by Scott O'Dell
After a long silence, she said, “You are not an Inca nor a Maya nor an Aztecatl. Not with this blue gaze and this corn-colored hair. You must belong to those who destroyed our beautiful city of Cuzco. You are one of those who call them selves Spaniards, yes? But you do not look like the ones who came here among the peaks and knocked at our gates. I only saw these men when they were dead, lying on the ground, dead. But they were very small, all seven of them. Small and dark, not like you. You are different. You are not a real Spaniard.”
I smiled and thanked her, but I was not deceived. Beneath the honeyed words I heard a bitter strain of hatred.
She picked up the hairless dog and kissed it. “Your thoughts are troubled,” she said. “You brood about the princess.”
The priestess turned her head and gave me a sidelong glance.
“My heart goes out to you,” she said. “I have been in love myself long ago. I am familiar with the pangs you suffer, the sleepless nights and clouded days—all this I know.”
She fell silent for a while, then called the old noble and instructed him to send word to the temple and let the girl know that I was here on the mountaintop, waiting to talk to her.
The instructions were clear, the old noble carefully repeated them—he seemed somewhat deaf—but when I went back to my quarters a short time later and looked down at the road that led to the temple, I saw that the snow that covered it lay level and unmarked.
No one went to the temple the next day—I watched the road for hours—nor the day following. Then it snowed again, and when I asked the priestess to let me take my horse and ride to the temple, she refused me.
“Men are forbidden in the temple,” she said. “Those who dare to go there never come back. The snow will melt soon, and on that day I will send a swift messenger.”
Days went by, a week, a month. Then a warm wind came up the slopes from somewhere and in hours melted the snow that covered the road. At once a messenger ran to the temple and returned to say that the temple was closed and solemn rites were being held, which would last for another quarter of the moon.
At the end of this time the messenger sped down again, was gone for two days, and then came back, bringing an answer from Chima Atahualpa. It was not a spoken answer. The mes senger handed me a small package sealed with wax.
I was eating dinner. Leaving the table, I went to the window, where the light was better, and opened the package with trembling hands. A sheaf of dried leaves taken from a dama de la noche vine was wrapped around a string of beads and a cruci fix. It was the rosary I had given Chima in Cajamarca months before.
From the moment I first learned that she had sealed herself off in the Temple of the Sun, I had thought the act was caused by the tragedies that had befallen her. She would return to the world. But now, stronger than any words, the rosary was a message of renunciation.
I barred the door and stood at the window looking down upon the temple. I stood there until night fell across the peaks of Machu Picchu and hid the temple from my sight. The priestess, alarmed when I did not appear that evening or the next day, sent the old noble in his creaking Spanish boots to see if I were still alive. I sent him off with a curse upon him and his family.
When I did appear, some three days later, the priestess was shocked at my appearance.
“You alarm me,” she said. “You are like a dead man who turns his back upon the grave and tries to walk away. Come and sit here and let me comfort you with my thoughts.”
I wanted none of her comforting thoughts. Nothing except to leave Machu Picchu. I told her so with what politeness I could summon. She called the old noble and he came tripping in with his catbird walk—five quick hops and then a pause.
“You remember,” he said when I asked him for my horse, “that we sent the animal to the lowlands because we had no food for it here in the snow.”
I didn’t remember. My memory, always good, had begun to fail me. “Bring the horse,” I said. “To save time, have someone ride her back.”
Men were sent down the mountain. They returned without the horse. The osier bridge had been ripped from its moorings by a storm, and the river could not be crossed.
I considered crossing the river on foot, but was warned that it would mean my death. At this moment I began to feel that I would never see the horse again. Nor would I be allowed to leave the mountain. I was a prisoner. Machu Picchu was a jail. The priestess, I realized, was my jailer.
