Inca Elegy (Novel) "The Fall of the Inca Empire" (Volume 2) by Zhang Baotong
The Royal Palace of Valladolid has both classical and contemporary artistic features. If you have been to Taipei and seen the Presidential Palace Building on Ketagalan Avenue, it will be like seeing the Royal Palace of Valladolid. The palace is a Baroque building built of red bricks, with the characteristics of a combination of Renaissance and Decoration. The five-story main building is flanked by corner towers and in the center is an eleven-story tower. The overall building is not only bright in color, simple and solemn, but also uniform, symmetrical, simple and domineering, which can well express the majesty and momentum of Spain that spanned the world and dominated the world at that time.
The door of the palace hall opened, but the king did not come out of the hall. What came out was the king's steward and ten palace guards. The butler politely said to Hernando, "Welcome, my dear Mr. Hernando. The king is waiting for you in the drawing room."
Seeing that the king did not come to greet him in person made Hernando feel a little unhappy, because the last time he came to the palace, the king and queen had already greeted him in front of the palace. But he could also understand that maybe the king was really angry that he had hanged Almagro. He said to the palace steward, "Please ask someone to unload these three wooden boxes and carry them to the king's drawing room."
The palace steward immediately called a group of palace servants to unload the three large wooden boxes from the carriage and carried them to the palace's reception room. Hernando and the people carrying wooden boxes entered the living room on the third floor. The drawing room is where the king usually receives ministers and guests. It is also the most luxurious place in the palace. The hall is spacious and luxurious, with splendid golden walls, huge chandeliers hanging in the air, and green carpets on the ground. There are many precious oil paintings hanging on the walls, and sculptures of famous people are placed everywhere. Therefore, everything here is extremely precious. However, Hernando did not take these things seriously. He made an estimate of everything here. Not to mention this conference room, the entire palace was not worth the gold value of these three wooden boxes. . If all their gold and silver were used to build buildings, they would be able to build thirty or fifty such palaces.
Hernando, accompanied by members of the royal family, sat in the drawing room drinking tea while the butler went to call the king. After a while, King Carlos I came in. Hernando and the royal family hurriedly stood up and saluted the king. The king waved his hand, motioning for him to sit down, and then said to him in a lukewarm tone, "It's been a long journey, and it's been a hard journey."
Hernando immediately replied, "The journey is very long, but if I can see His Majesty the King, everything is nothing." Then, pointing to the three large wooden boxes placed in the center of the living room, he said to the King, "This is A gift from our brother to the king is not a sign of respect." Then, the wooden box was opened and the king was shown the gold in the wooden box.
The king walked up to the wooden box, looked inside, and said excitedly, "Thank you brothers, this gold is much more than the gold in my vault!"
In Hernando's mind, the king had said this to him more than once, because when he gave a large amount of gold to him and the queen two years ago, the king was stunned when he looked at the amount of gold. , and said to him, "I have never seen so much gold." Looking at the king's excited eyes, Hernando felt that his chances of getting the king's forgiveness were greatly increased. So he said to the king, "If the king likes it, I will bring more gold to the king next time."
The king said happily, "That's great, that's great." After that, he took out a solid gold sculpture of a puma from a large wooden box, looked at it, and said, "Not bad." Put it in the box , and then took out a female sculpture from it, which was more than a foot long. He weighed it with his hands and it seemed very heavy, and said happily, "Very good." Then he took out a large gold pot from the box. This is the jar used by the Inca king to hold wine. It has many ancient Inca patterns on it. The king said excitedly, "It's wonderful."
After looking at it for a long time, the king said to Hernando with great satisfaction, "The gold items here can be said to be better than each other. I really should thank you very much."
Hernando stood next to the king and said to the king, "These are the most exquisite gold items that Mr. Marquis Pizarro carefully selected for the king one by one."
The king said, "I have to thank Mr. Marquis for this." After that, he asked the butler to lead people to carry the three large wooden boxes of gold items away from the living room.
At this time, there were only Hernando, the royal family and the king in the living room, and the three of them were sitting around a coffee table. The palace steward was making tea for them. Hernando immediately took the opportunity to explain to the king, "Dear His Majesty the King, I would like to explain to the King that Almagro's death was a misunderstanding and accident. Therefore, the purpose of my return home this time is to explain to the King Explain the cause of Almagro's death." The king responded and listened to his explanation.
