Anamaya stood up in the river, the water eddying around her waist.
It was a moment of great beauty. The distant sky glowed softly in the gap between the canyon’s walls, gold merging into red like a perfectly woven cumbi, and yet a very pale blue lingered at its zenith.
For the first time in many days it hadn’t rained and the jungle’s humidity was less stifling. Dusk brought life back to the river banks set between the steep sides of the canyon that were cloaked in dense vegetation.
‘Listen,’ whispered Anamaya again, looking intently upstream.
Curi Ocllo, Manco’s young and very beautiful wife, had been cavorting in the fast-flowing water not far from Anamaya. She regained her footing on the river’s pebbly bed and stood stock-still. Her body was more thickset than Anamaya’s, but perfectly proportioned. She squinted, put her hands over the brown areolae of her breasts, turned towards the valley, and then shook her head with incomprehension.
‘What do you want me to listen to?’
Anamaya waved to her to be quiet. She stared intently at the highest foliage hanging over the river in which they were bathing. She saw branches bend and long, hanging strands of leaves shiver as though from a gust of wind. But she realized that it was only a group of impish monkeys made playful by the coolness of dusk.
And in fact, the jungle was echoing with noises, but only the ordinary, reassuring kind that always preceded dusk in the forests of the tropics. Weaver orioles gave their typical gurgling cry in short bursts, and their song rose above the ceaseless patter of the blue-white waterfall whose mist-cloud penetrated the green depths of the jungle. A flight of small green parrots flew over the river, emitting ruffled squawks, much to the annoyance of a dozen local red and blue macaws. For a moment they gave a furious cackle, calling from their nests hidden in a crevice in the cliff. But then things settled down again, the murmur of the water underlying the other ordinary sounds.
‘I’m listening. But I hear nothing unusual,’ said Curi Ocllo.
She slid back down up to her neck in the cool water as Anamaya, still tense, ran her gaze over the river banks where a group of turtles lay basking on fallen logs.
‘It was only a bunch of parrots, that’s all,’ said Curi Ocllo, smoothing down her thick hair.
‘No,’ said Anamaya. ‘I’m sure I heard something.’
Anamaya let herself slip back into the water and watched Curi Ocllo’s round, finely featured face as she approached. Anamaya felt the young woman’s hands rest tenderly on her shoulders.
‘Well, then, what you heard was audible only to a Coya Camaquen. Something that doesn’t reach the ears of an ordinary woman like myself.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Not “maybe” – absolutely!’ declared Curi Ocllo, vexed. ‘Everyone knows that you and the Master of Stone can accomplish marvels!’
She waved away a cloud of tiny white butterflies. Then she floated gracefully on her back over to the low muddy bank. With her eyes closed, she surrendered her splendid naked body to the current’s caress.
Anamaya smiled. She was about to answer when suddenly her expression changed once again and she looked up, her eyes searching, her ears listening intently.
She felt a kind of breath or murmur come down the river and envelop her. It was nothing tangible, just an inexplicable sensation. It could simply have been a cool gust, the barely audible whisper of the wind sighing through the dense jungle. But she couldn’t stop herself from thinking, from hoping, that it was something else. She sensed a presence. Was it the puma’s breath?
Gabriel!
For a few seconds, Anamaya’s whole being was filled with a sense of him. A shudder passed through her belly, and she held her arms across her breasts, her nipples hard. She strained to hear as clearly as possible. The invisible murmur enveloped her again. She thought she felt Gabriel’s hands and breath on her quivering skin. She was so overcome with emotion that she closed her eyes involuntarily.
She whispered his name without realizing it.
And then the spell lifted as abruptly as it had fallen upon her. Its coolness evaporated into the jungle’s warm air in an instant, like a reflection flashing across a mirror.
Anamaya relaxed and opened her eyes. Everything was as it had been before. The sky had grown more red and the shadow between the foliage-covered cliffs had grown deeper. The monkeys were welcoming the coming night with excited hooting cries, the parrots were shrieking at the macaws to keep them away, and little clouds of butterflies were gracefully rising up in the mist of the waterfall.