She was very understanding after that, and while I was waiting for the bridge to be built again, every night I was invited to have dinner with her. She wanted to know about the land I came from and what gods I worshipped there. She wondered if all the men were as tall as I was and were blond. She loved my hair when the candlelight shone on it, and once made up a little poem about it and sang it in her throaty voice.
She talked a lot, but not about her own life. About herself she was quiet, but I gained the impression that she was a woman of high birth. She even hinted very delicately that she had once been in love with Atahualpa Capac himself and he with her. But it was a different man—his cousin?—whom she had really loved and loved now.
The night she hinted at all this we fell to talking about love, about Chima—she spoke of her as a spoiled child who didn’t know her own mind—and, still talking about love, she took my hand in hers, gently as if it were some precious ornament.
Never before, since the day I arrived at the palace, had I heard a note of music, but now suddenly it seemed to come from everywhere. A musician in a room far off would play a piece and no sooner finish than another would take up the same strain on a different instrument from a different room—a strange, unfamiliar music of tinkling stops and starts played in a minor key.
Her mouth was now close to mine, so near that our breaths mingled. She laid my hand on her bodice, and then on one soft breast.
I was embarrassed, terribly so, yet she was not discouraged. Nor was she repelled by my awkwardness. In fact, dropping her gown to the floor, she reveled in my youthful dismay as I saw for the first time a woman’s body in all its majesty.
The night was brief, and when gray dawn stood at the win dows and the snowy peaks of Machu Picchu showed pink against the sky, the morning stole upon me as a surprise.
They became an addiction, an overpowering drug, these nights. I lived for them. They were never out of my waking thoughts. At times, frightened by the power she held over me, I prayed to God for deliverance. Truthfully, I tried to pray and failed. The words never left my mouth.
Spring brought an end to this madness. It came suddenly on a bright noon when the old nobleman appeared while the priestess and I were eating breakfast. He turned his back to me, whispered a name in her ear, and left. In a few minutes he returned with a handsome Indian dressed in the regalia of an Inca noble. I was aware at once, as a secret look passed between them, that this was the man the priestess loved.
They brought my horse up from the lowlands late that day. I bade farewell to the priestess with a show of courtesy that I did not feel, no longer bewitched by her storm of black hair and her cinnamoncolored skin.
I rode away at a walk, unnoticed. Instead of taking the road that led out of Machu Picchu, on an overpowering im pulse I rode down the slope to the Temple of the Sun.
The massive, gold-studded door was open and women were standing about, their arms full of flowers. They scattered at my approach and I rode through the doorway into a vaulted room, toward the sound of young voices singing in unison, past a gigantic gold replica of the sun, lit by votive candles.
The virgins, clad all in white, quit singing and scurried back into the shadows. All save one, who stood facing me as I reined the horse toward her. She wore a dress of springtime colors, her hair caught up in a band of golden beads.
“I have come to take you away, Chima.”
Frightened murmurs from the girls who had hidden drowned out my words. I spoke again. Chima did not answer.
“You returned the rosary given t
o you in Cajamarca,” I said. “And for a long time I thought you had returned it be cause you blamed me for your father’s death.”
“You were to blame. And you are to blame now.”
“I did all that I could to save him, before the trial and while it was taking place. After the trial I went to see your father and planned a way for him to escape.”
“A dozen guards were watching. How could he ever escape?”
“There was a chance.”
“A chance for you to win favors from him?” Chima said.
“A man sentenced to death doesn’t have favors to give,” I said. “But we talk words. Words mean nothing.”
“The words of a Spaniard mean nothing,” she said.
There were cries now in the street. Voices came from the doorway. I slid down from the horse and went toward her. She retreated from my outstretched hand. In desperation I grasped her arm. She pulled away.
Light from the votive candles fell upon her face, and I saw then the same look of horror and distrust that I had seen when she walked down the aisle to her father’s bier.
She was moving away from me. The mammoth gold image of the sun, blindingly bright, now stood between us. From far off came the sound of girls softly chanting.
