“The power of what?” Sam asked.
“The power to seek vengeance or exact punishment. Before Vasco Dias and the last few surviving Incas closed the gates behind them when they left in 1595, the high priest called on the huaca to curse any trespassers who walked with malice within the walls of Inticancha.”
“Oh Pavel, not more curses,” Maggie moaned.
“Yes curses, Maggie. Do not laugh. The power of the huacas within these walls is palpable. Even these cynical young people who work with me have come to respect it. Every illness or accident amongst our team can be traced to an unintentional violation of the trust we have been given. In fact my very first visit here ended in disaster because one of our number maliciously breached that trust.”
“Was that in 1962?” Sam asked.
Pavel looked taken aback. “Yes. How do you know this?”
“It was the Professor’s photo of Manco City taken in 1962 that led us here,” Sam explained.
“No, my dear, it was this,” Pavel pointed to the gold digits in Maggie’s hand, “this huaca that guided you here.”
“Get a grip, Pavel,” Maggie snapped. “Sam’s quite right, it was the photograph. We had no idea what these fingers were or where they came from. I fear you’ve been indulging in too many mind altering substances with all this talk of huacas. You’re a scientist, man, or have you forgotten that?”
“No, my darling, I have not forgotten,” Pavel laughed. “But I also recognise that there are some things in our world that science simply cannot explain. You hold in your hand part of Inticancha’s most powerful huaca. It has brought you and Sam on a great journey to find the truth of it, and you reached the city safely because it recognised that your intentions are honourable. But just look at the havoc it has caused, so many dead friends.”
“Pavel,” Maggie moaned, “our friends are dead because a living, breathing human being is prepared to kill to get his hands on this valuable golden artefact. Pure and simple. No curses, no magical mystery tours, just plain unadulterated greed.”
“But Maggie,” Pavel sighed, “everything is connected. “The tremor we felt here marked your arrival in this country. This was not a coincidence but a message from the huaca you carried to the spirits of the Incas who once lived here, that the Hand of God had come home to Tahuantinsuyu.”
“The Hand of God!” Sam declared. “That’s what ‘hanosgoo, hancsgoc’ means.”
“Hanosgoo, what is this?” Pavel asked.
“Professor Marsden left a note, or he tried to. We couldn’t decipher it because he was dying, and probably hallucinating, when he wrote it, so the message wasn’t complete.”
“Hallucinating? Lloyd?” Pavel queried.
“The Professor was poisoned with a lethal cocktail of peyote and curare,” Sam explained.
“Merde!” Pavel was horrified. “But who would be so cruel? Maggie, Sam, please explain everything. Tell me about Lloyd and Noel and how the huaca led you here.”
Maggie glanced at Sam and rolled her eyes, but together they told Pavel about Lloyd’s death, their reasons for believing that Noel and the others were also murdered, their suspicions about the Rites of Life and Death team, and all the clues that had brought them, finally, to Inticancha.
“This is too terrible,” Pavel pronounced, when they were finished. “It is all tragic but poor Jean was not even involved. She was not one of the Guardians.”
“Guardians of what, Pavel?” Maggie asked cautiously.
“Of the huaca, of course. There were only six of us sworn to protect the Hand of God. Jean was not one of them.”
“It’s time to come clean, Pavel,” Maggie stated. “Will you please tell us what this is all about.”
Pavel stood when a banging on the other side of the campsite announced that dinner was ready.
“We must have food,” he said, when Maggie started to object. “Come to the cafe, I will talk while we eat. This is a long story with two parts, although now we seem to have a third instalment.”
The ‘cafe’ was five tables set up under the huge trees on the corner of the plaza. While they waited for the cook to spoon out thick stew into their tin plates Pavel, claiming Maggie as his sister, introduced her and Sam to the four men and two women who made up his team.
“Do not drink the coffee. It is diabolical,” Pavel warned. “There is water and juice in the jugs on the tables. Go, sit, I will bring the bread.” He pointed to a table set apart from the others.
As Maggie passed Richarte in the dinner queue she tapped him on the arm. He stooped so she could whisper in his ear, then gave a short laugh and nodded.