‘What did you feel?’ asked Curi Ocllo nervously, now curled up on herself in the water.
Anamaya laughed softly, bringing herself back to reality. Manco’s young wife, her eyes dark and warm, looked at the Coya Camaquen with a mixture of curiosity and fear.
‘You did see something!’ she exclaimed. ‘You were so strange just now, so absent…’
With an embarrassed laugh, Anamaya slid deeper into the water. She felt an unreasonable fear that Curi Ocllo could see on her skin the mark of Gabriel’s mysterious caress that had been sent to her by the Ancestors of the Other World, and she hid her nakedness.
She scooped up water from the river eddying around her and splashed it over her shoulders and the back of her neck.
‘It’s difficult to explain.’
‘You mean that it’s forbidden to talk about it.’
‘No, it’s not forbidden. Just difficult to explain and difficult to understand.’
Curi Ocllo pursed her beautiful, still childlike lips in a sulky pout. She tilted her head back so that her thick hair streamed in the current like some dark seaweed, and her round breasts rose from the river’s surface like two golden water stones.
‘We should go back now,’ said Anamaya.
Curi Ocllo uttered a little laugh, both teasing and jealous, and her belly shuddered.
‘I know what you don’t want to tell me, Coya Camaquen. You thought of the Stranger you love, didn’t you, the one that you call the Puma?’
Anamaya hesitated for a moment, then smiled and admitted:
‘I didn’t think of him. I felt him.’
‘You felt him? Felt him as though you were in his arms?’ exclaimed Curi Ocllo, standing upright now, wide-eyed.
Anamaya only laughed and nodded. She took the young woman’s hand in hers and led her to the river bank where their clothes hung from the low branches of a ficus tree.
‘Does he often come to you like that?’ asked Curi Ocllo.
Anamaya waited until she was out of the water before replying. Her voice was slightly muted, as though the confidence that she was about to impart was more of a confession.
‘He doesn’t really come to me. But his presence surrounds me. He’s searching for me, thinking of me.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I told you that it was difficult to explain. Wherever he is, he remembers me; he wants to be close to me. So he tries to pass through the Other World to reach me.’
‘How is that possible?’
‘It’s possible because he’s the Puma… and no doubt he has priests and priestesses helping him!’
Anamaya laughed at her own words. Curi Ocllo finished dressing and glanced at her, both suspicious and confused.
‘I’m not making fun of you, Curi Ocllo,’ continued Anamaya quietly. ‘There’s much more to the world than what’s visible. The Powerful Ancestors are watching over us. We must trust them.’
‘Yes, yes, I know. You all say that – you, the priests, the Master of Stone. But it seems to me that the Powerful Ancestors don’t watch over everyone equally. Maybe they’ve even turned away from Manco and me… and almost all Incas!’
The young woman’s voice quivered with anger, and she began crying. Suddenly she dashed toward the path that had been cut through the jungle, as though she was about to flee.
‘Curi Ocllo!’
She halted. ‘How long have you been apart from the Stranger, Anamaya?’ ask
ed Curi Ocllo in a hard voice, her back still turned to Anamaya.
‘Twenty-eight moons.’
‘And during those twenty-eight moons, you’ve never known where the one you call the Puma has been?’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘And yet, despite all the time that’s passed, he’s never forgotten you nor you him. In spite of all that time, you still feel close to him and he to you.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Not maybe. Certainly! I’m sure that you see him in your dreams, and that you even lie with him in your sleep! Twenty-eight moons! I’m sure you’re right: the Powerful Ancestors are protecting you both and don’t want you to be apart. You and a… a Stranger!’
Curi Ocllo turned on her heels and stood defiantly, facing Anamaya.
‘And why? Will you tell me why, Coya Camaquen?’ she shouted, and for a few moments the jungle’s din ceased.
‘I don’t understand your question, Curi Ocllo,’ replied Anamaya gently.
Pain and despair racked the young queen’s beautiful face.
‘I’ve only been apart from Manco for four moons,’ she sobbed, ‘and yet I sleep without dreams, and when I swim, I swim alone. Wherever I go, my beloved husband is absent. The Powerful Ancestors wrap me only in cold solitude. They ignore me, Coya Camaquen, and I think that they don’t even support Manco anymore.’
