The Gold Eaters Page 7
Door curtains are drawn aside and a man and woman enter from right and left, both middle-aged. Recognizing the All-Seer, Candía rises to greet him but is pressed firmly back onto his stool by an attendant. Lord and lady sit down calmly, saying nothing. Who is she? the Greek wonders, admiring her ankle-length dress of some silky green fabric with embroidered borders, pinned at her chest with a brooch like a chased silver spoon. His wife? Or the ruler? Felipe said something about Tumbes being governed by a woman. Maybe she’s a queen—a Peruvian Cleopatra—and this lord her Antony. Candía chuckles privately within his beard.
Uniformed servants spread a cloth on a low dining board and set out food and drink. Everything is served in vessels of gold or silver, beginning with tall beakers of corn beer. The lord and lady’s tankards are in the shape of a human pair, naked, sexes visible. A gold Adam, thinks Candía, a silver Eve.
“Kunan,” says the lady, hoisting her beer in both hands and nodding at the foreigners. “Pachamamapaq.” She tips a few drops on the ground. Candía understands not a word, but knows the gesture—Felipe used to do this on the island until the priest forbade it. Mother Earth drinks first. A damned heathen custom, though not without charm. He does the same.
A feast of smiling, miming, watching, aping. Candía wishes Pizarro had sent Felipe along, though he sees the wisdom in keeping him on the ship. The All-Seer, too, understands the boy’s absence. The interpreter is a weapon. With two edges. Whoever wields him skilfully has the advantage, the initiative. For now, until he hears the Emperor’s wishes, he must do these barbarians honour and weave a spell of friendship that will charm them off their boat. Especially the Old One, the leader, with yellow eyes like a dog.
He is pleased that Lady Sian, the Tumbes Governor, has offered to hold this meeting at her official residence. The arrival of the barbarians concerns her province as much as it does the Empire, possibly more. He will be glad of her advice. Over the years they have worked together, he has found her to be shrewd and experienced in many things. No one reads men better.
As the imperial inspector for Tumbes, a highlander and member of the royal kindred, the All-Seer knows he is sometimes seen as a meddling outsider. Indeed, his relations with Lady Sian have occasionally been delicate, especially in their early days, requiring tact. She is a well-born lowlander, a descendant of the old kings and queens of Chimor, who controlled the seaboard before their kingdom was annexed to the World. (Without bloodshed, the All-Seer reflects proudly; though it is true that highland forces persuasively diverted the headwaters of Chimor canals, to show what war would bring.) That was a long time ago now, when the Emperor’s father was young. It has since become imperial policy to govern the coast through its old nobility, and to allow local customs to continue, not least the appointing of women to high office whenever they are abler than their male kin.
The All-Seer’s eyes settle fondly on Lady Sian, noting a rime of beer on the fine pleating of her upper lip. They have grown to trust and respect each other. Not only professionally but personally, he believes.
—
Restored by the meal, the All-Seer thinks over what he has learnt about the outlanders so far. Their interpreter is one weapon—unfortunate the boy’s not here—but there are other weapons to investigate. The Governor has suggested they get the tall blackbeard to demonstrate the iron blowpipe he carries on his shoulder. It would be wise to do that out of town. But first these two should be shown the sights that made such a deep impression on the one who came yesterday with gifts. Sights to draw their leader from his floating lair.
Candía and Tomás are taken across the square to the great building with the golden roof that crowns the city skyline, the temple Molina called a “mosque.” They pass through an outer doorway, plain and unadorned except for the perfect fit of its massive stonework. Candía inspects the work closely. No mortar has been used. He can’t imagine how it was done, even if the stone were soft—not granite—and the masons had good steel. Can there be iron in this land, he wonders, or some other metal equal to it? Perhaps steel is kept for special use, as rare in Peru as gold in Spain. The Emperor’s official looked glad to receive Pizarro’s parting gift of a Toledo axe head yesterday. Glad, but not amazed. Nothing seems to surprise the man.
