The Gold Eaters (13 page)

But it's never enough, is it? There's a worm in him that gnaws. The worm speaks up: You call Panama a city? You call that enough? Enough, when you've glimpsed the golden cities of Peru?

On the river not a mile from this cell he has the proof of it. Gold, silver, fine silks, strange beasts. A Peruvian boy and girl. Enough—despite the dead heaved over the side, the gold already mortgaged—to turn the heads of King and Queen and make him great. And enough, by God, to bleach the stain of bastardy. They still sting, those tales: left by his unwed mother on a doorstep; unschooled, unloved; a mere swineherd on the lands of a father who never acknowledged him. None of it true . . . well, some of it, God knows. All of it murmured in drinking dens and whorehouses, even by his own men. Sweet Christ!

Pizarro kneels on the straw in the driest corner, crosses himself, asks God to forgive his blasphemous tongue. He feels better. Candía will get him out—just a matter of time, of bending the right ears, finding the right palms to grease.

—

“Good morning, Commander. Did Your Worship sleep well? Did the little angels send him a good night?” This not only sardonic but with a gloating tone. “Sold you short, didn't I? A would-be conqueror, eh? Less boring than I thought.” A sigh of mock regret. “If only Seville wasn't crawling with conquerors just now.”

Pizarro has been here a fortnight, with no visitors but Candía (who came yesterday with oranges) and this loathsome jailer. When jailers are cheerful, the news is always bad. Is he condemned to the galleys, to die at an oar?

“Such timing you have, my penniless friend.” The brute sets down bread and water, then gleefully relates the news. Hernán Cortés, Conqueror of Mexico, has just landed, returning in pomp with a treasure unseen since the triumphs of ancient Rome.

“Your Worship staggers home from the Indies with a few long-necked sheep and not enough coin to pay a whore. And now comes this other man—younger than you, and a real conqueror, this one—with gold enough to buy Seville.”

Hernán Cortés! The man Francisco Pizarro most wants to be. Cortés is a kinsman, a cousin of some kind, better born. But the blood tie is thin. And it's twenty years since the two met, just once, on the island of Cuba. In a Santiago tavern, where they quarrelled and drew knives. Over what? Pizarro asks himself. A slight, a woman . . . Or was it cards? He can't recall. He hopes Cortés, who was then a magistrate in Cuba, doesn't remember that night.

The jailer runs on, telling how everyone in Seville will turn out to watch the Conqueror ride a white stallion at the head of his parade tomorrow, followed by standard-bearers, slaves, women, Mexican lions and tigers, wagons piled high with gold and silver and strange idols.

Pizarro has no trouble picturing the scene, embroidered by his envy. That should be me, he thinks. That
shall
be me. He curses his luck, the timing. At best, Cortés puts him in the shade. At worst, he'll catch wind of Peru and take it for himself.

The jailer gone, the Commander's mood begins to lift, coaxed by a lick of sunshine from an arrow slit. He reflects that word of Peru is out already; that there's no shortage of potential rivals, in both the Indies and in Spain. Cortés himself might be the least of his worries: a man at the peak of fortune, a man who has everything he could possibly want.
Unless my cousin shares my worm.

Why not send word to his lofty kinsman through Candía? The
Greek will know how to charm the hero of Mexico. With smooth words and God's help, he might enlist the Conqueror's support.

A gamble, yes. But merely the latest of a thousand.

Strength is returning
to Waman's limbs, beginning with short walks around the wine merchant's yard on the arm of Tomás or Qoyllur.

Qoyllur turns up one morning in great excitement. She explains that a high lord has come back from the Indies, from the empire of Mexico, which he conquered a few years ago. Everyone is going to watch him parade through the streets.

“They say he's brought many Mexican things and people, even some lords and ladies. We must go!”

“You know I can't go. Tomás has orders not to let me step outside this house.”

“That's been settled. Candía is coming here to take us.” She doesn't tell the boy, from kindness, that no one is worried, that he's still far too weak to run away.

Waman has never seen so many people, not even in Tumbes. And it is odd to see barbarians, whom he knows as fighting men, thronging the streets in all kinds: fit and lame, fat and thin, women, children, and blacks like Tomás holding sunshades over their owners' heads. The noise is deafening, the Spaniards are not soft speakers and their little ones love to shriek. He smells cheese, sweat, unwashed bodies, rosewater, sewage, animal dung. Soldiers march up and down, cracking horsewhips to keep onlookers from blocking the way.

The wait is long and hot. Waman feels light-headed. If nothing happens soon, he will have to go and rest.

Then a trumpet blast. A hush. A shining form in the distance, coming slowly up the avenue of bright clothing and craned necks.

It is a barbarian in full armour and plumed helmet on a great white horse. The Conqueror of Mexico himself, Waman gathers from the whispering around him. The rider waves at the crowd, occasionally doffing his helm and making small bows to grandees on balconies along his way. He is grizzled, though younger than the Old One; plumper, his beard trimmed, his face ruddy and full-fleshed, except below the eyes, where his cheeks sag like hammocks. Despite this, he looks too well to have come straight from the Ocean Sea; he and his retinue must have restored themselves somewhere.

Standard-bearers follow on foot. And men with parrots on their shoulders, birds who can pray and curse in Castilian. Then a dozen garlanded wagons pulled by oxen, piled high with marvellous things. Shields of turquoise and gold. A golden sun-wheel, richly embossed. Coiled serpents of polished stone with rearing heads, some smooth or scaled, others feathered as if they were half bird. Statues as ornate and brightly painted as the Christians' saints. A death god whose limbs are bones and whose head is a crystal skull. Mexican books, opened like fans, covered in images and symbols. Also weapons, fine pottery, robes of cotton and fur, obsidian mirrors.

