—
One evening, when darkness and fog have fallen over the marshy meadow, a lowly foot soldier slips in among the tents. He is challenged by the watch and answers that he seeks the Commander in hope of signing on. Try the city jail, says the sentry, who is the worse for drink. And while you’re there, ask that old swindler when we’ll see our pay!
The visitor carries on, hidden in mist, stealthily observing the Indian camels—so strange—and the Peruvian capes and woollen hats worn over shabby jerkins and rusted armour by men around a campfire. Keeping to fog and shadows, he inspects a stack of earthenware storage jars, some big enough to hold a quartered ox. Behind this is a strongroom. He peers through chinks in its rough door. Two men within are playing cards by candlelight; they do not feel his gaze as it roams over guns, hatchets, pikes of polished bronze, stacks of cloth in many hues and patterns. And more pottery—smaller pieces, modelled and painted, realistic—animals, vegetables, even miniature buildings, and vessels with the faces of Indian lords so lifelike and expressive they might be portraits. Behind these are figurines showing sexual acts and giant members.
Extraordinary.
The spy slips away, on fire with what he’s seen. He is Hernán Cortés.
On the following day, no longer disguised and saying nothing of the night before, the Conqueror returns and asks for Pedro de Candía. This fellow—a big Greek, voluble, with a winning smile—shows him around, then takes him into the city to see Pizarro’s gold and silver in a crypt.
Only a small hoard, a mere sampling. But what weight and workmanship. Enough for Cortés to know his jailed cousin is not beguiling him.
These Panama vagabonds have found another Mexico!
—
What course to take, Cortés ponders. His standing in Spain is ticklish. Though many deem him a hero, by law he is a rebel, having sailed to Mexico from Cuba against orders. Years ago now. The King may be ready to forgive. But he knows there are key men at court who still suspect him of treason, of seizing the jaguar throne of Mexico less for the Crown than for himself. An old story: after the war the weapon must be locked away.
This is why he has brought Moctezuma’s children and other Mexican lords to Spain: so that he and they swear fealty to King Charles in person, and are seen doing so by all at court. The procession in Seville went well, but it was merely a dress rehearsal. Will this play end in triumph or disaster?
Murders, also, have been laid at the Conqueror’s feet. Of his wife, Catalina, found dead after a row over his Mexican mistress. Of a tiresome judge who died eating bacon at his table. Worst of all, the high crime of regicide: the murder of Moctezuma while in his personal custody.
Cortés has his explanations. Catalina dropped from apoplexy brought on by her wild temper. The judge’s bacon was ill-cured. Moctezuma was stoned by a Mexican mob enraged at his appeasement of the Spaniards. Yet suspicions linger. No one else died from that bacon. And Moctezuma’s body was unmarked—except for a long internal stabbing through the anus, which could only have been done by a Spanish sword.
His thoughts return to his jailed kinsman and the golden land of Peru. He’s younger, wiser, and better bred than that rough bastard from Trujillo. He could sail away and snatch the prize himself. Why not? A man might do anything down there in the South Sea, so far from Spain and God. A man might make himself a king.
But that would be treason. He may elude the charge this time. But he would not be forgiven twice. Sooner or later the Crown would seek him out and break him. For the example alone.
He decides, instead, to help his uncouth kinsman. Let the King worry more about Francisco Pizarro—and less about Hernán Cortés.
7
Qoyllur and Waman are sitting on a stone bench under the fig tree in the front patio of his billet, eating bread, ham, green olives. She visits him most days, bringing food and whatever news she can glean with her few words of Castilian.
“I’m not sure I’ve understood, Waman. You must ask and tell me what you hear. But I think they’re saying the Old One will soon be set free.”
Candía later confirms what Qoyllur has guessed. The Panama debts are lifted; Pizarro should be out any day. Furthermore, he is summoned to court—along with his leading men, his Peruvians and llamas, his hoard of artefacts and treasure. There is money for the journey and new clothes. Money sent by Hernán Cortés, whose own audience with the King and Queen went well. Fruits of the conquest of Mexico will seed the conquest of Peru.
