The old statesman was beginning to tire. Sativa smoke hung across the room in a soporific pall, and, compelled to stand behind the chair of his prince, the veteran advisor had to remind himself that good counsel took precedence over comfort. With the well-travelled hands of the renowned naturalist he had once been clasped at his back, José Bonifacio de Andrada e Silva worried the gilded buttons sewn at the waist of his long tailcoat, as if to focus his attention during each pause in the business of the discussion.
In truth, the direction of the conversation concerned him. His young charge, betraying his meager eleven years, was alert and earnest, and yet Andrada knew that the prince would be seen an easy victim to the skillful and often subtle politicking of the assembled company. ‘Do not allow yourself to succumb to temptation just yet my boy,’ the old scientist muttered. ‘Wiser to listen and observe, to watch and absorb before making a move.’
Prince Pedro looked back over his shoulder. ‘I understand Andrã. Knowing their hand gives us control.’
The lad may make a diplomat yet, Andrada reflected. As compared to his father, the sapling prince had a measured head, and seemed already to better understand the demands of royal governance.
Across the veined surface of the marble tabletop, a fresh eruption was being exquisitely prepared. Doctor José Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia y Velasco, First Consul of the Holy Roman Republic of Paraguai, raked a long finger through the contents of his silver smoking box. Pinching the sticky buds together to form a more easily maneuverable whole, the former lawyer continued his well-practiced routine with a languid dexterity that was borne of both repetition and an appreciation of the power of showmanship. Transferring the drug to a simple clay pipe, a lit spill ignited the bowl before being extinguished with a restrained flourish and dropped into an ashtray. As the dictator drew breath between coaxing air through the burning plant matter, new whorls of sickly smoke mushroomed from the pipe, and it was all the prince could do to clutch back a cough.
‘If the First Consul would be so kind, His Serene Highness would be very much obliged if further indulgence might wait until after the session has concluded. As Your Excellency is aware, there will be ample opportunity to enjoy whichever form of relaxation one prefers following the close of this afternoon’s proceedings.’
De Francia raised his eyes to meet Andrada. ‘I feel quite confident in His Highness’s ability to voice his own concerns if need be.’ The Paraguaian switched his calm gaze to the boy. ‘Any objections little prince?’
The party assembled in the stateroom left off their individual concerns to observe the host’s reply. A low voice interrupted.
‘Were the Professor’s suggestion followed I am sure we might all breathe easier. Even if you must use that insidious weed Gaspar, you will, I trust, not be offended if I ask at least that you spare me its vapors. I’m sufficiently ill without these noxious fumes further unseating my senses and invading my thoughts, such as they are.’
Inhaling a final deliberate measure of smoke, the First Consul did not break his visual interrogation of the Prince of Rio de Janeiro as he replied. ‘Come now Señor President, my sincerest apologies. Trust me when I assure you that even the thought of jeopardizing your wellbeing is an affront to my very conscience. I am certain I speak for us all in saying that I pray daily for your restoration to health.’
Simon Bolívar’s thin lips twitched into the shadow of a smile. ‘I fear your prayers will go unheeded Gaspar. No, I have already outlived my sentence. While I still draw breath however, polluted as it may be, let us return to the central question that has brought us all here beneath the generous Prince’s roof. Time is limited, the Cisplatine troubles must be addressed, and Bogotá does not wish to see our proud continent drown in the blood of fellow Americans yet again. Chancellor Rosas, please continue.’
Pedro turned away from the First Consul’s inquisition to consult his tutor and confidante. ‘Andrã, were the Liberator’s words on my account? Why would he protect me, when our family has never shown him or his cause any support?’
Andrada weighed his response carefully. ‘Suffice to say the President sees value in cultivating a friendship between our two nations. Doubly so, given the current circumstances. But here now, pay attention to the Porteño. Buenos Aires holds a great many cards in this crisis. The support of the Chancellor grants the separatists a powerful ally, and the relationship is certain to inflame tensions with both São Paulo and King José. We will talk later of President Bolívar’s aspirations, and of Doctor Francia.’
As Andrada left the prince’s apartments that evening, he reached a hand beneath the starched wing of his collar. The tumor on his thyroid continued to swell, and had become sufficiently tender as to make the old man gasp as he probed to find its extremities in the folds of his neck. A full day of discussions had left him exhausted, even before a lengthy debrief with senior government aides and a final audience at the prince’s bedside. Andrada and others had long recognized Pedro as a bright child, and with barely a decade of his life yet elapsed the boy already possessed a mastery of Portuguese, promising Spanish, and an interest in literature uncommonly developed. Nevertheless, the tutor fretted.
