If God existed, then He was punishing Gabriel for his delusion, and if He didn’t, then Gabriel was simply paying the price of his own naivety.
Gabriel scratched his skin until he drew blood to prevent himself sinking into the useless mire of his doubts.
The shard that he had been painstakingly polishing for the last two days now appeared to him as the most ridiculous, grotesque piece of work ever undertaken. Being thrown into this forgotten hole was a far worse fate than having his throat cut. What use had he for a weapon? The Pizarros wouldn’t even bother to stick him with a blade. All they had to do was forget about him totally, let him succumb to hunger and thirst, abandon him to the fury of the Indian warriors, and their aim would be accomplished.
Enraged, Gabriel hurled the shard against the cell wall. It shattered, and became dust once again.
He stood stock-still for a moment, shocked by his own action. Then he rolled himself up into a ball, wrapped his chain around himself like a blanket, and sought the oblivion of sleep, his final refuge.
* * *
A soft noise woke Gabriel. He recognized the creaking: someone was trying to lift the heavy wooden block that barred his cell door as surreptitiously as possible.
He instinctively propped himself up on his arms, silently picked up the links of his chain and held them in his fist like a flail. His earlier resignation had evaporated during his slumber, and he felt the urge to fight energizing his body. His pride dictated that he should defend himself with enough fury to destroy his attackers.
It was so dark that he couldn’t see the door open, but he did feel a slight movement in the air. He couldn’t know how many they were. He crouched with his back flush against the wall. He forced himself to breath slowly, deliberately, and tried not to think about the fact that he was living his last moments.
Suddenly Gabriel heard a squeak as someone opened the shutter of a dark lantern. The yellow light of a tallow candle swept across the cell’s walls before settling on him. When its beam fell on him, the light jerked, as though the person holding the lantern had started with shock.
‘Gabriel!’ exclaimed the lamp’s custodian in a low, hushed voice, a voice that Gabriel nevertheless recognized even before he made out in the dim light the fringe of the long cowl. ‘Gabriel, don’t be frightened. It’s only me.’
‘Bartholomew! Brother Bartholomew!’
‘Dear friend,’ whispered Bartholomew, his smile evident in his voice.
The monk, to banish any lingering doubt, thrust his strange, fused fingers into the faint beam of the dark lantern.
‘God’s blood!’ exclaimed Gabriel. ‘You are the last person whom I expected to see here tonight!’
‘Which is why I take care to show myself in the light before you can attack me.’
Gabriel laughed and let go of his chain.
‘A wise move!’
But when the monk offered him a fraternal hug, Gabriel pushed him away and said:
‘It pains me to forgo your embrace, but I think it’s best that we don’t.’
Bartholomew slowly ran the light over Gabriel, examining him from head to toe.
‘My poor, poor friend. What a state they have left you in.’
‘Yes. No doubt I foul the air even twenty leagues from here!’
‘Here, take the lamp. Shine it on me,’ whispered Bartholomew. ‘I’ve something outside that will make you human again.’
He returned a moment later, carrying a large basket.
‘Some things with which to eat your fill, Gabriel,’ said the monk, setting the basket at Gabriel’s feet. ‘Water too, enough to wash yourself with, as well as drink, and a few salves to treat your cuts and bruises.’
‘Why, there’s enough here to wait out a siege…’
‘You’ve never spoken a truer word! But we’ll talk about that later. First, eat until your hunger is assuaged.’
Gabriel shook his head with feeling.
‘Last night, I had resigned myself to dying alone, like a dog, with no one to prevent the vermin picking my bones clean. I thought that the last human face I would see in this vile world would be the pot-bellied jailer’s – who isn’t the worst of men, by the way, although he’s a long way from Erasmus and Socrates. And then, here you are! Now I feel strong enough to pull this chain from the wall with my bare hands!’
‘God indulges us in His own ways, Gabriel, even if you choose not to notice,’ quipped Bartholomew, offering him a water skin full to bursting. ‘And now it seems to me that it would be in both our interests if you were to wash yourself a little. But I regret that I am so indifferent to clothes that I didn’t think to bring you something to replace those rags!’
