The Gold Eaters (22 page)

“This your first time in the sierra too?”

The boy nods.

“My God, Felipe. Look!”

The mist has fallen below the terrace. They are standing under a deep-blue vault still lit by the last stars. Slowly, Waman turns full circle. The town and the valleys around are smothered by a billowy white surf. He and Candía are alone among volcanoes rising from this sea of cloud like jagged figures wearing icy caps and robes. Among sleeping gods.

The sun leaps from behind a ridge, changing the surf to smoke and fire. Not the gelatinous red sun of the desert, but a blazing sphere of gold in a sky so clear the eye, if it could look, might see the eternal firestorms raging on the solar face.

Both men watch the Andean sunrise in religious awe, the Greek thinking wistfully of Athos and Olympus; the Peruvian understanding, as a transfusion of warmth flows into his body, why the highlanders worship the sun.

The strange creed of the Christians seems to him to have no sway here, no hold upon this land. Or on himself.

While Candía's back is turned, Waman lifts his right arm in prayer and blows a kiss to Tayta Inti, Father Sun. Then another to each peak and glacier. He doesn't know their names, but he knows they are the lords of life in this place, the givers of water, their open veins feeding the land. Apukuna, he whispers, Mountain Lords, I worship you tenfold.

If this is a sin, he will not confess it. Why not have two faiths, as he has two names? One for Christendom. One for Tawantinsuyu.

—

In late afternoon, at a small pampa with a tarn and stream, Pizarro calls the halt. They camp here, getting into their tents before the sun sets and the frost slinks down from the icefields like a gas.

In the morning two horses are found dead, their bodies frozen to the ground.

On the following day, as they are setting up camp in a somewhat warmer place, a party of uniformed men appears, bearing a palanquin and driving a small llama train. The nearest Spaniards draw their swords, but the newcomers set down the litter and spread their hands to show they are unarmed. The occupant, colourfully dressed and wearing a black fur hat, steps down from his vehicle. Pizarro recognizes him at once: it is Atawallpa's cousin Maytawillka, the envoy who came to Chira.

“Felipe! Bid our friend a hearty welcome. Tell him it gives me much pleasure to see him again. Then have him state his business. Listen well for tricks. Watch out for this one—he's a joker.”

Maytawillka gives Waman a nod of recognition. As before, the interpreter strains to follow his speech, formal and guttural, the imperious voice of the Incas. Despite his command of Spanish and the other things he has learnt overseas, Waman feels a yokel here, a mere lowland yokel at that.

“His business, Felipe. What brings him?”

“Maytawillka pays you his respects. He says he comes straight from the great Atawallpa, who sends greetings and these camels for meat. The sacks on their backs are filled with grain, fruit, potatoes. He says the Inca asks what day you will reach Cajamarca, so he can be ready to greet you.”

That evening, seated on cushions, they dine in Pizarro's tent,
Maytawillka eating from a golden service brought for his use, aware of the lust—sexual in its intensity—that the metal stirs in the barbarians.

He gives a smoothly evasive account of his cousin's war, emphasizing that the new Inca has routed great armies and killed tens of thousands.

“He would say that, wouldn't he?” Pizarro comments over his shoulder to his brother Hernando.

“Give him this answer, Felipillo. Word for word. Say I have no doubt that Atawallpa is a great lord and a fine soldier.” The Old One pauses for Waman to translate. “However, I beg leave to inform him that my lord—His Sacred Catholic Majesty the Emperor Charles—has many greater lords than Atawallpa as his vassals.”

“Don Francisco, I beg you. Don't make me say the last bit. It could be the death of us.”

Pizarro digs with a little finger in an ear, tugs whiskers on his cheek.

“Very well, then. But you must say King Charles sends me here to bring Atawallpa news of the One True God. If he listens and desires our friendship, it is his! I shall be his ally. I shall help him in his wars and, that done, will leave in peace. For I am merely passing through his kingdom on my way to the Other Sea.”

Maytawillka greets the translation with a frozen smile. Perhaps, thinks Waman, he is contriving a clever answer. More likely he's speechless with contempt.

There are sounds of a scuffle outside the tent.

Pizarro's spy—the coastal lord he sent to Cajamarca—bursts in. Without a word, he flies at Maytawillka, seizing the gold discs that cover his ears, trying to break the hidden lobes that hold them.

The Commander springs up and drags his man off, cuffing him hard about the face. “Candía! Get him outside. But keep him by the
door.” Pizarro returns to his seat, more shaken than the victim. It was bad enough when Maytawillka was attacked in Chira; now it has happened twice.