‘Professor Andrada, might two ailing souls walk awhile together? Or does your master still demand your services?’
Andrada removed his hand from his shirt. ‘It would make me glad, Señor President, to share in your company.’ He turned to face Bolívar. ‘Perhaps you’d care to accompany me around the European Garden? The perfume of the lavender there reminds me of the countryside surrounding Coimbra, and it is most pleasant now the heat has dropped.’
The night air was still close with humidity as the men stepped out into the relative cool. A gentle breeze rippled off Guanabara Bay and, under the half-light of a summer moon, the guardian and the liberator president fell into step. ‘I wonder Professor, if you had the fortune to be in Europe the day the first Bonaparte was crowned?’
Andrada stole a glance at his younger companion. ‘I remember well the news reaching us at the university the following day. Of course we in Portugal could not imagine the tumult that would follow. I was here in Rio when the first ships arrived to tell of the Emperor’s death in Russia. The celebrations then were momentous. Truly Carnaval came twice that year.’
For the second time that day Bolívar smiled. ‘For you and your Portuguese cousins that war in the peninsular was a nightmare. For us criollos, colonial victims of European prejudice even in our own land, it was a grand opportunity. Even if I could not have fully foreseen the spark towards freedom that Napoleon offered to the New World, to stand as I did in the cathedral in Paris and watch as he placed that golden crown upon his own head was to feel intoxicated with a sense of living history. I made it my purpose to sustain that pulse of energy, to nurture it in the home of my fathers here in this virgin continent. Now, as the sediment of my life drains from me, I feel that history once again.’ Caught even as he was in throttling embrace of tuberculosis, the normally dark embers of the Liberator’s eyes coursed again with passion. ‘Your young master must understand the power he might wield. Even amidst the fragments of his father’s empire, you can help him bring stability and prosperity to our corner of the world. And now, I have overstretched myself. Forgive me Professor.’
Andrada recognized the sudden wave of reticence and tiredness. ‘The prince cannot yet hope to understand the true gravity of politics, even as I do my best to help him. He is a young boy, longing for a family, not plotting his own greatness. It is a life I do not envy.’ He paused. ‘Duty is important to him, that much is clear. Kindling that impulse might prove my most enduring legacy.’
‘It seems we are both are in the business of securing our legacies. A process I fear draws close to its conclusion. This populist rising in the south is only the beginning. You and I remember all too well the years of infighting and needless bloodshed that has blighted this region. If Chancellor Rosas and his allies go unchecked, our forever-maligned continent will continue to suffer, its growth again stunted by exploitation and conflict.’
Prince Pedro’s question returned to the Carioca. ‘And why does the Prince of Rio de Janeiro feature so prominently in your ambition Señor President? The boy-king of a faded nation, a nation only just coming to terms with its fall from preeminence, indeed, a nation that, as the seat of an empire, always viewed itself as distinctly superior to you Spaniards. Hardly the stuff of inspiration and international fraternity.’
‘Allow me to ask you another question Professor. Already, all but one of our fledgling nations rely on European capital. As you well know, our ports would wither and our economies collapse without it. While we bicker, how long do you imagine Britain will wait before looking to make secure its investment? How long before the French or the Dutch, seeing us squabbling in the dirt, advance their ambitions at our expense? King José and I have our differences, but we did not fight for our nations’ liberty to see them still shackled and vulnerable to foreign paymasters.’
‘Do I take it that you advocate for the kind of hermetic protectionism enforced by Doctor Francia?’ Andrada prickled. ‘The man is a despot.’
‘The First Consul is an unusual and complicated man’ Bolívar countered, ‘but I would not be so quick to dismiss him out of hand. Certainly, there are those elements of his policy and style of diplomacy that I do not share, but for all his failings Gaspar is both a patriot and an American ideologue. For those traits at least he makes a better ally than adversary, if often an uneasy one. The confrontation this afternoon was a mark of his curiosity, nothing more.’
‘Regardless, what marks my young charge as the key to this goodwill mission of yours? It was our generations that cemented the independence of these lands, be it from one Old World kingdom or another. Why now defer responsibility to a child?’
‘You have answered your own question Professor. Our golden age has come and gone, our ambition dulled and our vision blunted to accommodate only the pettiest of regional power struggles. Prince Pedro was born in a free and independent American nation. To him now will fall the responsibility of leading our new crop of rulers. You and I have helped pilot our nations through birth and childhood. Now, for the young prince and this region both, adolescence awaits.’