Golden Relic

by Lindy Cameron

  “Are you feeling okay, Sam?”

  “Maggie,” Sam said opening her eyes, “I don’t think I’ve ever felt better in my life.”

  Maggie laughed. “Well, you look like hell.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  “I’d give anything for a comfortable motorised armchair myself. I think I’m getting too old for all this gadding about in the wilderness.”

  “You love it, Maggie. You won’t stop gadding until you’re confined to an armchair.”

  “Ha, you’re probably right Sam. Let’s get going. Richarte says we’re on the home stretch.”

  Three hours later they were still walking. Sam was bringing up the rear on a precipitous section of trail that had been cut into the cliff face leading down from a pass. Richarte halted the group as they reached the forest and pointed ahead to where the trail disappeared into a natural fissure in the rock.

  “Is that wide enough?” Maggie asked. “Have we come the right way?”

  “Of course it is wide enough,” Richarte said, stamping his foot on the pathway of Inca-laid stones. “Come, our destination must be very close.”

  Richarte led the way, followed by Maggie and Sam, then Richarte’s sons. The fissure was three metres across, wide enough, Richarte announced, for an Inca and his beasts. The ground underfoot began as smooth stone with a light downward slope but as they emerged from the fissure into dense forest the path became a narrow, winding and very steep stone staircase cut from the hillside.

  One hundred and twenty-nine steps later Sam reached the bottom where Maggie and Richarte were paying close attention to a wall.

  “Just look at this, Sam,” Maggie exclaimed, running her hand over the smooth stones. “I still marvel at the artistry of the Inca builders. These polygonal blocks were cut with no regular pattern yet each fits perfectly with the stones around it. Not a scrap of mortar was used.”

  “Is this the outside of a building?” Sam asked.

  “I doubt it,” Maggie said. “The Inca usually used ordinary rectangular blocks, still without mortar, to construct their buildings and palaces. Polygonal masonry, or multi-sided stone like this was considered to be stronger so it was more commonly used for agricultural terraces, like the one we saw this morning, or the walls of forts or cities.”

  “So is this it then?” Sam asked excitedly. “Have we found Manco City?”

  “Richarte thinks this is North-East Seven. Whatever else it may be remains to be seen.”

  “It’s big, whatever it is,” Sam commented five minutes later as they continued to follow the trail beside the wall. Richarte disappeared around a corner as the wall and its path took a westerly turn. When Maggie and Sam caught up to him, he was standing, staring and shaking his head in disbelief.

  “What is it? Oh. Wow,” Sam exclaimed, turning to Maggie who had grabbed hold of her arm. The view, through a trapezoid window in the wall, would qualify as every archaeologist’s dream.

  Below them were the ruins of a large multi-level ceremonial site. More than 40 buildings of different sizes and in various stages of reclamation surrounded a central plaza. Some of the larger ruins on the far side were still overgrown with vines and other vegetation, but those in the centre and to the left and right had been carefully cleared and maintained, and all were connected by pathways or staircases.

  “Intihuatana,” Richarte said, pointing to the compound’s highest point, a rock pillar standing atop a pyramidal stone platform.

  “The hitching post of the sun,” Maggie explained to Sam. “The Inca worshipped the sun god Inti, and believed that the Sapa Inca, the king, was the son of Inti. The pillar worked like a sundial, except the Inca astronomers used it to mark the time of year and predict the solstices. The Sapa Inca, as the son of god, had control of the seasons and the pillar was literally a hitching post that held the sun to the earth.

  “In their quest to Christianise the Indians, the Spaniards destroyed the Intihuatana wherever they found them in order to crush the heathen religion. The post at Machu Picchu was the only one known to have survived, but only because the Spanish didn’t know about Machu Picchu.”

  “This one obviously eluded them too,” Sam noted. “What are those buildings on the right?”

  “The big one with the wide staircase would be the Temple of the Sun because it centres on the site’s largest square or Sacred Plaza. The smaller building next to it was possibly the house of the high priest, and those empty terraces running down that slope over there are ceremonial baths,” Maggie explained. “The ruins on the far side are typical canchas. The Inca built their residences in blocks facing a central courtyard. The cancha had only one entrance, like that archway on the left.”

