Temple (5 page)

With that, Nash, Copeland and Chambers moved off to areas of the
plane, leaving Race alone with the manu-
Race looked at the cover page again, scanned the rough texture of
the photocopier's ink. Then he took a deep breath and turned the
page.
He saw the first line, written in fine medieval calligraphy:
MELIS NOMINI EST ALBERTO LIIIS SANTIAGO ET ILLG EST MELIN[
He translated.
My name is Alberto Luis Santiago and this is my stoW…
FIRST READING
On the first day of the ninth month in the year of Our Lord 1535, I
became a traitor to my country.
The reason: I helped a man escape from a prison of my
countrymen.
His name was Renco Capac and he claimed to be an Incan prince, the
younger brother of their supreme ruler, Manco Capac, the man they
called the Sapa Inca.
He was a handsome man, with smooth olive skin and long black hair.
His most distinctive feature, however, was a prominent birthmark
situated directly below his left eye. It looked like an inverted
mountain peak, a ragged triangle of brown skin that sat atop his
otherwise clear complexion.
I first met Renco on board the San Vicente, a prison hulk that lay
out in the middle of the Urubamba River, ten miles north of the
Incans' apital, Cuzco.
The San Vicente was the foulest of all the prison hulks that lay at
anchor in the rivers of New Spain—an old wooden galleon no longer
fit for ocean travel that had been dismasted and hauled overland
for the sole purpose of housing hostile or dangerous Indians.
Armed as usual with my prized leather-bound Bible a
three-hundred-page handwritten version of the great book that had
been a gift to me from my parents upon my enter ing the Holy
Orders—I had come to the prison hulk to teach these heathens the
Word of Our Lord.
It was in this capacity as a minister of our Faith that I met the
young prince Renco. Unlike most of the others in that
miserable hulk—foul, ugly wretches who, owing to the shameful
conditions my countrymen imposed on them, looked more as dogs than
men—he was well spoken and educated. He was also possessed of a
most unique sensitiv ity the likes of which I have not seen in any
man since. It was a gentleness, an understanding, a look in his
eyes that penetrated my very soul.
He was also of considerable intelligence. My countrymen had been in
New Spain for but three years and he could already speak our
language. He was also eager to learn of my Faith and understand my
people and our ways, and I was happy to teach him. In any case, we
soon struck up a friendship and I visited him often.
And then one day he told me of his mission.
Before he had been captured, so he said, this prince had been
charged with travelling to Cuzco and retrieving an idol of some
sort. Not an ordinary idol, mind, but a most venerated idol,
perhaps the most venerated idol of these Indians. An idol which
they say embodies their spirit.
But Renco had been waylaid on his journey to Cuzco, captured in an
ambush set up by the Governor with the aid of the Chancas, an
extremely hostile tribe from the northern jungles that had been
subjugated by the Incan people against their will.
Like many other tribes from this region, the Chancas saw :he
arrival of my countrymen as a means of breaking the yoke of Incan
tyranny. They were quick to offer their ser vices to the Governor
as informers and as guides, in return for which they received
muskets and metal swords, for the tribes of New Spain have no
concept of bronze or iron.
As Renco informed me of his mission and his capture at the hands of
the Governor, I saw over his shoulder a Chanca tribesman who was
also being held captive inside the San Vicente.
His name was Castino and he was an ugly brute of a man. Tall and
hairy, bearded and unwashed, he could not have been more dissimilar
to the young articulate Renco. He was an utterly repulsive
creature, the most frightening
form I have ever had the misfortune to lay my eyes
A sharpened piece of white bone pierced the skin of
his left cheek, the characteristic mark of the Chancas.
always stared malevolently at Renco's back when ever I came to
visit the young prince.
The day he told me of his mission to retrieve the idol,
was extremely distressed.
The object of his quest, he said, was locked inside a vault
.inside the Coricancha, or sun temple, at Cuzco. But Renco
that day learned—by eavesdropping on a conversation
two guards on board the hulk—that the city of
Cuzco had recently fallen and that the Spaniards were
inside its walls, sacking and looting it unopposed.