“Apologise to our guest at once, Felipe. Make a good show of it.” He unbuckles the dagger he wears at his waist and presents it, hilt first, to Atawallpa's cousin. “Say that I give him this, my most cherished weapon, to express profound regret for the insult. He may use it with my blessing on that man at dawn.”

Once Maytawillka has accepted apology and dagger, the Old One tells Waman to question the offender outside. “Quietly, mind. So our guest won't overhear.”

Finding he can talk easily with the coastal lord in Tallan, Waman soon forgets to keep his voice down. He returns to Pizarro's side.

“Don Francisco, your envoy begs forgiveness for losing control of himself. It was because of the danger he saw you in. He says Maytawillka is a liar and scoundrel who is trying to mislead you. He reports that the city of Cajamarca is empty except for troops. All is made ready for war. They wouldn't let him speak with Atawallpa.”

“That spy of ours has done more harm than good,” Hernando says in his brother's ear. “Let this Peruvian peacock kill the prattler now.” He draws a thumb across his throat with a salty laugh.

At this, Maytawillka—who evidently does know some Tallan—rises to his feet and claps his hands. Smiling at Waman and Pizarro, he speaks slowly, pausing between each phrase for Waman to follow.

“This lowlander you sent ahead lacks the wits to know what he saw. Atawallpa was unable to receive him because he is fasting at the hot springs outside Cajamarca. He is secluded there, treating a small wound. He sees nobody. If there are no civilians in the city, it is only because the Inca has cleared the centre for you to lodge there. Of course Atawallpa has an army. How can that be a surprise? He has been at war a long time now. Some of his foes are still at large. This
war began long before the bearded ones returned to our country and does not concern them. That is all.”

Maytawillka gathers his splendid cloak around him in a womanly way and sits down.

Pizarro runs a finger through a tangle in his beard, catching the eyes of his officers one by one.

“Tell Maytawillka I accept his explanation. Tell him I set far higher value on the word of a fine lord such as he than on the ravings of a courier who can't keep a cool head.”

“Surely you didn't believe a word of that?” Hernando says as soon as Maytawillka has left for his own camp.

The Commander lifts an eyebrow in mock surprise that his brother might think him so naive.

—

Early next morning Maytawillka pays a farewell visit in his curtained palanquin. The roof, shingled with beaten silver to resemble a turtle's back, still wears a fringe of icicles. The breath of the bearers, a dozen sturdy youths in saffron uniform, fogs the air.

“Come and breakfast with me before you go,” the Commander says with an obsequious bow. “Afterwards, you can kill the man who insulted you. Or watch us flog him. A Christian flogging is a thing to see!”

Maytawillka declines with a cool smile, saying he must be on his way to Cajamarca. He hands Pizarro a parcel stitched up in an embroidered cloth. “The Inca Atawallpa sends you these as a personal gift. He asks that you wear them the first time you come before him—so he will know which one you are.”

A good idea: the barbarians all dress alike. And smell alike too.

He draws the curtains.

“Walk on,” he calls to his men.

—

Pizarro goes back to his tent and opens Atawallpa's gift suspiciously, recalling the stuffed ducks. But here are two handsome bracelets of heavy gold. Very well made, as everything is in Peru. And a pair of wooden shoes, lacquered black and red. The bracelets are tight, needing a smear of grease to force over his sinewy hands. The shoes—presumably requisite footwear at the Inca court—are a snug fit.

What Maytawillka knows and Pizarro doesn't is that these are widows' shoes—a private insult—and no good for running, and that Atawallpa intends to shackle the Commander with the bracelets: the gold-eater snared by his desire.

13

A
t last the broad dale of Cajamarca lies below them, an emerald raft troughed in an ocean of stone. The valley opens as they descend, showing itself to be as fully transformed by man as the oases of the coast: an inlay of contoured fields between walls and roads; canals fanning out from a river; terraces climbing foothills; the strips of land blue, purple, and orange with highland crops in bloom. But many fields, Waman sees, are neglected and overgrown—unworked since the Great Death.

In mid-afternoon the city comes in sight: a layered stack of buildings on a rise below the mountains, the highest roofs shining with gold, the whole townscape gilded by a brassy light.

On a slope beyond the city of stone is a greater city of cloth. Thousands of cotton tents pitched in a grid of grassy streets stretching for more than a mile. Here and there are open squares where smoke drifts from cooking fires in long marquees. Llama trains are coming and going, the mess tents thronged with men and women, their voices carried on the wind.

“Ever see such an army in the Indies?” the Old One says quietly, as if to himself.

“The only time I saw such a proud array, Commander,” Candía replies, “was when the Turks beset Vienna. And they had fewer tents than those.”

Pizarro feels the undertow of fear sucking at his men, sees them crossing themselves, commending their souls to God. Feels fear in his own belly too. He applies the remedy, casting his mind back to Trujillo long ago, to the beggar and his prophecy.
You shall be great.

