Chapter 258: The Burden of Decision

“Sit, Francisco,” Heyne said, his tone firm, though not unkind. “If you are to choose, you must first understand both the poisons and the remedies of the past. Let us consider the autocracies of the East and the republics of the West.”

He gestured toward a map of ancient Persia spread across the table.

“The autocracy,” he continued, “is like a bolt of lightning. Under a Great King—a Cyrus, a Darius—a civilization may be raised within a single generation. Roads are laid, armies provisioned, and the law imposed without hesitation. It is efficient, Francisco. In lands such as yours, where the Spanish Crown moves slowly and decays by the year, an autocracy under your father’s authority could establish order before the next moon has passed.”

“But,” Blumenbach interjected, leaning forward slightly, “it is also a house of glass.”

He tapped the edge of the table with quiet emphasis.

“An autocracy is no stronger than the man who occupies the throne. Should his successor prove a fool—or should the ’great man’ himself fall ill—the entire structure falters. There is no foundation, only a single pillar. If you arm the Chimila under a king, they will follow the king, not the law. And when the king dies… the conflict begins anew.”

Heyne inclined his head in agreement before turning the page to a sketch of the Athenian agora.

“Then there is the republic,” he said. “A slower instrument—more akin to a grinding stone than a blade. Yet it endures because its weight is distributed, like that of a cathedral. Should one stone give way, the arch remains. In such a system, the Chimila and the Barí would be bound not by a crown, but by a contract.”

He paused, his expression tightening slightly.

“The difficulty, however, lies in its pace. A republic is a deliberative creature—often to its own detriment. While senators debate the price of salt, an enemy may already stand at the gates. What an autocrat achieves in a day, a republic may require years to accomplish. It depends upon a kind of ’double lock’—a balance in which all parties remain somewhat dissatisfied, so that none are entirely oppressed.”

Francisco listened in silence before speaking, his curiosity overcoming hesitation.

“But are there only these two paths?” he asked. “Surely history must offer others.”

Heyne gave a small nod.

“Indeed, there are,” he replied. “I name these because they are the most enduring, and the most proven. Yet in our own time, other arrangements have emerged. In Britain—and in the United States, which now follows a similar course—there exists what is called censitary suffrage.”

He folded his hands behind his back as he spoke.

“The details differ, but the principle remains the same: political power is reserved for those of sufficient means. In the United States, the requirements are less severe—one must possess a modest amount of land or wealth, and, of course, be counted among the white population. In Britain, the system is more… tangled. Distinctions between rural and urban constituencies render it unnecessarily complex.”

A faint note of disapproval entered his voice.

“I would not recommend such a system for New Granada. Your lands lack the population to sustain it. At best, only a handful of criollos would meet the requirements. To be governed by the choice of perhaps a hundred men across an entire colony…” He paused briefly. “It would be difficult to call such a structure rational.”

Francisco nodded, absorbing the argument. After a moment, he spoke again, more cautiously.

“And what of the Greek democracy?” he asked. “I have heard it described as something remarkable in its time.”

Heyne’s expression darkened.

“Remarkable?” he repeated, his voice lowering into something sharper. “The Romans called it a disease, Francisco. And the Greeks who endured it…” He paused, his gaze hardening. “They called it a tragedy.”

He turned toward a nearby shelf and withdrew a marble bust of Socrates. Its pale, unseeing eyes seemed to regard the room in silence.

“You speak of the Athenian democracy,” Heyne said, resting his hand upon the cold stone of the bust. “The world remembers the Parthenon and the philosophers… yet it forgets ostracism.”

He glanced briefly at Francisco before continuing.

“In Athens, democracy meant that if the demos—the restless, emotional crowd—took a dislike to your face, or even to your brilliance, they might vote to banish you on a whim. They did not always judge according to law, but according to persuasion—who spoke best that morning, who stirred the greater passion. It was, at its worst, a disorderly system.”

Blumenbach stepped forward, his tone cutting cleanly through Heyne’s intensity.

“It is a biological nightmare, Francisco. A system without a brain—only a thousand shouting mouths.”

He gestured faintly, as if indicating something beyond the walls.

“Look to Paris. They call it the ’modern Athens.’ They speak of democracy, yet the gutters of the Seine run red with the blood of those who began the revolution. The ’people,’ as they are called, have become a creature that devours its own offspring. It is not progress—it is regression.”

His gaze sharpened.

“If you wish your father to risk all he has built—only to see it seized and squandered by those who speak most beautifully—then by all means, choose such a system. But I would wager that within a month, it would collapse.”

Francisco remained silent.

He had not expected that the system he knew—one that, in his understanding, would come to dominate the future—was regarded with such suspicion in this time. For a brief moment, he found himself wondering how such a fragile and reviled structure could evolve into something enduring.

