The Gold Eaters

by Ronald Wright

  Twice a month he goes into the capital, disguised as a simple hill farmer—hardly a disguise, for that is what he is. At last it seems safe, more or less. Those who knew him years ago in Cusco are all dead or gone away. All except Pawllu, and Waman takes care to avoid that turncoat Inca. He seeks travellers and traders, shifting beggars, healers, helpers—anyone who might have got wind of his family on the lonely, broken highways of the Empire. For though the capital is burnt and half in ruins now, all roads still lead there: Cusco is still the centre of the World.

  Always he asks the same questions, questions he’s asked from Tumbes to Huanuco to Tinta, everywhere he’s roamed since returning from the sea. And in the capital—the heart of the wars that raged while he was gone—he is trying to find out what became of the Chosen when Manku fell on the invaders. Did the women escape before the city was unroofed by flames? Has anyone seen an Aklla, or former Aklla—a Chosen One—of his own age and with something of his looks, though unmarked by the spotted death?

  A shape is moving in the distance, lurching through mist snagged like wool on the alders at the foot of the hill. A llama? A deer? The shape becomes human, a running figure. As the runner comes nearer, Waman makes out the checkered uniform of the imperial post. Not a common sight these days, especially so far from a main road. He watches from his threshold, interest turning to unease as the postman heads his way. The chaski is soon standing before him, fogging the air with heavy breaths, retrieving a letter from a shoulder bag as patched and faded as his uniform.

  “Are you Felipe Waman, formerly of Tumbes Province?”

  Still sleepy, he is too surprised to deny it, though he doesn’t admit it either. His first thought is that the message could be word from Tika or his mother. Word at last.

  “I’m instructed to await a reply,” the postman adds with self-importance. Waman bids him sit down and brings water. The youth peers into the cup fastidiously, then drinks.

  The letter is on fine Valencia paper, folded and sealed. He holds the scab of wax at an angle to the sunlight and makes out the imprint of the Bishop’s ring. But there hasn’t been a Bishop of Cusco since Valverde fled—to a well-earned death in the hotlands. Eaten by cannibals, they say.

  “Who wrote this?”

  “I only know who sent it.”

  The runner has indeed come from the Bishop’s palace, where he was summoned by a servant at first light.

  Waman hesitates. Over the years he has heard more than once that the Spaniards think their old interpreter Felipillo is long dead. Death suits him; the dead have little to fear.

  Now he is uncovered. But how? Who could have recognized him? He looks so different: humble, ragged, his Spanish dress and ways all gone. His youth too. He considers dismissing the postman and fleeing at once to the no man’s land along the border.

  The World is now partitioned: half of it occupied, half free. Pizarro’s cavalry broke the siege of Lima when the Inca troops came down onto the fields for a final assault. Almagro did the same in Cusco, after an outbreak of smallpox crippled the Inca army. In this he was also helped by Pawllu, who betrayed his elder brother and took One-Eye’s side. Pawllu’s reward was to be crowned puppet Emperor by Almagro. A reward he still enjoys—though the Old One and both Almagros have been dead for years, killed in a string of wars and assassinations as the Spaniards began fighting amongst themselves, more divided than the Incas.

  An uneasy stalemate has taken hold. The invaders control the seaboard and parts of the highlands, including Cusco. But the invasion has stalled at the high ranges east and north of the capital, where roads are blocked and bridges all thrown down. Beyond this mountain wall the defiant Manku is the Only King, waging guerrilla warfare from the Empire’s eastern quarter, planning to retake the whole.

  Waman looks at the postman, thinks again of fleeing. But it’s too late. Soldiers on horseback could catch him easily this near the city. And if they failed they’d vent their anger on the farm folk who have sheltered him.

  He breaks the Bishop’s seal.

  To the esteemed royal interpreter, Don Felipe Waman of Tumbes, greetings

  First, it cheers my heart to learn you are alive. Many had given you up for lost, saying you died in Chile or perhaps in the wars for this city when the Inca Manku rebelled and the traitor Almagro made war upon his fellow Christians.