The temple is cool, dark, empty. As if the priests have been forewarned to hide themselves and any evidence of their heathen rites. There is no sign of the idols or bloody sacrifices he expected from tales of Mexico. The place is simply a great house—four halls around a courtyard, like the house where they ate, though grander and smelling of incense and lamp oil. Each hall they are shown is devoted to a power of nature. One has a rainbow painted on the wall; one an image of the stars, skilfully done with an array of gems on a jet background; the third holds a large silver disc of the moon.
The fourth hall is unlike the others, being longer and half round in plan. A mass of bedrock, carved with small basins and ledges, rises through the floor like a miniature mountain. A tall eastern window faces the sunrise over the icefields, and on the wall across from this hangs a sun—a great wheel of heavy gold a man’s height in diameter.
Incense twists lazily from a brazier below.
“God’s blood, Tomás! For once Molina told us the bare truth. If that sun is as solid as it looks”—Candía moves to touch the great disc but feels the Governor’s hand on his arm—“it would buy a pair of ships and outfit a hundred cavalry!”
The All-Seer moves to the window, beckoning palm-down in the Peruvian way, fluttering his fingers. Candía sees the lady shoot him a dark look, as if to object. What does she want them not to see?
Below is a walled garden crisscrossed with water channels. Among trimmed fruit trees and a stand of maize are statues—men, women, and Indian camels. All life-size. All made of precious metal: the men gold, the women silver, the strange beasts of gold with silver fleeces on their backs and necks.
“Am I bewitched?” Candía breathes, after a long silence. “Do you see it too, Tomás? They say gold can make a man lose his wits.” He grips the youth’s elbow. “Tell me! Tell me everything you see down there.”
The African begins to confirm what the Greek beholds, but before he can finish they hear girlish laughter. In shade on the far side of the garden is an open building, a kind of cloister, filled with women. Some are seated at looms, weaving brightly coloured cloth. All are young, save for two or three older ones in charge. There are no men.
One looks up from her work. She shrieks; stifles her cry with a hand. All eyes follow hers to the strange sight in the window of the Sun. The white man and the black man wave. Most of the maidens lower their eyes; a few wave back.
The lady speaks to the lord sharply (it seems to Candía) and the party returns through the temple courtyard to the square. They are then led out of town in the opposite direction from the ship, crossing the river by a long wood-decked bridge hung from stout cables between stone piers. Candía is intrigued by this ingenious structure, but uppermost in his mind is that the Peruvians may be about to play some trick. Good thing he brought the arquebus. Then he realizes he forgot his flint and steel: no way to light the matchcord.
The All-Seer, too, is thinking about this weapon: like a blowpipe, yet heavy as a crowbar. Time to see what it can do. Once they reach open fields, he orders a wooden board set up on the wall of a government granary a hundred paces off. A good slingsman or archer could hit that. The right range, he guesses, for a test.
It takes Candía some time to understand he’s being asked to fire the gun. He is lost in the sights of this new land: the watered fields spread like green carpets on the desert, the purple foothills beyond—range behind range—and, far above these, the fleshy bulk of great snow-crowned mountains. And the works of the people: the road with its canal, side walls, flagstones; runners and pack trains plying between distant cities; and the bridge suspended over the river—such a clever idea, a thing never seen in all his tra
vels. But will the horses cross it?
Some crops are young; others are being reaped by teams of farm folk, singing as they go. The stubble is given over to Indian camels, who raise their long necks to watch him with the same feminine lashes and disdainful eye of camels he recalls from his Turkish war. These are only half the size, but they must be akin, as a spaniel is to a bulldog. How can there be camels here yet none in Mexico or Panama? What is this southern land?
A small throng of onlookers has gathered from houses and fields, their eyes upon Candía when he sees what the All-Seer wants and sets to work. He taps powder into the muzzle, rams down wad and ball, primes the pan, cocks the lock. He has trouble miming his need of a light for the matchcord. Eventually a live coal is brought from a nearby kitchen.
