‘Manco,’ she murmured again.
She looked at him. The young Inca looked like an old man. His body and face seemed older and more exhausted than Huayna Capac’s had been when she had kept him company in his time of dying. And whereas Huayna Capac had known the secrets, Manco knew nothing anymore, and wanted nothing. He had forced his eyes deep into his skull with blows from his fists and his skin, furrowed with profoundly careworn lines, had turned a lustreless gray.
‘Manco…’
He raised his head slightly and stared at her.
‘I… I can’t…’
Then, with only Anamaya as a witness, he surrendered to the bitter and futile tears of despair.
* * *
That night, the courtyard filled with people again. Manco didn’t move, despite the rain that began to fall. He had let Anamaya dress him in his finest clothes, and now the drizzle caused the feathers in his curiguingue to droop slightly. A silver platter lay in front of him, and a pretty concubine stood by, ready to fulfill a command that wouldn’t come.
‘Speak,’ he said.
The dwarf overcame the fear in his gut, remembering that ever since the great Huayna Capac had found him under a pile of blankets, he couldn’t die.
‘Two women came to me in Yucay and told me what you must hear, my Lord.’
‘Why did you wait so long?’
‘I was frightened, my Lord. I was frightened of this secret that is too heavy for me.’
Driven by his sense of his own powerlessness and weakness, the dwarf knew that he had no choice but to speak the plain truth. All those present feared an outburst of rage from Manco, but he only sighed through his thin lips.
‘Speak now,’ he said, pointing at the basket. ‘Your secret is not yours to keep.’
‘Governor Pizarro had received your messages of peace. As a reply, he had sent you a mare, a black slave, and other precious gifts. Fate had it that one of your commanders came across the convoy and, thinking that it would please you, he sacrificed the mare, the black slave, and a few others. Those who escaped returned and complained to their kapitu, who became enraged.’
Anamaya felt raindrops trickle down her neck under her añaco. But she could no more move than could the others.
‘He gave Curi Ocllo to be raped by his brother Gonzalo, then by his secretary, and then by some Spanish soldiers, and perhaps even by some Indians allied to the Strangers. When they saw that her thighs were covered in blood and sperm, they were satisfied. He then ordered that she should be executed.’
Gabriel was chilled to the bone, horrified by the dwarf’s words. He remembered the Governor’s voice and the affectionate way he had squeezed his foster-son on the shoulder. Now he felt sick at the thought of every moment that he had shared with his old tutor.
Manco wasn’t looking at the dwarf. He wasn’t looking at anyone. His eyes gazed blankly into the falling night, to the snow-covered peaks, to the Apus who had forsaken him.
‘Curi Ocllo distributed her jewels and all her other possessions to the Inca women in her entourage. She didn’t say one word in anger or resentment. She only asked that her body be placed in a basket and released on the river, so that it would find its way to you.’
The dwarf’s sepulchral voice was the only sound in the courtyard.
‘One of my women gave her a band of fabric, and Curi Ocllo thanked her and embraced her. Then Curi Ocllo blindfolded herself. As they tied her to a post, she said: “If I have spoken even one false word, let my still-beating heart be fed to the puma. You would harm a woman to assuage your rage? What could you do to a woman such as me? Hurry, so that your appetites may be satisfied.” They say that many were crying, even Spaniards. Then some Canary Indians shot their arrows into her and pierced her with their spears, and she didn’t let out even one cry of pain during her agony. Afterwards, they lit a giant pyre to burn her, but it was against Inti’s will, and her body remained intact despite the flames. That night, my women collected her and put her in this basket, as she had requested.’
Katari slipped through the crowd until he reached Gabriel. He gripped his arm discreetly and whispered: ‘We must go immediately!’ Anamaya turned around and looked at them quizzically.
‘And then?’ asked Manco.
‘Sage Villa Oma was there. He had been captured at Condesuyu, and they had brought him to Yucay also. He cursed them, although he was shackled in chains, and he called them worthless dogs for what they had done to your wife. So they burned him alive…’
Unlike the dwarf’s description of Curi Ocllo’s end, which had been met with stunned silence, the description of the Sage’s death was greeted with groans and curses. Manco raised a hand, restoring silence.
