Ines of My Soul: A Novel by Isabel Allende

Author:Isabel Allende
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780062254450
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-03-31T21:00:00+00:00

FIVE

The Tragic Years 1542–1549

FOLLOWING THE DESTRUCTION OF SANTIAGO, the town council met to decide the fate of our small colony, now threatened with extinction. Before the idea of returning to Cuzco—which the majority approved—could prevail, Pedro de Valdivia imposed the weight of his authority and rolled off a string of difficult to keep promises to win the argument for staying. The first, he decided, would be to send to Peru for help, then to fortify Santiago with a wall like those in European cities to discourage enemies. The rest would be solved along the way, but we should have faith in the future. There would be gold, silver, grants of land, and encomiendas of Indians to work it, he assured the meeting. Indians? I cannot imagine what Indians he was thinking of, because the Chileans had shown no signs of cooperation.

Pedro ordered Rodrigo de Quiroga to collect all the gold available, from the coins a few soldiers had saved through a lifetime and carried hidden in their boots to the one goblet in the church and the pittance sieved from the beds at Marga-Marga. He gave it all to the blacksmith, who melted it down and fashioned a complete set of trappings for a horseman: bit and stirrups for the horse, and spurs and sword guard for the rider. Our courageous Captain Alonso de Monroy, outfitted with pure gold to impress and attract colonists to Chile, was sent across the desert to Peru with five soldiers and the only six horses that were not wounded or down to pure bone. González de Marmolejo gave them his benediction, and we escorted them some distance and then said good-bye with heavy hearts because we did not know whether we would ever see them again.

That was the beginning of two years of indescribable hardships. I do not want to remember those years, just as I would like to forget the death of Pedro de Valdivia, but one cannot control memory, or one’s nightmares. A unit of soldiers was formed to take turns standing guard day and night, as the others, turned into laborers and masons, sowed seed, rebuilt houses, and raised the wall to protect the city. We women worked side by side with the soldiers and Yanaconas. We had very little clothing left after the fire; the men worked in a kind of loincloth like the savages wear, and we women, modesty forgotten, in a shift. Those winters were very harsh, and everyone fell ill except Catalina and me. We had hides like a mule, González de Marmolejo always said, amazed. We had no food except what grew naturally in the valley: piñon nuts, bitter fruit, and roots, which all of us ate—humans, horses, and penned animals alike. The handful of seeds I had saved from the burning were used for planting, and the next year we harvested several bushels of wheat, which we again planted, so we did not see a loaf of bread until the third year. Bread, food for the soul.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.