“God hasn't brought us here to quail, boys,” he shouts. “He has brought us here for victory. Each one of us is worth a hundred of their best. A thousand with Santiago and the Virgin guiding our blades.”

Never hesitate. Never give men time to think. Even brave men can flee at the first vacillation. Never give the infidels time to think, either. Or to consult their demons and soothsayers. And don't give yourself too much thinking time, besides. Do now, pray later.

He sends his brother Hernando with a patrol into the city, to see if it's empty as it looks. “Find a good place for us all to spend the night there.”

About two miles from the city is a large complex of buildings beneath a tall mushroom of steam. The Inca's baths, where Atawallpa fasts and waits.

“Go ahead to those hot springs,” Pizarro tells the other Hernando, Hernando de Soto—perhaps the only man rash enough to follow the order without qualm. “Seek out Atawallpa right away.”

Waman loathes Soto, one of the cruellest, a born fighter with an old scar like a centipede up his cheek and the side of his nose. He hopes the Inca's guard will make short work of him. The two Hernandos share more than a Christian name: both delight in bloodshed and rape as much as in valour and gold. It was Soto who raided the Chosen House at Qashas, who beat Maytawillka with his fists at the camp in Chira. He's also the best horseman of all—a skill the Old One envies bitterly. The Commander might not be altogether grief-stricken, Waman suspects, if that hothead got himself killed.

“Take fifteen horse and the interpreter,” Pizarro adds, to Waman's
dismay. “Speak of friendship, alliance, the love of God. Don't let the Inca provoke you, whatever he does or says. Invite him to visit me tomorrow morning. Tell him we shall carry no weapons when he comes, in token of our friendship. His men should do the same.”

Soto leaves at once, Waman riding pillion behind Candía.

Hernando Pizarro returns from the city centre. He dismounts beside his elder brother, the meaty charmless face wearing a look of awe. “Wait till you see it, Francisco! The plaza is bigger than any in Spain.” With military thoroughness he gives the details: a main gate and public halls around three sides; rows of doorways opening onto the square like colonnades, tall enough for a horseman to ride through without brushing the crest of his helm. Each hall is more than two hundred yards long, supplied with water piped into stone basins. There is room for thousands. The one weak point, in Hernando's view, is an adobe wall on the fourth side, put up quickly—the mortar still wet—separating the square from a field. In the middle of the plaza is a kind of fort, rising in terraces with a stairway to the top. A larger castle overlooks the city from a height where the houses end.

“Any people? Any troops in these forts?”

“Nobody anywhere. Only some women in a nunnery beside the golden temple. Those buildings are secluded behind high walls. We left them alone. The plaza's the best place for us.”

“Why not the castle on the hill?”

“We'd never get horses up there, let alone down. But it's a good spot for a lookout and some guns.”

Hernando turns his gaze to the sky. Dark overcast has crept into the valley from the east, hiding all but the skirts of the mountains on that side. The sun, about to set over the western range, appears for a time below the closing lid of cloud, lighting up Cajamarca's buildings against a charcoal sky. Then hail comes, dancing on
roofs, catching in shingles and chevrons, revealing the ornamental thatchwork.

“I don't like it, Francisco,” Hernando adds, shouting above the din on his helmet. “Those men you sent to the baths are not enough. Some aren't good riders. Some of their horses are lame. If the Indians strike, they could be overwhelmed. Especially in snow.”

Francisco tugs at his whiskers unconsciously, a nervous gesture his brother knows well.

“Then pick out more and go yourself. Catch up with Soto before he gets there, if you can.”

Hernando calls out a troop, gallops off.

The Commander raises his arm; a trumpet squeals. The weary column—riders, infantry, women, slaves—begins to move with an intestinal, wormlike progress.

The outlanders file into Cajamarca's eerily empty square.

—

When he comes to Atawallpa's palace at the baths, Soto finds four hundred pikemen formed up along the outer wall. Leaving his squad nearby, he rides in the gate, Candía and Waman close behind.

They are in a long walled garden with a paved patio and shrubs in earthenware pots. Soldiers in check tunics stand along each side, helmets and shoulders scurfed with melting hail. A smell of brimstone wafts from a steaming pool fed by pipes for hot water and cold. The surrounding halls have whitewashed domes, and at the far end is a wooden gallery, massive yet elegant, its posts and beams finished in red lacquer.

There, in the gallery, sits the Only King, on a low golden bench shaped like a puma. He is dressed simply in a fine white cloak with a belt of heraldic squares. His black hair hangs to his jawline, and across his brow is the crimson fringe of vicuña threads—the
maskhapaycha
—which only the Emperor wears. Behind him, in a semicircle, stand lords and ladies.