“You heard right,” Waman tells Qoyllur when she comes the next day. “The Old One is getting out. This means we’ll soon be on the road. To see their Inca and Qoya, wherever they may be.”
“And then we’ll be going home!” Qoyllur yells, her happiness chiming from the patio walls. She clutches his hand and squeezes it in a way she hasn’t done before. “Remember what I said, Waman. Don’t try to kill the Old One now.” She slaps his knee and laughs. “First we get home. To our families. To that girl you talk about.”
Waman looks at her. She is handsome rather than pretty. A strong broad face with high cheekbones, a stocky frame. A highlander. A trace of Tika in her features. And her manner.
“Agreed,” he says, in what he hopes is a manly way. “Though I have been thinking about how to go about it—once we get home. A poisoned arrow, perhaps. Or”—he tunnels his hands around his lips, fills his lungs, releases an explosive gust of breath—“a poison dart from a blowpipe. Like the jungle folk use on monkeys.”
“Monkeys!” She laughs again. Waman basks in her attention. He is already a little in love with her. Yet also a little ashamed. He should keep his love for Tika.
Head in hands, he stares at the patio cobbles, stirs moss and breadcrumbs with his feet. He wants nothing more in the world than to go home, yet the journey appalls him. First the long voyage across the Ocean Sea. Two months maybe. Then who knows how long in Panama, that feverish hole where One-Eye lurks like a spider, a deadly apasanka. Then the second voyage down the hotlands to Tumbes, another month at least.
It all seems insuperable. Will he survive it? Will she? Yet there’s no choice. They’re not free. Qoyllur may have chosen to come aboard Ruiz’s ship. But they are both Pizarro’s captives now.
“I know it’s very far,” she says, reading his mind. “I know things will be bad on the ship, like last time. But at least we know what to expect. We must ready ourselves as best we can, that’s all.
“Here’s what,” she adds, in her patrician tone. “You will teach me the barbarian tongue, starting today. I will help you master the language of the Empire. You may think you know it, but really you don’t. You’re like all lowlanders. You say Lima for Rimaq and Tumbes for Tumpis. You can’t tell pacha from p’acha. That won’t do.”
Waman steers crumbs with his foot to a pigeon; he looks up into the dark foliage of the fig. “One of the odd things in their language,” he says, brightening, “is the way they give every word a sex. Women are she, and men are he. They also do this with anything. A word’s sex can change the meaning. I still get it wrong.” He picks up an orange she has brought. “This is naranja. It’s female. But if you say naranjo, the male form, it means an orange tree.”
“Easy,” she says, her eyes lighting up. “Logical!”
“Unfortunately it isn’t. Not always. The two forms of what seems like the same word often have no connection whatever.” He glances at the bird pecking boldly around their feet. “Take papa. In Castilian it’s a word for father, also the great father of their church, a man-god who lives in a holy place called Rome. Yet papo means the crop of a bird.”
“All right,” she says briskly. “Every day we’ll do a few of those. And I’ll teach you not to mix up things like pacha and p’acha. I also need useful phrases, greetings, little songs and poems, things easy to learn by heart.”
Waman tells her he likes to sing, that he sang often at home, has picked up a few
Spanish tunes. He falls silent again. Then breaks into a sailor’s song he used to sing for Tika.
Wampulla chayamuptinqa
Noqallayqa ripukusaqmi.
Chay chay yana ñawiyki,
Chay chay suny chukchayki,
Sunqoyta suwallawashan.
When the ship comes
Then I must leave.
Oh, those dark eyes of yours,
And that sleek hair,
Are stealing my heart away.
Qoyllur laughs off his flirtation (or perhaps the joke is his accent) and cuffs him on the ear. Hard enough that she must think him well.
They travel slowly, Waman, Qoyllur, and the llamas, walking day after day in open country behind the Commander’s jaded horses and creaking oxcarts, on the way to see the Christian Emperor. So good, Waman thinks, to leave Seville behind, to look down from the hills on the hammered silver of the sea. Mother Sea soothes him, sends him the thought that all great waters in the world are one, that the same salt waves ride the deep from this world to his own. If he could build a boat and take a net, with the help of all the gods he might make his own way home. He is nearly sixteen now—old enough to know such a voyage would be impossible. Still, the thought consoles him.