Hernando said, "Almagro was seriously ill at the time, almost dying, and could not even eat. Immediately, I wanted to let him go. But that night, I invited him to a banquet and wanted to meet him. I begged for peace, but he told me to let him go, and he wanted to fight me again. After hearing this, my subordinates all strongly demanded that I kill Almagro, otherwise I would let the tiger go back to the mountain and leave a legacy of harm. Infinite. At the strong request of my subordinates, I was temporarily dizzy and executed Almagro. The purpose was still to prevent him from going back and organizing troops to fight with me again. Please be generous, Your Majesty. As long as I can be exempted, I am willing to do it. Your Majesty, do whatever you want."
Although he said this, he also knew that General Almagro was the governor appointed by the king. You cannot explain why the governor appointed by the king was executed. However, he believed that the king would definitely show some mercy to him when he accepted his gift.
But the king just listened and didn't say anything. It wasn't until he finished speaking that the king said, "I know all these things. It's really hard for you to travel. I will handle this matter properly." Then he said to the royal family member who captured Hernando, "Mr. Hernando traveled a long distance and it was very hard. You have to take good care of him." Then he left in a hurry.
This result was something Hernando never expected. If he had thought of it, he would never have run the long and dangerous journey back from Peru. This is actually throwing yourself into a trap. Sure enough, the royal family member took Hernando out of the palace and onto the carriage, followed by the four policemen. Hernando asked the royals, "Where are you taking me?"
The royal said, "Take you to an old castle."
Hernando felt strange and asked, "Why are you taking me to the castle?" Because he was anxious to go home early, and the king didn't let him go to the castle last time. Moreover, he didn't know which castle he was going to. Every castle is far away from the royal palace.
The royal family members said impatiently, "You'll find out when you get there."
The more Hernando thought about it, the more he felt something was wrong, so he said, "But I don't want to go to a castle. I want to go home early."
The royal family members were a little annoyed and said, "The king is very angry at you for executing Governor Almagro. Now there are many soldiers in Almagro, as well as Diego Alma who fought for power for little Almagro." Lado has already taken you to court. Just wait for the lawsuit."
After hearing this, Hernando realized that although the king accepted their gold, he did not spare him, but wanted to lock him up in a castle. He immediately became flustered, feeling that the king was being unjust and had taken his things but refused to do anything for him. He regretted returning from Peru.
After a long period of running around, the carriage finally arrived at a strong fortress in the suburbs called Medina late at night. It is more than 30 kilometers away from the Royal Palace of Valladolid. The ancient castle was built four to five hundred years ago and is a Gothic building, just like a very old European cathedral. Because it was dark, I couldn't see clearly around the castle, but there seemed to be no other buildings around, no lights or villages, and it looked very quiet and desolate. It is said that this castle was first built for the king, but it was later abandoned by the king. Therefore, it seems that the castle has not been repaired or lived in for centuries. Although he had never been here, he had heard about it. It was famous for being the place where the King of France was imprisoned.
The carriage stopped in front of the castle. The royal family members and four policemen got out of the carriage and escorted Hernando towards the castle gate. At this time, the captain of the king's guard came with two soldiers to greet them, and a servant held a lantern to light the way for them. As he walked through the door, Hernando saw two guards standing in front of the door with loaded ammunition. This gave him the feeling of being detained for committing a crime and being tortured and imprisoned. He thought he might stay here for the rest of his life like the French king, or even die here. Thinking of this, he immediately felt frightened.
They entered the hall on the first floor of the castle together. The hall was very spacious, but only a few candles were lit. Under the dim light, the captain of the guard gave an order to a second lieutenant, "This Mr. Hernando is a serious prisoner and a friend of the king. You must take good care of him and not let him make any mistakes." And accidents. Otherwise, the king will put your lives to death."
The second lieutenant immediately stood up and said to the guard captain, "Yes, captain, please don't worry."
At this time, the royal family members said to Hernando, "Sir, I have wronged you. You can live here peacefully. This is much better than prison. If you need anything, you can ask the second lieutenant and he will I will try my best to meet your requirements." After saying that, he waved to him and said, "Goodbye, Mr. Hernando."
Because he was always angry, Hernando ignored him and didn't even want to look at him.
After the royal family members and the captain of the guard left, the ensign said to him, "Sir, I will take you to bed."
But Hernando said, "But I haven't had dinner yet."
The second lieutenant said to him unceremoniously, "What do you think you are here for? You are here to serve a sentence in prison, not as a guest." With that, he took him to a dark room on the third floor.
The room was very dark and he couldn't see anything. The moonlight shining through the window allowed him to see a large bed in this room of more than ten square meters. After a long day of hard work and bumps, Hernando was really tired. Not only was he tired, but he was also tired mentally. So, he fell on the big bed and fell asleep.
