The Light of Machu Picchu

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

  Katari took Gabriel by the hand and positioned him directly in front of the two blocks on the right-hand side.

  ‘Look carefully at those carvings.’

  Gabriel had noticed them long before. There were three on each stone, equidistant from one another. They appeared to the naked eye to represent figures lying down, each one similar to the others.

  ‘You must look at them properly, not just with your eyes but with your entire body. You must enter into them.’

  Katari’s voice grew lower as he spoke these words, and Gabriel heard it quiver slightly. He tried to follow the Master of the Stone’s instructions without really understanding them. Slowly, the forms on the rock seemed to come alive.

  ‘A – animals,’ he murmured hesitantly.

  ‘One animal in particular that you know well, my friend.’

  ‘The puma!’

  Katari looked at him, smiling.

  ‘You have already learned our language. And you love one of our women,’ he said emotionally. ‘But I believe that this is the first time that you have realized that your own destiny is written in the stone.’

  Gabriel blinked. He knew that what were in front of him were only the enormous blocks of a temple that was still being built. And yet, it was as if the whole world had suddenly changed. A lone cloud passed in front of the sun. The rose tint in the stones turned grey.

  ‘Will you go further?’

  Gabriel looked at Katari, amazed. How could he ‘go further’? Katari seemed amused by his bafflement.

  ‘Don’t worry, my Brother from Beyond. Tonight, everything that you’ve seen will return to you in a dream, and that will banish your fear of knowing. Come: it is time to return to the village.’

  Gabriel followed him down the steps that led back to the path beside the Willkamayo. Halfway down the mountainside, they heard the deep notes of a song fill the valley. Gabriel hadn’t heard any signal, but all the workers at once stopped whatever they were doing. Those in the quarry, those toiling on the fortresses, on the fountains or on the temples, the stone workers, the carpenters, the bearers and those whose job it was to chisel the rocks – everyone in the valley turned as one towards the sun and sang a salute to it as it slipped behind the peaks of the western mountains.

  Despite himself, Gabriel raised his own palms up to the sky and, without opening his mouth, silently joined the others in their Song to the Universe.

  CHAPTER 11

  Ollantaytambo, August 1536

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Gabriel, ‘I feel as though Katari has thrown again his stone that stops time.’

  ‘How do you know that he hasn’t?’

  They both smiled, and Anamaya’s hand brushed against Gabriel’s. Whenever they could be seen by others – that is, whenever it wasn’t night – they were careful not to touch each other. But she nevertheless enjoyed startling him on occasion. Whether by scratching him lightly or surprising him with some gesture of affection and watching the thrill apparent in his reaction. They spent their days going from stone to stone, from the cool springs down the collca-lined road to the Sacred Double’s temple.

  In truth, they went wherever their whim took them, and wherever they paused their love took root and bloomed.

  Gabriel was enchanted.

  Some days were cathedrals of silence, dedicated to the contemplation of pure beauty, to the blue of the sky, to the passage of the winds. Then there were the days when they talked endlessly, telling one another everything and anything. They switched effortlessly between languages, at times without even realizing it, carried away by each other’s words.

  But whether the time passed in silence or in talk, Gabriel had the impression that his heart was growing fuller with each passing day.

  Of course, there was always the mystery in Anamaya’s blue eyes, across which a cloud of doubt or the shadow of a secret sometimes passed for no apparent reason. Gabriel asked her no questions, and was content to reflect upon her answers: he was no longer the jealous lover or the naive, easily offended soldier. He felt like a man – not wise, as such, but certainly much calmer and even content. He surprised himself when, searching for a word to describe his state, the one that came from his lips was: happy.

  Memories of his life came back to him in waves: his agonies as a spurned child, his youthful enthusiasms, Doña Francesca, prison, his dreams of freedom, of glory, his yearning to make a name for himself – he realized now that he had not once had the idea of letting happiness touch his heart. It was still such a fragile notion to him that he held back from surrendering to it completely. But when he closed his eyes and let the sun’s warmth caress him, when he let himself bask in the glow of Anamaya’s presence, it seemed to him that his life now was vastly superior to any of those alternatives in his youthful, callow dreams.