He looks with tenderness and satisfaction at the llamas, how their condition is improving on the spring grass and upland air of Castile. He and Qoyllur nursed them as best they could before leaving Seville, gathering plants, seeds, and roots to see what they would eat. Everything is different here, even the grass. No llullu, no ichu, no potato skins or quinoa greens. But the llamas aren’t fussy, eating anything horses eat and more besides, like goats.
The only female to survive is dark brown, the younger male is pure black, the other has a white body with charcoal neck and legs. They have names, bestowed by Qoyllur. The she-llama has become Our Lady, in mockery (Waman suspects) of the Christian goddess. The black one is simply Blacky, Yanasapa in their language. And the old white-and-grey male, who rules the others with bites and hisses—him they call Pizarro.
—
So many strange and baffling things on the long trek to find the King and Queen. These Christians who can build temples with stone roofs held aloft by magic like the sky have no roads between their towns—nothing but dusty tracks and rutted wallows across their pampas, and scars little better than streambeds through the hills. In the mountain passes Waman sees broken carts and wheels, men levering wagons over potholes, crushing their hands and cursing their gods. Yet the mountains of Spain are puny! Why has their King built no highways? And why does the kingdom have no head city, no seat of government? At first he thought Seville must be the capital. But Candía says the court is always on the move, because no city is rich enough to house and feed it for long. This must be right: several times along the way he hears Pizarro asking travellers where to find the King and Queen: in Barcelona, Zaragoza, Salamanca, Toledo?
Here and there Waman has seen fine stone bridges and stretches of paved road, but ancient and worn by countless years. These works, he is told, were made by a vanished race who ruled Spain from the great city of Rome long ago. But is not King Charles also the Emperor of Rome? Why doesn’t he rule from there?
They find the court in Toledo, nearest of the likely places. The Old One and his entourage take lodgings around the town while they await a royal audience. Waman and Candía share a room on the upper floor of a hillside tavern. He likes the Greek, as everyone does, though at times he has feared the gunner might have designs on Qoyllur and be trying to use him as a go-between. Waman is relieved to hear that Qoyllur is lodged in a convent, which he gathers is like a House of the Chosen, no men allowed. She has been with the nuns a fortnight now. He misses her keenly. Her absence sharpens a much longer and greater absence: Tika. Waman remembers how his cousin used to dream of joining the Chosen, if only for the thrill of moving to some highland city. Did she do so?
For a few hours each day the tavern below their room is loud with tanners who come from the dye pits after work, hands green or red or indigo, stinking of guano and acid used to cure the hides. Candía spends a lot of time downstairs, drinking, playing chess or cards, teasing the tavern girls. Although disgusted by the flies, the fleas, the ingrained stench of wine and puke, Waman finds himself drawn by Candía’s jovial company, and by blind musicians who sing for coins and leftovers, lutes wailing with Andalusian love songs and the mournful glissandos of the Moors.
He listens closely, trying to pick up songs for Qoyllur. Since the court is in town the inn is filled with men from all over Spain, and beyond. He hears other languages of this new world—Portuguese, Basque, French, Arabic—and Candía sometimes tries to teach some words of Greek. He longs to hear the sound of Quechua, of home, on Qoyllur’s lips.
“If you can’t ride the horse you love, Felipe,” Candía says, wiping his mouth in its nest of beard with the back of his hand, “love the one you can. That one over there now.” The Greek gives him a nudge and juts a bushy eyebrow. “I think she likes the look of you. Her name’s Manuela.” Waman has also noticed this Manuela, an outgoing redhead about his own age who sometimes brings extra helpings of food and drink. Her green eyes, like a cat’s, are often upon him. And sometimes a pat on his arm.
Candía signals for more wine, looks down Manuela’s front as she sets it on the table. He bids her refill their cups, repaying the girl with a wink.
“Health and wealth,” Waman says. A Spanish toast he has learnt.