  I write with good news. Our Sacred Catholic Majesty has sent this kingdom the blessing of a Viceroy, Don Blasco Núñez Vela, recently arrived at Lima. He brings New Laws for the protection and welfare of all Indians. In light of this I have every confidence that this realm will soon be restored to the order and good government it enjoyed in the days of its own sovereigns.

  You may therefore return to Cusco in full trust and safety, as have many other displaced persons. Here there is much need of your services. In particular, the Inca Pawllu, a great friend and bulwark to us Christians, was recently baptised into the Holy Faith. We expect that a general conversion of his subjects will soon follow.

  The letter goes on to say that although there are now several interpreters in royal service, none is the equal of Felipe. Only he can be entrusted with so delicate a task as the translation of liturgy and scripture.

  I therefore have the honour of requesting your help in this holy work and, God willing, some other matters which I shall set before you. You may find the latter to be of personal interest and advantage.

  I need hardly add that your cooperation will wipe away all stains with which, during your long absence, some have unjustly besmirched your name.

  The Viceroy will learn of your services and, in due course, reward your worthiness and loyalty.

  From this city of Santiago del Cusco,

  Day 14 of July, year of Our Lord 1544,

  Luis de Morales, Vicar-General

  Curiosity satisfied, disappointment follows. The letter brings no news of his family. Not unless personal interest refers to them somehow.

  Waman reads it through more closely. Flattery (“Don Felipe”); a threat (thinly veiled); a hint of sympathy for the plight of Indians; promises of reward. Sometimes Spaniards keep their promises, but only to those who stay useful; like the treacherous Pawllu, who changes loyalties as easily as shirts—forgiven even for taking the Almagros’ side against the Pizarros.

  He becomes aware of the young postman staring wide-eyed at the sight of a lowly rustic reading the foreigners’ tongue. Waman smiles.

  “You may tell the sender that I look forward to seeing him next time I’m in Cusco. In half a month.”

  “With respect,” the youth answers, “I am instructed to say that someone will come tomorrow to escort you. He will bring horses.”

  Waman agrees. To do otherwise would stir suspicion. Once the runner has left, he looks at the letter again and finds a postscript overleaf. This explains that the writer is fulfilling the Bishop’s duties for the time being, because “the long troubles of this realm” have hindered the arrival from Spain of a replacement for Bishop Valverde, “that good servant of God, so savagely martyred in the hotlands.”

  Waman smiles at this old news.

  They are mules, not horses, and the escort is merely a helper from the Bishop’s palace, an elderly fellow, unforthcoming and none too clean. Waman finds this reassuring. He had expected a guard, a Spaniard.

  On his undercover visits to Cusco he has avoided authorities of every kind, swimming among the little fish, haunting travellers’ camps and markets, drinking dens frequented by servants, the shanties where ruined people live like spiders in the ruined city. And the dismal hospices where friars tend the sick and wounded—many maimed or burnt in the wars, others punished by mutilation for taking Inca Manku’s side: men without ears or hands; women with breasts and noses cut away.

  Waman hasn’t been in a saddle since Chile. After riding a while he dismounts and walks beside the mule, preferring his own legs.


  They come at last to Cusco’s fortress on the brow of the city. Its three towers are broken now, but the citadel’s colossal ramparts show little trace of war, so massive they seem a rock formation rather than a work of man.

  Some way below, on Granary Terrace, stands one of the few palaces still roofed in Inca style, though its ridges are clad with copper instead of gold. Formerly Waskhar’s, then Manku’s, it is now the seat of Pawllu.

  He hurries by, down into shattered streets, past blackened walls.

  Luis de Morales, Vicar-General, leans against the leather back of his cross-framed chair and snaps his fingers. A boy refills their goblets with a musty wine.

  Still tired from the road, Waman sips slowly, saying little. He examines the churchman in the lamplight. Short, plump, with the face of an old baby. Might be any Christian priest. But disarming, jovial, keen to please and be pleased. A good man, then. Or perhaps merely a good actor, since the truly good tend to be ineffectual. It’s the ruthless who get things done.