* * *
‘Don Hernando came to tell me about your return and subsequent arrest,’ explained Bartholomew while Gabriel tore roasted llama meat from the bone with his teeth.
‘“Brother,” he said to me in the sweetest voice, “that man deserves nothing less than death. And I’m sure that death is what he will shortly receive. Nonetheless, we know that a hasty verdict offends Christian charity. So we’re going to give that bastard a trial. And you’re the only person here that I can think of who is morally irreproachable enough to conduct it,” he said. And that is how he made me your judge.’
Bartholomew chortled quietly as Gabriel gulped down water and slaked his thirst. The monk went on:
‘Don Hernando returned from Spain more conniving than ever. He found himself in an extremely uncomfortable position in Toledo. The Pizarros’ methods have shocked a great number of people at court. The queen and her suite in particular were especially moved by the story of Atahualpa’s end.’
‘I should hope so!’
‘Oh, you know, it didn’t result in much: Hernando was still awarded the Order of Santiago even though the two of us would have preferred to see him sent to rot in the prison where you and I first met.’
They both smiled at the memory.
‘So I asked to interrogate you immediately,’ continued Bartholomew. ‘They tried to dissuade me, using the pretext that you had to be given some time alone to repent. That told me that they had no doubt caused you dreadful harm.’
‘And what exactly do I stand accused of?’
‘The attempted assassination of Gonzalo. But also of treason, for having disobeyed the Governor’s order to follow de Almagro’s expedition to the south.’
‘Oh yes, that fine mission! It consisted of helplessly watching Almagro wreak horror everywhere he went. You cannot imagine what I witnessed in the south, Bartholomew. You say that the court in Spain was distressed by Atahualpa’s execution? They would have vomited like sick dogs if they could have seen what my eyes saw week after week! Those gallows birds following de Almagro tortured and massacred the Indians as though they were nothing more than rats. Children, the old, women – who were raped as well as butchered – the sick… those bastards spared no one. I watched them decapitate corpses, so great was their blood lust. For hundreds of leagues, they burned and pillaged every village they came across.’
‘Yes, I’ve heard about it.’
‘I was there. And there was nothing I could do. When I tried to protest, de Almagro simply pointed a crossbow at me. Try to imagine what it’s like to spend day after day amid all that horror, without being able to stop it or even ease the burden of suffering. Imagine the shame of being taken for a murderer, to be seen to be cut from the same cloth as those dregs of humanity now sweeping through the south, rabid in their hunger for gold!’
‘Why are you saying that? You did nothing.’
‘Exactly. I didn’t help spread the horror, but I didn’t stop it either, which is just as bad. Henceforth, the peoples of this land will see Spaniards as all the same.’
Gabriel pointed vehemently at the red glow of the Inca fires through the dormer window and said:
‘For the thousands of warriors surrounding us, howling at the tops of those hills, there are no longer any good Strangers or bad Strangers. In th
eir eyes, we all deserve to be annihilated. This is what Hernando’s diplomacy has brought upon us; this is what giving free rein to de Almagro and hellhounds like Gonzalo has brought about.’
‘Well, I see that at least you omit the Governor from your list,’ said Bartholomew, making an appeasing gesture.
Gabriel uttered a harsh growl and rose to his feet. He walked over to the dormer window to breathe in a little fresh air, pulling his chain behind him.
‘Don Francisco is no brute,’ he conceded. ‘But he knows how to turn a blind eye when it suits him. Which it often does.’
The first light of dawn was emerging on the eastern horizon, although barely discernible because of all the Inca fires lighting up the sky. Thousands of fires set the surrounding hills aglow, as they did every night, and their light reached right up to the walls of Cuzco. Gabriel caught glimpses of silhouettes moving about here and there.
