AMANCAES (eng) - Larry Stylinson

Prologue

From the downtown cathedral the peculiar voices of the chorus girls from Lima could be heard. To amuse the child of Eustaquio Franco Rebollo. Probably not the best choice to start the day, especially in a city as busy and demanding as Peru's viceregal capital. The five-year-old boy lying on the floor due to a fall from fright seemed to share that opinion. He got up slowly, following his movements to the same beat of the song, like a delicate theater dancer taking over the stage. The thirty-four year old man watched him from the doorway with absent minded pancy drawn in his frown.

How many people could have the sensitivity to understand compositions? At that time and from his experiences at his young age, the answer ranged from "at least one" to "absolutely no one." But Harry patted himself on the back for that talent.

Harry was born on February the 1st, 1791 in some hidden part of Jauja. About his biological parents, he had no information other than that told by his uncle: both died on their way to Lima in an accident on the road. From the time he was two months old, Harry was entrusted to the care of the coveted young Manuel de Villanueva y Oyague. A bachelor dreamed of by women and respected by men because of his hard work in politics and his thriving and insistent appearance at every royal activity and event as chief organizer of the Onces. An annual celebration held on the first day of spring where, starting on Harry's 14th birthday, the focus shifted from campaigning to getting the nephew of the forever-tie-free Manuel a wife.

On that particular morning, Harry observed the frenzy and anguish with which the servants were going through the corridors of the estate. Even if he didn't understand at the time, March 4 of 1796 was the unfolding of the richest period of the Spanish Empire. And it all began a couple of hours later, with the naming of a certain Ambrosio O'Higgins as the new viceroy of Peru. The only thing that invaded the little five-year-old's head, however, was what awaited him for lunch.

Harry loved food as much as he loved music. It was habitual for him for as long as he could remember to spend the entire day in the kitchen, helping the servants in any way he could to achieve the perfect rice pudding. He especially enjoyed the company of Carmen, a lovely mestiza who came from an extensive line of women that worked tirelessly on that same hacienda for the Villanueva y Oyague family. This fact displeased his uncle infinitely -for distressing reasons-, who with a single shout managed to snatch him from Carmen's dark hands and locked him in the study to indoctrinate him in those intense classes of music, literature and hunting. Thus the years progressed in an unstable Lima after the War of 1797; Harry grew up, and with him, the bittersweet sensation that learning caused him.

With the slow but irremediable decline of his country's colonial commercial system, Uncle Manuel spent more time outside the finca than inside. Harry counted the hours and took advantage of every second of absence to do what he believed to be the most rebellious thing possible so far: support Carmen and the others with household chores. That and escaping from time to time to ride around the finca just to make sure that the gardens were seen as beautiful by the other locals in the streets as he admired them from a couple of meters away. Other than those contemptuous actions of Harry's, there wasn't much going on in his life. And that pleased the young heir to the estate. The middle class and the populace weren't paying him any attention at all, they were properly busier struggling day to day with economic insufficiency and the ravages of war. The nobility, on the other hand, had more serious problems; for example, figuring out how and when any of the daughters of marquises would manage to marry his much-desired uncle Manuel.

It was not until the spring of 1809 arrived that Harry's surroundings took a drastic turn towards the seriousness and responsibility that his every move now carried. It was the first Once he attended as a man of age, at his newly turned eighteen, and his uncle ceased to be the most eligible bachelor in Lima to surrender that spot to him. That night Harry came face to face with his future, as he had been told over and over again: his obligation was to marry and continue the lineage of the Marquisate of Albo in a fantasy society that, according to what he had heard on the nightly rounds of the military, was ready to vanish.