The Gold Eaters by Wright Ronald
Author:Wright, Ronald [Wright, Ronald]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-10-06T07:00:00+00:00
12
Pizarro musters his troops, leaving some to hold the base camp until Almagro returns with more from Panama. The rest he leads through the desert by the main coast road, southward into unknown territory. The sea lies on their right, silver beyond the dunes. To the east are grey outcrops and purple foothills vibrant in the heat. Above these loom the teeth of the Andes, crowned with ice, veiled in haze yet always there. Somewhere beyond those ranges lie the Empire’s greatest cities. And its King.
The highway is deserted. The posthouses every two miles are unmanned. As are the tampu, the government way stations built one day’s travel apart. From some children weeding a canal, Waman learns that the new Inca, Atawallpa, has emptied the land of its men to swell his armies, and of its women to feed and clothe them. There is other, grimmer, evidence of war: bodies strung by the feet from scaffolds, eyes and bellies hollowed by birds, skin made parchment by the desert wind. The Spaniards are unfazed. Such a sight is common enough, whether in Peru or Spain. It is the sight of power.
Here and there the road runs past ancient buildings gone to ruin many centuries ago: wind-eaten walls with fading murals; great pyramids of weathered brick rearing like hills from the sandy plain.
Some days later, about noon, they come to an important crossroad. The Old One calls a halt. The royal highway runs invitingly on towards Cusco, the far-off capital. A secondary road comes from the seashore and runs east into the foothills, its trace visible above the lower slopes, sometimes snaking up mountain flanks, sometimes riding crags head-on. Up there, Pizarro knows, the going will be hard, with risk of ambush at each pass and precipice.
Waman, too, dreads the mountains, which he has never set foot in, though they hovered over every day of his young life. He fears their snows, their earthquakes, and above all the slides of stone and ice they hurl on those who live among them. He thinks of Tika’s village, smothered in an instant.
Yet the highlands also lure him with a brittle hope, for the more he thinks on what he learned in Little River the more he believes his family is up there somewhere, deep in the mountains.
While the Commander is halted at the crossroads, Hernando Pizarro (eldest of Francisco’s three brothers, though twenty years younger than he) scouts the main road ahead with Waman and a dozen riders. Their way is soon blocked by a wide river and cut bridge, its cables lashing in the flow. Spotting some people fleeing on a raft, Hernando plunges into the shallows and drags a man ashore.
“Where is this man now?” Pizarro demands when his brother returns. “Why didn’t you bring him back to me here for questioning?”
“He’s already questioned, Francisco. Thoroughly. And in no shape to travel.” Hernando laughs darkly, spittle flying from his fleshy lips.
“You’ve disobeyed orders. No harm to the Indians while we march. You’ve put our lives at risk.
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