I, too, had heard of the taking of Cuzco. It was said that
the looting taking place there was some of the most rapa cious of
the entire conquest. Rumours abounded of
Spaniards killing their fellow soldiers in their lust for the
mountains of gold that lay inside the city's walls.
Such tales filled me with dismay. I had arrived in New
Spain but six months previously with all the foolish ideals
of a novice—desires of converting all the pagan natives to
our noble Catholic Faith, dreams of leading a column of soldiers
while holding forth a crucifix, delusions of building
high-spired churches that would be the envy of Europe. But
these ideals were quickly dispelled by the wanton acts of
cruelty and greed that I witnessed of my countrymen every
day.
Murder, pillage, rapethese were not the acts of men
fighting in the name of God. They were the acts of
scoundrels, of villains. And indeed at the moments when
my disillusionment was at its greatest—such as the time
when I witnessed a Spanish soldier decapitate a woman in
order to seize her gold necklace—I would wonder whether
I was fighting for the right side. That Spanish soldiers had
taken to killing each other during their plunder of Cuzco
came as no surprise to me.
I should also add at this juncture, however, that I had
heard rumours about Renco's sacred idol before.
It was widely known that Hernando Pizarro, the Gover nor's brother
and chief lieutenant, had put up an incredible bounty for any
information that led to the discovery of the idol's whereabouts. It
was to my mind a tribute to the rev erence and devotion that the
Incans paid their idol that not one of them—not a single one of
them—had betrayed its location in return for Hernando's fabulous
reward. It shames me to say that I do not believe my countrymen, in
similar circumstances, would have done the same.
But of all the tales I had heard of the looting of Cuzco, nowhere
had I heard of the discovery of the treasured Incan idol.
Indeed, if it had been found, word would have spread faster than
the wind. For the lucky foot soldier who dis covered it would have
been instantly knighted, would have been made a marquis by the
Governor on the spot and would have lived the rest of his life back
in Spain in unreserved luxury.
And yet there had been no such tale.
Which led me to conclude that the Spaniards in Cuzco had not yet
found the idol.
'Brother Alberto,' Renco said, his eyes pleading, 'help me. Help me
escape this floating cage so that I can complete my mission. Only I
can retrieve the idol of my people. And
with the Spaniards holding Cuzco, it is only a matter of time
• before they find it.'
Well.
I did not know what to say. I could never do such a thing.
I could never help him escape. I would be making myself a hunted
man, a traitor to my country. If I were caught, I would be the one
imprisoned inside this hellish floating dungeon. And so I left the
hulk without another word.
But I would return. And I would talk with Renco again—and again he
would ask me to help him, his voice impassioned, his eyes
begging.
And whenever I contemplated the issue more closely, my mind would
always return to two things: my total and utter disillusionment at
the despicable acts of those men I called
my countrymen, and—conversely—my admiration of the Incan people's
stoic refusal to disclose the secret location of their idol in the
face of such overwhelming adversity.
Indeed, never had I witnessed such unfailing devotion. I envied
their faith. I had heard tell of Hernando torturing entire villages
in his obsessive search for the idol, had heard of the atrocities
he had committed. I wondered how I would act if I were to see my
own kinfolk butchered, tortured, mur dered. In those circumstances,
would I disclose the location of Jerusalem?
In the end, I decided that I would and I was doubly ashamed.
And so despite myself, my Faith and my allegiance to my country, I
decided to help Renco.
I left the hulk and returned later that night, bringing with me a
young page—an Incan named Tupac—just as Renco had instructed me. We
both wore hooded cloaks against the cold and kept our hands folded
inside our sleeves.
We came to the guard station on the riverbank. As it happened,
since most of my country's forces were at Cuzco partaking in the
looting there, only a small group of soldiers were on hand in the
tent village near the hulk. Indeed, only a lone night guard—a fat
slovenly thug from Madrid with liquor on his breath and dirt under
his fingernails—guarded the bridge that led to the hulk.
After taking a second glance at young Tupac—it was not uncommon at
that time for young Indians to serve as pages for monks like
myself—the night guard belched loudly and ordered us to inscribe
our names on the register.
I scratched both of our names in the book. Then when I had
finished, the two of us stepped onto the narrow wooden footbridge
that stretched out from the riverbank over to a door set into the
side of the prison hulk in the middle of the river.