‘Manco is doing what he must do,’ said Anamaya quietly. Her heart sank – she understood only too well the truths that were overwhelming Curi Ocllo. ‘He loves you,’ she continued. ‘He loves you more than he loves any of his other wives.’
‘He loves me, but I cannot reach him. My bed is empty. He loves me but I don’t feel his hands or his lips on my skin. He loves me, but my tomorrow will be as cold and frozen as a winter’s day atop the highest mountain.’
‘He’s fighting a war, Curi Ocllo. Manco’s fighting the Strangers. He’s fighting a terrible war.’
Tears streaming down her cheeks, Curi Ocllo shook her head. ‘No, Anamaya, and you know it better than me: Manco’s not fighting a war – he’s losing one.’
‘Curi Ocllo!’
‘Who can deny it? Emperor Manco, my husband, is alone, and his strength is diminishing. His brother Paullu has joined the Strangers. Sage Villa Oma is waging his own war on the side. You and the Master of Stone, you’re both here in Vilcabamba, hidden in this newly built jungle city, and you’re both always dealing with the Powerful Ancestors, and are far from Manco, far from my beloved. And I’m here too – even I am not at his side!’
‘Curi Ocllo,’ murmured Anamaya, taking the young woman in her arms. But she couldn’t deny what the queen was saying.
‘He’s so alone! The Strangers have captured his son Titu Cusi, the one he loves most! He’s surrounded by traitors! They even took the mummies of the Powerful Ancestors from Cuzco…’
Anamaya was deeply saddened. She couldn’t think of anything to say to soften the impact of these terrible realities. She simply stroked the young woman’s tear-wet cheeks and murmured:
‘Don’t think that I’m abandoning Emperor Manco, Curi Ocllo. I’ve always been close to him; he’s always been like a brother to me. Nothing that we’re doing here in Vilcabamba is against him. Quite the opposite: the Master of Stone has built a city where your beloved Manco will one day be able to live, and to live as a Son of the Sun should.’
Curi Ocllo shivered and broke away from Anamaya’s embrace. Recovering her pride, she wiped away her tears. But then she grimaced with pain once again. Like a lost child, she cried:
‘Oh, Anamaya, I’m so frightened of what tomorrow might bring!’
* * *
The sun had almost set by the time Anamaya and Curi Ocllo reached Vilcabamba’s outer walls. The newest Inca city had been built to the precise plans of Katari, the Master of Stone, and it induced a mysterious sense of serenity.
Its terraces and canchas were meticulously arranged around the great ceremonial square in front of the Temple of the Sun, a long building with ten doors. The walls of the rooms were coated with ocher roughcast that glowed gold in the failing light. Like a jewel, the Temple captured the setting sun’s rays even as the nearby river and agricultural terraces disappeared into night’s shadows.
And night had already descended upon the lower slopes of the mountains to the north and upon the sinuous valleys of the Pampakona to the east, valleys covered in forests of cedars and giant caboas from which rose ribbons of fog.
The two young women heard the faint cries of birds, and slowed their pace through the wet grass. They kept their gazes fixed on the peaks still aglow on the southern cordillera. And then the light abruptly disappeared, leaving the firs and glaciers and the two women in darkness.
They heard frogs croak loudly from nearby, and then fall silent just as suddenly. Curi Ocllo jumped and grabbed Anamaya’s arm. Wordlessly, she pointed toward a thick clump of bushes beside a wall. The broad leaves moved unnaturally, and a young puma emerged. Its coat, still light in color, gleamed in the darkness.
It moved toward them sinuously, moving lightly on its powerful paws.
Anamaya involuntarily held her breath. She heard Curi Ocllo give a little cry of fear.
The puma was so close now that they could make out the white rims of its eyes and the pale edging around its ears.
It stopped two paces from Anamaya and looked into her eyes. It opened its jaws slightly and let out a long, soft growl.
And then it turned and bounded away into the bushes.
Anamaya and Curi Ocllo stood absolutely still for a moment, petrified, listening to the soft padding step of the feline creature as it headed away into the jungle.
