The Gold Eaters

by Ronald Wright

  She has asked this many times. Molina looks through the window at the stars and a sliver of new moon. With an inner smile he recalls that night on the roof when she drove him off her. Ah, Chaska. A tough nut to crack. But so sweet within the shell. Enough to make a man forsake the land of his birth. Even his faith, such as it was. He dresses as a Peruvian, greets the Sun with a blown kiss, and never takes a drink without first pouring a drop for the Earth. I’m a heathen now, he thinks, and so be it. What did the God of Spain ever do for Badluck Molina? All the best in life has come to him here, on the far side of the world.

  “Who knows, my love? They could land in Tumbes tomorrow. Or it might be ten years.”

  He sees her eyes moisten with longing for her son. Chaska cannot truly rest until she learns what happened to Waman.

  “Don’t spare me, Husband,” she persists, with a sharp nudge from her knee. “Tell what you really think. Even if it’s never.”

  What does he think? What can he? He’s heard nothing of the world beyond Peru.

  “If I know them, they’ll be back. Sooner or later. Even if the Old One has died, others will follow his lead.” He explains that his countrymen won’t have been hit nearly so hard by the smallpox.

  “My land was crowded and poor,” he adds. “No doubt it still is. Your land is rich. And badly weakened now. To them it’s a ripe orchard and the farmer who guards it has been crippled. Some day they will come. Especially if they hear about the plague. And when they do, they’ll come in force.”

  She says nothing more, reaches for him. They make love fiercely yet quietly, careful not to wake the boy. Soon Molina is fast asleep, wheezing like a seal. But Chaska’s mind runs on. What is there to keep them in Little River? Isn’t it foolish to linger here, so near the port of Tumbes and the royal highway? The longer she waits, the more she asks herself this. She would like to stay put for Waman’s sake, so he can find her quickly when he returns. And because her dead are here. But she must think of the living. Being here when the barbarians return would put them all at high risk. There are also other barbarians—nearby—hotlanders just beyond the frontier who may well try to raid the stricken Empire. The old Emperor needed ships and garrisons to keep them out. There’s the new Emperor to consider, too; his people might come looking for Molina. No, she decides, they must move to the highlands, far from any invaders or officials who might suddenly appear. Somewhere off the main roads, yet near enough to Tika at her House of the Chosen in Huanuco.

  She remembers when the examiner came to Little River, a stout lady with a wattled chin, asking to see any promising girls who had had their first monthlies and wanted to join the order. Only the most accomplished and best-looking were considered. It was a great honour. But Chaska found it hard to let her niece sit the exams, especially so soon after Waman’s disappearance. She privately hoped the girl would be found lacking in some way. But Tika did well, especially in weaving and singing. When she was offered the one thing she requested—a place with the Chosen in the city of Huanuco Pampa, not far from where she had lived before the earthquake orphaned her—Chaska could hardly object. Especially as Chaska herself had come from that same village when she was little. Yaruwillka, it was called. A lovely name.

  Yaruwillka, she says beside Molina, startling herself from the threshold of sleep with her own voice.

  Chaska decided she would accompany her niece to Huanuco and take the opportunity to see their birthplace. She also hoped some kin of theirs, however distant, might still be living in the region. Huanuco would be too far from Little River for Tika to get home for holidays, so it would be a great comfort if they could find people nearby whom the girl could visit.

  The journey was indeed long, almost a month, the first half by ship down the coast. When they disembarked they were met by a Mother from the House with two other new girls in tow and some llamas to carry their things. Then came a long trek from one way station to the next, up and up into the mountains, over staircase roads and snowy passes, across misty gorges spanned by hanging bridges. She remembers their escort (a rather pompous woman) officiously waving a small quipu at the bridgekeepers, exempting the party from tolls.

  Before going on to the city of Huanuco, Chaska and Tika left the others and took some days to find their childhood home. The road to Yaruwillka, overgrown as they drew near, was swallowed at the landslide’s edge, running on through an underworld, a village of the dead. Where terraced fields and farmhouses had climbed the lower slopes, there was only a scree of gravel and boulders dotted with cactus. They found nothing else, not even the corner of Tika’s house that had saved her. Perhaps an aftershock had toppled it.