No sooner had we stepped past the filthy night guard, however, than
the young Tupac whirled around quickly
and grabbed the man from behind and twisted his head, breaking his
neck in an instant. The guard's body slumped in its chair. I winced
at the sheer violence of the act, but strangely I found that I felt
little sympathy for the guard. I had made my decision—had pledged
my allegiance to the enemy—and there was no turning back
now.
My young companion quickly took the guard's rifle and his
pistallo-or 'pistol' as some of my countrymen were now calling
them—and, last of all, his keys. Tupac then affixed a stone weight
to the dead guard's foot and dropped the body into the river.
In the pale blue moonlight, we crossed the rickety wooden
footbridge and entered the hulk.
The interior guard leapt to his feet as we entered the cage room
but Tupac was far too quick for him. He fired his pistol at the
guard without missing a step. The explosion of the gunshot in the
enclosed space of the prison hulk was deafening. Prisoners all
around us awoke with a start at the sudden terrifying sound.
Renco was already on his feet as we came to his cage.
The guard's key fitted perfectly in the lock of his cell and the
door opened easily. The prisoners all around us were shouting and
banging on the bars of their cages, pleading to be released. My
eyes darted around in every direction and in the midst of all this
uproar, I saw a sight that chilled me to my very core.
I saw the Chanca, Castino, standing in his cell—standing perfectly
still—staring at me intently.
His cage now open, Renco ran over to the dead guard's corpse,
grabbed his weapons and handed them to me.
'Come on,' he said, awakening me from Castino's hyp notic stare.
Dressed only in the barest of prison rags, Renco quickly began to
undress the dead guard's corpse. Then he hurriedly put on the
guard's thick leather riding jacket, pantaloons and boots.
No sooner was he dressed than he was on his feet again, unlocking
some of the other cages. I noticed that he only
the cages of Incan warriors and not those of pris- from subjugated
tribes like the Chancas.
And then suddenly Renco was dashing out the door with rifle in his
hand, ignoring the shouts of the other prison-
and calling for me to follow.
We dashed back across the rickety footbridge, amid a
of running prisoners. By this time, however, others heard the
commotion on board the hulk. Four
from the nearby tent village arrived at the river-
on horseback just as we leapt off the bridge. They fired :us with
their muskets, the reports of their weapons boom-
like thunderclaps in the night.
Renco fired back, handling his musket like the most sea-
Spanish infantryman, blasting one of the horsemen
his mount. The other Incan prisoners ran ahead of us and
overpowered two of the other horsemen.
The last horseman brought his steed around so that it stood
directly in front of me. In a flashing instant, I saw him register
my appearance—a European helping these heathens.
I saw the anger flare in his eyes and then I saw him raise his
rifle in my direction.
With nothing else to call on, I hastily raised my own pistol and
fired it. The pistol boomed loudly in my hand and I would swear on
the Good Book itself that its recoil almost tore my arm from its.
socket. The horseman in front of me snapped backwards in his saddle
and tumbled to the ground, dead.
I stood there, stunned, holding the pistol in my hand, staring
fixedly at the dead body on the ground. I endeavoured to convince
myself that I had done no wrong. He had been going to kill me
'Brother!' Renco called suddenly.
I turned on the moment and saw him sitting astride one of the
Spanish horses. 'Come!' he called. 'Take his horse! We have to get
to Cuzco!'
The city of Cuzco lies at the head of a long mountain valley that
runs in a north-south direction. It is a walled city that is
situated between two parallel rivers, the Huatanay and the
Tullumayo, which act rather like moats.
Situated on a hill to the north of the city, towering above it, is
the most dominant feature of the Cuzco valley. There, looking down
over the city like a god, is the stone fortress of
Sacsayhuaman.
Sacsayhuaman is a structure like no other I have seen in all of the
world. Nothing in Spain, or even in the whole of Europe, can
compare with its size and sheer dominating presence.
Truly, it is a most fearsome citadel—roughly pyramidal in shape, it
consists of three colossal tiers, each one easily a hundred hands
high, with walls constructed of gigantic hundred-ton blocks.