  “How do you suppose we get in?” Sam asked.

  “The same way they did,” Maggie said pointing to a group of tents on the east side of the plaza.

  “The tail descends again,” Richarte said. “The entrance must be further on.”

  It was another five minutes and 53 stairs down before they found a wide gateway that led into a maze of high stone walls. They finally emerged on the third lowest of the compound’s six levels, about 50 metres from the northwest corner of the Sacred Plaza.

  “Where the bloody hell did you all come from?” came a voice behind them. A young bearded Englishman wearing boots, shorts and a singlet had just emerged from a nearby building.

  “Oh, we just wandered in from Aguas Calientes,” Maggie smiled. “Do you have a gentleman by the name of Henri Schliemann working with you?”

  “We’ve got a Henry Morgan,” he said ushering them across the plaza. “But no Schliemann.”

  “This is Site North-East Seven?” Sam asked.

  “Sure is. But you’ve come a long way for someone who ain’t here.”

  “How many people are on the team?” Maggie asked, as they approached the campsite.

  “There’s seven of us at the moment, plus a support staff of five or six. I’m Phil by the way.”

  “And who’s in charge?”

  “That would be Xavier. Dr Xavier Tremaine.”

  Maggie stopped dead in her tracks.

  “Do you know him, Maggie?” Sam asked. “Is he a relative?”

  “Xavier Tremaine���is my father,” Maggie said, as if she couldn’t believe what she was saying.

  “Your father? I didn’t know archaeology was a family tradition,” Sam said, calculating he’d have to be in his late seventies. What on earth was he doing way out here, she wondered.

  “It isn’t a tradition,” Maggie snarled. “My father was a pharmacist in St Kilda, until his death 15 years ago. Where is he? Where is this Dr Tremaine?”

  “Um,” Phil hesitated, looking around, “over there on the log by the far tent. The gentleman with his back to us.”

  Maggie grunted. “Give me your gun please, Sam,” she demanded.

  “I didn’t bring my gun, Maggie,” Sam replied. “What do you want a gun for?”

  “There’s a man I have to kill,” Maggie snapped, striding off across the plaza.

  “What are you talking about?” Sam had to run to catch up to her.

  “Him.” Maggie pointed to Xavier Tremaine. “I have to kill him.”

  Sam tried to grab hold of Maggie’s arm but she shook herself free, stepped over the log and confronted the man with her father’s name.

  “You bastard!” Maggie pronounced, and then decked him with a swift right hook to the chin.

  Sam raised an eyebrow and smiled down at the bear of a man lying sprawled, and laughing, at her feet. “Pavel Mercier, I presume,” she said. “There’s a rumour going around that you’re dead.”

  “Oh no, not me,” he said, “I am going to live forever.”

  “You are not,” Maggie said through clenched teeth. “Get up you old bastard, so I can knock you down again.”

  “Maggie,” Pavel said rolling over so he could stand up. “My darling Maggie, let me explain.”

  “Don’t you dare ‘my darling’ me.
I’ve spent the last eight months believing you were dead.”

  “I had a situation,” Pavel began, “and the best way to handle it was simply, um, not to be. So after I got run down by a crazy in Cuzco I chose to disappear.”

  “You spread the rumour?” Maggie asked.

  “What can I say, eh? I am sorry I worried you.”

  “I wasn’t worried,” Maggie declared. “You were dead. What’s to worry about?”

  “And now I am not dead. So give me a hug.”

  “Nah! Don’t you come near me.” Maggie tried to fend him off, but Pavel wrapped his arms around her and lifted her clean off the ground.

  “Now, tell me who is your lovely young friend?” Pavel queried, putting Maggie down again.

  “My friend is Sam Diamond. She’s an Australian federal police officer. And the only reason you’re not lying bleeding on the ground is that she didn’t think to bring her gun with her.”

  “She loves me really,” Pavel said to Sam.

  “I can see that,” Sam noted, shaking his hand.

