The Seven Serpents Trilogy (61 page)

Pizarro saved Inca Atahualpa from the swords, not out of sympathy, but because he was far more important to him alive than dead. Before dusk settled on the square, while the last of the Indians were being hunted down, he whisked Atahualpa from the mob and led him to safety.

That night Pizarro held a banquet for the emperor in one of the halls facing the great plaza, the scene only hours before of the massacre. Moans of the dying could be heard as we sat down to eat. With Little Philip seated next to me, eager to correct any mistakes I might make, I translated Pizarro's words to the stunned emperor.

“I beseech you,” Pizarro said to him in the gentlest and most pleading of voices, “not to be downcast by what has befallen you. Similar misfortunes have befallen all those who have re sisted us.”

Atahualpa, who sat across the table from me, received these words, which were meant to be comforting, in stunned silence. He was a broad-shouldered, rugged man of thirty or less, much larger than the nobles around him, with a hawklike eye and the proud bearing of an emperor.

“We have come to this land,” Pizarro went on, “to proclaim the creed of Jesus Christ. It is small wonder, therefore, that He has protected us. And that heaven itself has allowed your pride to be humbled because of your hostile thoughts about us. As well as the insult you offered to our sacred book, the Bible.”

Atahualpa's expression didn't change at these words. He was sitting next to Pizarro and never glanced at him. His eyes were on me, watching every word that came from my mouth, as if they came not from his conqueror but from me.

“And yet, my friend, I ask you to take courage,” Pizarro said. “We Spaniards are a generous race, warring only against those who war against us. We wish to show grace toward all who submit.”

As I finished with these words, silence fell upon the hall, and I heard the cries of the wounded who were lying in the square. Pizarro heard them also, crossed himself, and waited for the Inca to answer. The Inca said nothing. And when the others at the table drank and began to eat, he sat gravely, his jeweled hands clasped in his lap.

Father Valverde, seeing that I was troubled by the sounds that came from the square, whispered in my ear.

“Remember,” he said, “that Charlemagne converted the Germans by hanging ten thousand of them.” He paused to drink from the golden goblet he had been given the previous day. “We shall do this in Peru also, God willing.”

 

T
HAT NIGHT, AFTER THE BANQUET
, P
IZARRO WARNED US THAT WE WERE
still in the heart of a powerful kingdom, surrounded by foes who were deeply attached to their emperor. We must be ever on guard, he said, ready to spring from our slumbers at the first call of the trum pet. He then posted sentinels throughout the town and placed a heavy guard on the chambers of Atahualpa.

In the morning the prisoners were set to work digging trenches outside the walls, in which they were told to bury their dead. A troop of thirty horsemen was sent to the Inca's pleasure house to gather up all the spoils it could find, to kill or drive off any nobles who still clung to the place. Captain Alvarado led the troop, and I went with him to serve as interpreter.

We arrived in midmorning to find the gate open but the courtyard deserted. Not until a trumpet had been sounded and a musket fired did a fat, elderly nobleman appear, bowing deeply each step or two as he came toward us.

“There is no one here but me, Pacha Camac,” he said in a feeble voice. “Me and the wives and children of Inca Atahualpa. What is it that you desire?”

“We desire,” Alvarado said, “gold and silver and emeralds. Jewelry of value. Rich fabrics. And we desire these things without delay. Stir yourself, or else it will go hard with you.”

He added a few insults to his speech, none of which I trans lated. The troopers did not wait for the old man to answer. They were already in the pleasure house, running from room to room.

Shortly thereafter, as the first of the troopers appeared with armloads of treasure and piled them in the courtyard under the watchful eye of Alvarado, I heard the rustle of a dress and glanced around to find someone standing behind me.

The sun was in my eyes and until she spoke I didn't see that it was Chima, Atahualpa's daughter. Her face had changed. Her hair was done neatly, but not with the tinkling bells she had worn when we had met before. In her hands, clutched to her breasts, was a golden cup.

“You didn't remember when you went away to take this with you,” she said.

“Yes, in all the excitement I forgot.”

