The Gold Eaters (30 page)

Manku lingers, draws strength from the building: the Empire's might proclaimed in stone.
We did this once; we will do such things again.
He gazes up at the walls sailing against a pink-flecked sky. As sunrise touches the highest tower, he utters a prayer to the Day.

The new Inca hastens on, his slight figure soon swallowed by the hills beyond.

Notwithstanding his outward poise, his youthful sense of invulnerability heightened by surviving the Great Death and Atawallpa's purge, Manku knows he is the youngest ever to become the Only King. Yet there is no one else. All elder brothers by his father's Queen are dead, along with most of his uncles and senior advisers. His half brother Pawllu, now living with him in Waskhar's former palace, will be a help. Born to an Aymara noblewoman from Lake Titicaca, Pawllu is well connected in the southern quarters of the Empire. But even younger, barely sixteen. Together they must deal with these barbarians led by a pair of old men. Old yet strong, shrewd, seasoned by long lives of fighting and intrigue. How to control them? How to rid the World of them when they're no longer needed?

—

Manku is not seen until the morning of the ceremony, when he returns on a rich palanquin, dressed in full regalia, lacking only the imperial sceptre and the crimson fringe that is Tawantinsuyu's crown. These will be conferred on him later by the high priest, Willaq Uma. That morning, the new King visits eleven previous kings and queens, kneeling before them in their palaces, where they preside everlastingly over the lives of their descendant clans.

In the afternoon these ancestors repay Manku's homage. To the amazement of the Spaniards and the wrath of Friar Valverde, the royal forebears are carried solemnly into the square on canopied thrones like a grand procession of Christian saints. They are set down by their bearers, who stand aside while Chosen women fan the ancient faces and lay out food and drink for them. The royal mummies indeed look lifelike to Waman, their faces and limbs unwithered. Only the eyes give them away: pupils of polished obsidian in whites of sea-ivory.

To Manku's right sits his father, the great Wayna Qhapaq, face pitted and half his nose destroyed by smallpox. On Manku's left is his dead mother, Mama Runtu, at the head of all the queens. A hush falls on the eerie scene.

Waman is trembling, racked with belly pains and fear, despite the Spanish army camped behind him in the other square. Or rather because of it. He will have to translate the Requirement yet again, when the Old One chooses. It could all end in blood.

Although Cusco, like its Empire, has lost more than half its people, the plaza is thronged by royal kindreds and other high-ranking onlookers from across the World. Every window, doorway, and terrace is filled with faces. The best outlook (and the safest, Waman thinks) is enjoyed by those high up on two flat-roofed towers flanking the gate of Wayna Qhapaq's palace.

There begins a heartbeat of big drums, a hooting of pan-pipes, a shrilling of flutes and women's voices. The serpents-and-rainbow flag swishes at the tip of the Roundhouse, the highest tower on the square, roofed by a cone of lacquered wood with a mahogany spire like a mast. Scars where Atawallpa's ransom was torn from the walls are hidden by bunting and flowers, and it is almost possible to believe that everything is as it should be in the City of the Sun.

“Look there, Commander,” Valverde says to the Old One. The
friar has just arrived from the Christians' camp after saying a mass to counteract the heathen rites. “Here comes their pagan pope!” A procession is emerging from the mouth of Sun Street, which runs into the square from the Golden Court at the far end of the city. Leading on foot, dressed simply in white cotton, comes the high priest, Willaq Uma. In his hands are staves, one topped with a silver moon, the other with a golden sunburst. Borne in a litter behind him is the Day, a gold statue of a seated boy, recalling the first Inca's descent from the Sun.

Valverde can barely contain his outrage at what seems to him a demonic parody of his own faith. These sights would not be out of place in Rome: the golden image might be Our Lord in youth; the sun-headed stave a monstrance for the consecrated Host. “How the Devil mocks us!” he says for all to hear. “Our sacred duty is to ensure this young Antichrist's reign will be a short one.”

Willaq Uma, a sturdy man in middle years, walks up to Manku and makes a short speech. Waman strives to follow. It is an oath in an old form of the language, adjuring the new Sapa Inka to rule for the good of all; to treat the Empire's citizens as one great family; to feed, shelter, and care for them, never neglecting their needs, nor failing to protect them. Once Manku has answered, the older man places the royal sceptre in the smooth young hands and fastens the crimson fringe across the forehead of the Only King.

At this Valverde and the Old One step forward, Waman between them, sweating heavily. Although Manku has agreed in advance to accept the Requirement, forestalling any
casus belli
, Waman's mind is back in Cajamarca. The tossed Bible, the five thousand butchered in an hour.

It is Manku who brings the interpreter back to here and now. Before Waman remembers to lower his head in respect, the Inca meets his gaze for an instant. Again that flow of empathy.
You too.

War Square now rings with the sound of Castilian as Valverde reads out his rival claim to heavenly and earthly powers. If the new Inca listens to Waman's stumbling translation, he gives no sign. He stares through the three men as if they were not there, still as the dead monarchs around him. At the end he says simply,
Kusan.
It is well.

For Manku this formality is a mere courtesy to the foreigners whose intervention brings a welcome end to the Inca war of succession. It proclaims nothing more than an alliance. Once they have helped him mop up Atawallpa's forces, he will load them with all the treasure they can carry and send them to their ships. Gold is easily replaced. Tawantinsuyu will then enjoy a fresh beginning, united under himself—a new King named for the very first, Manku Qhapaq, the ancient Sunchild looking on through obsidian eyes.