  There, where the house might have stood, they knelt and made offerings of coca leaves and seashells. They wept and sang a stately harawi, the lament’s high tones cleaving the burdened air. But neither spoke except to pray to the Earth, the Sun—even, in scolding and propitiation, to the icebound peak who had smothered the people in his charge.

  Not until evening, beside a fire in the nearest way station, did Tika speak of the memories unfurling in her mind. Her parents tall as trees above her. The hideouts she made with her brother in the standing corn; the two of them scaring birds from seeded fields, fleeing wasps and bees through shoulder-high wildflowers. The old house with its sheltering eaves and smoky warmth. Then nothing.

  It was thirty years since Chaska had lived there, yet her own recollections were vivid as Tika’s, if not more so with the burnish of age and nostalgia. The highlands were still lovely to her. The pure skies and racing clouds, the wandering herders in bright clothes, the llamas and alpacas in heavy fleece. But Yaruwillka itself was only a scar. It was as if her early life must have happened somewhere else, near yet unreachable. Save for the outline of that baleful mountain shouldering the sky, she did not recognize the place at all.

  Upon Chaska’s request next morning, an old knotkeeper at the way station went to work on records from the time of the earthquake. He seemed glad of something to do, pulling dusty quipus from earthenware jars, humming to himself, scratching his chin. They found one family related to Tika on her father’s side, second cousins, she thought. These lived in Lower Huanuco, in a remote hamlet of coca growers called Puma Hill. Not a long trip for a condor, the knotkeeper said, but a tough one on foot, for the path was narrow and steep, winding down into the lush eastern flanks of the Andes, halfway to the great rainforest.

  Chaska recalls the welcome they were given there, after walking for two days. A big feast outdoors. A warm, clear evening. They all sat on a terrace above the coca fields, watching the shadows of the Andes lengthen across a mossy sea of treetops spread below.

  With this memory Chaska falls asleep at last.

  —

  Some days later, when Molina seems in a receptive mood, she raises the matter of moving. He says what she thought he might. The only real home he’s ever had is Little River. He fishes and farms, he has friends. He’s happy here. And are the highlands really so much safer?

  “In my land there’s a saying, Chaska: better the devil you know.”

  “Just think on it,” she says. “Take your time. I’m not suggesting we leave tomorrow. But if your people come back to Tumbes, what’s the first thing they’re going to do?”

  “I think,” he answers dryly, “that you’re about to tell me.”

  “Won’t it be to look for you, so they can find out everything that’s happened since they left? And they’ll take you away, to have two interpreters. Is that what you want?”

  For a while he makes no reply. Then: “You know I don’t want that. I want to be with you always. But what about Waman? If we move so far, how will he ever find us?”

  “Look.” She lifts her index finger. “Waman is one.” She spreads her whole hand. “The rest of us are four, counting Tika. I must think of what’s best for us all, especially Atuq. No matter where we are, Waman can find us safely only if he ge
ts away from his captors. Assuming he wants to. He was a child when he left. He’ll have grown into a man. We can’t know what he might have become. I have to face up to that. But of course I’d leave word here for him somehow.”

  She lets it drop for now, lets Molina get used to the idea. If he digs in his heels she’ll suggest a compromise. Not a move but a visit. So he can meet Tika in Huanuco Pampa and her kindred at Puma Hill. Once there, she is sure, he’ll come around. He’ll see it’s a far better refuge than Little River. With ways of escape into the great jungle, where the only towns are made of leaves and the only roads of water.

  10

  Waman smells land: spices, blossom, guano; a wet bonfire reek of cleared fields. The World on the wind.

  How long has it been, this time?

  More than a quarter of his life.

  Mother and Father, Tika, Grandfather. His mind is already with them in Little River. They will slaughter a llama and roast it in the earth with hot stones and fragrant leaves, with peppers, cassava, sweet potatoes. Beer and palm toddy will flow. A banquet for everyone in town.

