MONTAGUE KOBBÉ
They had slipped past the southern point of Grenada in the night, and were at last within the fairy ring of islands, on which nature had concentrated all her beauty, and man all his sin.
Charles Kingsley, Westward Ho!
Don Alonso! Don Alonso! The boy’s shriek rises over the deserted dirt roads, bouncing along the scantly built streets, adding its shrill urgency to the dust and the heat – seemingly the only other elements to populate the stale emptiness of this fledgling city in the New World. Treason, Don Alonso! Treason!
Alonso Andrea de Ledesma sits dejected, taciturn, preoccupied, in the reception of his hacienda, next to the only window overlooking the Camino de la Marina. Even though the thumping of the child’s small copper legs can be heard all around the Plaza Mayor, his unrestrained screaming barely manages to stir the scene around Don Alonso, making it into the stately house as a futile echo, devoid of its original despair.
The potholed lane takes the mestizo son of the Guarena freedwoman up the hill towards the Hacienda de Baruta. Once past the final bend the waves that threaten the solemnity of Don Alonso’s manor intensify, transforming what had been a mere whisper into a proper racket. Standing, alarmed, he listens to the news: Amyas Preston has not returned to Guaicamacuto after leaving La Guaira but, rather, has managed to buy – with two rolls of silk and a barrel of sugar – the loyalty of a ruined smuggler who is guiding him through the old path of Caraballeda. Don Alonso is astounded. Garci-González de Silva has gathered all the able-bodied men of the area and set up camp beyond the top of La Silla, wherefrom he can simultaneously intimidate the English troops with his presence and spy every one of the movements of their six-boat fleet.
If the report of the little mestizo is correct, Garci-González will be awaiting the withdrawal of the English squadron while Preston – unnoticed – invades the helpless city of Santiago. Sending out news of the situation would be no more than a useless formality: only women and children remain quartered in town, together with a few elderly, even less suited for battle than Don Alonso himself; heading toward Garci-González’s camp would be equally fruitless: it would take him the best of the next two hours only to reach La Silla, and by then the buccaneers would already have broken through the outer skirts of the capital. Even if Garci-González, guided by a hunch, an instinct or other such miraculous disposition, were to return to Santiago de León de Caracas this very minute he would still find it hard to stop the invasion.
The surprise in Don Alonso’s face is progressively replaced by gloom, first, then hopelessness, until he finally adopts the inscrutable countenance of a man ready to perform his duty. Gather the women and take them with their children to the church of Santa Ana. The order carries the tone of a conviction. Fear invades the young boy’s soul, filling his eyes with tears he dares not shed. Anda, deprisa! By the time Don Alonso barks his command he has long moved to the next room, so his voice reaches the ears of the Guarena woman’s son bereft of a corresponding body – as if it already belonged to a ghost or a legend.
There’s no time to lose. Standing next to the rickety frame that holds together his ancient armour, the man who once so proudly filled that assemblage of tin and iron momentarily rediscovers an ounce of his former haughtiness. One by one Alonso Andrea de Ledesma retrieves from the cobwebs of time the chain mail, the leather leggings, the greaves, the footwear, the breast- and backplates, the helmet, the gloves with which for so many years he upheld the honour of God and his Royal Majesty. The dent on the left side of his visor bears perpetual witness to his drunken fall from the boat that took him and the rest of Juan Carvajal’s men from the island of Santo Domingo, the gateway of the Caribbean, to the settlement of Santa Ana de Coro in the summer of 1545. Fortunately, his sword’s thin sheath had wedged itself between his temple and his oversized helmet, instantly knocking it off his head but sparing both his skull and his life.
The edicts of good fortune would also turn him into a belated hero fifteen years later in Nueva Segovia de Barquisimeto while taking part in the campaign to seize a fortress from the usurping hands of Lope de Aguirre, who after murdering his daughter gave up all resistance and opened the gates of his enclave. The royal forces had mistakenly camped by the large sidewall of the fortress, setting up minor sentinel posts around the castle.
Don Alonso and his brother Tomé were shocked when they realised they would have to face the surrendering Basque rebel on their own after advancing from their sentinel post through what they had wrongly assumed was a side entrance. But by then Lope de Aguirre was a broken man, and ‘the Wrath of God’, as he liked to call himself, had been extinguished, and all Don Alonso and his brother had to do was walk up to the tired old madman and keep him company until the rest of the unit raced around the fortress and joined them. Yet such invaluable contribution in this dangerous mission had earned Don Alonso a promotion to the rank of captain.
