The Light of Machu Picchu

by [Incas 03] The Light of Machu Picchu (retail) (epub)

  Anamaya paused and reflected. A group of Chosen Virgins, carrying cumbis destined to be offered to the Sun Father, passed by the temple’s high, trapezoidal door. When they saw that the Coya Camaquen was at prayer, the young girls bowed their heads, and out of respect kept their gazes fixed on the flagstones.

  ‘Your presence, O husband,’ continued Anamaya, smiling tenderly and a little wryly at the young acllas, ‘has turned a simple mixed-blood girl into a widely feared woman!’

  Now a serious expression returned to Anamaya’s face, and she stroked the statue’s shoulder.

  ‘The thing I fear most, Sacred Double, is that you will prevent me from loving the one who was assigned to me by Emperor Huayna Capac. I fear your jealousy. I fear that you’ll try to keep me from the one who, despite his long, long absence, makes my heart beat and my body melt like snow under Inti’s caress. Yes, O Sacred Double, I dread your jealousy!’

  Anamaya anxiously scrutinized the gold face in front of her. Its dark gaze grew lighter in the growing light of day. The shadow that it cast stretched away beneath its powerful nose and over the fine contours of its lips, which seemed suddenly to smile faintly. Anamaya closed her eyes and, in one breath, made her confession to the statue:

  ‘O Sacred Double, how many times I feared your wrath whenever my mouth or soul spoke his name – Gabriel – or whenever his hands or lips touched my skin! Forgive me my stupidity, beloved husband. I now know that such fear was needless. Three moons have passed since the Puma’s breath touched me that evening by the river. Since that moment, and ever in your presence, Sacred Double, not one night has passed when the Puma hasn’t come to me in my sleep. We are together in every dream, Sacred Double. We caress one another and love one another as a woman and a man blessed by Inti’s light. I run my fingers through the hairs covering his cheeks; I feel his face quiver beneath my touch; I see the fire in his eyes when he desires me and when he enters me with as much strength as he did during the nights we shared in Cajamarca, Cuzco and Ollantaytambo. Night after night, Sacred Double, his heart caresses mine. In every dream I have, I see him turn into the Puma, and I know that he hasn’t forgotten me. Every morning, I wake up feeling serene and confident. At last I understand Emperor Huayna Capac’s words. Yes, the will of the Ancestors is being fulfilled. And I, the Coya Camaquen, will soon accompany you to them, where you will be at peace.’

  Anamaya remained absolutely still, deep in her devotion. Her eyes were still closed, and she had bowed deeply to better receive the gold statue’s silent reply.

  It was only after some time had passed that she suddenly became aware of someone sobbing quietly nearby. She straightened herself quickly and found Manco’s young wife prostrated a few paces away, her face wet with tears.

  ‘Curi Ocllo!’

  ‘Help me, Coya Camaquen! Please, help me…’

  ‘Curi Ocllo!’ Anamaya exclaimed again, getting to her feet and reaching out to Manco’s wife. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘A chaski announced last night that Stranger soldiers have left Cuzco. They’re advancing through the Sacred Valley. They’re coming here…’

  Curi Ocllo’s large, dark eyes looked into Anamaya’s searchingly, desperately, as though trying to impart all her fear to the Coya Camaquen. Anamaya simply frowned. Curi Ocllo sobbed louder now, bent double, and cried:

  ‘The thing I feared most is becoming reality, Anamaya! Oh, it’s too terrible! May Inti save us!’

  Anamaya urged the young woman to her feet and wiped the tears from her face.

  ‘Idon’t understand your panic, Curi Ocllo! Manco is in Vitcos with three thousand warriors. He’ll repel the Strangers, just as he’s done before. They don’t know how to fight in the jungle.’

  But Curi Ocllo, far from being reassured, simply sobbed louder. Anamaya sensed the young acllas behind her looking at them surreptitiously. She wrapped her arms around the young queen’s trembling shoulders and led her out of the temple.

  ‘Calm down, Curi Ocllo,’ she whispered tenderly. ‘It won’t do for the Daughters of the Sun to see you in this state.’

  Curi Ocllo mumbled an apology. The two women walked out onto the great ceremonial square. Anamaya headed for the broad stairway that led out of Vilcabamba and toward the cornfields beside the river.

