The Seven Serpents Trilogy (64 page)

I was standing next to the old noble, caretaker of the Inca's pleasure house, when the tide of mourners swept down the aisle. Chima and her mother came last, walking slowly by themselves—two proud women, their eyes red from weeping.

Chima glanced at me and quickly turned away. But in that brief moment, stronger than any words, I saw in her eyes a look of dread and distrust, a nameless horror of all those who had invaded her home, killed the Inca people, and betrayed her father. It was an accusing look that struck deep into my heart.

Soldiers herded the women through the rain back to their quarters. I went there to find Chima but was turned away by Pizarro's guards. At dawn, when I went again, I learned that she had fled from Cajamarca, borne away by servants who feared for her safety. I also learned that her mother had taken her own life in sorrow over the emperor's death, as had many of the women.

The next morning de Soto returned from Guamachucho. Appalled to hear that the emperor was dead, he sought out Pizarro and found him at the church, sitting beside the door, attired in mourning black with his great felt hat slouched over his eyes, for all to witness the depth of his sorrow.

De Soto was not taken in. He told Pizarro that the execu tion of Atahualpa was a rash and unnecessary act. On his journey to Guamachucho and in the city itself, he had met with nothing save friendship. At once Pizarro placed the blame on others, especially upon Vincente de Valverde. With cold ferocity, Valverde then turned on Pizarro.

After two days of violent argument, when his rage still had not cooled, Valverde turned on me. I was detained, placed in Atahualpa's old quarters, and charged with the murder of Bishop Pedroza. His evidence was flimsy, mere hearsay, but next to Pizarro his word was supreme. It would be easy for him to have me tried. Few would come forward in my behalf, for I had lost favor with Pizarro.

He would have tried me at once except for the excitement caused among the soldiery by Atahualpa's death. The streets of Cajamarca rang with triumphant shouts. The road to Cuzco, the fabulous city, was finally open!

At the height of the excitement, during the last hours of wild preparations for the march on Cuzco, bribing a guard with half the gold I owned, I rode out of the city on a windy morning just before daylight. I rode straight to the emperor's pleasure house, where I learned that Chima had stopped for only a night, then fled on to Abancay, a secluded village near Cuzco.

I hid in the pleasure house. I could not continue on the road that Pizarro and Valverde would take. A conspicuous figure—a tall Spaniard with sun-bleached hair riding a dappled horse—would surely be reported.

The old noble showed me a large
sala
of marble and pre cious woods, but I chose a small room at the back of the palace that had been Chima's playroom when she was a child. The Spaniards had rooted it upside down searching for gold, but her couch was there and childish designs she apparently had stitched and hung on the walls.

It was strange being in her room, like nothing that had ever happened to me in my life…Things about Chima that I hadn't noticed before—the first day we met and later when I stood in the rain and gave her my rosary—all this I sud denly remembered.

In the beginning I hadn't thought of her beauty. But now, as she walked gracefully before me in memory, her thin shoul ders thrown back as though she carried a light burden on her head, her dark eyes rayed with flecks of amber, I was stunned with her beauty.

Now, as I gazed at the sky, the road that wound through the shadowy hills, the sparkling leaves of the tree beside the window, everything I saw looked different. I forgot the awful truth that Chima had fled from me, no less than from Pizarro.

I stayed in hiding for nine long days, until he and his army had gone by. I then took the road to Abancay.

 

F
OR A WEEK
I
RODE CLOSE BEHIND THE ARMY—AT TIMES IN ITS DUST
. Soon afterward, my mare wore her shoes so thin that I was forced to stop in the town of Xauxa to have her reshod.

Pizarro had just left. He had encountered trouble in this town, caused, he believed, by an Indian cacique who was serv ing the army as a guide. The cacique was accused of sending secret messages to Quizquiz, a powerful chief who was waiting near Cuzco to attack the Spaniards. The cacique was converted to Christianity by Valverde, then burned at the stake. His body, surrounded by a flock of carrion birds, lay in the town square when I arrived.