Now the rusty bones of the onetime soldier must conceal their weakness beneath the monstrous costume he has resolved to bring out of retirement. Half a century of experience waging war in the New World will have to make up for the diminished strength of a man, grown white and bald, who has already lived more than a lifetime.
For the first time in over twenty years he rests the handle of his spear on the faded slot of his armour. The hole on the left side of his chest, by his ribcage, is girdled by a ring of corrosion that replicates on the steel plate the keloid grown on the scars of his flesh.
Scars that take him back to that time when the intrepid flight of a treacherous arrow deprived Diego de Losada from Captain Alonso Andrea de Ledesma’s invaluable service in his relentless task of search and capture of the native cacique Tamanaco.
For the first time in more than twenty years he straps his shield onto his left forearm.
Back then the city of Santiago de León de Caracas had just been established. The population demanded the presence of a person of high standing in the new capital of the province. Don Alonso’s wound had been minor but the indefatigable warrior had already seen forty winters and quite possibly one or two more summers.
For the first time in more than twenty years he holds his weathered sword in his right hand.
Such demand provided Diego de Losada with the perfect opportunity to replace the experienced captain with fresh blood, as Lady Luck once again smiled at Don Alonso, who made a seamless transition from brave conquistador to respected landowner.
Fully clad in his old armour, on his way toward the stable where his unwitting horse dwells idly, Don Alonso bumps into his own image reflected on an empty silver fruit platter. His shrivelled face – eyes gleaming with contempt, lips pursed in anger – is disfigured by hatred but the ravages of time wrest coherence from his expression, cruelly casting it with a look that is neither entirely comical nor quite intimidating.
Don Alonso’s self-love, however, escapes unscathed from the reflection on the fruit bowl, not because he’s immune to ridicule but because the lowered visor of his helmet has concealed his countenance from himself. Thus, invested with the dignity conferred to him by his obsolete gear, Don Alonso bids his life farewell with one last warm glance.
***
Cutting through the thicket as they push forward, the English have to turn their swords into machetes in payment for their treachery. After more than two hours of relentless effort, the steep climb offers no solace beyond a green wall of obstacles and a seemingly inexhaustible array of insects of all colours and sizes, each more threateningly unfamiliar than the next. Those who dare penetrate the natural fortress bare-chested carry as proof of their temerity a full map of scars and wounds down their breasts and spines.
Soon the distrustful spirit of those who rule their lives by perfidy is overcome by the suspicion – nay, the certainty – that they are being coaxed into a trap and Villalpando, the infamous guide, is increasingly targeted by their threats and their abuse. It won’t be long. Don’t despair. Two more hills, half an hour. The voice of the Judas cracks with every word. He is overwhelmed by fear, his sight turns blurry, his knees start shaking, his load becomes heavier with every step. A fierce blow at the base of his neck sends him flying to the ground. The effort to get back on his feet is monumental. A dirty boot presses his face back against the mud. The isolated first guffaw suddenly turns into collective laughter as more and more boots join the fun. For a moment Villalpando fears the worst but then he is saved from the mob by a pair of hands that grab him by the top of his trousers and lift him to his feet. All the sugar in the world, a whole boatload of the best Chinese silk – he should have known – is not worth this ordeal.
At the top of the hill the path widens somewhat – Praised be the Lord – but the excitement among the English raiders is immediately replaced by surprise when they are confronted with the sorry sight of a single mounted guard. His antiquated armour, his helpless appearance contrasts sharply with his defying attitude. Take not a single step in this direction, you filthy pirates, lest you be prepared to meet the blade of my sword. The soldier’s senseless bravery merits him his life. Take him alive. By the time Amyas Preston overrides his own order only two of the six pirates assigned to the task are able to make it back to their line unassisted. If a shadow of decency still dwells within thee, thou ruffian, I challenge thee to wager the right to set foot in my city by single combat.
Villalpando recognises the voice of the patriarch from Ledesma and, deflated, falls to the ground amid tears of regret that in a final instant of lucidity aim to earn him the favour of a sentenced people. Seen from the top of the mountain the silhouette of the city, with the towers of the two chapels and the only church rising above the rest of the buildings, seems far more opulent, far more imposing than it truly , making it almost impossible to obey their commander’s orders. ‘Sooth! I swear mine eyes ne’er yet beheld such extraordinary combination of gentility and folly in one man alone. No man shoot ’til I speak the word! Preston approaches the defiant rider with resolution. Don Alonso dismounts. In the middle of a thick tropical forest an English sailor with tanned skin and cracked lips exchanges blows with a rueful knight in medieval armour.