‘Even as the flames licked his feet, the Sage called for support from Huayna Capac and all the Sapa Incas, Chalkuchimac and Atahualpa…’
‘Did he call for me?’
The dwarf hesitated for the first time, and his voice lowered still further.
‘No one heard your name, my Lord, but no doubt he died too quickly to call on all those he needed. After the Sage, they burned your general, Tisoc…’
Katari led Gabriel away, and Anamaya saw them disappear through the crowd. No one noticed them leave in the confusion provoked by the dwarf’s litany of executed Inca commanders.
‘They burned Taipi and Tanqui Huallpa, Orco Huaranca and Atoc Suqui…’
Manco didn’t flinch once, nor did he once look away from the darkening sky. While every other person in the courtyard shuddered with shock as the name of each executed warrior was enunciated, the Emperor seemed to retreat more and more into himself. But Anamaya noticed his clenched hands. Although she didn’t know where Katari had taken Gabriel, she was glad that her beloved Stranger had left.
‘…Ozcoc, Curi Atao,’ continued the dwarf, compounding the horror shared by all. It was as if each star in the sky had gone out, leaving the world in a deep and final darkness.
‘Villa Oma was right,’ said Manco at last. ‘We should have destroyed them before they destroyed us. Chalkuchimac was also right. They often showed weakness, yet we never exploited it. We deluded ourselves with false signs, we believed in comets and pumas…’
Manco wasn’t looking at Anamaya, but his hatred and despair were almost palpable.
‘Leave me,’ said Manco, lowering his gaze onto his subjects. ‘I am alone.’
In a bedlam of clashing spears and pikes, shields banging together, sandals shuffling along the ground, and rising and falling voices, they left.
Only Anamaya remained.
‘You too,’ said Manco.
‘I’ve never left you. You know that I’ve never left you.’
‘Once, I believed that you were going to help me make the Empire of the Four Cardinal Directions grow as no previous Inca had ever done. I believed, as did my father, and as the Sage had convinced himself was true, that you were an omen from the Lake of Origin, sent to make us aspire to greatness. But you had none of that in you, and the prophecies that you bore in silence brought me only humiliation and destruction. Leave – now!’
‘You refused to heed wise words and follow the path, Manco. You listened only to your anger, just as you did that very first day, when you unleashed it pointlessly against Guaypar…’
‘And now Guaypar is dead, Villa Oma is dead, Tisoc is dead, my beloved Curi Ocllo is dead – they’re all dead, and I shall die soon too. Is that your prophecy? Are you a woman sent from the Under World to make me suffer?’
‘Your son Titu Cusi lives yet, and you carry the hope of so many others …’
‘So many others?’
Manco brought his hand up to his forehead and tore the royal band from it.
‘My power is like this feather,’ he spat, waving it contemptuously, ‘brought to me on a gust of wind, and taken away on another.’
He laughed a short, bitter laugh.
‘See what remains of my power!’
He jumped up and approached the cage. The young puma
was asleep. He considered it in silence. Then he murmured:
‘You must grow up first before you can help us, right? You weren’t found by chance, were you? Who knows, perhaps you’re an omen.’
Manco opened the wooden door and grabbed the sleeping animal. In one savage thrust, he plunged his tumi into the puma’s heart, then snapped its spine and broke its neck with a fury that had risen uncontrollably from the bottom of his soul. He broke each of the animal’s legs, tore out its eyes, wrenched its jaws apart, and turned around, his arms covered in entrails and blood.
‘Do you still want to stay at my side, lover of pumas?’
Anamaya was struck dumb with horror. But she forced herself to say:
‘I cannot abandon you. Yes, I want to stay with you.’
‘No!’
Manco raised his bloodied hand at her. There was little menace in his gesture, but it nonetheless indicated their ultimate separation. Yet Anamaya overcame her repulsion, went up to him, and took that hand between her own.
