Manco windmilled the sword through the air, then pointed it at the sun.
‘I will defeat them,’ he howled, ‘with our own weapons and with theirs. I will defeat them in the mountains as on the plains, on the rocks as on the sea, yes, I will defeat them, I will annihilate them and offer them as sacrifices to the gods in the hope that our nation will return to the peace and glory of the times before!’
Manco fell silent. The crowd, too, uttered hardly a murmur. Manco let the weapon fall to the ground and walked toward the horses. His men parted in front of him and prostrated themselves.
‘I’m going to ride their horses,’ said Manco with eerie calm.
‘Who’s going to teach you?’ asked Gabriel.
‘You are.’
CHAPTER 12
Ollantaytambo, summer 1536
As he saddled two horses, Gabriel maintained a steady flow of soothing talk, punctuating his precise movements with a few affectionate pats. All gazes were fixed on him, and he moved carefully, wary of making any sudden movements. After girthing the big gray, he sized up Manco before adjusting the stirrups to his height. He had chosen a handsome chestnut for himself, seduced by its tawny coat and intelligent look. You’ll be the third, he thought to himself, and smiled. Then he slipped on their bits and bridles before going up to the Inca.
‘We’re ready to go.’
Manco was surprised. It was beneath the dignity of an Inca to leave himself open to a display of clumsiness in front of his Lords, and especially in front of thousands of his vassals. But Gabriel spared him that risk.
‘We shall first walk along, leading them by the bridle, to the bridge, which we shall have to cross on foot in any case. We shall then mount them in the bend of the road, where no one can see us, before entering the town. Does this suit you?’
Manco, who had grabbed the bridle without hesitation, nodded.
‘Don’t listen to him, Manco!’ cried Villa Oma. ‘Remember who he is: it’s a trap!’
‘I prefer you when you’re silent,’ answered Manco as he moved away. Then: ‘Not one of you is to move from here until you see me entering the town with the Stranger!’
* * *
The road from Choquana ran in a straight line, and was lined on each side by well-built low walls. Gabriel had first traveled along it as a prisoner, bound with ropes, and had admired then, through a thin layer of fog, the town, its terraces and its temples. He reflected on the irony of the thing: here he was now, leading a horse and alone with the Inca, a privilege that was no doubt reserved only for Anamaya and a very small group of the Emperor’s court.
‘Allow me to thank you once again, Lord Manco.’
Manco was trying not to turn around too often to check on his animal’s unexpected movements, although it was actually following him perfectly docilely. Gabriel noticed that Manco was holding the bridle neither too tightly nor too loosely, and that the posture of his body displayed no tension or worry.
‘I have told you already – it is not me that you should thank, but Anamaya. She spoke of you a long time ago now, and I know how sad she would be were you to die…’
‘Then you also know that we have a common enemy.’
Manco’s face darkened.
‘That Stranger they call Gonzalo Pizarro is a monster who has emerged from the Under World, a monster who must be destroyed.’
‘As you probably know, I’ve already tried to kill him. I risked my life doing so. Now I’m afraid that, since Juan was killed, his power will grow unchecked.’
‘I don’t understand all that,’ said Manco, ‘and I don’t wish to. For me, all those brothers are Strangers who want to take everything from us. I know that Atahualpa trusted the kapitu Pizarro – and I know what happened to Atahualpa.’
‘And yet you trust me.’
Manco said nothing. The two men made their way in silence. Gabriel admired the terraces rising up ahead of them. The rope suspension bridge was a hundred paces ahead, supported by its unusual stone column set in the middle of the river.
Gabriel went on: ‘I don’t like those men, Lord Manco. I am not their friend. I fought when I had to fight. But Princess Anamaya must have told you that I have never failed to keep my word, and that what I most desire for your country is peace…’
‘Are you their king? Do you command their armies?’
‘Men like me will be needed, Lord Manco, when this war is over…’
‘There’s only one way to end this war, and that’s for us to win it.’
