Free The Gold Eaters by Ronald Wright Page B

highlands, where the Emperor resides while fighting northern wars.
    From his roof terrace the All-Seer watched the pair of runners take off like antelope along the great north road, first link in the chain of relays who will bear his message more than two hundred miles over sand and snow in a single day and night. How lucky the court is only one day’s mail away at present, instead of five to the capital. Soon the barbarians will not be his burden alone.
    â€”
    Candía is dressed to dazzle—striding along the jetty in shining helmet and chainmail, arquebus over his shoulder, Toledo sword at his belt, his beard oiled and glossy as sable. Tomás follows, bare-chested, wearing only a pair of white cotton britches and heavy brass rings in nose and ears. Onlookers swarm them as they walk up from the haven towards the middle of town, where the temple’s golden roofrises steeply above the flat-topped buildings. Women come from their doors, laughing and smiling, stroking the Greek’s beard, patting the African’s springy hair, exclaiming at the white skin and the black, especially the latter with its cruel brand. One girl gives Candía’s hairy cheek a pinch, and giggles. By God he could use a woman! But the Greek has travelled and fought in many lands. He knows better than to form hasty notions about the ways of foreigners.
    â€œSome pretty ones, eh, Tomás? What do you think? Do they want to be our friends or our lovers?” Tomás grins in reply, white teeth splitting the darkness of his face. Pizarro claims that the youth lacks reason—like all Africans, according to the Church, which makes them lawful slaves. But Candía thinks the black is merely a lad of few words; when he does have something to say it’s often worth hearing.
    Before they have gone far, four men in red helmets and tunics of black-and-yellow squares come to escort them to the plaza, taking them to the great hall whose front is covered in bold paintings of whales, birds, and fish. Sentries flank the doorway and others stand at attention in tall niches along the building’s façade, all in the same uniform, heavy pikes with bronze blades in hand.
    Candía and Tomás are led into a courtyard and seated on stools beneath a cotton awning. The escort withdraws, leaving the visitors to themselves. Water is flowing from a fountain in the middle—a large eight-sided basin carved from a single stone. The water crosses the courtyard by a channel and runs under a wall into the building. Around the patio are earthenware pots with flowering shrubs. The only sounds are the purl of water and the quarrelsome buzz of hummingbirds making their way from bloom to bloom, their tiny bodies iridescent in the sun.
    Door curtains are drawn aside and a man and woman enter from right and left, both middle-aged. Recognizing the All-Seer, Candíarises 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.
    â€œKunan,”
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