  “Are you really a police officer?”

  “I really am,” Sam nodded.

  Pavel shook his head as if life was strange indeed. “Come sit down. You too Maggie,” he ordered. “Are you hungry?”

  “No,” said Maggie.

  “I’m starving,” said Sam, “and so is she.”

  “Good, then we shall eat, drink and talk,” Pavel stated. “Wait here, I’ll talk to the cook.”

  Sam glanced at Maggie, who was smiling despite herself, and then turned her attention back to Pavel who had finished with the cook and was now shaking Richarte’s hand vigorously. She figured the no-longer-deceased Dr Mercier to be in his mid-sixties, and he was obviously strong and fit. His blue eyes had held a distinctly youthful glimmer, although his thick, shaggy grey hair, sideburns and droopy moustache made him look like he’d spent too much time in the 1970s.

  “What is his accent?” Sam asked. “It’s sort of multi-lingual.”

  “You name it, Pavel has absorbed it,” Maggie snarled.

  “Aren’t you pleased that he’s alive?” Sam teased.

  “I will be very pleased, as soon as I get over being angry that he’s not dead,” Maggie stated.

  “Have you forgiven me yet?” Pavel asked, returning with two folding chairs.

  “Not this side of the millennium,” Maggie declared, but she gave him a hug before sitting down.

  “So tell me how are things in the big wide world outside?”

  “Aren’t you in the least bit interested why we’re here?” Maggie asked.

  “You will no doubt tell me, when it suits you, my darling.”

  “Maybe. But first you explain how you can be working here with all these people, yet rumours of you being alive did not circulate like the stories of your many deaths.”

  “They all think I’m Xavier Tremaine,” Pavel shrugged.

  “A pharmacist from Melbourne?”

  “Tis a good strong name, your father’s. And what would they know, eh?” he waved his hand around the compound. “I’ve got nothing but young blood working here. None of these, these children know me from Adam, or from Pavel for that matter.”

  “Or Schliemann?” Sam asked.

  “Or him either,” Pavel laughed. “Now I know why you have come. But where is Noel?”

  Maggie took a deep breath. “He’s dead, Pavel. Really dead, unlike you.”

  Pavel’s good humour dissolved. “Oh no, dear Noel. When was this that he died?”

  “Nine days after you sent him the postcard from Cuzco,” Sam explained. “And a day after he sent a similar card to Lloyd Marsden.”

  Pavel’s eyes narrowed as he glanced from Sam to Maggie. “I fear it is only bad news you bring. Something has happened to Lloyd too, no?”

  “Yes,” Maggie confirmed, placing her hand on Pavel’s arm. “He was murdered in Melbourne two weeks ago.”

  “Merde! He was murdered? By whom?”

  “We don’t know by whom, but we were hoping you might be able to tell us why?” Sam said.

  “Moi? Me, but why? Our business should not have come to this.”

  “That’s not all of it,” Maggie said, fishing around in the vest under her shirt. “Alistair died in a car crash last year and Jean McBride was killed by a hit and run driver just before Christmas.”

  “Madre de dios,” Pavel swore. “Just like the crazy who tried to run me down.” He ran his hands through his hair. “I thought Noel was just panicking. This is very bad.”

  “We think all these deaths are connected; that they were all murdered,” Sam stated.

  “Yes,” Pavel said, as if it was obvious. “I can maybe explain, but it is a strange and long story.”

  “You can start by explaining what these are,” Maggie demanded, handing Pavel the gold digits.

  “Oh my god,” Pavel slapped his forehead. “It all gets worse. When did you arrive in Peru?”

  “On Friday,” Maggie said. “Why?”

  “This explains the earthquake,” Pavel moaned, holding up the gold thumb.

  “What earthquake?” Sam asked.

  “Five days ago you arrive in Tahuantinsuyu, and five days ago we have a very big tremor here in the city of the last Inca king.”

  “Pavel this is not Vilcabamba,” Maggie stated.

  “No, of course it isn’t, Maggie. This is Inticancha, the last refuge of Tupac Amaru.”