  ‘Are you dreaming, Puma?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter which one of us is dreaming, as long as both of us are in the dream.’

  They were halfway up the slope, well above the long, trapezoidal shape of the town below and a little below the end of the ramp from the quarry to the site where the great temple was being constructed – the temple that Gabriel could not contemplate without remembering what Katari had revealed to him. They were facing the mountain-sculpture that he had first seen with her that dawn. He never tired of looking at it, of pondering its mystery. Although Anamaya had told him all about her life, including her closeness to the Inca at the moment of his death, she stayed tight-lipped about the secrets that he had confided in her then. And with the perhaps mistaken forbearance that love engenders, Gabriel refrained from questioning her about it.

  ‘Close your eyes,’ she said.

  He obeyed as docilely as a child. Anamaya gently caressed her lover’s hand and silently asked him with her spirit to empty his own, to drain his soul of the war and everything associated with it, and to go with her to a place beyond desire, beyond emotion, to the stone and the water. His body relaxed, and she sensed that he had surrendered himself completely to her.

  Yet she could tell him so little. Gabriel had to travel the road himself. There was no other way. Only when he reached his destination would he know what she did, would the words come to his mouth. But until then, all she could do was show him the path of the sun and the position of the stars – and hope that he would learn to ride the wind and follow the course of the water.

  ‘Now open your eyes.’

  Gabriel rubbed his face as though he was coming to life for the first time.

  ‘What do you see?’

  Gabriel’s eyes shone impishly.

  ‘Why, I see that I love you, my dearest. I love you completely, with all that I have!’

  ‘Don’t make a move, Puma! Be serious – tell me what you saw.’

  ‘I saw what one sees when one closes one’s eyes: I saw dancing patches of color, and a stronger light where the sun was, where I felt its heat. And although you told me to empty my mind, I saw myself on my white horse and I heard the arrows and stones whistling past me.’

  Anamaya’s heart beat hard in her chest as Gabriel asked:

  ‘Someone has chosen for me, haven’t they? That’s what I’m meant to believe?’

  ‘I don’t know the answer to those questions, Puma. You will know everything that you’re meant to know when they are all within you.’

  ‘Please, don’t speak to me in riddles.’

  ‘I know what I know through riddles. It’s up to me to carry my body toward those things that will allow me to decipher them.’

  ‘Carry it, then,’ said Gabriel, suppressing another laugh. ‘Carry it over here to me, and then you’ll decipher a few things…’

  Anamaya let herself lean into him slowly. He closed his eyes again, but this time he couldn’t help but feel the pure, simple joy of having her against him, of feeling her passion and graceful reserve. And Gabriel found it impossible to think of anything except love. He suddenly reached out for her, but she slipped away from him like a cat, and when his hand closed,
all it clasped was shadow and air.

  She was standing up, watching the bearers unload their heavy burdens of mantas containing green and golden corn at the collcas.

  ‘Villa Oma confronted Manco again this morning.’

  Gabriel’s face darkened. The war… they hardly mentioned it when they talked but they couldn’t ignore what had almost torn them apart forever. He didn’t dare ask her for news of it: he clung to the absurd hope that one day he would be told that it had ended in a great dance around the Aucaypata.

  ‘Does he still want to turn me into a drum?’

  ‘He blames Manco for not having attacked Cuzco earlier, and for having sent troops to attack the reinforcements that your Pizarro managed to send rather than concentrating all our forces on the city. He says that without some last-ditch effort, the battle is lost.’

  ‘What does Manco think?’

  ‘Manco is a warrior. The humiliations he suffered at Gonzalo’s hands only strengthened his determination.’

  ‘Perhaps, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’ll win.’

