The Light of Machu Picchu

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

  He had barely finished his sentence when an odd, throbbing sound thickened the air, echoing even into their chest cavities, as though some god was trying to drown out the cries and agonized moans of those wounded by arrows. Yet they could see nothing.

  ‘Stones.’

  Indeed, a downpour of sling stones now succeeded the shower of arrows. They were flung not from the distant hills but from the great fortress of Sacsayhuaman overlooking Cuzco, in the immediate vicinity of the city’s houses and alleys. The stones flew much further than the arrows. Gabriel and Bartholomew listened silently to the dull thudding as the missiles came hurtling down against the roofs and walls. The sound increased in volume, indicating that a greater quantity of stones was being launched. There were so many now that some crashed into one another in mid-air. The storm lasted for what seemed an eternity. The Spaniards’ terrified cries grew far louder, and the war cries from the hills increased as though in response. Another salvo of arrows came whistling down, mixing now with the stones, creating a deadly storm. It felt as though the sky itself was crashing down on Cuzco, as though the firmament was at last acting to exterminate everything living, engulfing life with a wicked determination that would only end when nothing remained but motionless piles of corpses.

  ‘I must go!’ cried Bartholomew.

  ‘Then put this over you,’ exclaimed Gabriel, shaking all the contents out of the basket and placing it, upside down, on the monk’s head. ‘It will give you some protection.’

  Bartholomew opened the door, then froze.

  ‘Dear God,’ he murmured, making the sign of the cross.

  Smoke was already rising from a dozen of Cuzco’s thatched roofs. Flames began bursting upwards here and there, as though some invisible hand was stoking them.

  ‘The sling stones must be wrapped in burning cloth or grass,’ explained Gabriel. ‘That’s what they were for. The sling stones are setting the thatch alight.’

  ‘They’re going to burn the entire city,’ cried Bartholomew.

  Gabriel yanked on his chain, enraged.

  ‘Find someone to release me from this damned chain!’

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t leave you here to burn alive.’

  The monk quickly embraced him.

  ‘Do you promise me that?’

  Despite the quick nod from the monk before he disappeared into the smoke, Gabriel doubted that he would ever see him again.

  * * *

  The wind fanned the flames well into the night. The entire city had become an enormous pyre. Only a few of the houses around the great square were spared, either because they were out of the fire’s reach or else because of the courage of the Spaniards’ Indian allies who doused the fires with water at the risk of their own lives.

  At dawn, the smoke had become so thick that at times it was impossible for anyone to see a wall or alley directly in front of them. The acrid smoke penetrated lungs like poison. Men fell to their knees, unable even to cry out in pain, so little breath did they have left. All the horses were terrified. They snorted furiously, shuddering at their withers, rolling their bloodshot eyes, their nostrils quivering and their chops trembling. A few bit their masters, others neighed shrilly with terror.

  The storm of arrows and stones never diminished, whistling through the smoke. They crashed into walls or thudded into the flesh of the abandoned wounded whose suffering didn’t last long after they’d been struck.

  Inca warriors, their mouths masked with moistened cotton and using the thick smoke as cover, slipped silently along the narrow roads on the edges of the city. There, they erected barricades, laying down tree trunks and setting up palisades that they had built in advance. They blocked all the exits from the city one by one, making sure that the barriers were too high for horses to clear.

  At Villa Oma’s order, small groups of infiltrators penetrated even further into the city. They finished off any wounded they came across, then scaled the walls of the canchas that had been burnt to cinders. Canary Indian women and children, the whites of their terrified eyes stark in their blackened faces, begged them for mercy. But Manco’s men spared no one.

  For the first time, the Incas were fighting with the taste of victory in their mouths.

  * * *

  ‘I’ve waited a long time to see this,’ gloated Villa Oma, giving Anamaya and Manco a smile, a very rare thing from him. ‘Emperor, it is truly a great joy for me to be able to at last present this battle to you. I hope that your father the Sun and all your ancestors are celebrating as we are.’