I had been sleeping for an unknown amount of time when I suddenly felt a burning itching all over my body, and it was painfully painful. He touched his back with his hand and found several big lumps on his back. He just thought that his back was fine, so why did he get a few big bumps? Soon he realized it was a flea bite. Because he often encountered this situation during his expedition in Peru. So, he sat up from the bed and saw an oil lamp on the small cabinet beside the bed. He lit it, picked it up with one hand, and lifted the quilt with the other hand. He saw three or four fleas jumping and disappearing in front of him in an instant. .
He didn't dare to sleep on this bed anymore, so he pulled up a chair far away from the bed and sat down. However, the night is long and we don’t know how long it will be until dawn. After sitting for a while, he started to feel sleepy. In the end, he had no choice but to take off his clothes, gritted his teeth and got into the quilt again. Obviously, he was destined not to sleep well that night. He would wake up and fall asleep, just tossing and turning over and over again. He didn't know how long it took before the sky slowly became brighter. It was the longest night he had spent in years.
Before it was completely light, he got up from the bed and went downstairs alone in the dark. When he came to the hall on the first floor, he saw that the door was bolted, so he slowly opened it, and the two soldiers standing guard in front of the door fell asleep leaning against the door. So, he tiptoed past them and walked around the castle.
In the twilight sky, the white fish belly has appeared in the east. From the perspective of observing the weather conditions, today is definitely a good day with clear eyes. He learned this skill of watching the weather from the Incas. The castle is large, old and majestic. The castle is four stories high, with at least thirty or forty rooms on each floor. The castle is surrounded by large open spaces. Originally, this place might have been a garden, but because it had been uninhabited for a long time, it had become overgrown with wild grass and trees. And some trees are quite old.
He looked around the castle. When he walked from the back of the castle to the side, he saw two soldiers running towards them with guns in hand. When they reached him, a guard said to him, "Who allowed you to escape from the castle? This is illegal."
Hernando said, "I will not run away. Even if I run away, you will want me and catch me again."
However, the guards did not listen to what he said and escorted him back. After escorting him back to a large office next to the hall on the first floor of the castle, the second lieutenant in charge of the castle guard warned him with a straight face, "You are not allowed to leave this castle in the future. This is an order, otherwise, we will Penalties will be imposed.”
However, Hernando said to the ensign, "The royal family member who brought me here told me that I can tell you if I need anything, right?"
The ensign said, "That's right."
Hernando said, "I couldn't sleep at all last night. There were so many fleas there that they bit me all over." As he spoke, he lifted up his clothes to let the second lieutenant see a piece of his body. Pieces of red pimples.
The second lieutenant looked at it and said helplessly, "But the conditions here are like this. It's hard to do anything without money. If sir, I can decorate your room like a wedding room."
Hernando asked, "I don't need a bridal chamber, I just need to replace these things. How much will it cost?"
The ensign thought for a while and said, "At least ten gold pesos are needed."
Of course, Hernando knew that there was no need for this much money at all. Three or four gold pesos at most would be more than enough. But he casually took out a hundred gold pesos from his pocket, threw it in front of the second lieutenant, and said, "Replace everything in my entire room completely."
The second lieutenant was stunned when he saw Hernando's generosity. He immediately took the one hundred gold pesos and responded quickly, "Yes, sir."
Hernando added, "By the way, prepare another breakfast for me, milk and bread, and two good steaks. I'm starving."
The second lieutenant bowed and nodded again and said, "Yes, sir."
Hernando said, "I will go out to see the scenery first, and call me when breakfast is ready."
The ensign said, "Yes, sir."
After breakfast, Hernando wandered around the castle under the leadership of a guard. If the guard had not dissuaded him, he would have gone further. When he had lunch, he returned to the castle. The ensign took him back to his room on the third floor. The whole room was really decorated like a wedding room. Everything was new and very noble and elegant. This made Hernando very happy, thinking: Although this is his prison, if money can be used, he can turn this place into his paradise.
So he sent the ensign a list of his daily meals and asked that the wasteland in front of the castle be turned into a garden. The second lieutenant responded to his requests. So, he began to ask the guards to remove the weeds outside the castle for him, dig a piece of fertile soil, bought various flower seeds and flowers, and began to spend his time on this piece of land. He used to be a farmer himself and still has some affection for the land. Moreover, these lands also made him forget his worries and could bloom all kinds of flowers.
He did not know how long the king would keep him in prison, but the ensign revealed to him that it might be subject to a court decision. Therefore, in addition to planting flowers and grass in the field in front of the castle every day, he often thought about how to defend himself. He thought that as long as he could defend himself well, his guilt would be reduced and he could leave here as soon as possible.