  ‘He will fight until the end, even if this war cannot be won.’

  ‘And you? What do you think?’

  Anamaya looked away from Gabriel to the distance.

  ‘I think that one day the war will be over.’

  Gabriel laughed a sad laugh.

  ‘Even I think that, despite not being initiated into any secrets.’

  ‘Well, I am initiated into those secrets, and yet my ignorance is greater than anyone else’s. I know that the end of the war will set us free, Puma. But until then…’

  Anamaya came over, squatted beside him and put her head on his shoulder.

  ‘Don’t say it,’ he whispered.

  A line of quarrymen passed in front of them. Despite the men’s diffidence, Gabriel sensed that they were watching them. He made to stand up, but Anamaya squeezed his hand, preventing him.

  Yes, Katari had indeed thrown the stone that stopped time. But now she saw that it was falling back to earth – and falling much too fast.

  * * *

  The rumor traveled across the valley as quickly as did the churning waters of the Willkamayo. It was shouted from summit to summit before the chaskis themselves reached Emperor Manco.

  A regiment from General Quizo Yupanqui’s army, commanded by the proud Apu Quispe, was on its way, bearing a great many magnificent war prizes: Spanish weapons, clothes, and even horses. The prisoners of war were a few days’ march behind.

  The valley was filled with song, drumbeats, and the wail of horns. The workers paused from their jobs to admire the victors as they arrived. No one touched the weapons piled up on stretchers that were carried by bearers with the kind of dignity due an Inca’s palanquin.

  There were a dozen horses, each one surrounded by at least twenty terrified warriors linking hands to form a sort of mobile fence.

  When the news reached Manco, he wanted to meet the victors, accompanied by a few of the Lords from his court; he asked Gabriel to do him the favor of accompanying him, of walking alongside his litter. Gabriel agreed before realizing how great was the honor that had been bestowed upon him.

  They waited at the bottom of the Choquana fortifications. Even Villa Oma had come along, although he lurked at the back of the column and maintained a hostile and disdainful silence.

  ‘I would like you to show me how all these things are used,’ Manco said to Gabriel, smiling and stepping down from his palanquin. ‘I wish to learn your people’s ways.’

  Gabriel saw that Manco was looking at the approaching weapons. He said nothing. All eyes were on him.

  ‘I’m not sure that they will prove of any use to you, my Lord Manco,’ he said eventually.

  ‘Why, on the contrary, I’m sure that they’ll be very useful. I don’t understand what you mean. Please explain yourself…’

  Happily for Gabriel, who was growing increasingly uncomfortable, the troops bearing the prizes now arrived.

  As Apu Quispe prostrated himself at Manco’s feet, the Lords silently approached the stretchers loaded with prizes. There were swords, shields, spears, morions, coats of mail, leather breastplates, and even small artillery pieces. Each of these things caused Gabriel’s heart to leap, reminding him as they did of the battles in which he had participated. They banished any lingering doubts he might have had about the continuation of the war.

  After the weapons on their stretchers came a number of bearers who unfurled their mantas. There followed two more stretchers, overflowing with useless luxuries that had been shipped from Spain during the previous two years: brocades and silks, bolts of other fine fabrics, jugs of wine, casks of preserves and other Spanish foodstuffs. There were even a number of pigs, still alive and squealing horribly. These beasts were looked upon by the Indians with visible distaste, despite their efforts to remain impassive.

  But what the Indians most admired were the horses. It had not been so long since the Incas had wondered whether a horse and its rider wasn’t in fact a single being with fabulous powers. Gabriel remembered how frightened Atahualpa’s men had been at Cajamarca, much to the wrath of their Inca. Most of the Indians here had never had the opportunity to see a horse up close: the Spaniards had strictly forbidden them from going anywhere near not only the animals but also the conquistadors’ steel weapons, on pain of death. Actually owning a few of these prized items filled the victors with pride.

  ‘What do you say to all this?’ asked Manco.