‘I will leave if you wish it. But remember that until now I never once left you. Remember that ever since that first day, when your father Huayna Capac confided in me, I have done nothing but obey.’
Manco said nothing. He withdrew his hand from Anamaya’s grip. She didn’t know if he had understood her words, lost as he was in his lonely, violent trance. His voice was like that of one speaking from the Under World when he repeated:
‘No.’
As Anamaya walked away from the patio, leaving behind the gathering pool of puma blood mixing with the rain on the ground like a puddle of red mud, she thought about how Manco the rebel’s entire life had reached its culmination in that one word. A word that he had spoken calmly and from the depths of his soul: No.
* * *
Katari and Gabriel had dashed through the empty cancha, dodged the soldiers patrolling the fortress’s bailey, and reached a path leading into the jungle without exchanging a single word. When he felt that it was safe, under the shelter of night and the trees, Gabriel asked:
‘What is it?’
The Master of Stone shook his long black hair.
‘Your friend Bartholomew arrived three days ago. He was wise enough not to go to the fortress and to send me two messengers instead. We’ve hidden him in a huaca an hour’s walk from here.’
‘Bartholomew…’
‘He’s a wise and knowledgeable man,’ continued Katari. ‘We spoke about the origins of the earth, of its creation, and also about its strangest creature, Man.’
‘Don’t tell me that he traveled through the jungle just to have a metaphysical conversation with you!’
‘We talked about what was before, and what will be.’
Gabriel had lost his sarcastic tone when he said:
‘I know my friend the monk. No matter how deep his friendship for you is, he wouldn’t have journeyed through the jungle without good reason.’
‘He’ll tell you his reason.’
The rain softened the usual sounds that the jungle made at dusk.
‘And Anamaya?’
‘I had to get you away before Manco’s rage turned against you. She will join us soon, along with the dwarf.’
The two men made slow progress. Although it had stopped raining, the jungle was sodden and water dripped on them endlessly, as though the trees and sky themselves were sweating.
They came out into a glade in the center of which a wall built of a few blocks of hastily hewn stone stood around a simple bamboo cabin.
Bartholomew’s familiar figure stood in the doorway. The gray-eyed monk gave Gabriel a long embrace. He seemed to be trembling feverishly.
‘You’re unwell, Brother Bartholomew.’
‘Don’t worry about me. I feel much better now that you’re here. Where is she?’
Bartholomew turned to Katari, who pointed to the jungle.
‘She will come with the dwarf as soon as she can.’
‘Good,’ said Bartholomew. ‘I need her.’
A break in the clouds allowed the last of the dusk’s light through, and the three men spent a moment looking at the brilliantly colored butterflies darting around the glade. Monkeys created a hullabaloo in the jungle, and the men could hear two vividly feathered macaws perched in the nearby trees calling to one another. The monk looked fondly at Gabriel and said:
‘You’ve made great progress since I saw you last. There is no trace of anger in your expression and you no longer seem like a man haunted by the devil.’
‘Was it that bad?’
Bartholomew touched Gabriel’s forehead with his joined fingers.
‘Love has taken a hold of you, my brother. I mean the kind of love that nourishes and kindles one’s heart, a love that gives, that shares.’
‘That’s the love that I know.’
The three of them sat down on tree trunks set out in front of the cabin and conversed quietly in the splendor of the falling night. Gabriel wasn’t impatient, but every now and then he glanced at the jungle’s edge, watching for any movement in the foliage that might indicate Anamaya’s arrival.
There was a sense of peace between them, a feeling shared by three men who had each seen much in their lives but who had managed to avoid the emotional and spiritual ravages that the war had inflicted on the hearts of others.
Anamaya and the dwarf appeared only as night finally fell, when Katari was already lighting a fire.
Bartholomew looked at her with admiration and respect.
‘Here you are together,’ he said, his gray eyes burning feverishly. ‘Seeing you side by side, I see what is noble about each of your peoples, and why your union, brought about by mysterious forces, is more important now than all the destruction it has weathered.’