  Either way, the Vicar-General is not the dry stick Waman expected from the letter’s tone. His welcome to the Bishop’s palace has been warm: his mule unloaded, his bag carried, a good suit of Spanish clothes—shirt, doublet, hose, cape—awaiting him in the guest quarters. Even a hot bath before supper, a rare thing among Spaniards, especially priests, for whom cleanliness smacks of ungodliness. Of course, the building was already fitted with this luxury, being the palace of an Inca king from long ago.

  “Perhaps chess, Don Felipe?”

  “Chess?” Waman says, doubting his ears.

  “Why, yes. The king of games. The game of kings!” Grinning, the Vicar-General rubs his palms together quickly, as if making fire with a drill. “Come now, Don Felipe. Nothing like chess to soothe the aches of the road. And I’ve been longing to play the famous interpreter. I hear you’re the best in the land.” Without waiting for a reply, Morales fetches a board and set of pieces.

  “The best in Peru,” Waman says, “was Atawallpa.”

  “It was you taught him—isn’t that so?”

  “I and others, my lord.” (How should one address a Vicar-General?) “The gunner Candía—who taught me in Spain—and Hernando Pizarro. Occasionally the late Commander too.”

  The Vicar-General stares at the ceiling for a moment. “What a tragedy, no? The great Marquis Pizarro cut down like Caesar by assassins.” He shakes his head. “I didn’t know he played.”

  “He was better known for other things.”

  So many ghosts around the chessboard. Atawallpa had named the game taptana. Ambush. Perhaps in ironic reference to his circumstances. What a chain of murder and misfortune! Atawallpa garrotted by Almagro and the Old One. Juan Pizarro slain in battle by Manku. Almagro garrotted by Hernando Pizarro (now jailed for that in Spain). Soto dead in a northern land called Florida, seeking a new Empire of his own. Manku’s Queen tortured and burnt by Pizarro, along with Willaq Uma. Pizarro cut down in Lima by Almagro the Boy’s cabal. Candía murdered by the Boy’s own hand. And the Boy beheaded.

  All within ten years of the massacre in Cajamarca.

  He mourns none of those men but one: his old friend Candía. Dead two years now, though Waman didn’t learn what happened until recently. It seems Almagro the Boy made the gunner fight on his side at Chupas against Spanish forces loyal to the Crown. But the Greek used his guns so badly that the Boy accused him of treachery and knifed him on the spot. He thinks of Candía’s great beard and glossy eyes, his friendship, his guidance, his generosity. To Candía he owes his life; once certainly, maybe more. Waman sees the Greek by his bedside when he had smallpox in Seville, whittling chessmen, coaxing out the will in him to live. And the gift of the gold ingot, which did indeed save his life in Chile, buying food, buying silences. And passage on that ship bound for Chincha, which saved him from the wars. Where could his friend be buried? Was he buried at all?

  The Vicar-General coughs expectantly. “Don Felipe, are you all right? You seem . . . far away. Shall we at least make a start? We can always finish tomorrow, when you’re rested.”

  “It would be an honour,” Waman manages, “to share a game before retiring.” Morales’s doughy face lights up. He sets out the pieces swiftly, humming to himself, squirming in his chair like a small boy.

  The interpreter lets him win, and quickly.

  Enough of the games of kings.

  When Waman comes down next morning he finds another priest with Morales.

  “Ah,” says the Vicar-General, “here’s our interpreter! Allow me, Don Felipe, to present you to Friar Juan Pérez—the very one who baptised the Inca Pawllu—our senior priest in Cusco and a soldier for Christ who has done great things.”

  Morales explains that Friar Pérez is a Knight of Saint John, one who fought the infidel Turks. And lost presumably, adds Waman to himself, recalling Candía’s tales of the holy wars in the Middle Sea.

  This warrior-priest is lean, tall, past his best years but strongly made. He is clean-shaven, the skin of his face hanging like old drapes from sharp bones. He has Valverde’s knack of gliding silently about the room in his robes; the same dour mien.