“What was that about?” Sam asked as they sat down at the table.
“I don’t intend to go without coffee, so I asked Richarte to brew some for everyone.”
When Pavel joined them he started talking about the day’s work until Maggie whacked her spoon on his plate. “Pavel, please stop beating around the bush and get to the damn point,” she begged.
The big man shrugged apologetically. “Sorry. It is habit. But, you’re right, I will begin. This whole thing, this mystery that has brought you here, started during the height of Inca resistance against the Spanish. Remember the Indians had no frame of reference for our calendar so these events, as related to Vasco Dias, happened when they happened,” Pavel said, throwing his palms up, “sometime after Manco Capac’s unsuccessful siege of Cuzco city. Sam, do you know about this?”
“I know the basics about Manco, Tupac Amaru and Vilcabamba,” Sam replied. “If I get lost, I’ll ask questions.”
“Okay, and I will put approximate dates on these events. After the siege Manco, along with his 20 or 30,000 warriors, we cannot be sure of the number, retreated into the jungle where he began rebuilding his kingdom and the new city of Vilcabamba. In about 1538 one of Manco’s soothsayers informed him that the huaca of the ‘Silent Springs’, a small waterfall in the hills beyond the city, wished to speak directly to the king. Now this was unusual because the invisible powers of the natural world could only communicate with the intermediaries, or soothsayers, who had the ability to understand the language of the huacas and interpret omens.
“Manco was escorted to the Silent Springs where he was given some vilca, an hallucinogenic plant that aided communication with the huaca, and then left alone. On the second day of his quest he was visited not by the huaca of the springs but by the Sun God himself. Inti came to Manco in a vision, laid his right hand on the rock wall beside the Silent Springs and revealed a vein of gold, which he extracted and laid at the king’s feet.
“Inti instructed Manco to get his finest goldsmith to fashion a powerful huaca that would protect the Sapa Inca and his people from further harm from the invaders. The huaca would reveal ‘itself’ as always, Inti said, and take the form of his fingers. The leftover gold was to be crafted into a wrist band. The six separate pieces, Inti commanded, were to be taken to the far reaches of Tahuantinsuyu to guard the ‘four quarters’. Manco was told he could choose the sacred place for each of the pieces himself, but that the fingers of the Sun God’s hand must always be kept in formation, with the thumb to the west and the little finger to the east. The wrist band would protect the southern frontier.
“Manco returned to Vilcabamba and followed Inti’s instructions. When the Hand was complete, he selected six of his most trusted couriers, and a warrior to travel with each, and dispatched them in different directions along the Inca roadways. The task given these men was a lifetime one. They were required to stay with their sacred piece, to protect it, and were empowered to choose a successor to act as Guardian on their death, but they were never to return to Vilcabamba unless the safety of the huaca itself was threatened.”
“This is a lovely legend, Pavel,” Maggie commented sarcastically.
“Legend it may be, Maggie my dear, mystical, magical and unbelievable too. But you have been flying around the world with two of Inti’s fingers in your pocket so there is some truth in this myth.”
“Well, I’m intrigued,” Sam said, casting a ‘don’t be a spoil sport’ glance at Maggie. “What happened next?”
“The Sapa Inca and his warriors continued to harass the enemy but Manco began to worry that his kingdom was too vulnerable with only one city, which the Spanish knew existed, so in about 1542 he started building fortified towns deeper in the jungle. One of these, he decided would be built as a royal city, a place waiting to receive him should the Spanish ever take Vilcabamba.
“Manco entrusted the construction of this city, Inticancha, to his son Tupac Amaru. Tupac was still quite young but Manco endowed him with a title akin to vice regent which gave him complete authority. The young prince decided that the second thing to be built, after the Sun Temple, would be the Acllahuasi, the House of the Chosen Women, so that most of the mamakuna could be relocated from Vilcabamba immediately. Manco Capac agreed this would be a good thing.” Pavel pointed to the large roofless building bordering the Sacred Plaza opposite the Sun Temple.