“So… attempting such a system would be impossible,” he said at last, with a quiet sigh.

Heyne and Blumenbach exchanged a glance.

“Not impossible,” Heyne replied, more measured now. “But it demands conditions that are rarely met.”

He folded his arms, considering his words.

“A true democracy requires a population that is educated—capable of judgment, not merely reaction. It requires candidates of proven character, whose past actions restrain the whims of the present. The difficulty, however, is that most of the world remains illiterate.”

He paused briefly.

“New Granada, for instance, may not even reach seven million souls. Of those, how many can read? A pitiful number, I suspect. Perhaps, in a distant future—when society becomes both more learned and more morally disciplined—it might function. But for now…” He gave a slight shrug. “It remains uncertain.”

Francisco said nothing.

He did not fully understand how such a system could one day become universal, nor how difficult its path must be. He felt, instead, a quiet unease. If democracy was destined to define the future, then the present seemed profoundly unprepared for it.

And yet, even that certainty began to waver.

With the presence of Bishop Esteban, Francisco could no longer be sure he alone carried knowledge of what was to come. If others also glimpsed the future… then perhaps the future itself was no longer fixed.

Blumenbach, noticing the frown forming on the young man’s face, shifted the conversation.

“There is also the Spartan system,” he said. “If one wishes to speak of extremes—the pure expression of biology.”

He leaned against his cabinet, his fingers tracing the ridge of a particularly robust skull. A colder light entered his eyes.

“Consider it, Francisco. Sparta was the only state to treat the human body as a forge. They did not wait upon the accidents of nature. They practiced selection—deliberate, precise. By removing the weak at birth, they ensured that every link in their society was strong.”

His voice lowered, almost clinical.

“From a physiological standpoint, they cultivated the ideal survivor—a human being adapted entirely to endurance and conflict.”

Heyne’s expression darkened at once.

He brought a heavy volume of Plutarch down upon the desk with a firm, echoing thud, the dust rising faintly in the afternoon light.

“Hardened steel, Johann? Is that your measure of a civilization?” His voice trembled, not with anger alone, but with conviction. “You speak of ’perfection’ as though a man were no more than a horse to be bred for the track.”

He stepped closer, his gaze unwavering.

“You praise their bodies, yet you ignore the decay of their spirit. Sparta produced formidable soldiers, yes—but after embracing that so-called perfection, they produced no great poets, no philosophers, no architects of lasting merit.”

He paused only briefly before continuing, his tone sharpening.

“What, then, was the difference between them and what we now call barbarians? If we are to speak of the perfect instrument of war, should we not look instead to the so-called Scourge of God? Genghis Khan stands as a far more complete example of such a force. Yet I doubt any European would willingly serve under such a man.”

Blumenbach rolled his eyes at the horror in Heyne’s voice. Stepping away from the window, he carried with him that same clinical detachment, as though the entire matter were nothing more than an anatomical discussion.

“Oh, spare us the moral theater, Christian,” he said, his voice flat, almost surgical. “You call him a ’madman’ because he did not inscribe his laws in Latin or adorn his victories with cathedrals. Yet from a purely physiological and organizational standpoint, the Khan was a genius of the species.”

He folded his arms, his gaze steady.

“He did not merely conquer—he optimized. He took the raw, nomadic energy of the steppe and shaped it into something singular and directed… a living arrow.”

Heyne’s face shifted from pale restraint to a deep, indignant red. He struck his hand against a stack of Greek tragedies, the impact sending a faint tremor through the papers.

“Optimized? Is that what we call a mountain of skulls now, Johann? You speak as if a nation were a hive of bees! Genghis Khan didn’t just kill people; he killed the continuity of thought. He burned the Great Library of Baghdad! He turned the irrigation of Mesopotamia into a desert! To praise his ’efficiency’ is to praise the plague for being ’efficient’ at clearing a city.”

His gaze hardened.

“To praise such ’efficiency’ is no different than praising a plague for its success in emptying a city.”

The room fell into a strained silence, though the tension had not lessened.

Francisco stood between them, unmoving.

Watching the two men—each so certain, each so unyielding—Francisco felt a quiet pain settle in his chest. It was not merely the argument that troubled him, but what it revealed.

Even among colleagues, it seemed impossible for men to agree upon a single vision. If these two—learned, disciplined, and removed from immediate consequence—could not restrain their disagreement over matters purely historical and theoretical…

He lowered his gaze slightly, the thought pressing more heavily upon him.

…then how would the people of New Granada respond, once Carlos chose a system not of discussion, but of reality?

The question lingered in his mind, unanswered, and far more unsettling than the debate itself.

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