  ‘Tell me what’s bothering you so much,’ she asked as she invited Curi Ocllo to sit down on a low wall.

  Curi Ocllo took a few moments to gather herself.

  ‘Five moons past, Manco wanted again to take Cuzco from the Strangers. But he didn’t even get close to the City of the Puma because his brother Paullu was returning there with thousands of soldiers from the south, where he had just defeated old and faithful Tisoc—’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know all that,’ interrupted Anamaya impatiently. ‘I even warned Manco that his offensive would prove useless. He mustn’t try to fight Paullu.’

  ‘But it’s not Paullu who wishes Manco the most harm,’ murmured Curi Ocllo, looking away. ‘It’s my brother, Guaypar.’

  Anamaya stiffened as Curi Ocllo continued in a muted voice: ‘Guaypar gathered a large force of northern warriors some time ago, and now he’s offering them to Paullu. He doesn’t care that Paullu submits to the Strangers like a woman submits to a man who doesn’t love her. For years, he’s hated Manco as much as I’ve loved him. All his thoughts focus on one thing only: destroying Manco. And I don’t even know why.’

  Anamaya shuddered and shut her eyes. She reached for Curi Ocllo’s shoulder and clasped it affectionately.

  ‘I know why,’ she whispered.

  Curi Ocllo’s words had transported Anamaya back into the past, and now she relived those cold, bright days during the huarachiku in Tumebamba. All of them – Manco, Paullu, Guaypar – had been little more than children then. And at the time she had been too, and Villa Oma had barely started educating her, although it was true that she was already under Atahualpa’s protection. She remembered the terrible race. She remembered Manco’s fear when he came across the snake, and she remembered Paullu’s deep, fraternal love for his brother. And she remembered also Guaypar’s violent and hateful nature, already manifest then. She remembered Manco and Guaypar fighting around the fire, two mere boys consumed by rage, baying for blood, drunk on chicha, brawling through the night, each prepared actually to kill his opponent, until one of Manco’s uncles separated them.

  ‘The lesson has been given, and none shall forget it,’ Manco had said. To which Guaypar, consumed by hatred and shame, had answered: ‘You are damned, Manco! You will burn before reaching the Other World. Your soul will never be free!’

  And Anamaya remembered more: she remembered Huamachuco, where Guaypar had asked her to become his wife as the Strangers were advancing on Cajamarca. She remembered Guaypar telling her. ‘My soul lives only for you, Anamaya! Just thinking of you makes me burn up inside.’

  ‘Yes,’ she repeated. ‘I know what divides them.’

  ‘I want to stop them from killing one another, Anamaya. Manco is my beloved husband! I have never wanted any other man. But Guaypar is my brother. I love him, too.’

  Anamaya said nothing. She couldn’t bear to look into Curi Ocllo’s eyes, so horrified was her expression.

  ‘Please help me, Coya Camaquen,’ implored the young woman.

  ‘But how? How can I help you? How can I stop what must be?’

  ‘Let me go to Manco. He needs me. And I want to be at his side when Guaypar confronts him. I’ll stand between them if I have to.’

  ‘No, Curi Ocllo,’ said Anamaya gently, ‘I won’t allow you to do such a foolish thing. What Manco and your brother face is too ancient and too strong for you to ward off. You cannot prevent them from opposing one another if that’s what must be.’

  ‘No! Never! I will never abandon them!’ screamed Curi Ocllo. ‘I’ll go to Vitcos without an escort if I have to! Shame on you, Coya Camaquen! Shame on you for abandoning your lord—’

  ‘Curi Ocllo!’

  But Anamaya wasn’t quick en
ough to hold the young woman back and Curi Ocllo bolted away toward the center of Vilcabamba, screaming the whole way. Anamaya took off after her, but gave up after only a few paces.

  O Inti, she prayed silently, tears streaming down her face, this day began with such hope and happiness, yet already it is more mournful than the dark clouds atop the mountains.

