Incas: Book Two: The Gold of Cuzco - Couverture souple

Daniel, A.B.

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0743432754 ISBN 13 : 9780743432757

Editeur : Atria, 2002

Synopsis

Book by Daniel AB

A propos du livre

Extrait

Chapter One

Cajamarca, April 14, 1533, dawn

"I love you," murmured Anamaya in the pale dawn rising over Cajamarca. The darkness of night still lingered, but the smoke rising over the thatched roofs was now slowly turning blue.

Anamaya was alone.

She had stolen away from the palace in which Atahualpa was being kept prisoner. She left it behind her now as she moved like a quick shadow along the narrow streets laid out on the slope overlooking the main square. Soon she was at the river and the access road to the Royal Road.

"I love you," she repeated. "Te quiero!"

The words came to her so easily in the language of the Spaniards that everyone was amazed, whether conquistador or Indian. It had also roused an ancient mistrust among her own people, and once again people were whispering behind her back. But she didn't care.

She ran stealthily alongside the houses, staying close to the shadows of the walls in order to evade the guards watching over Atahualpa's palace and its ransom room piled high with treasure.

The mere sight of this precious haul intoxicated those who had won the Battle of Cajamarca and who had had the audacity to lay their hands on Emperor Atahualpa. It was as though they imagined that gold would yield to them the magical powers that they lacked.

The plunder provoked a deep and silent sadness in Anamaya.

They were insatiable. In search of even more to stuff into the large ransom room, Don Hernando Pizarro had gone to sack the temple at Pachacamac far, far away on the shore of the southern sea. And because his brother was late returning, the Governor, Don Francisco Pizarro, had sent Gabriel and a few reliable men after him.

Gabriel...she allowed his name to settle into her heart, the sound of it so foreign, yet so tender to her....She called to mind his face, his image...the Stranger with sun-colored hair, with pale, pale skin, with the mark of the puma crouching on his shoulder, the mark that was their bond, their secret link, which one day she would reveal to him.

Gabriel had no love of gold. Many times she had watched him stand by indifferent to, even irritated by, his companions' delirious rapture at the mere touch of a few gold leaves.

Gabriel did not accept that an Indian be beaten over a trifle, even less that they be chained or killed.

Gabriel had saved the Emperor from the sword.

Anamaya recalled Atahualpa's words, the words he had spoken when he still had all the power of an emperor. On the eve of the Great Battle, seeing the Strangers for the first time, he had murmured, "I like their horses, but as for them, I don't understand."

Like him, she could have said, "I love one among them, the one who leaped across the ocean for me. But as for the rest of them, I don't understand."

Now she had left behind the high walls surrounding Cajamarca. As she scaled the lower slopes of the Royal Road, she slowed her pace. The adobe-walled houses were fewer now, and set farther apart. Dawn was lighting the mountainsides, breathing life into the corn and quinua fields, rustling in the morning breeze. Occasionally she saw a peasant, already bowed beneath a burden, silhouetted against the growing paleness of day. Anamaya's heart would fill with an uneasy tenderness. She would feel an urge to run to the man and help him carry his burden. She thought about the suffering weighing on her people.

Her people! Because now, she who for so long had been the odd child with blue eyes, the awkward girl who was too tall and too thin, now she knew how much all those who lived in the Inca Empire formed what she called "her people." They didn't all speak the same language or wear the same clothes, and only superficially did they believe in the same gods. Often they had warred among themselves, and the spirit of war was within them still. Yet, in her heart, Anamaya would wish them all blood brothers.

By the time she reached the pass, the day was well established. Light shimmered on the marsh and spread across the immense plain, right up to the mountains concealing the road to Cuzco.

As happened each time she returned here, Anamaya couldn't stop the flood of her memories. She remembered those days in the not-so-distant past when the entire plain had been covered by the white tents of Atahualpa's invincible army. It had been the army of an emperor who had known how to defeat the cruelty of his brother Huascar, the madman of Cuzco.