Chima had gone into the shadow of the sun’s image. She had disappeared. I called her name. There was no answer, only the sound of running steps.
CHAPTER 31
DAZED, I RODE OUT OF THE TEMPLE, SCATTERING A CROWD OF WOMEN who pelted me with stones and curses. Screams followed me up the winding street. By the time I reached the summit and the great wall loomed before me, all sounds had died away in icy silence.
Guards were lounging at the gate as I suddenly appeared before them, not fifty paces away. Taken by surprise, they did not move. Then two of the men recovered themselves and ran to close me off.
I slashed them aside and spurred my horse through the narrow opening. A cluster of stone huts barred the way, and as I chose a path around them, one of the guards overtook me and grasped the horse’s tail. I dragged him for a distance, bumping over the rocks, until he finally fell behind.
I rode all that night, still in a daze. I reached Cuzco at sundown and fell asleep in a gutted temple, slept till noon of the following day, and, avoiding Pizarro’s garrison, rode out of the city.
I stayed with Manco the farmer, recovering my strength. I learned that Pizarro had struck out for the coast, and that he and Alvarado had become enemies, that ambitious Captain Almagro had sworn to kill Pizarro. The soldiers, as usual, were interested not in killing each other but in gold, which they sat through the nights gambling away. Recovered from the first shock of the Spanish onslaught, the Indians were gather ing in mountain villages, arming themselves against the hour when they could slay their tormentors.
I caught up with Captain Alvarado and served him indiffer ently until the day we reached the sea, where I left him. When I had thoughts, which was seldom, they were confused. One scene faded into another as in a nightmare—the Santa Margarita lying wrecked on a hidden reef; Julián Escobar, semi narian, before the god house, blood running around my feet, speaking as a god to the multitude, at Moctezuma’s side while he read his fate in a bird that talked; Pedroza’s eyes when he ignored the obsidian knife poised above him; Atahualpa, last of the Incas, at the hour of his betrayal and death—all, even the memory of my beloved Chima, everything pointless, con fused, and time distorted as in a frightful dream.
In San Miguel I boarded a ship for the port of Panama, using up the last of the gold I had saved. In time I sold my horse and her gold horseshoes to a young man on his way to Peru, and with the money bought passage to Spain.
After an accident to the ship’s rudder in a violent storm that sent us into the Azores for a month of repairs, I arrived safely at the mouth of the Guadalquivir. We made good time against the flooding river and docked in Seville on a feast day.
The city was brimming with joy. Church bells rang the hours and the quarters between. Flags flew from the embarcadero, from the Tower of Gold, and from the ships along the river.
By chance, as I went ashore I noticed that the caravel moored at our stern carried the name Santa Margarita.
I shouted to a sinewy man leaning against the ship’s rail, “Does this belong to Guillermo Cantú, the dwarf ?”
“It does,” the sailor shouted back, “if you refer to Cantú, the Marquis of Santa Cruz and the Seven Cities.”
I was somewhat abashed by the dwarf ’s new, resounding title, for I hadn’t thought of him in years and I had no urge to see him now. Out of curiosity I asked the sailor if the marquis was on board.
He pointed across the river. “The church over there? Near it, a tower?”
I looked and saw a tower almost as tall as the Giralda.
“That’s where the marquis lives when he’s here in Seville. Mostly he lives in Madrid.”
“Where’s the Marquis of Santa Cruz now?”
“Here. At the feria.”
“Feria?”
“The fiesta. You never heard of it? You must have been gone a long time.”
“I have.”
“A grand fiesta,” the sailor said. “Dancing. Processions, Firecrackers. The ricos have booths and they entertain friends. Every year they have the feria, now that the treasure fleets come regularly. It goes on night and day. You’re just in time for the festivities.”
At my lack of enthusiasm, the sailor grew suspicious, mum bled something, and walked away—he might, by chance, be talking to a heretic.