  They were sitting on the highest tower of the Sun Fortress, Sacsayhuaman. Cuzco, one massive pyre, revealed itself before them in the gathering light of dawn. Warriors whipped their slingshots around unflaggingly, hurling stones that they had placed in their campfires the night before, then removed and wrapped in cotton. The wind of their passage fanned the glowing missiles and ignited the cotton as the red-hot stones flew through the air. When the projectiles hurtled into the roofs of Cuzco, the very dry ichu covering them took only a moment to catch fire.

  Today, all the Ancestors of the Other World were with Manco. The wind picked up again before night lifted, quickly fanning the blaze. The flames grew and grew, stretching to the sky and writhing like giant snakes slipping from roof to roof. Then all the canchas of upper Cuzco caught alight at once, as though the fire itself had become liquid.

  The warriors unleashed another volley of stones. Thousands of projectiles whistled over the flames to the roofs of lower Cuzco, which promptly ignited like a cornfield at the end of a very dry summer. The fire jumped across the alleys, the gardens and courtyards, sparing nothing.

  With his hands resting on a stone wall as broad as a road, Manco laughed gleefully.

  ‘Look, Anamaya! Look at them run like rats, our almighty Strangers! Don’t they remind you of insects when they feel death singeing their antennae?’

  Anamaya nodded in agreement. Manco’s analogy was correct. The Spaniards and the few Indians who remained loyal to them, including Canaries, Huancas, and members of other nations, were running in every direction in total disorder, their only purpose being to avoid the beams collapsing beneath the flaming roofs. But as soon as they appeared out in the open, safe from the flames, a blizzard of sling stones and arrows would fall upon them. Anamaya could already make out a great many corpses, as well as the crawling bodies of dozens of wounded whom no one dared to rescue.

  The Spanish horsemen were gathering in the great square, which was the only place that was safe from both the fire and the barrage of stones and arrows, for it was too far from the towers of the Sacsayhuaman fortress. Anamaya tried to pick out Gabriel’s blond hair amid all the movement of those distant, jerky silhouettes. But the Strangers were too closely packed one against the other, and in any case their hair was hidden by their morions. Others now arrived on the square, screaming and protecting themselves as best they could by placing their shields above their heads.

  ‘What do you think, Coya Camaquen?’ asked Manco, looking at her closely with an amused look on his face. He knew exactly what she was feeling.

  ‘I think that it is a momentous battle and, like all battles, it is a terrible thing.’

  ‘We are going to win,’ said Villa Oma indignantly. ‘Yet you don’t seem pleased.’

  ‘We haven’t won yet,’ replied Anamaya quietly. ‘At the moment, all we’ve destroyed is Cuzco – our Cuzco – and not the Strangers.’

  Her remark cut Villa Oma to the quick. He swept his hand out angrily in front of him, indicating the mass of Inca troops surrounding Cuzco.

  ‘Look out there in the plain, Coya Camaquen. Look at our warriors covering the hills and the plain. An ant couldn’t get past them. Do you really think that they can be defeated?’

  ‘For the moment, all our warriors are outside the city, whilst the Strangers remain inside it.’

  ‘It will not last. I shall give the order shortly. Our troops will soon sweep into the streets of Cuzco. Take a good look at the S
trangers over there on the square! By this evening, not one of them will remain alive.’

  Villa Oma was almost shouting. Anamaya said nothing. She knew what the old Sage, drunk with violence, was inferring. She tightened her lips to prevent herself from asking the question that had been burning on them ever since Gabriel and she had separated at Calca. If Gabriel were indeed the puma, then what would happen if he died?

  ‘Anamaya’s right,’ said Manco dryly, snapping her out of her reverie. ‘I am pleased by what you show me, Villa Oma. But it is still too early to celebrate.’

  ‘Then wait for this evening!’ growled Villa Oma with a hint of disdain. ‘Look! Look over there…’

  He pointed at the first wave of warriors entering the streets and erecting barriers to prevent the Strangers from fleeing on their horses.

  ‘No!’ ordered Manco firmly. ‘No, we shall not enter the city tonight. It’s still too early. More warriors will soon arrive from Quito. When they do, then we shall attack – and win.’