  These anticipations are undercrept by doubt, by dread. Will they forgive him? Will they even know him, dressed as a Christian now? Doublet and hose, tan boots, red velvet cap. Even a black goatee, sparse though it is, which he grows to draw the eye from his scars. Perhaps, he thinks, I smell like a Christian too. What will Tika make of him? Will his worldliness, his outlandishness, impress her? Tika will be a woman now. She might have a husband, even a child. Foolish to think everything here will have stayed the same, awaiting his return as if time had stopped when he left.

  And how will he get away to Little River, away from these men who mean to seize his homeland. The Old One has two ships now; two hundred men, not thirteen. With seventy horses and three dozen war-dogs. If I run, they will run me down.

  The nightmares have been many. Blood, death, armoured men, armoured horses and mastiffs, trampling, tearing. Spaniards flensing helpless people with their swords, as when they captured him five years ago. He has spoken to no one of these fears, not even Candía. Nor has he been able to think them through with a clear mind. To face such things is to face himself, to probe his own soul with steel and fire like an inquisitor. Waman or Felipe? Which is he? Has he become a converso, an indio ladino? There are no words for such a being in his language, which in the years since he last saw Qoyllur has become an abandoned garden, overgrown, half forgotten, avoided for the thorns it holds. The only words that seem to fit are iskay sunqo—a man of two hearts. And the Castilian for that is traitor.

  He stares across the whaleback sea at the growing smudge of land. What am I doing here? What will I bring down upon all those I love?

  —

  The distant settlement whose outline staggers in the haze seems squat, drab. This can’t be Tumbes. Pilot Ruiz must have made some navigational mistake. Or is it simply a Tumbes diminished by the new eyes he brings after so many years, so many wonders and strange sights? Yet the Commander is frowning too.

  Unable to clamber to the crosstrees himself, the Old One sends up man after man, every sharp-eyed lookout aboard. “Do you see it?” he shouts. “Do you see the golden temple on the hill?” Pizarro has been worn out by the slow voyage down the seaboard of the hotlands, once again fighting currents, headwinds, warriors. And before that by the months in Panama, wrangling with officials and investors; above all with his partner One-Eye.

  Waman watched the two arguing—shouting, shoving, even drawing swords—on the day the Old One reached Panama. Everyone knows the reason. The King’s licence to conquer Peru denied Almagro the thing he most craved: shared command. All he got is to be Mayor of Tumbes, the vague title of Adelantado, and the promise of any realms he may find beyond those granted to Pizarro. He is also outnumbered now. The Old One has brought three half brothers, all young enough to be his sons: Hernando, the grandest, the only Pizarro born in wedlock, a plump fellow in his thirties with fleshy lips and a strawberry nose bloated by drink; Juan, the boldest, though barely twenty, always the first in a fight; and Gonzalo, the youngest and most unruly, the best-looking, cruel with women.

  Waman shrinks at the thought of One-Eye’s gaze: ice-blue, reptilian, the ball swivelling like a lizard’s in the bald orb of his head. At least that eye is an hour astern, aboard the other ship.

  A hand alights on his shoulder. Candía, with the lute. On the voyage he has played often, and given lessons to Waman.

  They go to the foredeck, where the Greek checks the swivel gun, then sits on his haunches, strumming a few chords. Still a lovely sound to Waman’s ears; still unearthly, especially here. He watches the fretwork, hoping one day to become so deft himself.

  “Here.” Candía hands him the instrument. “Play something. From home, your home.” He glances landward. “Go on. Let’s hear Peru.”

  “I’m sorry . . .” The interpreter looks down at the sun-warped planking by his feet. “I can’t remember.”

  “Nonsense. What about those songs you used to sing, that flute you played?”

  “I remember nothing.”

  Candía pats his shoulder. “Anything. A nursery rhyme will do. All right?”

  “I’ll have to change your tuning.”

  “Change it.”

  “I’ll have to sing along. I’m not much good . . .”

  “Sing!”

  Munankichu willanayta

  Maymantachus kanichayta?

  Do you want me to tell you

  Where I come from?

  Waman stops, disheartened, makes to hand back the lute. He shakes his head, saying it’s a song his mother used to sing for him when he was little. A mountain song.

  “Go on! It’s lovely. Start again.”