Now it was Gabriel’s turn to say nothing for a while.
‘I have endeavored to learn something of your history,’ he said eventually, ‘and I have come to believe that your wisdom is more than equal to ours. But we need time, we need to negotiate, we need to exchange gifts…’
‘I was forced to respect you, and I truly believe you to be a brave man. I consented that you keep the name “puma”, bestowed on you by others. But now you speak to me of time and gifts, of wisdom and negotiation, even though your people have brought me nothing but death and destruction, pillaging, humiliation. Why should I listen to you and ignore our ruined temples, our raped women, the betrayals, the pillaging, my enslaved people? Why should I forget what I myself was subjected to?’
‘Are you sure that you wish to cross this bridge alone with me?’
‘You don’t understand. I want you to guide me across the bridge. I want you to teach me how to ride these animals. I want you to show us how to use your weapons, as well as how to make them. I want you to help us.’
‘I’m going to go ahead of you,’ said Gabriel, blindfolding the horses.
‘I’ve crossed other bridges!’
‘In an Inca’s palanquin!’
‘No! Before I travelled in palanquins, I was a fugitive, a vagabond. Believe me, I’ve crossed bridges that you would never dare to set foot on.’
‘Wait until I reach the central support column before crossing. I’ll wait there, and come to your aid if necessary.’
‘It won’t be necessary.’
They passed between the two pillars that marked one end of the bridge. Although impressed by Manco’s determination, Gabriel nevertheless felt profoundly disturbed. Earlier that morning, at sunrise, he had still felt full of serene certainty. At that time, the light in Anamaya’s eyes had answered all his questions. But Manco’s words had perturbed him, and now he felt unsure. Those words bothered Gabriel more than the unnerving undulations of the bridge. They were impossible to ignore. And it was equally impossible to counter them with the awkward, prevaricating answers that he had given the Emperor.
The chestnut horse followed, remarkably composed.
‘Be sure to step evenly, so as not to frighten your horse.’
‘I know what to do,’ Manco said brusquely.
He was visibly annoyed. Gabriel didn’t embarrass him with any more advice. The young Spaniard felt the chestnut’s breath behind him, and noticed that the bridge’s movement didn’t bother him as it once had. The water of the river seething below was now familiar.
Yet when he reached the solid platform atop the central pylon, Gabriel slipped and was forced to grab the thick agave guard-rope to stop himself from falling. At the other end of the bridge stood Anamaya – alone, waiting.
* * *
Sometimes, when Anamaya saw Gabriel in his Indian garb, she would forget that he wasn’t one of them. Even though he spoke Quechua with an odd accent, and even though blond hairs covered his face when he had been unable to shave for a few days or longer, she felt that there was nothing of the Stranger in him.
But now, seeing him leading his horse across the bridge, she remembered in a flash their first meeting, near Cajamarca. She recalled the impression that the horses had made then on Atahualpa and his people. She shuddered at the thought before recollecting herself.
As Gabriel drew nearer, she saw the look of surprise on his face. Manco was fifty paces behind, leading the big white horse.
‘Why are you her
e?’
‘I too want to learn how to ride a horse.’
* * *
The road followed a bend that hid them from the prying eyes of Manco’s Lords. And they were still too far from the town’s gates to be seen from there.
Manco seemed unsurprised when he saw Anamaya, and said nothing when Gabriel adjusted the stirrups on his chestnut to her height. Gabriel instructed them in turn, showing them how to mount into the saddle without frightening the horse, how to hold the reins, neither too loosely nor too tightly, and how to make the horse walk.
A harvested quinua field served them as an equitation ring. He led them around one after the other, holding their horses by tethers. ‘Go on!’ he said. ‘Easy!’
Anamaya liked the tone of Gabriel’s voice when he gave orders. She liked, too, the confidence growing within her, as well as the feel of her naked legs around the large, living animal – a creature utterly strange to her, and with a power that she knew to be formidable. She watched as Manco, a dedicated yet impatient student, dug his bare heels into the white horse’s sides, as though to show it that he was already its master.