Before I had climbed up from the river four boys, mistaking me for a conquistador, fastened themselves upon me—one at the rear, one on each side, and one in front, walking back ward. They wanted gold. I turned my pockets inside out, hoping to drive them off.
“What’s in the sack?” the pimply youth in the rear wanted to know.
“Nothing you’ll like,” I said, opening the sack.
They all glanced in. One of them said, “Nothing. He hasn’t been anywhere.”
“He’s been down the river fishing,” another said. “And caught nothing. No wonder he’s got a long horse face.”
I lost them in the crowd of revelers.
Both sides of the street that led to the cathedral were lined by cloth pavilions decked with flowers and ribbons and gaudy signs of welcome, belonging apparently to the ricos the sailor had mentioned. I recognized none of them or members of their families, but I had not gone far when my name was called out from one of the pavilions.
Guillermo Cantú made his way through a swarm of pretty girls. At first I thought that by some miracle he had grown—he now reached to my shoulder. I saw then that he was wearing gold, stilt-like extensions on his legs and high gold boots. His face had not changed. He still had the twisted little smile and the darting gleam in his eyes. It was, indeed, my old friend the dwarf.
He clasped me in a boisterous abrazo. A servant put a glass of manzanilla in my hand. The pretty girls, who were half his age and mine, when told by Cantú that I had once been emperor of the Maya, giggled and pressed themselves upon me, clamoring to hear about my kingdom.
“Don Julián Escobar, you come at a lucky time,” he said. “One of my fleets is due in any day. I’ll make you my com modore. You’ll never need to leave Seville. You’ll inspect the ships—there are ten in a flotilla, and I have two flotillas. You’ll see that the ships are in condition and properly provisioned.”
He threw his arms about me again, overjoyed with the won derful prospects. For a moment I thought that he might go into his little dance; then he grew sober and tried to explain why, at the hour of danger, when I was in dire need of the Santa Margarita, he had turned tail and sailed off for Spain.
I didn’t bother to listen. Uneasily, he got around to the subject of gold—the amount he had carried off and the right ful share that belonged to me.
“The governor of Hispaniola took a nibble,” he said. “King Carlos took a bite.” He pointed to a man sitting in one
of the pavilions. “That’s Don Andrés, the chief officer of the House of Contracts. You can’t sail out of the harbor without his consent. Don Andrés took not a bite but a mouthful.”
A tear showed in one of his eyes. He groaned.
“There was little left,” he said with a sigh. “A pittance.”
“More gold than that, Don Guillermo. You can’t make soup out of stones, as the saying goes, nor can you build a fleet of ships out of a pittance.”
He studied me. “Four thousand gold pesos?” he said.
A fortune, but the thought of so much gold did not lift my spirits. Truthfully, the thought was distasteful.
“Five thousand,” he said, taking my silence for disappoint ment.
“Double the amount,” I said, as I saw a line of ragged figures approach us.
“Agreed,” he said gaily, delighted that I hadn’t demanded more. “Come tomorrow and I’ll have it for you.”
The chattering girls were suddenly quiet. The revelers who choked the aisle between the pavilions drew aside to let the figures pass. They carried candles and were dressed in black gowns and black hoods that hid their faces. I recognized them as members of a lay brotherhood whose lives were dedicated to the poor.
“Tomorrow, when you come,” I said on an impulse that I could not explain, “when you bring my share of the gold, give it to these gentlemen.”
The Marquis of Santa Cruz was startled. He had thoughts of backing out of the bargain.
“Little good it will do,” he said.
“It belongs to the Brothers of the Poor,” I said, as I walked away. “See that they receive it, every peso. If you fail, you’ll hear from me, Cantú.”
“If it serves to lighten your conscience, Lord Kukulcán,” the dwarf called after me. “You always had a heavy one.”
I did not answer. I left the street of pavilions. The sound of guitars and laughter faded away. A cluster of women sat beside the cathedral door, some with children, all pale, their hands held out for alms.