  Munankichu willanayta

  Maymantachus kanichayta?

  Haqay urqo qhipanmanta,

  Sachakuna qhipanmanta,

  Tikakuna chawpinmanta.

  Do you want me to tell you

  Where I come from?

  From behind that hill,

  Beyond the woods,

  Amid the flowers.

  Amid the flowers. Waman thrusts the lute fiercely into Candía’s hand. He runs to the rail and empties his guts into the sea. Tika, a girl named Flower.

  Now they are near enough for a clear sight from deck. There’s no longer any doubt. The commanding feature of the Tumbes skyline—the lofty roof of the Sun’s House with its golden crest—has gone. Pizarro, tight-jawed, sucking cheeks, says nothing.

  Terse commands from Pilot Ruiz as the ship enters the channel through the mangroves. A taut flutter of reefed sail, shouts from a man taking soundings at the prow.

  The platinum light of noon pours down on emptiness. No ships in the haven, no fleet with the rainbow pennant at the masts. Only old fishing smacks and sun-bleached rafts strewn haphazard on the beach. The long jetty where Waman talked his way onto the traders’ ship is nothing but a row of stumps, burnt to the waterline. The shops and eating houses along the waterfront are wrecked. Not a person to be seen, not a dog.

  —

  When both ships have moored, Commander Pizarro leads a hundred men through broken streets to the middle of the city. Still no word escapes him. They move with a clatter of weapons, creaking armour, hoofbeats, and murmuring from the men like the buzz of an uneasy hive.

  Tumbes has been sacked. The fortress is empty, its gate thrown down. The temple walls stand open to the sky, rafters burnt, images and treasures torn away. The only grand building spared by the fires is the Governor’s house, which stands whole, though looted, its colourful murals defaced with cuts, soot, lewd scribbles. Filth and broken pottery are strewn through the rooms, and in the courtyard bodies lie—skeletons torn apart by dogs and vultures. Almagro draws his sword, pokes furiously through rags of clothing, carcasses, nests of human hair.

  The Old One barks at his m
en to clean the place, toss out the bones. He assigns rooms, orders stores brought ashore. He sends Almagro and a dozen horse along the road for a look at the hinterland (and to be rid of One-Eye for the afternoon).

  Waman and Candía he sends into the streets on a search for survivors. It takes them an hour to find anyone besides some wild-haired children, who shriek and run as if from fiends. Eventually they come upon two elderly women hiding in a courtyard. One, who seems from her dress to be a highborn lady, regards Candía fixedly. She approaches, studies his face, rubs a finger on his steel breastplate, even lightly strokes his beard. Qollqi runa! she exclaims, the silver man. She tells her companion she recognizes him from years ago, when she was Mother of the Chosen who lived beside the temple. She saw this silver man, or one just like him, in the Sun’s window, eyeing her girls. She also walked out to the fields that day and heard the thunder of his blowpipe.

  “Mamakuna,” Waman asks respectfully, surprising the women with his Quechua, “there was another bearded one who stayed behind in Tumbes. Molina by name. Have you seen or heard anything of him?”

  “Mulina?” She looks at her companion. Both shake their heads in the local way: a single side-to-side with the eyes half shut and raised to the sky. He had forgotten the gesture. It makes him homesick as a child.

  They hear angry voices from the Governor’s house as they draw near, bringing the women. Another row between the Commander and One-Eye, already back from his excursion: “. . . lies, Pizarro. More of your damned lies! Where’s your great kingdom? Where are your temples filled with gold? Even the bridge is down. This land’s already sacked. By whom, I wonder. Answer me that. God’s blood! By whom?”

  Waman despairs. What can such men accomplish? How can he escape them? Candía returns his glum look as they go inside. “At it again,” the Greek says, rolling his big dark eyes.

  “How should I know what’s happened?” the Old One is saying. “But it doesn’t matter, does it? It’s obviously just Indians against Indians. And the fewer of them left the better. The gold is here somewhere. Can’t you smell it?” He sniffs the air. “You’ll get your gold, Don Diego. Even if we have to dig it from the ruins of every city in Peru. Upon my honour.” He makes to clasp his partner by the forearm.