“Another thing the Sapa Inca and his son decided was that no raids were ever to be carried out from Inticancha. It was regarded as a sacred place, but the decision was one of strategy rather than reverence. By using Vilcabamba as the base for all their attacks on the Spanish, they reasoned the enemy would never know that Inticancha existed.”
The arrival of Richarte and his coffee pot interrupted Pavel’s story.
“Richarte, my friend, you realise I can never let you leave here,” Pavel stated, after just one sip.
“My wife would track me down and drag me home, Pavel,” Richarte laughed.
“Where were we?” Pavel asked, when they were alone again. “Oh yes. It was about this time, in 1544, that Tupac Amaru first met Vasco Dias who was wandering on a trail near Vilcabamba. Tupac ordered his body guard to execute Dias on the spot but the foreigner, uncharacteristically, threw himself on the ground and bowed to the Inca. Dias was 27-years-old, had been in the New World for three years and in Cuzco for one, but had learnt enough Quechuan to make Tupac understand that he was not the enemy. Tupac returned to Vilcabamba with his captive, where Manco too was impressed by the young man’s efforts to communicate in the Inca’s own language. Though not completely trusted at first, it soon became obvious that Dias was not interested in either gold or the actions of the raiding parties, and he and Tupac eventually became friends.
“A year later, five weeks after the death of Manco Capac, a badly-injured Inca stumbled through the gates of Vilcabamba. This man was the warrior who had been sent out with the Guardian of Inti’s thumb. The very same one you have been carrying Maggie,” Pavel stated.
“The man said he had returned with his piece of the huaca because it was safe no more. The Guardian had been killed by a Spanish soldier who had come across the sacred place and tried to steal the golden huaca. The warrior battled with the soldier and although badly wounded himself managed to slit his enemy’s throat. It took him five weeks of walking, hiding and tending his wounds to make it back to Vilcabamba. A soothsayer, who two months before had warned Manco that his life was in danger, calculated that the Sapa Inca and the Guardian had died at the same time.”
“And you know all this from the documents your team found?” Maggie queried.
“No, this was recorded in the journal of Vasco Dias,” Pavel stated.
Sam cocked her head and looked at Pavel. “You said you found a sort of diary and your team this time found the documents. When did you actually discover his journal?”
“She’s got a memory like an elephant,” Maggie explained when Pavel stared at Sam in amazement.
“She must be a good cop too to pick up on little clues like that,” he said admiringly. “I found the journal during our first visit here. But that revelation is getting ahead of the story.”
“Please go on, Pavel,” Sam urged.
“Following the death of Manco Capac,” Pavel continued, “his first son became king but decided to live with the Spanish in Cuzco. Titu Cusi, Tupac’s older brother, then became Sapa Inca and, after a vision of his own, recalled the rest of the Guardians. He entrusted his younger brother with the Hand of God and told him to keep it safe in the Sun Temple at Inticancha. This was 1547 and Vasco Dias accompanied Tupac Amaru on that journey. It was his first visit to the secret city.
“For the next 27 years life just went along. Titu Cusi continued his guerrilla attacks on Spanish outposts and several times a year Tupac would make the journey from Inticancha to join his brother’s raids. Vasco Dias sometimes stayed behind in the secret city but most often he made the trip to Vilcabamba with his friend and on occasion would slip into Cuzco to spy on the Spanish.
“On the death of Titu Cusi, Tupac Amaru, the last of Manco’s sons, became Sapa Inca. A year later, in 1572, a runner brought word to Inticancha that a great many enemy soldiers were gathering in Cuzco. The Sapa Inca returned at once to Vilcabamba to prepare his warriors for battle. But when Dias, who had travelled on to Cuzco, returned with the news that the Spanish Viceroy was raising an army to destroy Vilcabamba, Tupac realised it was time to fall back. Viceroy Francisco de Toledo, the bastard,” Pavel snarled, “had made it his personal mission to finish off the Inca once and for all.