‘I think that your trial will be forgotten,’ remarked Bartholomew, joining Gabriel at the window. ‘I’m going to help you escape, Gabriel. I’m going now to find some tool to break your chain with. In all the confusion presently gripping the city, no one will notice your escape.’
‘Thank you, Brother Bartholomew. But please don’t harbor any illusions. Whether locked up in here or free in the city, we’re all doomed to the same fate now. Our hour of judgement is upon us.’
Both men stood in silence for a moment, spellbound by the river of flames linking the hills together.
‘There’re maybe two hundred thousand of them,’ murmured Bartholomew suddenly. ‘You have to wonder why they’re waiting to storm us.’
‘They’re simply waiting until we have no chance of resisting them.’
‘Or until we all starve to death. There is less and less food. I had to steal what I brought you tonight, and you won’t see a basket as full as that again. Today, a caballero called Mejia was absolutely determined to charge out of here and cut himself a passage through to the plain. He was immediately unhorsed. They decapitated him, then sliced clean through his horse’s hocks.’
‘What defenses has Hernando ordered?’
‘He plans to assemble the cavalrymen and charge the enemy, to try to breach the human wall of Incas and fetch reinforcements.’
‘How many horses does he have?’
‘There are about sixty in the city.’
‘What madness.’
Bartholomew gave him a piercing look. Since Gabriel said nothing further, he asked:
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Oh, one only has to give it some thought. But milord Hernando Pizarro is too convinced that he faces mere savages, and so he doesn’t bother to think of proper tactics, let alone strategy. I know a little of their war chiefs. They are very well aware of how we fight, and they know our weaknesses. They’re waiting for exactly what Hernando’s planning: a grouped charge – still, to this day, our one and only military ploy against the Incas.’
‘Perhaps that’s because it has always succeeded before.’
‘It won’t this time. The Incas will let the cavalry pass by them without really trying to stop them. At the most, they’ll offer some feigned combat. And what will happen in the meantime? Two or at most three hundred Spaniards will be left in Cuzco to face a hundred thousand Indians. And those Spaniards will have nothing better to defend themselves with than their swords and their wits. The battle won’t last a day, Bartholomew. Manco’s men are formidable in hand-to-hand combat. Their sling stones pierce the thickest armor and shatter the blades of our swords. I tell you: the miracle that was Cajamarca will not happen again!’
‘What other solution is there?’
‘To make peace! To restore to Manco all his royal rights, and to return all the gold stolen from him. But that will never happen, and in any case it’s too late. The Incas won’t want to parley. Why should they, when they can crush us like ants?’
Bartholomew nodded in agreement. But his voice changed in tone slightly when he said:
‘Don Hernando pretends to believe that you have become Manco’s agent, his spy, and that you helped him escape, and helped organize this siege…’
‘…And that I’ve hidden away an enormous statue made of solid gold, not to mention an Inca princess said to be the gold statue’s wife,’ interrupted Gabriel with a bitter snarl.
‘It’s true that the oddest rumors about you are starting to spread,’ sighed Bartholomew. ‘But then, considering your return here disguised as an Indian peasant, as well as your violent attack… Gonzalo has had a nasty limp ever since, and you well and truly shattered the skull of one of his best friends. Why were you so savage?’
Bartholomew’s demeanor grew suddenly distant, and the monk displayed the detached curiosity that so often in the past Gabriel had suspected hid dark intentions.
‘Is this the beginning of the judge’s interrogation?’
‘Gabriel!’
‘At this late hour, I can confess everything to you with total candor, Bartholomew: my greatest regret is having missed my mark. My club should have crushed Gonzalo’s head, not his companion’s. For that, I will gladly accept my punishment.’
‘I fear I still cannot fathom the reasons for your hatred, dear friend.’
Gabriel hesitated. Outside, above the hills, the sky grew paler and paler. The Inca warriors seemed more active than usual.
‘More than a year ago now, while I was far away, Gonzalo tried to rape Anamaya,’ he said in a muted voice. ‘That was the infamy that caused Manco to flee. He realized that neither of them were safe in Cuzco. Gonzalo, of course, didn’t boast about this particular exploit of his. You couldn’t have known.’