  CHAPTER 23

  Cuzco, June 1539

  Gabriel was shocked at what he saw as he approached Sacsayhuaman. Most of the fortress for which so many men had fallen and where he had forged much of his own legend had been destroyed in the flames of battle. The towers now lay in ruins, and the hordes of warriors who had once sent a storm of arrows and rocks down upon him had, of course, long since disappeared. But the gargantuan stone blocks still stood proudly, although now they guarded nothing but wind and a mystery.

  Bartholomew halted his horse and pointed.

  ‘Do you see that?’

  There were children playing in the quarry overlooking the fortress, little figures chasing one another, catching each other and rolling around on the ground. Their strident cries could be heard across the hills.

  Gabriel smiled.

  ‘There are no victims in a children’s war.’

  ‘Yes, but they grow up quickly. And there’s nothing easier than learning how to kill one’s fellows.’

  Gabriel nodded.

  They passed through fields in which wheat, barley and oats were now being cultivated as well as the native corn and quinua, and they were surprised to discover small and enclosed cabbage patches lining the road into town.

  The City of the Puma extended from the foot of the great walls, which now had grass growing on them. Gabriel remembered how deeply enchanted he had been the first time he had seen it. He called to mind Anamaya’s face, now so distant, as it had been then when she had stood at Manco’s side. And he remembered Pizarro’s subsequent triumph.

  Bartholomew drew some clothes out of a saddlebag and offered them to Gabriel.

  ‘We’re about the same size,’ he said shyly, ‘and I thought that—’

  ‘I don’t need them.’

  Gabriel spoke quietly, but firmly. He felt Bartholomew’s stare upon him. But he knew that this time he wasn’t dressed as an Indian for the same reason as he had been when he had returned in disguise to Cuzco, determined to kill Gonzalo. This time, he wore his simple tunic as a mark of his solidarity with this new world. He wore a greyish-brown unku on which the women of Titicaca had, at his request, woven a black puma.

  ‘It took time for me to become what I am now, Brother Bartholomew. I’m not going to start disguising myself as what I no longer am.’

  Bartholomew’s silence showed both respect and curiosity. A few moments passed before he made one last attempt:

  ‘You know what they’re going to say, don’t you?’

  Gabriel didn’t bother to reply to the question. Instead, ‘Let’s press on,’ he said, digging his heels gently into his horse’s sides.

  He was untroubled in the way only a man determined to do what must be done can be.

  * * *

  As Gabriel entered the town, he noticed immediately everything that had changed since he had last been there.

  The most noticeable, even spectacular change was the filth. The canals running down the middle of the roads, in which limpid water had once flowed, were now clogged with every conceivable kind of dirt: he saw, among even less attractive items, potato peelings and half-eaten cobs of corn. The stagnant water gave off a nauseating stench, as did the horse and pig dung covering the streets.

  ‘The gifts of civilization,’ said Bartholomew sardonically when he saw the look on Gabriel’s face.

  Gabriel looked up.

  Cuzco had been put to the torch and all the thatch that had burned had been replaced with tiles. It made for an odd architectural combination, these noble Inca palaces roofed with Spanish tiles. Gabriel also noticed that some of the trapezoidal Inca doorways had had sills added to allow wooden doors to be set in them in the Spanish style, each door equipped with a large lock.

  ‘The Indians never knew theft,’ said Bartholomew, ‘and they used to bar their doors with a simple pole only as a sign that they were absent. The lock and key, another one of our gifts…’

  Two pigs chased a rabbit at full pelt down the street and passed between Gabriel’s horse’s legs. The animal sidestepped nervously. Gabriel noticed the stares he was attracting and he reflected that he, a Stranger in Indian garb, was causing more of a stir than were the Indians who had taken to wearing Spanish accessories over their traditional clothes: here a pair of gloves, there a leather belt, another wearing breeches. He noticed that only those Indians of the Inca tribe still proudly wore their traditional dress unaltered.

  When they arrived at Aucaypata square, a great many memories came flooding back to him: the time the mummies had been solemnly brought here, and Manco’s coronation. But Gabriel’s mental voyage into the past was interrupted by the sound of a bell ringing, and he froze upon hearing that deeply familiar ancient sound. He looked at Bartholomew, stupefied. The priest pointed to the spot where the Sunturhuasi, that mysterious building, had once dominated the square.