Behind the wagons come dancers, jugglers, contortionists, acrobats, naked except for body paint and knotted loincloths, some walking on their hands while their feet roll logs in the air. The sight of these fills Waman with homesickness, for they look like his own people.

At a safe distance come two big cats, one plain and tawny, one boldly spotted—a puma and an
uturunku
, a
lion
and a
tiger
as Spaniards say. They are leashed with gold chains and pulled along by
handlers wearing quilted cotton and rubber armour. Their hind legs are hobbled, their eyes filled with fury and fear.

Last come twenty lords from Mexico, striding along in feathered cloaks and headdresses, their cheeks tattooed and pierced with jewels, their eyes held high and straight ahead, as if still fixed on their faraway land. On their shoulders they bear a palanquin, a vehicle like those Waman used to see passing through Little River on the royal highway. The palanquin is shaded but open, so all can see the young lady and lord whose names are called out by a crier:

¡Doña Isabel Moctezuma!

¡Don Pedro Aculan Moctezuma!

A gale of applause.

“Who are they?” Waman asks Candía.

“All Seville knows who they are,” the Greek says. “What you see there, Waman, are a son and daughter of the Emperor of the Mexicans.”

Qoyllur speaks in Waman's ear. “Their father is murdered and their country is called New Spain. What does that tell you?”

“What the barbarians plan for us.”

Waman feels patronized, a little hurt. He has known this much longer than she has, ever since he began to understand Castilian. Though it's true he's avoided discussing the implications.

“I'm going to kill the Old One,” he blurts, trying to impress her, striving to believe his own boast. “I should have done it back on the island. It would have been easy then.” He nearly tells her about that man on Gallo, the fulfilling crunch of bone and revenge.

“Think again, Brother. Think what might happen to you—and me.” Qoyllur frowns into his eyes. “I'd like to kill him too. But not yet. And certainly not here in Spain. Make sure you never speak like that to anyone. Let them think us harmless, cowed, mere children. Mere leaves blown by the wind.”

The day after the parade
Candía sends word to Cortés to arrange a meeting as the Commander has ordered. Meanwhile he oversees the building of a camp on a meadow beside the Guadalquivir, where the llamas have been put to graze. There, Pizarro's men—those who have not drifted away since his arrest—are living like castaways in shanties of sticks, planks, old spars and sails. Soon the camp takes better shape, equipped with a cook tent, night watchmen, a strong armoury of oak timbers in which to keep the guns and the things from Peru—all save the gold and silver, locked in a vault beneath a banker's house.

—

One evening, when darkness and fog have fallen over the marshy meadow, a lowly foot soldier slips in among the tents. He is challenged by the watch and answers that he seeks the Commander in hope of signing on. Try the city jail, says the sentry, who is the worse for drink. And while you're there, ask that old swindler when we'll see our pay!

The visitor carries on, hidden in mist, stealthily observing the Indian camels—so strange—and the Peruvian capes and woollen hats worn over shabby jerkins and rusted armour by men around a campfire. Keeping to fog and shadows, he inspects a stack of earthenware storage jars, some big enough to hold a quartered ox. Behind this is a strongroom. He peers through chinks in its rough door. Two men within are playing cards by candlelight; they do not feel his gaze as it roams over guns, hatchets, pikes of polished bronze, stacks of cloth in many hues and patterns. And more pottery—smaller pieces, modelled and painted, realistic—animals, vegetables, even
miniature buildings, and vessels with the faces of Indian lords so lifelike and expressive they might be portraits. Behind these are figurines showing sexual acts and giant members.

Extraordinary.

The spy slips away, on fire with what he's seen. He is Hernán Cortés.

On the following day, no longer disguised and saying nothing of the night before, the Conqueror returns and asks for Pedro de Candía. This fellow—a big Greek, voluble, with a winning smile—shows him around, then takes him into the city to see Pizarro's gold and silver in a crypt.

Only a small hoard, a mere sampling. But what weight and workmanship. Enough for Cortés to know his jailed cousin is not beguiling him.

These Panama vagabonds have found another Mexico!

—

What course to take, Cortés ponders. His standing in Spain is ticklish. Though many deem him a hero, by law he is a rebel, having sailed to Mexico from Cuba against orders. Years ago now. The King may be ready to forgive. But he knows there are key men at court who still suspect him of treason, of seizing the jaguar throne of Mexico less for the Crown than for himself. An old story: after the war the weapon must be locked away.

This is why he has brought Moctezuma's children and other Mexican lords to Spain: so that he and they swear fealty to King Charles in person, and are seen doing so by all at court. The procession in Seville went well, but it was merely a dress rehearsal. Will this play end in triumph or disaster?

Murders, also, have been laid at the Conqueror's feet. Of his wife, Catalina, found dead after a row over his Mexican mistress. Of a
tiresome judge who died eating bacon at his table. Worst of all, the high crime of regicide: the murder of Moctezuma while in his personal custody.

Cortés has his explanations. Catalina dropped from apoplexy brought on by her wild temper. The judge's bacon was ill-cured. Moctezuma was stoned by a Mexican mob enraged at his appeasement of the Spaniards. Yet suspicions linger. No one else died from that bacon. And Moctezuma's body was unmarked—except for a long internal stabbing through the anus, which could only have been done by a Spanish sword.