I found the natives subdued and fearful, yet friendly. They knew nothing about horseshoes, of course, but I was sent to a metal worker, who took patterns and, mixing the soft gold I gave him with a hard alloy, made four serviceable shoes. They lasted for several months, through bad country, in rain and sleet and snow.

I caught up with the army at Xaquixaguana, a village five leagues from Cuzco. I found a place to stay on its outskirts with a farmer and his wife. From them I learned that a girl had passed through the village some weeks before, borne in a litter by eight young nobles. The litter, they said, carried the royal mark of Inca Atahualpa.

I stayed on with the family after Pizarro moved his army to Cuzco. Manco, the farmer, went to market there with his produce twice each week and came back with news of the Spaniards. They were rifling the palaces, stripping gold plates from the walls and arcades, digging up streets and gardens for treasures they thought had been buried, invading the temples. They raped the women who had not fled. To my great distress, Manco brought from Cuzco not a word, not so much as a rumor, about Chima Atahualpa. The girl had disappeared. Then, suddenly, Pizarro moved out of Cuzco for the coast, taking with him Father Valverde and all of his army except a small garrison of forty, which he left to guard the city. The day I heard of his departure I started for Cuzco.

Cuzco is a cloud city, high among the Andes Mountains, more than two leagues above the level of the sea. By now winter had set in, and a cold wind was sweeping down from the snowy peaks. As I descended upon it from a narrow pass, I saw destruction on every side. Some of the buildings had furnishings piled in front of them, others were in ashes. On the main square, what must have been Atahualpa's palace showed gaping holes where gold plates and decorations had been torn away.

Having nothing to fear from the garrison Pizarro had left behind, some of whom were my friends, I went first to them to ask about Chima. I found a dispirited bunch. Now that the city had been sacked, they had nothing to do. The gold bars they had received in Cajamarca were tightly sewn into their jackets, and they slept with one eye open. Nobody had seen or heard news of Chima Atahualpa. It was suggested that she might have gone to Quito, where her father had been born and where he wished to be buried. But Quito was far to the north in the opposite direction. Manco and his wife had definitely seen her on the road to Cuzco. The officer in charge of the garrison suggested that I visit the convent on the opposite side of the square. After prolonged knocking at the convent's battered gate, I heard a fearful voice ask my business. I described it and re ceived the answer that Chima Atahualpa had taken refuge there before the Spaniards came, but had fled.

“Fled where?” I asked.

“Far off,” the woman said.

“To another convent?”

There was silence and I repeated the question. The woman would not answer.

“I have words for her,” I said. “It is necessary that she hear them.” “Give the words to me,” she said. “I will see that she hears them. We send words.”

“I have important words for her ears,” I said, realizing that there was no written Inca language. “It is necessary that she hear them.”

“Give me the words,” the woman said, “and the Sweet Child of the Sun will hear them.”

What could I say? What message could I possibly send to Chima that wouldn't make me out to be a lovesick fool? There was nothing, nothing!

“I will take the words myself. They are necessary. They are from her mother,” I suddenly decided to say. “Where do I go? In what direction? What is the name of this place, tell me!”

“You cannot go,” the woman said. “It is forbidden.”

“Someone must go or else the messages cannot be delivered. Who does go?”

“Girls and women go.”

“When?”

“During the nights of the dark moon.”

“Only then?”

She did not answer. I heard footsteps moving away, the closing of a heavy door.

That day I took up quarters in a building the Spaniards had sacked. From the roof I had a clear view of the convent and its only gate. On the sixth night of my vigil, soon after dusk, a litter borne by six women came out of the gate, circled the square, and struck out to the north on a trail I had crossed when entering Cuzco.

I followed them at a safe distance. When they camped near midnight, in a thatched hut beside the river, I camped also, well out of sight. I slept little, bothered by the horrible suspi cion that the woman at the gate had lied to me and that at the very moment we were talking, Chima was hidden away some where in the convent.

We followed the river for two days, moving down through a canyon shadowed by towering cliffs. On the third day we crossed the river on an osier bridge and started upward on a trail into the heart of the mountains, among peaks sparkling with snow. I say
we
, though at no time did I meet the bearers.

