BY CHANCE, PERHAPS as the result of some change in the atmosphere, the commanding officer found himself thinking about his wife and children, she five months pregnant and they, a boy and a girl, six and four years old respectively. The primitive people of the time, barely emerged from primeval barbarism, pay so little attention to delicate feelings that they rarely make use of them. Certain emotions may already be fermenting away in the laborious process of creating a coherent and cohesive national identity, but that quintessentially portuguese feeling of yearning and nostalgia known as saudade, and all its by-products, had not yet been embraced by portugal as a habitual philosophy of life, and this has given rise to not a few communication difficulties in society in general and to some degree of perplexity on a personal level as well. For example, basic common sense tells us that it would be inadvisable to go over to the commanding officer now and ask, Tell me, sir, would you describe what you feel for your wife and your little children as saudade. The officer, although not entirely lack ing in taste and sensibility, as we have had the opportunity to observe already at various points in this story, although always maintaining the utmost discretion so as not to offend against the character's natural modesty, would stare at us, astonished by our patent lack of tact, and give us some vague and airy answer, neither here nor there, that would leave us, at the very least, with serious concerns about the couple's private life. It's true that the commanding officer has never sung a serenade nor, as far as we know, written a single sonnet, but that doesn't mean that he is not, by nature shall we say, perfectly capable of appreciating the beautiful things created by his ingenious fellow creatures. One of these, for example, he could have brought with him in his knapsack, carefully swathed in cloth, as he had done on other more warlike expeditions, but this time he had chosen to leave it safely at home. Given how little money he earns, an amount, often paid in arrears, that was evidently not intended by the treasury to allow the troops to enjoy any luxuries, the commanding officer, in order to purchase his particular jewel, a good twelve or more years ago now, had to sell a baldric made of the finest materials, delicate in design and richly decorated, intended, it's true, to be worn more in the drawing room than on the battlefield, a magnificent piece of military equipment that had been the property of his maternal grandfather and which, ever since, had been an object of desire for whoever laid eyes on it. In its place, but not intended for the same ends, is a large volume bearing the title amadis of gaul, whose author, as certain of our more patriotic scholars claim, was a certain vasco de lobeira, a portuguese writer of the fourteenth century, whose work was published in zaragoza, in fifteen hundred and eight, in a castilian transla tion by one garci rodriguez de montalvo, who besides adding a few extra chapters of love and adventure, also amended and corrected the original texts. The commanding officer suspects that his copy is of bastard stock, what we would call a pirate edition, which just goes to show how long certain illicit commercial practices have been going on. Solomon, and we are speaking here of the king of judah and not the elephant, was quite right when he wrote that there was nothing new under the sun. It's hard for us to imagine that in those biblical times everything was much the same as it is now, for our stubborn innocence insists on imagining them as lyrical, bucolic, pastoral, perhaps because they are still so close to our own first fumbling attempts at creating our western civilization.
The commanding officer is on his fourth or fifth reading of amadis. As in any other chivalric novel, there is no shortage of bloody battles, with arms and legs lopped off at the root and bodies sliced in two, which says a great deal for the brute force of those spiritual knights, given that the cutting virtues of metal alloys made of vanadium and molybdenum, to be found nowadays in any ordinary kitchen knife, were unknown then, indeed unimaginable, which just goes to show how far we have progressed, and in the right direction too. The book recounts in pleasurable detail the troubled loves of amadis of gaul and oriana, both of whom were the children of kings, although this did not prevent amadis being abandoned by his mother, who gave orders that he be placed in a wooden box, with a sword beside him, and put to sea, at the mercy of the maritime currents and the force of the waves. As for oriana, poor thing, she found herself, against her will, promised in marriage by her own father to the emperor of rome, when she had placed all her desires and hopes in amadis, whom she had loved since she was seven and he was twelve, although physically he looked more like a fifteen-year-old. Seeing each other and falling in love had taken but one dazzling moment that continued to dazzle them all their lives. This was a time when knights errant had pledged to complete god's work and eliminate evil from the planet. It was also a time when love was only deemed to be love if it was of an extreme and radical nature, when absolute fidelity was a spiritual gift as natural as eating and drinking are to the body. And speaking of bodies, it is worth pondering just what state amadis's body would have been in, covered in scars as it was, when he embraced the perfect body of the peerless oriana. Armor, without the help of molybdenum and vanadium, would be of little use, and the narrator of the story makes no attempt to disguise the frailty of corselets and coats of mail. A simple blow with a sword was enough to render a helmet useless and to split open the head inside. It's astonishing that those people survived into the present century. That's what I'd like to do, sighed the commanding officer. He wouldn't mind giving up the rank of captain, at least for a while, in exchange for setting out on horseback, like a new amadis of gaul, along the beaches of ilha firme or through the woods and mountains where the enemies of the lord were hiding. In times of peace, the life of a portuguese cavalry captain is one of complete idleness, and you really have to rack your brains to find something with which