  ‘But My Lord! There are already two hundred thousand of us, whereas there are only two hundred of them!’

  ‘I said no, Villa Oma. We must continue weakening them. We must cut the water canals to the great square. We must starve them and make their every moment unbearable, until they try to break out into the plain, which you’ve flooded so that their horses will be useless. They will fall into our hands, and we will sacrifice their riders to Inti. Fear, Villa Oma! They must die of fear!’

  Villa Oma’s face twisted with rage. But he said nothing. In silence, he watched the city burn, watched the men scurrying and screaming through its streets. Anamaya could see his lips trembling, and his fists clenching as though involuntarily. The priest used all his strength to hold himself back from striking Manco.

  ‘Villa Oma…’ she began in a conciliatory tone.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here, Coya Comaquen!’ squawked the Sage with vicious irony. ‘If the Strangers are indeed as dangerous as Manco claims, you are putting yourself in grave danger by remaining here on this tower. You must return to Calca immediately.’

  Anamaya turned her back to him, and allowed her blue-eyed gaze to lose itself in the sky, above the rising smoke and flames. She could at last allow her heart to feel the terrible anxiety that she had been suppressing.

  Yes, she was trembling for Gabriel!

  Yes, she hoped with all her strength and from the depths of her soul that he, and he alone, would survive. Not only because he was the Puma foreseen by the great Huayna Capac, but because he was the man whom she loved. And because to live without him was not to live at all.

  CHAPTER 4

  Cuzco, May 1536

  As helpless as a dog at the end of its chain, Gabriel listened to the death cries of the victims outside and watched the city burn. When the smoke reached his window, he retreated back into his cell. He tore up what remained of the rags of his tunic and wrapped them around his face. He suffered terrible coughing fits, bent double. He had long since given up hope of seeing either the jailer or Brother Bartholomew again.

  Indeed, hope had left him some time ago, and all he thought about now was being able to breathe, and surviving.

  Half of Cuzco was already ablaze when he heard the much-feared thuds: the sling stones were now reaching the roof of his prison. The warriors were now within range. The dull sound repeated itself perhaps ten times. Ten volleys. And then a stone pierced through the thatch ichu of the roof, and landed close by him.

  Almost immediately, thin plumes of brown smoke began to rise from the log beams supporting the roof. A little flame sputtered into life and danced around, growing. Like a golden snake, it reached the peak of the roof, zigzagged hesitantly for a moment, then slithered down the opposite side and ran along the walls. Within a minute, countless other flames were born, joining the first.

  Then, all of a sudden, the thatch itself burst into flames.

  Before Gabriel had a chance to react, the fire came roaring down from above him, as though it was trying to caress the ground. It forced him onto his knees. In only a few seconds, the heat became unbearable.

  Gabriel cursed his chain, cursed Hernando and all the Pizarro brothers. He lay down flat on his stomach, trying to protect his face. But the heat burning his back was excruciating.

  Then entire sections of burning thatch collapsed, sending sparks in all directions on impact. The flames doubled in size, but were now being drawn to the air outside, taking the smoke with them. Gabriel thought of the water skins that Bartholomew had brought him.

  He crawled along the ground, braving the heat that burned off all the hairs on the backs of his hands. With his teeth, he tore the leather strap holding the wood cork out of the first gourd and splashed the water all over his face and shoulders. He drenched his entire body in water until every gourd but one was empty. The cold shock was so extreme that it left him trembling, his teeth chattering. He was still just conscious enough to catch a glimpse of the thatch finally giving way completely, directly above him. His movements limited by his chain, he dodged the burning thatch as it fell as best he could and curled up at the foot of a wall.

  And then suddenly, as quickly as it had ignited, the fire went out.

  Only a few flames continued to lick around the beams overhead, disturbed by a wind that carried the smoke away in tortured spirals. Cool air managed to find its way through the burning walls.

  His arms and hands in agony, Gabriel grabbed the remaining water skin and gave in to the urge to drink and to splash more water on himself. It was the last of his water. But too bad, he thought.