When they had mastered walking, Gabriel led them into short trots. Anamaya was surprised as she watched Manco’s handling: he seemed to have synchronized naturally with his white horse’s rhythm. Then came her turn, and she found that she too adapted easily to the jerky rhythm, bobbing along like a twig floating down a river.
Gabriel was sweating.
‘I want to go faster,’ said Manco. ‘I want to go as fast as you do when you charge!’
‘A gallop?’
‘A gallop.’
‘You’ll fall,’ said Gabriel. ‘You need more lessons. You need to get used to your horse first, and for it to get used to you…’
‘I want to gallop today!’
Anamaya recognized the stubbornness that she had encountered in Manco on the day of the huarachiku so many years before.
Gabriel didn’t say another word but simply unclipped the tether and glanced at Manco. The Emperor slapped the horse and urged it on with a shout, but the animal hesitated and threw its head around, as though trying to see who was riding it. So Gabriel, clenching his teeth, whipped its flank with his end of the tether. The horse, clearly irritated, immediately took off at a nervous trot down the middle of the field. Manco was jerked around like a puppet and lost his foothold in the stirrups. His hands reached for something to hold onto. He grabbed onto the animal’s mane, but his thighs had lost their grip on its barrel. The white horse hadn’t gone thirty strides before Manco slipped undignifiedly off its flanks and back over its croup, letting out a raucous cry as he fell heavily to the ground.
‘Why did you let him do it?’ asked Anamaya at Gabriel’s side.
‘Didn’t he ask to?’
Manco picked himself up and glared furiously at the horse, which had stopped a few paces on and was now eyeing him suspiciously. The Inca walked back to Gabriel and Anamaya, making a deliberate effort not to massage his bruised limbs.
‘Well?’ said Gabriel. ‘Do you believe me now?’
‘I want to try again!’
Gabriel sighed.
* * *
Gabriel kept Manco practicing until dusk. The Emperor never once wearied of being thrown, always picking himself up without any further murmur or sign of vexation.
A servant came to fetch the chestnut. He stood a little out of the way, his back to the Sapa Inca. Anamaya watched Gabriel and admired the quiet way he spoke and his patience. She sensed the violence and tension in Manco gradually fading and soon the Emperor was feeling quite comfortable on the horse.
When the sun had finally slipped behind the mountains, Manco eventually agreed to stop.
‘You will teach us,’ he said to Gabriel. ‘You will teach my Lords as well as myself. Then you will teach us how to handle a sword, then the gunpowder…’
‘I will do nothing of the sort,’ said Gabriel.
‘Isn’t Gonzalo your enemy?’
‘I laid down my arms when the last tower at Sacsayhuaman was taken, Lord Manco. I swore then that I would never take them up again. Not against your men, nor against my own.’
Anamaya looked at the two men facing one another. Gabriel made an effort to move slowly as he unsaddled the white horse, revealing its sweat-sodden barrel. Manco stood perfectly still, rage in his gaze.
‘What does “being the puma” mean?’ asked Manco, turning to Anamaya. ‘Does it mean eating our corn and our quinua? Does it mean distracting you from your duties to the Sacred Double? What kind of puma refuses to fight? I know that none such as this live in our mountains.’
‘He’s speaking the truth,’ Anamaya said calmly.
‘The truth?’
Manco looked at her, then at Gabriel, then back at her. He felt a violent impulse rise up inside him, swiftly followed by a sense of the ridiculous. He said nothing. The evening songs were now echoing through the valley, from terrace to terrace, as the gloaming gilded the canchas.
‘The war is happening whether you want it to or not, Stranger. The war is happening because it has to, ever since you and your people came here and violated our country…’
‘I don’t disagree, Lord Manco.’
‘Then how can you be on neither one side nor the other?’
Gabriel felt oddly calm, as though a truth was at last revealing itself to him after having stayed hidden for so long.