  “Inticancha,” Maggie repeated. “The sun’s courtyard?”

  “Yes, or the ‘enclosure of the sun god’ or even more simply ‘Inti’s House’. But however you translate it, this was the home of Tupac Amaru, and many of his followers continued to live here for 23 years after his death.” Pavel handed the fingers back to Maggie.

  “I’ve never heard of Inticancha,” Maggie said shaking her head. “And I don’t recall any reference or even legend that suggested Tupac Amaru lived anywhere but Vilcabamba.”

  “Vilcabamba was the front line, this was the fall-back position,” Pavel explained.

  “How do you know?” Maggie asked excitedly. “I mean how can you be sure?”

  “I found a sort of diary in one of the tombs and my team, this time, found documents sealed in a box under the Sun Temple. Written documents, Maggie, dated from 1544 to 1595.”

  “Written? What do you mean, written?”

  “Why is that odd?” Sam asked, noting that the archaeologist in Maggie had taken over and she seemed to have forgotten not only her anger at Pavel, but also why they had come all this way.

  “The Inca had no written language, Sam,” Maggie explained. “They had a very efficient system of counting and accounting, using coloured and knotted strings called quipu, but they had no written symbols to record their language. Nearly everything we know about the Inca prior to the conquest came from the writings of Spanish soldiers, priests or travellers who were recording a conquered people’s oral history. This was a mix of fact, legend and pagan beliefs, and their writings of course were filtered through their own prejudices, motives or understanding.”

  “The same can be said about many of the documents we found here,” Pavel noted. “Those that recounted the stories of the Inca Empire are, as you say, a blend of historical truth and colourful mythology. But there are also observations of daily life and a journal which, though not regularly kept, recorded major events as they happened, including the death of Tupac Amaru and the last days of Inticancha. The writer, Vasco Dias, was a Portuguese traveller who lived here, lived the Inca life, for nearly 50 years.”

  “This is mind-blowing, Pavel,” Maggie exclaimed. “Why are you keeping this discovery secret?”

  “But I am not,” Pavel declared. “We have been working here for two years now and keeping our sponsors well informed of our progress. While I admit we have not announced to the world that we have made this great discovery our reports and research say as much - without actually saying it.”

  “So you are keeping it a secret,” Maggie said,
shaking her head. “You announce the minor finds to keep the excavation funded but you neglect to give them the whole picture.”

  “Naturally, Maggie. I want no interlopers here, trampling the place with their enthusiasm, until���”

  “Until you have finished your work and published your own paper,” Maggie finished.

  “What can I say?” Pavel shrugged. “But my main concern, as always, is the sanctity of this place. The balance between the tangible and intangible here is very delicate. Until we reclaim Inticancha from the jungle and restore its connection to the Incas who lived here, we cannot understand the etiquette of the place. And I will not have ignorant foreigners traipsing irreverently around the ruins until we have secured the Courtyard of the Sun from all possible violations.”

  Uh, oh, whacko alert, Sam thought.

  Maggie, typically, was much more direct. “For goodness sake Pavel, what are you talking about?”

  Pavel gave Maggie a look that said she should know better. “For nearly 400 years,” he said, “the huacas hid and protected Inticancha from all those who would violate it. They have allowed us to work here, unharmed, because we mean no harm or disrespect.”

  “What is a huacas?” Sam asked, wondering whether she really wanted to know. The great Pavel Mercier was beginning to sound like some New Age guru.

  “A huaca is a talisman in which the spirits of the gods reside,” Pavel explained. “The Inca ascribed supernatural power to a variety of objects, natural and handmade, to places they regarded as holy sites such as a caves, mountains or special rocks, and to natural phenomena like storms, an eclipse, or even the birth of twins. Sickness or bad luck was thought to be punishment for neglecting the huacas. When cutting stone for building the Inca would take great care not to disturb the spirits. The sculptor who carved the Intihuatana over there, for instance,” he said, waving at the hitching post, “would have taken away from the original stone only those parts that were not occupied by huaca. Some huaca are even endowed with the power of commination.”