“And time to enjoy them!” the Greek answers. The two drain their cups together in one long draft, Peruvian style.
“I love your land, Felipe. I can’t wait to go back there. But admit it—this wine beats that murky camel piss your people drink, hands down. So much hotter in the blood. You’ll find the same is true of Spanish girls. Not like that Qoyllur. She’s a frosty one.” The gunner raises his cup, forgetting it is empty. “Here’s to good times ahead, lad. Here’s to us two tomcats among the doves of the court.”
“Doves?” Unsure he’s decoded the Greek’s peculiar Spanish, Waman leans in, chin cupped in his hands.
“Kitchen wenches, chambermaids, ladies-in-waiting”—Candía elaborates, raising a suggestive finger for each category—“wild daughters, young widows, bored wives.” He calls for more drink, for ham, cheese, a loaf.
Waman is sick of Spanish food. Bread like cotton, rice like sawdust, meat like boiled dog. Then there’s cheese. In the early days on Ruiz’s ship he devoured it thankfully, not knowing what it was. But ever since he found out how it is made—squeezed from the teats of mother animals, left to curdle into a rancid lump—it has disgusted him. The stink of it was everywhere: in the ship’s stores, the alleys of Panama, the sour odour of the Christians themselves. For months he wouldn’t touch cheese at all. Now he can swallow it if he must—the easiest being a good manchego—so long as he doesn’t allow his mind to dwell on what it is.
“The only trouble with Spanish women,” Candía goes on, “is that a lot of them are hairy. Especially the bluebloods. Moustaches. Stray bristles on their dugs.” He clutches his chest with both hands. “Did you bring any tweezers?”
“Tweezers?”
“What they want above all else from the Indies, I’ve found, is a pair of Peruvian tweezers. Nothing better for their whiskers. Wish I’d brought back a sackful.” He chuckles rakishly, leans close across the table with a sidelong glance at Manuela. “Always treat a whore like a lady, Felipe. And a lady like a whore.”
Waman, Felipe (who is he today?), is still puzzled by the notion of whores. Treat a whore like a lady seems good advice. But what can the Greek mean about treating a lady like a whore? Should he offer money? To a lady? Waman frowns. Everything comes down to money among Christians.
“What now, lad? Don’t tell me you’re getting too churchy for the bints?”
“I was thinking about money.”
“Don’t
you worry about that. This is all on the Commander. Or Cortés. Anyhow, you’re earning your keep. Without you, those little camels would be dead.”
While Waman is outside at the loathsome jakes, Candía hands Manuela a coin, thrice her usual fee. “The young dark lad. Needs growing up. This makes you his for two nights. The extra’s because he’s from the Indies. They’re ungodly fastidious over there, so have a good scrub beforehand. Splash on the rosewater.” He pats her rump. “No offence, my love. I like you just as you are.”
The Greek is amused, in due course, to see Waman’s cocky strut and the looks and touches that pass between him and the wench.
“How was she, my friend?”
“Is it so obvious?”
Candía laughs, lifts his glass, winks across the top of it.
Not until they’ve eaten does the interpreter say anything. Then:
“I’ve never touched such skin. So pink, so pale. Her veins are like tiny blue streams.” Waman doesn’t want to say more. But his friend, unusually, stays quiet, and the boy can’t help filling the void with his excitement, his need to speak her name. “Manuela came fresh from her bath, like a bride. The first night she smelt of roses. The second night of herself. But the third night was not good. She came to me . . . wet.”
“She must like you, lad.”
“I mean from another man. I could tell.”
“Hmm. Already so worldly wise? It’s no use getting jealous over the likes of her. If that was Tuesday night, it may even have been me who paved the way. No harm there. What’s a buttered bun between comrades?”
Waman hurls the dregs of his wine in Candía’s face. “You filthy rogue. Must you have every girl? Can’t you leave mine alone?”
“Yours?” Candía mops his beard and brow with a kerchief, rolling his big dark eyes. He goes perfectly still for a while, mastering anger. Then takes a coin from his pocket, holds it up between thumb and forefinger. “One of these, Felipe, and she’s anybody’s.”
The Gold Eaters Page 11