“I saved it for you,” she said. “Just now someone tried to take it from me—one of your men—but I screamed and drove him off. Did you hear me then?”

I was too embarrassed to answer. My tongue clove to my mouth. I wanted to fall to my knees and beg forgiveness for the disaster Pizarro had visited upon her father, upon her people, upon the girl herself.

“This is a dark time,” she said.

“Dark.” I managed to repeat the word. “Dark.”

“Do you think the dark will go away?” she said.

Chima spoke without the least hint of anger. I marveled that she could. Thousands of her people slain, her father held cap tive, her home at this very moment being ransacked by a band of gold-mad adventurers, their shouts echoing in the courtyard. The treasure they hauled out piece by piece, like frantic ants, was growing rapidly before her eyes.

“Will these men go away?” she said.

“Yes,” I said, still appalled, still at a loss for words. “When they have all the gold they can carry, they will go. They and the darkness together,” I said, not to comfort her, for she apparently was in no need of comfort. “Soon.”

I was amazed that she still showed no emotion. She looked older, a year older, than when I had seen her last, but there was nothing in her voice to betray the sorrow she must feel. And yet, it was possible that she felt nothing. After all, her father had sat through the banquet without a trace of emo tion. I remembered that Moctezuma had watched his kingdom slip away with scarcely a word, accepting his fate because it was ordained. Chima could feel the same—that her fate was likewise ordained.

She held out the golden cup. I hesitated to take it.

“You admired it the other day here in the courtyard,” she said with a touch of spirit, the first I had heard from her. “You almost forgot to drink because you admired it so much.”

“The beauty is what I admired.” She knew I was lying and showed it by the hint of a smile.

“You did forget the cup,” she said. “You put it down and went away, although you did admire it. I saw your eyes shine.”

“I admired you more,” I said. “That's why I forgot and left the cup behind.”

Having said this, I was silent, astounded at myself. The words seemed to hover above her, sharp and clear, a wreath of flowers of all colors. Her face seemed to be the face of La Macarena. Then my blood went rushing through me so loud I could hear it. I was dumb with fright, gazing with words again stuck to my tongue at the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Miracles have never been explained. All we know is that they happen when least expected as a sign of Christ's love.

The stored treasure now was piled high in the courtyard, and a noisy argument had broken out among the troopers. Some, who thought that the Inca had hidden most of his gold, were for tying the old nobleman to the tail of a horse and dragging the truth out of him, as I had seen it done at Chichén-Palapa.

The girl heard the shouts. “I know my father is a prisoner in Cajamarca. The news came this morning. Will he be harmed by these men, do you think?”

There was fear in her voice, the first I had heard. “Pizarro is in command at Cajamarca,” I said. “He can be trusted to protect your father.”

I said this with all the conviction I could muster, knowing full well that Pizarro would do only what was in his interests. He was a man without scruples, fear of God or the devil. He certainly would put Atahualpa to the torture should the need arise.

The argument between the troopers grew more heated. One of them seized the old man by the throat and would have choked him had I not intervened. For my efforts, I received a painful bruise; when I went back to the garden where Chima and I had been talking, I found her gone.

Soon afterward she appeared riding with her mother. They were in a red litter supported on the shoulders of a dozen men. In their wake came other litters, carrying other women, a crowd of menials on foot, a herd of llamas burdened with clothes and household goods, and a long line of unarmed guards. It took most of an hour for the caravan to take the trail to Cajamarca.

Meanwhile the pleasure house was now empty. The troopers left nothing behind. The gold and silver were loaded on the horses, the other less valuable things were bundled up and carried by a flock of llamas that Alvarado had collected nearby.

We passed the Incas before we reached Cajamarca. I rode up as close to the litter bearing Chima and her mother as courtesy permitted, close enough to see her receive my greeting with the faintest of smiles and follow me with her dark, troubled gaze as I rode on. When we reached Cajamarca, I sought out Pizarro. He was at supper with his officers, not seated but limping up and down in front of them, his jaw set, stabbing the air with his fore finger, his food untouched.

“Give thought,” he was saying as I sat down at the table, “to the fact that Cuzco is high in the most monstrous mountains in the world, a good three hundred leagues from where I now stand.”