“Tupac ordered that Vilcabamba be burnt to the ground, so the Spanish would gain nothing from their efforts. His people set fire to their stores, their homes, the palaces and temples, then disappeared into the jungle. Tupac remained until the end, taking charge of the destruction of his father’s great city. But he stayed too long. He was supervising the removal of sacred items, including the punchao and the mummies of his father and brother, when the Spanish entered the smouldering city.”
“Mummies?” Sam queried. “I didn’t know the Incas were into mummification.”
“Oh, they were into it in a big way,” Maggie said. “The process and their motivation for it was quite different from that of the Egyptians though. The Sapa Incas believed they would live forever in the form of mummies, so the bodies of kings, nobles and other important people were dried, dressed in finery and sat up on chairs in special niches or caves were they could continue to give advice and be fed and attended to by family members. The shrivelled corpses were carried out on litters for festivals or special ceremonies, given food and drink and generally treated as if they were alive.”
“And the punchao?” Sam asked.
“The punchao,” Pavel said, “was a golden effigy that contained the dust of the hearts of past Inca kings. Tupac did not save his father but he fled into the jungle with the punchao; to no avail however. The Spanish troops hunted and captured him, dragged him back to Cuzco and publicly beheaded him.”
“Where was his mate Vasco Dias during all this?” Sam asked suspiciously.
“Tupac had sent him ahead with the high priest but when Dias heard that the king had been taken prisoner he hurried back to Cuzco. He witnessed the execution of his friend, the last Sapa Inca, and was so appalled, and ashamed of his kind, that he returned here to Inticancha where he remained until the compound was abandoned in 1595. Only 32 of the city’s population of nearly 2000 had survived an outbreak of the common cold. Dias himself was 78 when they closed the gates and left here forever.”
“And then?” Maggie prompted.
Pavel responded by tapping his mug on the table and winking at Sam.
“Richarte, could we have some more coffee please,” Maggie hollered.
“Thank you my dear,” Pavel said. “Now to part two of this story. In 1962 my team set out from Machu Picchu in search of the lost city of the Incas. When we came across this place a month later we were convinced we had found Vilcabamba.”
“Hence the photograph being given the label Manco City,” Sam said.
“Yes and no,” Pavel said. “By the time that picture was taken we knew this was not the fabled lost city but another built by Manco Capac. Proof of this we found in the only other of Dias’s documents that we found on that visit.
“We’d been here thre
e weeks before I found the journal hidden in a cavity under a niche occupied by a mummy. I called everyone together and we spent the night pouring over the writings of Dias. Of course nearly everyone was then intent on turning the ruins upside down to search for the Hand of God. We all assumed it would still be here, as Dias had made no mention of it being taken from the city when they all left.
“Lloyd was quite beside himself with the prospect of finding such an incredible artefact, Noel was like a boy on a treasure hunt and that annoying William Sanchez actually got up before dawn the next morning to start digging in the Sun Temple. It was the violent earth tremor he caused that woke everyone else up.”
“He caused it?” Maggie said dubiously.
“Yes Maggie. He was violating the most sacred building in Inticancha and the huaca got really pissed off.”
Sam laughed, she couldn’t help herself.
“This was not funny, Sam,” Pavel insisted.
“I’m sorry, Pavel. It was the image of inanimate objects getting ‘pissed off’ that I found amusing.”
Pavel smiled. “I admit, it is something you have to experience for yourself. Anyway I laid down the law, that we would proceed only in a methodical, professional and, above all, respectful manner. Anyone who did otherwise, either through greed or impatience, would be forcibly evicted from Inticancha and banned from working on the dig.”
“Did everyone follow the rules?” Sam asked.
“We had no more warnings from the huaca so I had to assume they did. I suspected that Sanchez had been digging around the Acllahuasi, but I never caught him at it.”
“I don’t know Sanchez,” Maggie said. “Was he with us at the other site the year before?”
“Yes, he was the one with the tall tales about his exploits on other digs. Very irritating he was. He was always going on about his Inca ancestors even though he was more American than I ever was. His grandfather was a mestizo who married a Texan woman. Sanchez was born in Dallas and his own wife came from San Francisco where he lived when he wasn’t boring us all to death.”
Golden Relic Page 20