  Exhausted from fear, he stretched out on the ground and gave thanks for the little bit of coolness that the wind bestowed upon him.

  Now the smoke rose up above Cuzco’s walls, veiling the sky like a storm at twilight. The smoke gave the impression of being a physical manifestation of all the cries for help, all the death moans, all the sounds of dying and destruction that rose from the city.

  Gabriel closed his aching eyes and ran his tongue, as dry as old leather, along his blistered lips.

  He wondered how many of the Spaniards were still alive.

  He felt as though he already had one foot in the kingdom of the dead.

  * * *

  That night, as during those that had preceded it, the air was thick with the wails of trumpets, war chants, and the furious insults shouted down at the city by a hundred thousand Inca warriors. The terrible cacophony echoed beneath the incandescent sky and pierced through smoke as thick as storm clouds, as though the Devil himself had extended the canopy of hell over Cuzco.

  Exhausted and aching from head to toe, Gabriel dozed for a long while, hoping to find respite in the stupor of sleep.

  A cry that stood out from the rest made him open his eyes.

  He was unsure of what he was seeing before him. Three silhouettes stood stiffly on the wall above. He could see their torsos and limbs but not their faces. He could also see their weapons: spears and clubs.

  Nothing moved for a moment, and he thought that perhaps he was still asleep, lost in a nightmare. Then another cry rang out from the shadows. One of the silhouettes raised its arm and threw something at him: a stone – a large stone with a rope attached! It bounced right next to Gabriel’s leg. He immediately stood up and shouted without thinking:

  ‘I am not your enemy!’

  The three men hesitated, surprised at hearing their own language.

  ‘I am not your enemy! I am with the Coya Camaquen!’ cried Gabriel.

  He instantly sensed the Inca warriors’ hesitation. One of them said something incomprehensible, then waved his arms at him. Gabriel repeated:

  ‘I am not your enemy!’

  He yanked on his chain to show how he was bound. One of the men gesticulated and spoke some words that Gabriel still couldn’t understand. Another Indian nervously shook the rope so that the stone attached to its end rolled between the Spaniard’s legs.

  Gabriel instinctively grabbed the stone a
nd the rope and pulled them towards him. One of the warriors, meanwhile, let out a cry. The other two dodged quickly aside. The rope went limp between Gabriel’s hands. One of the men on the wall collapsed as his companions cried out, already twirling their slingshots. The warrior fell like a sack onto the floor of the prison cell.

  When Gabriel looked up again, the two warriors had bolted into the ocher night. The man who had fallen next to him was already dead, a quarrel from a crossbow so deeply embedded in his chest that only its end was still visible.

  But Gabriel didn’t have time to be surprised. His cell door creaked open and a shadowy form, like some black ghost, slipped into his roofless cell, holding a small cranequin, a type of crossbow, in its hand.

  Gabriel stepped back, the chain clinking between his legs. His visitor let out an irreverent laugh.

  ‘Well now, my friend, you don’t recognize me?’ said an instantly recognizable voice.

  Gabriel was tongue-tied with surprise. The silhouette took two cautious steps forward.

  ‘Holà, Gabriel! Have they torn out your tongue already?’

  ‘Sebastian… Sebastian!’

  ‘Here at your service, Your Grace!’

  His tall, proud, black companion, a former slave, drew nearer and carefully set his crossbow on the ground. Then he embraced Gabriel warmly, no more concerned about sullying himself than Gabriel was. His only clothing was a sort of leather skirt to which was attached his quiver of arrows and a long dagger. He was otherwise completely naked, his black skin spattered with gray beads of sweat mixed with soot.

  ‘Sebastian, disguised as the devil!’ cried Gabriel with relief.

  A broad white-toothed grin gleamed through the haze.

  ‘This is the best dress possible, given the present situation. For once, my black skin is an asset and I’m making the most of it!’

  Gabriel laughed heartily, feeling so relieved that it was as though he had just gulped down cool, fresh water. Sebastian prodded the Inca warrior’s corpse with his foot and said: