benito tripled the guard and kept the Yanaconas strung together day and night, with the work bosses constantly patrolling the camp with their whips and dogs.

Valdivia waited until the colts and baby llamas could travel, and then gave the order to continue south toward the Edenic place so highly praised by Don Benito: the Mapocho valley. We knew that Mapocho and Mapuche meant almost the same thing. We would have to confront savages who had turned back Almagro's five hundred soldiers and nearly eight thousand auxiliary Indians. We had one hundred and fifty soldiers, and no more than four hundred Yanaconas.

We confirmed that Chile lay in the shape of a long, slim sword. It is composed of a string of valleys lying between mountains and volcanoes and crossed by plentiful rivers. Its coast is abrupt, with fearsome waves and frigid water, its forests are dense and aromatic, its hills unending. Frequently we heard a sigh from the earth and felt it move beneath our feet, but with time we became accustomed to the temblors. “This is how I imagined Chile, Inés,” Pedro confessed to me, his voice breaking with emotion as he gazed at the virginal beauty of the landscape.

Everything was not contemplation of nature, however; our trek was demanding. Michimalonko's Indians trailed us relentlessly, constantly harassing us. As a result, we were able to rest only in turns; if we were careless for an instant, they were upon us. Llamas are delicate animals and can carry only a limited amount of weight; too much will break their backs. That meant that the Yanaconas had to carry the bundles of the Indians who had deserted. Although we discarded everything we did not absolutely need—including several trunks of my elegant dresses, something I had no use for anyway—the porters were bowed over by their burdens and, in addition, roped to prevent their escape. All these factors made our advance very laborious and very slow.