The shield overcomes the toll of many years, containing the aggressor’s assault time after time after time; the iron carapace also fulfils its task, repeatedly protecting the old man from several blows. As a matter of fact, it feels as though the Spaniard has found a cluster of spare lives in the harness of his armour and is ready to use every single one of them at last. But twenty minutes of jousting in the inclement heat of May makes a parody of a battle that becomes more lethargic at the same rate as it turns less uneven, and at last the mutinous thunder of the pistol of one of Preston’s men puts an end to the farcical delay.
The impact of the steel sphere against the iron breastplate reverberates even louder than the shot itself. Don Alonso de Ledesma falls beaten, indecorously. His body crumbles over the soil with a loud clinking noise. Preston, disconcerted, shifts his eyes between the victim’s unnaturally inflected body and the culprit’s smoking gun. The world stops for a few seconds, apprehensively waiting. Preston regains his composure. Hesitant steps take him to the corpse. He slowly, delicately, bends his knee, removes Don Alonso’s helmet, lifting it over his motionless head.
Thou dost me wrong, valiant knight, when thou callest me a pirate. ’Tis none other than my lady and Queen, Elizabeth of England, who gaineth both glory and wealth by mine enterprise. There’s still a trace of life in the old man’s diaphanous look. The white beard on the fallen hero’s face makes Preston’s heart swell. Thou mayest see, admirable warrior: thy task and mine are fundamentally the same. Don Alonso’s reply is a mouthful of blood that he means to launch in the direction of the privateer’s face but which fails to escape the edge of his own lips in the form of anything other than a dribble. Sword in hand, Preston sifts through his battalion in search of his lost honour. Thou art not worthy of his life. Preston swings his arm with newfound strength, cleanly severing with one blow Villalpando’s head from the rest of his body. Unlike Don Alonso’s, the traitor’s bones hardly make a sound as they tumble to the ground.
On their way to Santiago de León de Caracas, however, the English inadvertently follow all the way to the foot of the mountain the faint red line traced by Villalpando’s rolling head.
Desolate and unguarded, the city suffers the full wrath of the English invaders, who loot and burn houses, farms, stables, anything they meet along their way. But satisfying as these exploits might be, Preston grows more frustrated by the minute because he has not set out along the northern coast of the continent to cause havoc and plant fear – his main interest lies in wealth, and despite the fact that the mayor of Santiago de León de Caracas could not possibly have had the time to haul the city’s treasures to safety, the thirty thousand ducats he exacted as tribute the day before now appear to be little more than a fanciful dream. Every street they encounter is ripped open to its bare threads, but every street meets them with the same emptiness and destitution, further dashing their hopes that the spoils would increase significantly as soon as they reached the centre, as soon as they got to the town hall. The chapel of San Mauricio holds nothing of value inside, and the chapel of San Sebastián is as frugal in its decoration as any small temple in any other struggling settlement along the Caribbean coastline, from Cumaná to Coro.
Once they reach the city’s main square, they come face-to-face with the monumental church of Santa Ana. Its front doors are sealed and the rest of the gates around the building are firmly locked but though all-encompassing – total, absolute – the silence inside is ever so heavy, not the sort of effortless, weightless silence that lives in an empty building but a wary kind of silence instead, laden with the burden of fear, with the load of anxiety. Set fire to the impious temple of the Papists! Within minutes the doors fly wide open, releasing a crowd of women and children of all descriptions who desperately seek refuge where they only find scorching fires and wicked mercenaries.
***
Impatience grows in Garci-González’s camp. There has been no sign of the English troops for a few hours and despite some apparent agitation earlier, the fleet’s retreat hardly seems imminent. It is Don Francisco Rebolledo, second mayor of the city, who first notices the thin line of black smoke rising above the mountain just behind them. His immediate reaction is to consult the situation with Garci-González, who does not hesitate for one moment. Too many years at war have taught him there is no point in trying to deceive reason with sentimentalism. He knows that on their return they will find the city of Santiago in ruins. De vuelta a la ciudad!