The Inca stands, holding a beaker aloft. He tips the Earth her drink, toasts the mountains and people on all four sides, drains it in one long draught.

A joyful shout from the crowd:
Kawsachun Sapa Inka!
Long live the Emperor!

The Old One lifts his hand, not to signal a massacre this time but in salute.
¡Viva el rey!
he shouts.
¡Viva el rey del Perú!

And who is that? Waman asks himself. Manku Yupanki? Or Carlos Habsburg?

—

The usnu in the middle of Cusco's square is a round stone fountain with a golden bowl representing the navel of the World. This begins to fill, as if by magic, with an endless flow of beer.

The celebrations go on for a whole month. So many are the drinkers, and so great their thirst, that the city drains brim with urine where they empty downstream into the Watanay.

It is Tika who points out this remarkable sight to Waman while they are strolling beside the river arm in arm; a little unsteadily, having contributed their share. Like everyone in Cusco, they are divinely drunk. Not the private drinking of Spaniards but a communal drunkenness hosted by the state in honour of its gods and institutions. The Inca's generosity flows to and from the people, repaying them for their duties to the Empire, affirming the Empire's duties to them. Waman is swept up in the collective mood; he feels welcomed home at last. His part in the invasion, which has weighed on him so long, has been lifted, washed away. If Peru and Spain are now at peace, then the war within himself can end.

Standing here with Tika at the riverside, watching the yellow spate of plenty and happiness begin its journey to the sea, he feels she is drawing closer to him, day by day, in her own time, like the returning sun.

Until Cusco, until that moment when she rested her chin on his shoulder, he had felt the reverse. After their reunion in Cajamarca the easy conversations had all been had; the hard ones, unspoken, were a wall between them. He feared he was losing her; that instead of growing towards him, accepting his life as a bridge between worlds, she was withdrawing into herself, shrinking not only from the invaders but from him, from the past they shared.

Now, by the river, in a capital at peace filled with music and song, the barrier between them seems to be crumbling away. That night, they sleep together—not as lovers, but side by side in the same bed like the children they used to be.

The new Inca's first task
is to assign lodging to his allies from across the sea. Pizarro is given the Qasana, the largest palace on the
square, with a great hall that can seat four thousand under one roof. Manku thought all the bearded ones and their auxiliaries might fit into this comfortably, but the Old One—fearing a trap and keen to assert his standing—keeps it for himself and his retainers, demanding another palace for One-Eye, and a third for his brother Hernando when he gets back from Spain. Friar Valverde (whose application to become Bishop of Cusco is already on its way to Rome) demands the Sunturwasi, the Roundhouse tower, at the eastern corner of the square, for a church.

Manku assents with good grace. The clans affected will grumble, but the palaces are half empty nowadays, and no one lives in the Roundhouse anyway. Besides, it is only for the time being, a small price for peace. Manku also assigns the bearded ones most of the remaining gold and silver from public buildings. The sooner they satisfy that curious hunger, the sooner they can leave.

The Cusco treasure is melted—as much again as Atawallpa's ransom—and shared more fairly with Almagro and his men.

The Inca's priority is to put his alliance with the barbarians to work, to crush all pockets of resistance to his rule. To this end he raises an army and marches north for many months, pursuing the rump of Atawallpa's forces with Almagro, Soto, Candía, and sometimes Pizarro himself. Cusco he leaves in the untried hands of his half brother Pawllu, given the office of Inkaq Rantin, Inca's Deputy.

To their relief, Waman and Tika are also left in Cusco, with a room each on a back courtyard of the Old One's ample billet. There are other interpreters now, both Peruvian and Spanish; none nearly as fluent as Waman, but several good enough for military duties. Only he can handle the work in Cusco, which includes religious translations for Valverde, matters of law and custom, and communications with sixteen-year-old Pawllu.

A brittle calm falls over the city. The two worlds, Inca and
Spanish, run on in parallel, largely unaware of each other's workings. Pizarro's conquest has been thwarted by Manku's acceptance of the Requirement. The Peruvian King is now, by Spanish law, a vassal of Emperor Charles. Yet Charles is far away. The young Inca still rules his World.

Manku and Pizarro: each thinks himself master of the Empire. And each has doubts.

The Commander decides to build a city of his own on the coast, far from the Inca capital. The sea is his lifeline and, if need be, his escape. He chooses the irrigated valley of Rimaq, which the locals pronounce as
Lima
.

Several mornings a week
Waman has the pleasant task of giving lessons at the Yachaywasi, or House of Learning, the imperial college near Cusco's square. This is interesting work in itself and an honour, for it puts him among the
amawta
, Tawantinsuyu's leading scholars, who train sons and daughters of the royal clans and officials from across the Empire. Waman teaches Spanish to these pupils—who sit cross-legged in rows, heads bent, fingers busy over their quipus—and Quechua to any Spaniards wishing to learn. The latter, who bring folding chairs and sheets of paper, are mainly notaries and friars.

The Empire rewards Waman for this work with food, beer, fine cloth. His bearded students—wealthy men now—sometimes offer to pay him in silver and gold. But he never takes it. The metals have no worth as currency. In the highlands everything is by government issue and reciprocal exchange; even the copper money of the coast is seldom used. Instead, he asks for help with reading and writing. He has the alphabet already but is still baffled by the spelling.
Sometimes more than one sign is used for a single sound, while other signs have several sounds within them. And his informants do not always agree on which to use, even when writing their own names. Is it Xéres or Jérez, Valencia or Balenzia? Then there are numerals of two different kinds, Roman and Arabic. Besides these hurdles there's his own clumsiness with quill and ink.