“You can smell the Devil in here all right!” Soto remarks to Candía, sniffing the sulphurous vapour as they ride past the bath. “And that sultan in white must be Friar Valverde's Antichrist. What rot.”

“Best not tempt the Lord God, sir. We may need Him.”

The Inca takes no notice of the horsemen as they pull up in front of him, staying in their saddles. Head cocked to one side, he keeps his eyes down, shaded by the royal fringe.

Soto snaps his fingers for Waman to dismount. “Boy! Get down before the King. Then tell him this: I am the Commander's deputy. Our leader sends us here to invite him to visit us tomorrow morning.”

Waman climbs down and falls to his knees, using his cloak—now wet and cold—for the symbolic burden. “Sapa Inka—” he begins, stuttering out the curt message.

Atawallpa does not move or give any sign that he has heard. An older man steps up and acts as spokesman: “My lord is fasting and cannot speak with anyone. His fast will end tomorrow. You may go.”

Hernando Pizarro now rides in, drawing his roan mare up beside Soto's stallion. The stallion whinnies and tosses his head, nipping her neck, licking the foam at her mouth.

“My Bullyboy's getting frisky. That mare of yours is coming into heat.”

“How goes it? What has the Indian said?”

“Not a word. He hasn't even looked at us.”

“A sight, isn't he? Sitting there with all the majesty in the world, like the Emperor Charles himself. About the same age too.”

“Hard to say. These savages don't age like Christians. Look about you. Not a bald head. And few grey. Valverde says it's because no conscience weighs upon their heathen souls.”

“Who is this new one?” asks the Inca's spokesman.

Waman can hardly find voice. Don't these Spaniards know their lives are hanging by a thread? Still on his knees, stifled by his doublet, cold sweat running from his armpits, the interpreter crosses himself, regretting his backsliding prayers in that splendid highland dawn.

“Only King. This is Don Hernando, brother of Don Francisco, the white men's lord.”

“His brother?” Atawallpa speaks at last, without looking up. “That's better. Why is he here?”

Hernando Pizarro bends from his saddle and grasps Waman's shoulder hard. “Say my brother sends me to request the pleasure of this Indian's—this King's—company tomorrow in the city square. He wishes to eat and drink with him and become his dearest friend.”

“My friend?” Atawallpa returns with a sarcasm the interpreter doesn't miss. “Perhaps my
friend
should be here himself to explain what I've learnt of his brigands' activities. They have been killing my subjects on the coast for months. They've put hundreds in chains. They've fed them to their dogs. They burn people alive. They even boil men down for fat to salve their wounds. I do not need such friends.”

Waman softens the Inca's words, substituting
Christians
for
brigands
. Still, Soto reddens furiously.

“This savage will find out what we're made of soon enough. Tell him Maytawillka is a lying rogue. Tell him the men of Tumbes fled like women.” He spits on the ground between the horses.

“What is the angry one saying? Is it because my people in Tumbes killed three of them and a horse?”

Hernando Pizarro whispers to Soto, “Those were our losses exactly. The tyrant is well-informed. Let's not waste our breath gainsaying him. I'll give the rest of my brother's message. Then we'll go.”

“Now, Felipillo,” Hernando resumes, “tell lord Atawallpa that my brother loves him dearly. That we Christians never attack except in self-defence. But if the King has any unquelled enemies we'll crush them for him. My brother will send ten horsemen. Ten will be more than enough. Atawallpa won't need his own troops except to round up those who flee.”

Waman translates the boast. Atawallpa looks at the Spaniards for the first time. A scornful smile is his only reply.

“Did you mark that?” Hernando Pizarro says to Soto. “He takes us for nothing!”

The Inca's attention has already left the bearded ones. It is the horses he is watching. Fascinating creatures, a dignity about them. A dignity their owners lack. Meeker than llamas, maybe, but evidently stronger. He will breed them. He wonders if it's true what Maytawillka thought, that the beasts can't run at night. Is that why the barbarians are in such haste to leave?

The interpreter, who is keeping his head down, feels the royal gaze upon him. “You,” Atawallpa says. “Who are you? Where are you from?”

“I am Waman, Only King. From Tumbes Province. A small fishing town called Little River.”

“Are you their only
chaka
, the only bridge between tongues?”

“Yes, Sapa Inka.”

A vile accent. But the boy seems bright. He will be useful.

“Tomorrow you and I will speak. You will tell me everything I want to know. Now tell these barbarians to get down and stand on their own feet. They will dine with me before they go. Their animals may browse the shrubbery in here.”

“Tell him it's late,” Soto answers. “We must go back, as our leader commands.”

The Inca insists they at least have a drink.