“But it is the center of the Inca empire,” Morales, the in spector of metals, said. “It is the home of the Inca gold. It is the place where the Inca palaces outshine the sun. We waste our time in deserted Cajamarca.”

Pizarro turned to Alvarado, who had followed me in. “What did you bring us?” he asked the captain.

“It is stacked in the square, sir.”

“In value, how much?”

“As a guess, a thousand gold pesos.”

“You got it all?”

“All, sir.”

“Well, less than I expected,” Pizarro said, disappointed.

I spoke up. “The Inca's wives and children and servants are on their way here. They'll arrive soon. Where will you house them?”

“Alvarado,” Pizarro said, “give this your attention. We want the women and their servants treated with the utmost hospital ity. How about the House of the Serpents?”

“That's where we stable the horses.”

“Have it swept out,” Pizarro said. “And amply furnished. We'll move Atahualpa in among his women and children. We want everyone to be respectfully treated. Happy.”

I met his eyes as he spoke these last words. I saw a fierce light that told me he had already decided on a plan to wring the last ounce of gold from Inca Atahualpa.

He motioned for the servants to fill the golden cups. Limping to the table, he picked up his own and lifted it high. “To the Inca,” he shouted. “To the richest king in the world.” He paused, then added under his breath to himself, “Now but not forever.”

He drank the toast at one long gulp. As his officers drank theirs, I raised the heavy goblet to my lips. The taste of the
chicha
was bitter. Its color—a dark brown streaked with red—looked like the blood that ran underfoot on the day of the massacre. I turned away and quietly spat it on the floor.

Among the officers at supper was a Captain Almagro. He had arrived that morning with credentials from the king that gave him the right to explore lands to the south of Peru. But he didn't speak of exploration during the meal. He was inter ested in the gold Pizarro had collected, and because he had stationed himself in San Miguel for months protecting Pizarro's interests and was now present with a band of well-armed sol diers, he demanded a share of the treasure.

Pizarro treated him politely and said that there was more than enough gold for everyone, but when the meal was over he led me outside and asked what had taken place at the Inca's pleasure house.

“Alvarado claims to have collected only a thousand gold pesos in goods today,” he said. “What value would you give them?”

“I am not a goldsmith,” I said.

“As a guess.”

“A thousand gold pesos.”

“Did Alvarado collect all?”

“Everything.”

“He left nothing behind?”

“A few dogs.”

“Nothing was hidden along the trail on your way back?”

“Nothing that I saw.”

His men had quarreled for months now over the division of treasure, envying King Carlos his royal share, suspicious of each other, suspicious of Pizarro himself. But this was the first time I had heard Pizarro doubt the honesty of one of his own officers.

“The buzzards gather,” he said. “Soon they will darken the heavens. Someday soon there will be more buzzards than gold.”

While we talked in the dusk the caravan of women entered the square, led by a
mayordomo
resplendent in gold and feathers, flanked by torchbearers. In their midst were two musi cians, one with a thin flute and the other with a deep-voiced drum.

The caravan stopped in the square, not far from us, and Pizarro sent me out to direct the
mayordomo
to the House of the Serpents, which I did, pointing to a vast, low-lying struc ture on the far side of the square, where fires had begun to show.

I stood aside as the caravan passed, the long line of menials now walking in front, sweeping a pathway as they went. Night had fallen. The litter that carried the princess and her mother slipped by me without a sound. The reed curtains were drawn and I caught not the smallest glimpse of the girl.

My heart was pounding as I walked back to where Pizarro brooded, in the light of a lantern a servant had brought him. He was moving up and down, dragging one foot, muttering to himself.

“Yesterday,” he said, “it was news from the scoundrel Ibañez. Today it's Almagro, a gentleman. Gentlemen are hard to refuse—they make you think that God is watching when He really isn't. God is not concerned with gold—with nothing, as far as I can see. Now that He's set everything in motion, like a child's top of many colors, it's up to us humans to make the most of it. Life's a blur, señor, a spinning puzzle with many answers. You're lucky,
amigo
, if in a long life you find just one.”