The steam rose from the baths over on the opposing slope. Atahualpa was resting there, giving thanks to his father Inti by fasting. Her breath short, her heart constricted, Anamaya remembered, as though they were forever tattooed into her skin, those endless days when news of the Strangers' slow approach was brought to them. She remembered those days when everyone scoffed at them, and the fear that she had felt bloom within her. And then she remembered that dawn when all of a sudden he appeared, he, Gabriel. He was so handsome, so attractive that it had been incomprehensible to her.

She didn't want to contemplate what had happened after. The Emperor Atahualpa was but a shadow of his former self, a prisoner in his own palace while his temples were destroyed.

Thus had been accomplished the will of the Sun God.

Thus had been fulfilled the terrible words of the deceased Inca Huayna Capac, who had once come to her in the form of a child and said: "That which is too old comes to an end, that which is too big shatters, that which is too strong loses its force....That is what the great pachacuti means....Some die, and others grow. Have no fear for yourself, Anamaya....You are what you are meant to be. Have no fear, for in the future the puma will go with you!"

Thus, from the other world, the former Inca had simultaneously announced to her Atahualpa's fall and Gabriel's coming!

In truth, ever since her mouth had kissed Gabriel's, ever since she had kissed his strangely marked shoulder, there were many things that Anamaya hadn't been able to understand. There were so many sensations, so many unknown emotions now living within her. And living with so much strength that it seemed as if the claws of a real puma were lacerating her heart.

There were those emotions that urged her to say, "I love you," the words that Gabriel had stubbornly labored to teach her. He had become angry as she had sat there smiling and listening to him, refusing to repeat after him.

And then there was the mystery: How could a Stranger, an enemy, be the puma who would go with her into the future?

Anamaya walked slowly to the end of the plateau that stretched across the peak of the pass. She rolled her cloak about herself and lay down on the still wet grass covering the slope's perpendicular. She gazed at the highest peaks in the east, and contemplated the sun's first rays.

Anamaya closed her eyes. She let the light caress her eyelids and expunge the tears that had formed under them. And as soon as the sun had warmed her face, Gabriel appeared to her against the red underside of her eyelids. Gabriel, the handsome Stranger with eyes like coals, who laughed as innocently as a child, and whose touch was so tender.

Once more her lips formed the words. She whispered them as though they could fly above the earth like hummingbirds: "I love you."

As they approached Cajamarca, Gabriel, unable to check his own momentum, spurred his horse on. He rode to the head of the column at a full trot. His blood boiled. He hadn't slept a wink since his encounter with Hernando three nights earlier. Three nights spent contemplating the stars or sharing the watch at a campsite or a tambo. But today, it was finally over.

He was going to be with her once more.

In a little while he would be gazing into her blue, blue eyes, he would be able to touch her tender mouth, so tender that her kiss melted him, made him oblivious to reality. Only two more leagues and he would be able to see her tall and slender silhouette, unique among Indian women. And the awareness of this alone gnawed at his very core.

He hoped as well that nothing had happened to her during his long absence. There had been talk, as he was leaving Cajamarca, of mariscal Almagro's arrival, Don Francisco's old brother-in-arms, bringing with him yet more troops and more horses.

He was trembling with joy and yet, had he dared, he would have screamed out his lungs in order to banish his fear.

He passed by stretchers borne by Indians on which the heaviest treasures lay: a great gold bowl, a gold statue, a gold chair, and gold mural plaques torn from temple walls. Gold, gold, and yet more gold! It was everywhere -- in wicker baskets, in hide sacks, in woven saddle packs. The porters were bent in half, broken in two under its weight, and the llamas had disappeared beneath their charges. The column had slowed because of it, as though the entire expedition had, since Jauja, become encumbered with all the gold and silver of Peru.

And to think that it was all only a sample: rumor had it that these treasures were nothing in comparison with what would soon arrive from Cuzco. The Governor had sent three men there on a reconnaissance mission, including the execrable Pedro Martín de Moguer.

The Spanish cavalrymen were constantly on the alert. Their nerves frayed, their black gazes mistrustful of everything, they watched for the slightest stir amid the ever docile Indians. Gabriel hadn't many friends within that group. They were all Hernando's men. His personal enmity with the Governor's brother had been well known by all for some time and their duel had frozen them into an icy mutual hatred. The Governor's red-plumed brother went out of his way to avoid Gabriel, more out of caution than astuteness.