Candía did not much like the yeasty beer served at lunch, but had to drink with the others. The arquebus feels heavier than usual, the target dances in the heat. He takes a sight. Unsteady, and he hasn’t a gun-rest. “Tomás, lend me your shoulder. Stand still as a post. Stop your ears.”
He lays the barrel on the lad’s dark shoulder.
The smouldering cord pecks the touch-hole.
Thunder and lightning in the desert sun.
—
All-Seer and Governor keep their composure, but many onlookers drop to the ground, hands over ears. Others rush up to Candía and jostle for a look at the weapon. The All-Seer tells his guards to keep order.
Candía has missed narrowly, making a small crater in the granary’s adobe wall. He must swab and reload. Every move, he notes, is watched closely by the All-Seer. Is the man counting how long it takes? Maybe so.
This time the Greek shoots well, splitting the board in two.
The All-Seer sniffs the gunsmoke. Sulphurous, like a volcanic vent. He sends a man to fetch target and balls for further study. The iron blowpipe does not seem much more effective than a war sling in good hands, but there’s no doubt of its power to startle.
“Extraordinary!” he observes to the Governor. “Such smoke, such stink. Such noise. But you kept your head.”
“And you. As always.”
The All-Seer accepts the compliment (if that’s what it is) with a bow.
“What do you make of them?” he says, with a jut of his chin at the strangers. “What brings them here? Are they lost?”
The lady of Tumbes tilts her head to one side as she thinks, a winning gesture. “They’re men like any others. I see how they look at women, especially that white one. They’ve been away from their homes a long time. As if they are lost.” She straightens her head and looks him hard in the eye. “But I don’t think they are.”
In her view, she adds, these barbarians are likely the same as some who raided the eastern border of the Empire two years ago, coming up the Pillkumayu from the great jungle with a force of Chunchu bowmen. “They too had beards and metal pipes and helmets. The local garrison killed all the bearded ones and drove the Chunchus back into the forest. A pipe and a barbarian skin were brought to the capital and put on show in the Roundhouse. I saw them myself last time I was in Cusco. The pipe was just like this one.”
“Was the skin pale or dark?”
“Couldn’t tell. It was dry, withered. Brown hair on the chest. Like a monkey.” She laughs; then frowns. “Think what this may mean: that these new people are coming from both seas. From both sides of the World. These may be only the first of many, only the scouts.”
The All-Seer nods appreciatively. Time with Lady Sian is always well spent. Tonight they will dine together and go over every detail of the day. Everything must be entered on a quipu and sent to the Emperor.
—
The sun is sinking by the time they get back to the square. There’s a faint chill on the salt breeze. Time, Candía mimes, to leave for the ship. Their hosts bid them farewell with a few words and hands raised high, like a benediction. Four guards escort them to the haven.
“Don Pedro,” Tomás says, as they are punted out to the caravel (Candía likes the sound of the title, all the more because he has no right to it), “if you decide to stay here, I should like to stay here too.”
“Why so, Tomás? Are you bewitched by the gold like that rogue Molina? Or is it the girls? Also like Molina, come to that.”
“Among Christians I’m a slave. Before that I was a slave in Morocco. Here I was treated as a man. I see no slaves in this land. No beggars either. Everyone has good clothes. Everyone has a good house. And the houses have no locks. Their doors are only curtains. Did you ever see the like, Don Pedro, in your travels? To me this is a new thing.”
“To me too, Tomás. Peru must be the richest land on Earth. But we mustn’t let ourselves be charmed like witless unicorns by women and gold. Make no mistake, Tomás—if we stay here they’ll kill us. Sooner or later.”
—
Waman has been chained below all day, his mind feverish with longing to set foot in his homeland, or just be allowed on deck to watch the folk in the port. He feels deeply wronged he wasn’t sent along to interpret for Candía, though he admits to himself that the Old One’s suspicions are right. He would gladly have fled, have done whatever the All-Seer required. Or would he—if it led to the deaths of Tomás and Candía, who have treated him kindly? He wrestles with this, tells himself the decision was made when he killed that man on the island. How he rues not killing Pizarro too! He must put his family first. Even if to go home is to risk the lives of his new friends.