  “You are aware, perhaps, Don Felipe,” Friar Pérez begins, a note of mockery in the title Morales flatteringly conferred, “that our Holy Mother Church requires everyone, however virtuous, to make confession no less than once a year?”

  “Yes, Father.” (Was he aware of that?) “I think so.”

  “Be that as it may, the Vicar-General”—a nod to Morales—“has already told me of your tribulations, your long captivity among the heathen.”

  Captivity! A good word, that. Better than displaced; much better than hiding.

  “Moreover, the Church allows leniency with New Christians. Especially those whose deeds speak of their good faith and loyalty. Such as yourself, so I’m told. How long has it been? When did you last confess?”

  “It’s been . . . more than a year.”

  “Let us proceed at once, then. Have the goodness to follow me.”

  Friar Pérez takes Waman to a small chapel within the ancient palace, the room’s perfect stonework daubed with whitewash, hung with holy pictures and an effigy of the Christians’ tortured god. The confessor sits in a high oak chair, its legs and arms ending in claws. Waman kneels on a cushion at his feet. He catches the priest’s smell: damp wool, beeswax, incense, unwashed skin.

  “First, do you heartily repent of all your sins and renounce the Devil and his works?”

  “I do, Father.”

  “Have you at any time since your last confession worshipped false gods and failed to keep the Sabbath?”

  “If . . . if I may ask your guidance, Father?”

  A curt nod.

  “Is it sinful to miss the Sabbath when one has no Christian calendar and cannot keep track of the week?”

  “Circumstances will be weighed in due course. Sins committed without will and consent are not mortal. They are, however, still sins. You must tell me everything.”

  There was a time, Waman recalls—as if thinking of somebody else—when he might have done this thing, might have given in to the unburdening of his soul by this invasive rite. But not after Cajamarca and Chile. Not after what the Christians did in Cusco to young Manku and his Queen Kura Uqllu. Humiliations, beatings, torture; her rape and burning alive.

  He sees that now for what it was. Not mere greed and cruelty. No. The Pizarros were provoking Manku to an end. By then they had thousands of new men. If the Inca “rebelled,” the terms of the Requirement would be broken. They could then conquer Peru decisively and make its people slaves.

  He will give this priest little things. More than he wants to hear. He will bore him.

  “Have you taken the Lord’s name in vain? Have you sworn blasphemously?”

  “No, Father. Never.” True enough: he’s never sworn by the new gods, only the old.


  Soon tiring of Waman’s drawn-out account of wanderings and petty idolatries—a kiss to a mountain here, a wad of coca left on a cairn there, visits to native healers, oaths calling on Mother Earth—Friar Pérez moves on to matters of the flesh.

  “Have you committed adultery?”

  “I am unwed.”

  “Why so?”

  “I’m . . . not sure.” His mind fills with Tika. They would have married if she’d been willing. They still might, if he can find her. But he won’t sully her name by speaking it here. “Maybe it’s because I’ve never led a life I could ask a woman to share. I was a child when I went to Spain. Since then I’ve never spent more than a few months in one place. Except in Cajamarca. The Commander was eight or nine months there. I can’t remember how long in the lowlands before that. Several months anyway. And after, on the road—”

  “That will do. Fornication, then?”

  Waman looks up, having composed a mask of bewilderment.

  “Fornication! Come on, man. Surely you know what fornication is? To lie with whores and loose women.”

  He admits to a few adventures over the years, beginning with the one in Toledo, arranged by Candía. Another gift. He winces at his jealous and ungrateful outburst.

  “Sodomy, then? I know you Indians are great sodomites, even with women. What of sodomy? It’s not enough to say you’ve sinned—you must tell me how. In what ways. How many times.” The priest is leaning forward now, his robes gathered in his lap, his breath washing sourly over Waman, gusts of stale wine, sharp cheese, the dunghill odour of bad teeth.

  Sodomy? They have so many distinctions between lawful and unlawful ways of love. Does their god not grow weary of these priests?

  “It’s no good holding shameful things back. Nothing will shock me. I’ve heard them all.”

  “No, Father. I know only one way to lie with a woman.”

  “And what way is that? Go on.”

  “Always the same way.”