When Curi Ocllo, her bosom heaving as she gasped out the breath she had been holding in fear, turned toward Anamaya, she saw the happiness on her friend’s face.
‘You were right,’ the young Inca queen whispered. ‘He was there. He stayed close to you.’
CHAPTER 21
Lake Titicaca, Copacabana, April 1539
‘Lord Gabriel!’
The child standing in the doorway was no more than twelve years old. Yet the severe expression on his face aged him by a few years.
‘Leave me be, child!’ growled Gabriel. ‘Let me sleep or else I’ll slice you into pieces and feed you to the pumas.’
‘Lord Gabriel, you mustn’t sleep anymore,’ replied the child, utterly unimpressed.
Gabriel sighed and opened his eyes.
‘By all the saints! It seems that my slumber does indeed displease you, Chillioc. Why do you wake me, boy, when it is not yet day?’
‘Someone’s coming, Lord Gabriel, someone’s coming to see you.’
‘Indeed?’
Gabriel now focused his attention on the child, who was still standing at the threshold. He could hear the noise of the women out in the courtyard preparing the morning meal.
He sat up in his hammock, careful not to set it swinging, and asked the boy:
‘Who is it? And how do you know?’
‘The chaski said, “A Stranger is coming on a horse. He is old and tired. He is already past Copacabana and is coming from Cusijata!”’
The child shrugged, then added:
‘If a Stranger’s coming all the way here, then it must be to see you.’
Gabriel couldn’t help but smile. He got up, the hammock swinging gently behind him.
‘Fetch me my tunic, Chillioc,’ he ordered. ‘An old and tired Stranger, you say? Does he have white hairs on his face?’
‘I don’t think so. The chaski only said that you couldn’t see his face because it was entirely covered by cloth. And also that he wasn’t far away and that he would reach your cancha before his shadow had shortened even by a hand.’
Gabriel finished dressing and looked at the boy, intrigued. When he came out into the long courtyard, the servants, busy around the hearth set under the sloping roof, greeted him with smiles and invited him to eat. He declined and grabbed the child by his neck, drawing him near.
>
‘Well now, Chillioc, I’m going to have to thank you for waking me. Come and meet the Stranger with me.’
* * *
What Gabriel and Chillioc saw first looked so strange that it took even Gabriel a few moments to realize that it was a horse and rider. The approaching figure looked more like a pile of blankets, both Spanish and Indian, moving of its own accord along the terraces overlooking the lake.
‘Whoever he is, he doesn’t seem to be in the best of health,’ said Gabriel to the child hurrying behind him.
When the strange rider was no more than thirty or forty codos from them, he stopped. The man hidden beneath the pile of mantas looked as though he was about to fall from his saddle.
‘Holà!’ cried Gabriel, approaching him quickly now, ‘Holà, compañero! Who are you?’
But no reply came from the pile of blankets. Gabriel, suddenly cautious, slowed down and urged Chillioc back.
‘Stay here, child. Don’t come any closer. The rogue might have a crossbow hidden under his rags.’
The boy obeyed reluctantly and gave Gabriel a reproachful look. Gabriel looked at the man and horse for a moment. Both were so utterly still now that they might have been dead. But he could make out no sign of a weapon. In fact, not even a glimpse of the rider himself was visible beneath the blankets. Gabriel, worried, wondered whether the exhausted hack had been carrying a corpse all these leagues.
‘Holà! Holà, compañero!’ he shouted again, louder now.
His cries startled the horse so that it shied back a few paces and turned slightly. Only then did Gabriel notice the long monk’s robe hanging over the rider’s boots, their heels worn through, and a hand clenching the reins – an instantly recognizable hand, the ring and middle fingers joined together.
‘By God! Brother Bartholomew! Chillioc! Quick, Chillioc, come and help me!’
Gabriel approached the horse, reassuring it with soothing words. As he stroked its cheek with one hand, he took its bit firmly in the other.
‘Come closer, Chillioc. Don’t be frightened.’
‘I’m not frightened, Lord Gabriel.’
The Light of Machu Picchu Page 22