you can usefully occupy the empty hours of the day. The captain imagines amadis riding through the rugged countryside, with the pitiless stones punishing his horse's hooves and his squire gandalim telling his friend that it is time to rest. This fantastical wish caused the captain's thoughts to deviate onto an entirely non-literary matter to do with the most basic rules of military discipline, that of carrying out orders. If the commanding officer had been able to enter into the cogitations of king dom joão the third at the moment we described earlier, when that royal personage imagined solomon and his entourage crossing the vast, monotonous lands of castile, he would not be here now, going up and down these ravines, dodging dangerous slopes, while the ox-driver tries to find paths that do not take him too far out of his way whenever the incipient and ill-defined tracks disappear beneath rubble and shale. Although the king did not actually express an opinion and no one dared ask him to opine on such a trivial matter, the general of the cavalry gave his approval, yes, the route across the plains of castile was definitely the best and the easiest, almost, one might say, a stroll in the country. This, then, was how things stood, and there would, it seemed, have been no reason to reconsider the itinerary had the king's secretary, pêro de alcáçova carneiro, not happened to learn of this agreement and decided to intervene. What you are calling a stroll in the country, sir, is not, I feel, a good idea, he said, if we're not very careful, it could have negative consequences of a serious, even grave nature, Well, I don't see why, What if we should meet with difficulties in obtaining food or water supplies from the local population while we're crossing castile, what if the people there refuse to do business with us, even though that goes against their own best interests at the time, That is a possibility, agreed the general, What if bandits, far more numerous there than here, seeing the meager protection given to the elephant, because, after all, a troop of thirty cavalrymen is nothing, Now there I must disagree with you, sir, the general broke in, if there had been thirty portuguese soldiers at thermopylae, for example, on whichever side, the battle would have turned out quite differently, Forgive me, sir, it was certainly not my intention to cast doubt upon the bravery of our glorious army, but, as I was saying, what if those bandits, who doubtless know the value of ivory, were to join forces and attack us, kill the elephant and tear out his tusks, Some claim that the hide of an elephant is impermeable to bullets, That may be true, but there would certainly be other ways of killing him, what I'm asking your majesty to consider, above all, is the shame that would befall us if we lost our gift to archduke maximilian in a skirmish with spanish bandits and on spanish territory, So what do you think we should do then, There is only one alternative to the castile route, our own, along the frontier, heading north, as far as castelo rodrigo, Those are very bad roads, said the general, you clearly don't know the area, No, but we have no other option, and it does bring with it another advantage, Which is, That of being able to make most of the journey on portuguese soil, An important detail, no doubt about it, you think of everything, secretary.
Two weeks after this conversation, it became evident that the secretary, pêro de alcáçova carneiro, had not, in fact, thought of everything. A messenger from the archduke's secretary arrived bearing a letter in which, amongst other trifles that seemed to have been deliberately included in order to distract the reader's attention, he asked precisely where on the frontier the elephant would cross, because a detachment of spanish or austrian soldiers would be there to receive him. The portuguese secretary replied through the same messenger, informing him that they would cross the frontier at castelo rodrigo, and then he immediately launched a counterattack. Now while such an expression may seem a gross exaggeration, bearing in mind that peace reigns between the two iberian countries, pêro de alcáçova carneiro's sixth sense had reared up at the word used by his spanish colleague, receive. The man could have used such words as greet or welcome, but no, he had either said more than he intended or, as they say, the truth had slipped out by mistake. A few instructions to the cavalry captain on how to proceed will avoid any misunderstandings, thought pêro de alcáçova carneiro, if the other side is of the same mind. The result of this strategic planning is being announced by the sergeant, in another place and a few days later, at this very moment, There are two horsemen behind us, sir. The commanding officer looked at the approaching horses, which were obviously thoroughbreds judging by their long stride and their speed, and they were clearly in a hurry. The sergeant had ordered the column to halt, and just in case, made sure that a few muskets were kept discreetly trained on the new arrivals. Limbs shaking and foam dripping from their mouths, the horses were breathing hard when they came to a stop. The two riders greeted the officer and one of them said, We come bearing a message from secretary pêro de alcáçova carneiro for the commanding officer of the troops accompanying the elephant, I am that commanding officer. The man opened his knapsack and took out a piece of paper folded in four and sealed with the official stamp of the king's secretary, then handed it to the commanding officer, who moved a few paces away in order to read it. When he rejoined them, his eyes were shining. He called the sergeant to one side and said, Sergeant, tell the quartermaster to give these men some food and prepare them some provisions for the journey back, Yes, sir, And announce that the time allowed today for the afternoon rest will be reduced by half, Yes, sir, We have to reach castelo rodrigo before the spanish do, which should be possible, since they, unlike us, have not been forewarned, And if we don't, sir, the sergeant made so bold as to ask, We will, but anyway, the first to arrive will have to wait. As simple as that, the first to arrive will have to wait, it hardly seemed worth pêro de alcáçova carneiro writing such a letter. There must be more to it than that.