‘Dear God!’
‘Gonzalo, unfortunately, caught Manco and flung him in irons. As for Anamaya, she managed to escape with her friend the dwarf. She hid in the mountains and organized the rebellion. Her first aim was to free Manco, who was suffering the worst humiliations here. I knew none of this until later. Then, when I learned that Manco was being kept prisoner by that madman Gonzalo, I assumed that Anamaya was also in his hands. The mere thought was unbearable. I immediately left de Almagro’s expedition, where in any case I had had my fill of atrocities…’
‘I understand, I understand,’ said Bartholomew, placing his hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. His voice was warm and friendly once again.
Gabriel moved away from the dormer window and, in a few succinct words, described to the monk how he had tried to cross the salt pan to reach Cuzco as quickly as possible, how his horse had died, and how he himself had only been saved at the final hour by Katari, the Master of the Stone.
‘I was dead, and he brought me back to life. Literally.’
‘Katari…’ murmured Bartholomew, moved. ‘Ever since I met him, I have always believed that that man would be consecrated as a saint, were he one of us. It is as though he has some prevision into our mysteries. He taught me my first words in Quechua, and I taught him his first in Spanish. Merely gazing upon him, I realized that he was that rare thing, a pure soul. I will gladly meet with him again, if it’s God’s will.’
‘Ah!’ exclaimed Gabriel, hardly listening to the monk at all. ‘I came to in the most beautiful place in the world! An enormous lake, almost a sea, which the locals call Titicaca. The surrounding mountains are the highest that one can imagine. They wear a permanent blanket of snow and, on certain days, their peaks reflect on the surface of the lake, as still and pure as a mirror. And yet, the climate is as mild as that of Cadiz! The people there are peaceful and kind. I daydreamed of returning there to live with Anamaya. I dreamed of fleeing there with her…’
He fell silent. The nightmare that he had lived over the past few days returned to the forefront of his mind like a punch to his gut. He wished that he could speak frankly to Bartholomew about it, but something held him back. Perhaps his pride wouldn’t allow him to admit that he dreamed of being an animal. So he confined himself to describing his arrival in Calca, and how Manco’s warriors had already been g
athering from the furthest reaches of the Empire of the Four Cardinal Directions.
‘It was there that she declared her love for me, but also told me that it was impossible for us to remain together, for a war was about to erupt. To tell the truth, Bartholomew, what she told me with her kind words and kisses was that, in her eyes, I was different from the other Strangers, and that—’
‘Gabriel!’ exclaimed Bartholomew. ‘God’s blood, Gabriel, look! Almighty God…’
Gabriel stopped short, then bounded to the window, his chain clinking loudly behind him. He unwittingly uttered a cry of amazement.
In the pale glow of dawn, he saw that the fires had come down from the hills, as though the Indian warriors’ river of fire had broken its banks. Suddenly the piercing sound of horns erupted, causing the air to shiver, and immediately after that horrendous cries rose up into the sky.
‘They’re attacking,’ murmured Bartholomew blankly.
‘Look up!’ said Gabriel. ‘Look at the sky!’
A thick cloud of arrows streaked across the sky, so densely packed that it seemed like a giant blanket had been lifted from the ground. The two men heard terrified cries in Spanish rise up from the alleys nearby, and then they saw the thousands of arrows whistle down towards the ground. Bartholomew instinctively retreated from the window. But the archers were too far away and the cancha in which the prison was located was still out of their range. Gabriel was now oblivious to the cries. He watched in a daze as the blanket of death came down from the sky, covering the roofs. The thousands of arrows making impact made a dull, drawn out, tearing sound, clearly audible despite the panicked Spanish cries. Drums began rolling, their noise replacing the jarring sound of horns.
‘I must go and join Hernando,’ said Bartholomew.
Gabriel caught him by the arm and said:
‘Wait a moment. It’s too dangerous. Something is about to happen…’
The Light of Machu Picchu Page 3