‘Perhaps “being the puma” means exactly that,’ said Anamaya.
Once again, Manco said nothing; He raised his hand against Gabriel, but without any real threat in the gesture. He didn’t understand his own motive. Gabriel remained stock-still. Manco managed a slight smile.
‘Put that saddle back on the horse, Stranger-who-doesn’t-fight,’ said Manco. ‘Put it back on, Puma-who-doesn’t-hunt, and watch!’
Gabriel obeyed, then helped Manco climb back into the saddle.
The Inca went off toward the town, first at a walk, then at a trot, and finally at a gallop, kicking up a cloud of dust behind him.
When Manco was no more than a black spot against the walls of the town, Gabriel and Anamaya heard a clamor rise up from there, louder than the chants and deeper than the trumpets and drums.
Gabriel walked over slowly to the servant holding the chestnut by the bridle. The man had remained with his back turned throughout. ‘Go,’ Gabriel said to him. He never looked up, gazing only at the ground as though Gabriel was himself the Inca. The servant ran off into the dusk.
Gabriel rose effortlessly into his own saddle, enjoying the familiar feel of its leather and the warmth of the animal beneath him. He leaned down towards Anamaya and held out his arm. She took it, and he lifted her up to him.
They headed back at a walk, as slowly as they possibly could. As the darkness gathered and gave them the protection of its black veil, they found no need for words to feel a mutual, powerful yearning.
It was the yearning of a cavalryman holding the woman he loved in his arms.
It was the yearning of that day at Cajamarca, when Gabriel had rescued Anamaya from being trampled during the massacre, and when their destiny had appeared to him for the first time, like a cool breeze blowing from out of the dust and the blood and the sweat of conflict.
CHAPTER 13
Ollantaytambo, October 1536
In the courtyard of the royal cancha, shadowy figures slipped busily through the night, their straw sandals rustling along the ground. Whether it was to Huayna Capac, to Atahualpa, or to Manco, the gods required that duty should be done to the Inca – the Son of the Sun – in accordance with the established rites and customs. What had been would be again. The past would become the future. The Inca’s clothes, made from the finest vicuña wool, were made to be worn only once. He never touched his food with his own hand. And each hair that fell from his head was carefully stored away. Thus, he was always surrounded by an endless, well-ordered and silent ballet of activity.
There was a fountain in the middle of
the courtyard. It was a simple square stone from the middle of which water spurted. Four grooved channels carried the water in four streams at right angles to each other across the courtyard. The water’s energy thus passed through the center before being carried away to irrigate the Empire of the Four Cardinal Directions.
As time passed, Anamaya began to notice critically those things that she had formerly taken for granted. She questioned everything, even the air she breathed. Ever since she had had the vision, she had been aware of the secret crack at the heart of the Empire: that which was eternal had to be – but not everything was eternal. And perhaps a symbol such as this one, the fountain, which at one time she had thought would last forever, was to exist, in the perception of the gods, only for as long as a hummingbird took to flap its wings.
Anamaya heard two voices from the other side of the doorhanging: one, both tender and admonishing, belonged to Manco, and the other to his favorite son, little Titu Cusi, whose mother had died giving birth. Manco’s wife, the gentle and beautiful Curi Ocllo, now lovingly cared for the child.
Manco hadn’t occupied himself with his son at all while he’d been in Calca. But once they had reached Ollantaytambo, he had had the boy brought to him, and now not an evening passed when the Emperor didn’t spend some time playing with the child.
‘Faster! Come now, use your heels!’ said Manco in his deep voice.
‘Faster, faster!’ cried the little boy in a high-pitched, overexcited voice.
Anamaya passed through the door-hanging without the two impassive warriors standing guard at the entrance to the Emperor’s private quarters making any attempt to obstruct her.
In the torchlit room, she saw Titu Cusi riding on his father’s back, urging him on with great swipes at his backside:
The Light of Machu Picchu Page 16