  Where there had been a tower crowned with a conical roof there was now a construction site. Not a single stone had yet been placed, but the scaffolding had already been erected. The workmen had hung a single bell from one of its beams, and its peal echoed across the square, causing all the Indians to turn and face it.

  ‘El Triunfo!’ said Bartholomew. ‘They’ve started work on it already, and have named it after their victory during the siege. Apparently a painter is coming from Spain to commit to canvas the miracles that took place here…’

  ‘What miracles?’

  ‘The miracle of the Sacred Virgin putting out the fires, accompanied by an invincible knight on a white steed.’

  ‘Oh yes, I vaguely remember that miracle,’ said Gabriel.

  ‘Few are the men who have no need to believe in miracles that give them the will to live.’

  ‘So I’m beginning to realize.’

  Gabriel took Bartholomew to the road leading to Hatun Cancha. They stopped in front of a modest palace with a guanaco hide hanging over its door. Gabriel dismounted and handed his reins to an old man, who had clearly made horse-minding a profession.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Bartholomew.

  ‘Someone’s expecting me,’ said Gabriel calmly.

  ‘When did you set up this meeting?’

  ‘In another life. You’re the one, after all, who wants me to believe in miracles. Do you want to come with me?’

  Bartholomew waved his joined fingers in the air, declining Gabriel’s offer, and smiled before wandering slowly away.

  * * *

  Passing through the palace was like parading through some extravagant theatrical production. What with its antechamber, its long corridors, its Indian valets in livery, and its young servant girls, Gabriel had the comical impression of having been suddenly transported onto a stage and charged with playing a role for which he hadn’t been given the lines. He was waiting impatiently in a room crammed with wall hangings when a thunderous laugh made him turn around.

  ‘Sebastian!’

  ‘Don’t you recognize this place? Ha! I must admit, it was in far worse condition then…’

  Gabriel remembered the palace’s fire-blackened walls and burned-out roofs, the state it had been in when Sebastian had brought him here to equip himself after freeing him from jail.

  ‘I was the one who was in a far worse condition,’ he sighed.

  The two friends embraced affectionately. No matter how perceptive and understanding Brother Bartholomew might be, Gabriel knew that he would never share this kind of intimacy with him, the intimacy of brothers-in-arms who have lived through many an adventure together. Eventually, the two men released one another, laughing and slapping each other’s backs. Gabriel looked at his friend.

  Sebastian was dresse
d in the most extraordinary manner: he wore brightly colored breeches and a fine lace ruff of the sort favored by Pizarro. But Sebastian looked at Gabriel with equal astonishment.

  ‘What strange things you wear,’ they said almost simultaneously before breaking out into laughter again.

  ‘I have to make an effort to stand out from the black slaves arriving here from Panama,’ said Sebastian. ‘And what about you? Have you been crowned Inca?’

  ‘I’ll be Inca the day you’re named Governor.’

  ‘And why not? Ours would be a fine alliance: first we would celebrate our victory by roasting Gonzalo on a spit, then we would devise a prosperous reign of peace – after having first filled our pockets, of course, as an insurance against hard times!’

  ‘You look like you’re pretty well insured now.’

  Sebastian made a face.

  ‘You can’t imagine how difficult it is,’ he said. ‘A daily struggle. I’m utterly exhausted.’

  He snapped his fingers and, without his having to say a word, two young servant girls hastened forward with a carafe of liquid that glowed deep red in the torchlight and two silver goblets on a silver platter.

  Gabriel’s palate had lost its taste for wine, but his face flushed when he swallowed a mouthful.

  ‘Not so bad,’ he said, clicking his tongue. ‘But it has nothing on what we drank at… what was that inn called?’

  ‘The Bottomless Jug!’ roared Sebastian. ‘Ah, I remember that dear charlatan of an innkeeper and his unforgettable wine well… but you’re right, nothing could match it.’

  There was a note of nostalgia in Sebastian’s voice. Gabriel let a moment of silence pass between them.

  ‘Tell me about yourself,’ said Sebastian eventually. ‘There’s a rumor going round that you’ve become some kind of great Lord over there on Lake Titicaca’s shores…’

  ‘I’ll tell you all about it later, Sebastian. First, I need you to bring me up to date with events… I know only what Bartholomew has told me. You might begin by telling me about your fortune.’