Waman’s only visitor has been Molina, who came down into the hold with food and water, and many questions. Molina has made the day both better and worse. Better, by filling some empty hours below deck. Worse, by tormenting him with talk of the wonders he saw in Tumbes yesterday.
To be fair, Molina has also been kind, telling Waman that once the Commander hears what Candía has to say, he will surely want to see the city for himself, probably tomorrow, and will need his interpreter at his side.
“But don’t start thinking he’ll give you the slightest chance to slip away, Felipe. No. He’ll keep you trussed like those hogs I took ashore.”
—
Candía’s nose picks up the stink of the caravel wafting towards him on the water. Funny how one never smells it when aboard. He forgets it as soon as wine is flowing around the cabin table and he begins to relate the marvels he has seen, keeping for last the best: the golden temple. First he describes the city, mentioning the lack of doors. “The only strong door I saw in the whole place was at the fortress. It has a big gate, with a jaguar and cougar painted on the bastions. I couldn’t get near enough to see in, but there’s a heavy wooden ramp that can be pulled up like a drawbridge.”
“Show me,” says Pizarro, going on deck and peering at the silhouette of Tumbes against an evening sky the colour of dried blood. It’s already too dark to see details, but the Greek points out the three-tiered bulk of the fort on a hill outside the town.
“If, as you say, Candía . . .” Pizarro asks thoughtfully, “if there’s no hunger or want in Peru, if even the lowest have enough, how do the lords get anyone to work?”
The Greek gives a Greek shrug. They return to the cabin table.
“No poor?” says the Pilot. “You must be mistaken. Such a thing can’t be. It’s unheard of—whether in Christendom or Turkey or anywhere. Including the Indies. Those who saw the city of Mexico before we conquered it say the poor begged from the rich in the streets, just as they do in Seville. ‘Ye have the poor with you always,’ said Our Lord. Poverty makes charity. Without the needy, how would we give alms to open our souls’ way into Heaven?”
“I thought Our Lord told the rich to sell all their stuff and give it away,” Molina cuts in cheekily. “Maybe here they’ve done it.” He enjoys needling the tiresomely pious Pilot. And, like Candía and Tomás, he has been seduced by his glimpse of Peru.
Ruiz slams a pewter mug down on the table. “In ev
ery country on Earth I’ve seen or heard of, God raises the wealthy because they’ve earned it. The poor are here to serve the rich and test their generosity—especially when it’s time to make their wills. A land without poverty is blasphemy.”
Ruiz refills his mug, glaring at Candía with the eye of a horse who has smelt fire. “This temple you saw. Incense, fonts, holy statues—even a nunnery! What can it be but Satan amusing himself in this faraway land by mocking our True Faith? No, it’s for God and the Church to care for the poor, Candía. Not some heathen king. If things are as you say, it’s because the Devil coddles these Indians to make them worship him.
“Or perhaps, gentlemen,” he adds more softly, looking around the table, “we ourselves have strayed too far from God. Has any man here ever asked himself why the Bible makes no mention of these lands? Lands unknown to Jew or Christian, though surely known to their Creator. By my reckoning, we’re now as far from the Holy Land as one can get on this round Earth. Think on that. Perhaps, gentlemen, we’re blundering into the kingdom of the Antichrist.”
“Enough of this friars’ flaptrap!” It’s Pizarro who raps the table now. “Everyone knows pagan lands are the Devil’s playground. What I want to know is how big this kingdom is. How rich. How well defended.” The Commander hoists himself from his chair.
“Pilot Ruiz, we sail on the morning tide. We’ll follow the coast southwards and see what else we find. But I want one man to stay here in this city and learn their ways. We’ll pick him up when we come back in a few weeks. Any takers?”
“Me!” Molina’s hand shoots up like a schoolboy’s. “I’ll stay, Don Francisco.”
“Why you?”
“I like it here.”
The suspicion native to Pizarro’s face widens into a grin. “Not sure I can spare you, Molina. Fine fellow like you. But if you insist—”