Withheld wrath is palpable in his trained voice. While the rest of the men are busy lifting the camp, Garci-González absently, almost automatically, delivers instructions that he knows will never meet their purpose. Depart for the province of Coro at once, inform them of the impending threat, then carry the news of our present misfortunes to Cartagena. No, we no longer have any use for reinforcements – they ought to be shipped to Coro. Garci-González looks at the ever darker, thicker curtain of smoke that rises from the city. His eyes shine with the sort of fierceness that only comes with pure hatred, that is usually associated with evil. Upon my mother’s bones I swear the suffering endured by that Mariche cacique shall seem like a tribute to mercy compared to what shall befall thee, Amyas Preston, once I lay my hands on thy wretched humanity.
The memory of the harrowing cry that almost a quarter of a century earlier had doomed Tamanaco in his final combat remains vividly imprinted in the imagination of the people of Santiago de Caracas, filtering through the valleys of the Guaraira-Repano mountain, hovering over the ravines that girdle the city, echoing in the heavy fog that every morning presses the sky against the ground, reinforcing the mysterious fear instilled in everyone by a threat that, though quenched, still commands respect.
Only a few days after finding his settlement raided and his army reduced to nothing by an expedition of white men, Tamanaco – imprisoned – was forced to fight for his life in jaw-to-jaw combat against Amigo, one of Garci-González de Silva’s hunting hounds. With the sound of the habitual ataca, Amigo flew through the skies, landing – claws first, snout wide open – on the man’s nose. Tamanaco, on his guard, slipped his strong hand between his face and the animal’s sharp teeth but the span of a sixteenth century native American couldn’t hold back the assault of a beast of prey. Tamanaco did not require any sort of calculations to figure that out. He held the animal’s upper jaw with his left thumb and little finger as he dug the rest of his nails into Amigo’s nostrils, simultaneously clawing the dog’s small intestine with his other hand, and landing a desperate bite on the beast’s curling neck.
The shooting pain of the man’s teeth gashing its jugular unravelled the dog’s murderous fury. The dry thud of the fangs coming together instantly deprived Tamanaco of two fingers. The instinctive twisting of its spine was too violent for the man’s only intact hand to sustain. The taste of blood intoxicated the beast beyond any consciousness of pain, beyond its vital instinct. Tamanaco was still standing, with a handful of the dog’s coat in his right hand and a mouthful of the dog’s live skin hanging from his parted lips. His attack had failed by less than an inch, scraping the main vein of the (now insanely furious) animal but failing to tear it. His knowing eyes recognised the colour of death in the bewildered attitude of the beast, in its harrowing cry. Amigo never stopped crying, not even as he devoured the sinews of the courageous cacique, not even after being sacrificed by the Spanish troops. That was the only cry that could be heard during the duration of the duel – precisely the cry that to this day fills the hearts and minds of the people of Caracas with dread.
And yet the stench of melted skin, of roasted hair, of death marauding, faces Garci-González’s men with a threat more urgent, a fear more palpable as they make their way back to their city than anything any of them has ever encountered in the past. Consequently, their return from La Silla is hurried and disjointed, with troop lines scattering in all directions as soon as the extent of the destruction can be discerned in the distance beyond the smoke and the ash. One by one the soldiers identify their farms, their streets, their neighbourhoods, their homes set ablaze. One by one the members of the local resistance abandon their posts to take late and bad care of what remains of their possessions. By the time Garci-González and Rebolledo reach the Government House they are alone and disarmed.
There they find Amyas Preston, adding insult with his presence to the injury of invasion. May this serve as a lesson, Don González, for our next visit. Amidst the cinder and the rubble in what once was Plaza Mayor indulgent Englishmen look complacently at the blood and the bodies around them – some, motionless corpses; others, abused victims paralysed by pain or muted by fear. Garci-González cannot bring himself to listen to the words of the tyrant. Atop the hill yonder thou wilt find the bodies of two of thy citizens: the most valiant old man and the most treacherous weasel I have in mine own life encountered. Garci-González’s response comes in the shape of a gob of phlegm that lands six feet away from Preston. The Englishman pauses for a moment, decides – magnanimously – to spare him.
As the end of the day approaches, the tropical skyline harbours a spectacular display of colour that emulates the reds, the blues, the yellows of the great fire. Garci-González looks ahead, still standing, silently biting his lower lip, clenching his fists with the impotent fury of a defeated boxer, following with his eyes Preston’s every movement as he gathers his men and takes his modest prize. Two hours later the six sails of the small convoy can be seen from the top of the mountain moving west of Guaicamacuto, heading towards their next target. Nobody in Caracas notices them. Garci-González is already reckoning the extent of the city’s losses when an envoy from the province of Cumaná is announced.