We climbed all that day and stopped often, for the air was thin and hard to breathe. I walked part of the time to rest my horse. We reached the snow line toward evening. From there the trail ran level, teetering on the edge of an abyss. The sun on the snow was blinding.

For an hour or less we traveled along a narrow shelf of rock, steep on both sides, and then came upon a stone wall that ran in a curved line for half a league, from one abyss to another, blocking our way. The wall was thrice my height as I sat in the saddle, too high to climb. But it was not its height that astounded me. The wall was made of huge stones—many of them fifty or sixty feet in circumference. And what was truly remarkable, they were fitted edge to edge, beveled so tight together that they looked to be the work of a lapidary, not a mason but someone who engraved precious stones.

The trail led to a massive gate, pierced by a smaller gate at which stood two tall men in black robes. The litter came to a halt and a brief conversation took place. Then the smaller gate was opened and the litter passed through. Before the gate closed, the bearers—all armed with clubs—glanced back at me.

Apparently, the two guards had never seen a horse or imag ined one. Their first impulse, I am sure, was to flee, but they stood their ground and, though trembling, barred my way with crossed spears. They said nothing. They looked at the sky and not at me, standing fixed as if they meant to stay there forever.

“I have come here to see Atahualpa Capac's daughter,” I said.

There was no response from either of the Indians, who looked alike and could have been brothers—two brown statues with blank faces. A third Indian came from somewhere and stood beside the two silent ones. He was small and wore in his ears big gold loops that rested on his shoulders.

“I bring an urgent message,” I said. “It is from the mother of Atahualpa's daughter.”

“Which daughter?” the noble said. “Atahualpa has many daughters. Three of them are here now in our city of Machu Picchu.”

“Her name is Chima. I have come from Cuzco with…”

“There is only one road to Machu Picchu,” the nobleman said, “and it comes only from Cuzco. We have seen you com ing each day from Cuzco. You sometimes talk to someone, yet you are alone. It is odd. Perhaps you talk to the beast. You walk sometimes also instead of sitting in comfort on your beast like the other Spaniards. Odd. Would you like a drink? You pant like a dog. There is little air here among the clouds. What drink would you like, tall young fellow?”

“Water,” I said. “Cold if you have it.”

I noticed that he was wearing Spanish boots. They were a trifle large for him, but polished to a nice shine. Somewhere, probably in Cuzco, he had encountered Pizarro's army.

The water came ice cold in a golden cup. When I had drunk my fill and water had been brought to my horse—tubs of water—the noble opened the small gate and stood aside for me to pass.

He led me down a path paved with marble and through a garden where all the flowers were gold, so delicately made that they moved in the light wind. Among the flowers were golden butterflies and golden birds with ruby eyes. It was an amazing sight. Clearly, no Spaniard had ever set foot here.

At the far end of the garden stood a pleasure palace, like Atahualpa's palace at Cajamarca, though smaller. After I had tied my horse, I was led down a dim hall into a room lit by candles, whose walls were stark white. In a far corner sat a woman dressed in a shimmering red gown that clung to her body. Her bare feet rested on a cushion. The little man gave me a name that he must have made up and the woman a name of many syllables I didn't catch. In time, I called her Magdalena.

“She is the priestess of the temple,” he said, “where Chima Atahualpa now lives. She will listen to the message you have brought and decide if the emperor's daughter should hear it.”

The little man slipped away, his army boots soundless on the stone floor. The woman was silent. Whether she knew that I was in the room I could not tell.

“I have come a long way to bring this message for Chima Atahualpa,” I said, out of breath and impatient.

I waited for an answer. She was chewing on a little red nut, or rather rolling it around on her tongue. It had stained her lips red and moistened them so that they glistened in the candlelight.

“It is a long journey,” she said at last in a throaty voice barely loud enough to hear. “Returning will be even longer, or so our pilgrims complain.”

She crossed her feet, and I noticed that the nails were tinted the same color as her mouth.