Anamaya had sat down beside Gabriel. The two young people were holding hands and listening to Bartholomew in silence, both sensing the solemnity of his words, and both wondering what he was leading up to.
‘You remember, Gabriel, how I wanted you to carry dispatches describing what is really happening here back to Spain. Well, I learned something a short while ago that I can only interpret as a divine sign.’
A smile creased the monk’s weary face, as though he was mocking the depth of his own faith.
‘Emperor Charles the Fifth is sending a permanent judge to this country. His name is Vaca de Castro and, as far as I know, he’s a just and moral man. Perhaps he’s even at sea at this very moment, on his way to Lima. It is an unhoped-for opportunity for us, one that may well never happen again. We wanted to go to Spain, and now Spain is coming to us!’
‘How do you know this?’
‘I know it, Gabriel. Oh, I can hear the doubt and caution in your voice, and believe me, I share them with you. But there are some signs that cannot mislead: for his crimes, the vile Hernando has been imprisoned in Spain.’
‘Yes, but surely not for his crimes against the Indians. Most likely they jailed him for having murdered de Almagro.’
‘It doesn’t matter. The time of impunity is over. Everywhere, in the Church as much as at Court, voices are denouncing the conquest’s excesses, and clamoring for justice for the crimes done to this country’s peoples!’
Gabriel sighed.
‘One needs a faith like yours to hope that it will come to anything, Bartholomew. For my part—’
‘Forget about my faith in God, and forget about my faith in the nobility of the Spanish soul,’ interrupted Bartholomew. ‘Don’t you share my faith in Man? Don’t you think that this de Castro must hear, as soon as he arrives, something other than the rants of two sides determined to destroy one another and to pillage as much as possible so long as there remains a single ounce of gold or silver in this land?’
Gabriel raised his hands in a gesture of uncertainty.
‘I don’t know…’
‘Heed him!’
Katari had spoken so loudly that he startled Gabriel.
‘What do you mean, Master of Stone?’
‘I mean that his
words are true and just. I mean that we cannot spend our entire lives in the jungle, hunted like animals, fearful of the slightest rustling in the bushes, weakened by humidity and diseases, and always at the mercy of hostile troops. That is the life that Manco has chosen, but it cannot be ours.’
‘And Anamaya?’ asked Gabriel, turning toward the Coya Camaquen.
‘She must go with you to meet Vaca de Castro,’ said Bartholomew, looking for Katari’s nod of agreement. ‘She must go with you and bear witness that the Indians are not ignorant beasts but human beings whose history, religion, traditions and way of life deserve our respect and protection.’
‘And what if she falls into their hands?’ said Gabriel, his voice cracking. ‘What if this permanent judge is not a sage or a saint, but another Gonzalo? What if they take her and do to her what they did to Curi Ocllo?’
‘It’s a necessary risk,’ said Anamaya calmly. ‘You too might be arrested and imprisoned. Bartholomew and Katari are right. We must try.’
‘And the Sacred Double?’
It was Katari’s turn to speak:
‘If the Coya Camaquen agrees, I shall take care of the Sacred Double and prepare him for his voyage.’
Gabriel looked at each of them in turn.
‘Apart from Sebastian, you are the three people in this entire country whom I trust more than myself. Why, then, am I plagued by doubts?’
‘So are we, Gabriel,’ said Bartholomew. ‘I’m not talking about the certainty of success, but about the chance, however slim, of founding a nation.’
‘Over a hundred moons have come and gone since your arrival,’ said Katari quietly, ‘and you’d have to be blind not to see that the Strangers are here to stay. You can seize this opportunity to ensure that generations to come will have a peaceful future and not a hateful one born of destruction and looting.’
‘What if we fail?’
No one offered a reply. But they could all hear Gabriel’s agreement to the plan in the gentleness of his voice.
‘I’ll go,’ he said.
He took Anamaya’s hand and held it between his own.
The Light of Machu Picchu Page 31