  ‘It isn’t worth half as much as your brother Atahualpa’s ransom,’ said Gabriel in a neutral voice. ‘But you can be happy at having taken them.’

  The Stranger’s caution amused Manco, who smiled, turned away, and motioned to the victorious general to stand.

  ‘Tell us of your victory, Apu Quispe. And be sure to speak up, so that no one among us remains ignorant of the Inca warriors’ worthy deeds.’

  ‘Your army, commanded by your loyal general Quizo Yupanqui, fell upon a column of Strangers made up of seventy cavalrymen and as many foot soldiers. They were heading toward Cuzco, to reinforce their countrymen there. We tracked them for days without them ever realizing it. Then we waited for them in the narrow pass of the Pampas River. They had just crossed the Huaitara Puna. We destroyed them with a hail of sling stones. We killed most of them. We took those who survived prisoners. They are following behind us, under guard. Here are their horses.’

  The soldier was unused to expressing himself. He spoke in short, clipped sentences, and his harsh voice hardly carried any distance, while all the while he spoke he looked directly down at his sandals.

  ‘Do you hear, Villa Oma?’ said Manco, visibly delighted.

  The Sage said nothing.

  ‘There is more news,’ added the general.

  ‘Speak.’

  The man hesitated, intimidated.

  ‘Your general Quizo Yupanqui has learned that another Spanish regiment is on its way. He is preparing to destroy it also, with Inti’s blessing. But messengers have reached us from the south…’

  Manco’s face lit up. His brother Paullu was in the south with his army, under the pretext of supporting the one-eyed Diego de Almagro’s expedition there. He had orders to annihilate his ‘new friends’ as soon as he received word of the attack on Cuzco, and then to return to the Inca capital and join in the general uprising.

  ‘Is my brother on his way?’

  ‘Yes, my Lord. But—’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘—But de Almagro and his army are with him, and he is helping the Spaniards, as he has been ever since his departure. Furthermore, he has had several chances to turn on the Spaniards during battle. But not only did he not give the order, but actually allied himself with them.’

  ‘My brother, allied with the Strangers? Why, if it weren’t for the fact that you have brought me the news of Quizo’s victory, I would cut out your tongue and slice off your lips for uttering such an impiety!’

  ‘In that case, you would hav
e to cut off the lips and tongues of a great many of your Lords, Manco!’

  Villa Oma’s dry, sibilant voice surprised everyone.

  ‘We all know that your alliance with Paullu exists only in your own mind!’

  ‘My brother would never betray me!’

  ‘You’re right, Manco, after a fashion: he has no need to betray you now because he already did so a long time ago. Only your naivety and weakness prevent you from seeing it.’

  Manco trembled with rage.

  ‘You will be silent, false sage. It is only because of our father Huayna Capac and because of the help that you once gave me that I don’t tear you apart right now with my own hands for speaking so irreverently.’

  Villa Oma fell silent. But he did not avert his gaze. Gabriel’s heart beat furiously. It was the first time that he had witnessed such explosive tension between the Incas themselves. It boded poorly for the future. The war had taken him in its grasp again far more quickly than he had thought it would, and he sensed that, this time, it wouldn’t let go.

  Manco, boiling with rage, walked up to the first of the stretchers piled high with weapons. He picked up a sword, and waved it about, quite comfortable handling it.

  ‘I have learned, Villa Oma. I have learned from the story of the Great Massacre. I have learned that we were like innocents in the face of the Strangers, and that we let ourselves be massacred. I promised myself that it would never happen again. I learned of the terrible war between our brothers Huascar and Atahualpa, and again I swore that it would never happen again. Before he left with the one-eyed man, my brother Paullu and I took the blood oath – we reconfirmed how it has always been between us. Now, for the first time, we are taking the Strangers’ weapons from them, we are defeating them in battle, we are laying siege to them, we can see their fear, their very real fear, in their eyes. And you call me weak; you tell lies about my brother!’