Even one random event would mean that Providence does not completely rule the world.
Morning, November 14 (Gregorian), 1755
Cádiz
The hall allowed the four men little space around the huge wooden structure in the center. It looked like two ship hulls nailed together, two halves made to face each other in such a way that it wasn’t clear which side was intended to be up. One extreme was entirely made of glass and shaped as a hemisphere, which suggested that was meant to be the front, but the rest of the machine was incomprehensible to the master builders of the Iberian Royal Navy College. It had no masts, no sails, and no obvious waterline; its external design didn’t allow a crew to walk on it, let alone perform any of the ordinary tasks of sailing. But its inside, which had been studied during the process of taking it apart, bringing its pieces into the hall and reassembling it for display there, was quite elaborate: it had half a dozen decks, including one that could accommodate thirty rowers. The technique of its construction was ahead of all the shipbuilding knowledge of Europe, and no one could decipher how it was intended to sail.
The tall, blond sailors captured with it were suspected to be Dutch, which would go a long way toward explaining Dutch maritime supremacy. But so far they had refused to speak.
In the hall where the strange vessel was being displayed, Don Juan Gerbaut y Poruci, holder of the dual office of President of the House of Trade of the Indies and General Intendant of the Royal Navy, looked from his table at the richly tapestried walls and prayed that they would prove sumptuous enough to receive the monarch. He thought his office might have been a more appropriate venue for the occasion, but it had no space for that wooden beast. The surprise and speculation aroused by its discovery had almost quieted the talk of the much graver event that had occurred earlier that month.
On the Day of All Saints, the Iberian peninsula had been hit by an earthquake, and shortly later by a gigantic wave that had swallowed the coast.
Gerbaut looked to his left, where a Frenchman whose presence was due to explicit royal request stood examining a globe encased in glass. Gerbaut recalled him being a mathematician, but didn’t know much more. He had introduced himself as Louis Godin.
To his right was a slightly less explicable presence: a young doctor, more boy than man, by the name of José Celestino Mutis, sent over by the Cádiz College of Surgeons as the only one of their members not too busy resetting broken bones to give their report on the state of rescue operations. He was hunched over another table, reviewing his notes, which he’d done so many times he’d probably memorized them already.
At the opposite side of the hall, studying the far end of the wooden structure, was the Governor of Cádiz, Don Antonio Azlor, who’d had the worst past couple of weeks of them all. The city was in ruins. The reconstruction work could take decades and the Iberian Crown had no money to pay for it. It had become an accepted fact of life that the galleons bringing silver from the Indies could vanish at any time, for no reason.
Gerbaut had the suspicion that the machine he was looking at could be that reason.
His own role in the meeting was clearer: he’d been ordered to gather news from all Iberian possessions affected by the earthquake. His sources had sent him word that even the coast of Ireland had suffered from high waves. The fact that this demonstration of God’s wrath had hurt Catholic nations the most was still fodder for discussion among theologians. But while they worked to ascertain the meaning of this omen, there were still bones to mend and houses to rebuild.
The sound of horses outside made the four of them stand erect, and Gerbaut’s eyes glanced out the window to confirm that it was, in fact, the royal carriage that had arrived, which he signaled to the other men in the room with a quick nod. They stayed immobile for the next ten minutes until a page opened the doors of the chamber and announced that it pleased Her Majesty to regale them with her presence.
Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina of the House of Habsburg, Queen of the Iberian Union, Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, Croatia, Bohemia, Hungary, Galicia and Lodomeria, Archduchess of Austria, Princess of Transylvania, Duchess of Lorraine and Milan, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, Sovereign of the West Indies, Holy Roman Empress and Sanctified Protector of the True and Eternal Faith, paraded her hand around the room for all to kiss as they kneeled, and when formalities were over, she sat at the head of Gerbaut’s table, wordlessly forcing him to find another seat, and began immediately, “How many died?”
Gerbaut knew not to flinch at her atrocious Spanish. “We’ve counted twelve hundred across the entire Andalusian coast. Two hundred died in Cádiz alone. Sixty were counted in Huelva, four hundred in Ayamonte—”
“How is the College of Surgeons doing?”
Doctor Mutis took a while to realize, under her strong accent, that he was being addressed. He showed a blank face until he remembered not to stare too long, and started skimming his notes. “We’ve dispatched surgeons all over the city, but most of the people we’ve found were already dead. Most of them simply drowned, but some were killed by buildings falling on their heads—”
“Is there anything you need?”
Mutis couldn’t conceal his excitement. Rarely did the queen make such an open offer. He started making a list in his head. “We don’t have enough saws for all the amputations we have to perform. Most of the wood in the city was ruined in the flood, so it’s a challenge to make splints to set fractures. People are getting dysentery, we still don’t know why, and we’re struggling to purge as many as we can. But overall, disposing of the dead has given us more work than treating the injured.”
The queen nodded. “Their souls take priority. I’ll send you more priests.” Mutis noticed the indignation that had taken hold of Monsieur Godin’s eyes, but said nothing. She turned back to the Intendant of the Navy. “Other places?”
“Ceuta and Mazagan saw waves as tall as fifteen men,” Gerbaut replied. “The destruction there is comparable to what we’ve seen here, except they don’t have as many buildings as we do, so fewer people died.” He flipped to another page. “The docks at Azores and Madeira were broken to pieces. I’m still waiting for the report from the Canaries, but… Your Majesty knows how ships sailing from there tend to disappear at random.”
“Any news from Portugal?”
“Oh, Algarve was hit hard. The sea broke the fortresses in the coast and swept over the city.”
“How about Lisbon?”
“Let me see… Lisbon… I’m not sure they’re in shape to send messengers yet.”
Monsieur Godin took a step forward. “I just came from Lisbon. It’s been wiped off the map.”
Gerbaut was aghast, both at the unimaginable scale of the disaster if Godin’s words were true, and at his boldness at claiming the queen’s attention when he hadn’t been spoken to. Indeed, Maria Theresa shifted her eyes from Gerbaut to Godin and said, “Go on.”
Godin spoke without notes, with the confidence of one who has seen the facts himself. “As bad as Cádiz appears, Lisbon took it ten times worse. I surveyed the remains of the buildings and interviewed multiple eyewitnesses during the week following the earthquake. All agree that the morning began calmly, with an open sky and no indication that anything unusual should happen. Then the earth started to move, and because it was the Feast of All Saints, most of the locals were attending Mass, which caused most of the first wave of deaths when the temples crumbled down. The earthquake lasted long enough for processions to get organized. Priests all over the city took the Holy Sacrament out to the streets to ward off doom, and still they were crushed by falling buildings.”