As he arrived alongside the palanquins of two high priests from the Pachacamac temple, priests whom Hernando had bound in chains, Gabriel heard a familiar voice hail him:

"Would Your Grace be in a great hurry, at all?"

Gabriel pulled on the reins. With a graceful volte, his horse compliantly came up alongside Sebastian. It had been twenty days now that the big black man, one of Gabriel's few intimate friends, had been on foot. The price of horses had become prohibitive, but more to the point, two days before they had left Pachacamac, Don Hernando had forbidden him from taking the horse from any dying or even dead man.

His insult still pierced shrill in the two friends' ears: "Hola, darkie! Who do you take yourself for? Have you forgotten that horses are reserved for caballeros carrying the sword? It's not because you kicked a few Indian butts that you have the right to take yourself for a man!"

Leaning forward on his horse's neck, Gabriel warmly shook the hand Sebastian was extending to him. The African giant had no horse, but his leather doublet was brand-new and as supple as a second skin. His breeches were tailored with all sorts of fabrics sent from Spain to Cajamarca. They were of the latest fashion out of Castile: large green, red, yellow, and pale blue stripes of felt or satin, and even a little lace on the cords of his boots. The extravagance of his outfit gave Gabriel (who always dressed soberly) the impression of traveling with a retinue of Toledo maidens, their bosoms squeezed into their bodices!

"So where are you trotting off to so quick?" asked Sebastian.

"There's a stench around here," growled Gabriel, looking directly at Hernando's escort. "I need to breathe fresher air."

The black giant gave him a malicious grin.

"Ahh...and there was I thinking that you had an urgency of, how shall I put it, a higher order!"

Gabriel hinted a smile.

"Why, what else could there be other than my haste to present the Governor with my report of my mission?"

"Ho! I see nothing else, indeed."

Sebastian nodded then fell silent, not bantering anymore. Gabriel's gaze fell upon the ridges surrounding Cajamarca. A few months earlier, this alien landscape harbored nothing but menace. Now it had become familiar, almost friendly. And now, of course, it held for him the most beautiful promise.

Gabriel suddenly pulled his right foot out of the stirrup and jumped nimbly to the ground. While he led his horse with one arm, he wrapped the other around Sebastian's shoulders. He leaned in close to his friend.

"You're in the right of it," he said in a low voice, his eyes aglow. "I am in a hurry...and it has nothing to do with that whoreson Hernando."

"Well?"

Gabriel made a vague gesture toward the mountains.

"She says that she can't marry me. She is some sort of priestess in their ancient religion. Marriage is forbidden her, even to an Indian. But still..."

"But still?"

"But still, I love her. Damn and blast it, Sebastian! Just to think of her, my heart explodes like a volley of grapeshot. I love her as though I had never known the meaning of the word before."

Sebastian burst out laughing.

"Do like me, my friend! Love many of them at once! One here, one there, but always one to want you. A tender bed here, a fiery one there...then, you will know what it means to love!"

There was a certain stricture to Gabriel's smile as he returned to his saddle.

"There are times, compañero, when I wish you weren't so witty."

Sebastian hinted at a smile, but his face remained as black as his skin.

"Me too, I wish it. And then again..."

"And then?"

The column had slowed, had grown longer, and now ground to a halt. The Royal Road had grown narrower at the approach to the last peak before Cajamarca.

"And then what?" insisted Gabriel.

Sebastian shook his head. He motioned to Gabriel to gallop up ahead.

"I'll tell you some other time, when you're in less of a hurry."

The hammering that startled Anamaya from her sleep was not that of her heart. It was the stamping of men and horses rising from the earth. She sat up and went and hid in a hedge of acacia and agave close to the Royal Road.

A herd of llamas that had been quietly grazing in a neighboring pasture now shot past and fled, jumping nervously, to the other side of the ridge. The instantly familiar clinking of the Spaniards' iron arms tinkled through the balmy air. It slowly increased in volume along with laughter, bursts of speech, and the click-clacking of hooves on flagstone.

She caught sight of them coming out of a small wood at the foot of the slope. She saw the lances and colorful plumes of the horsemen first, then their somber-bearded faces beneath their morions, before the Indian porters and the Spaniards on foot finally appeared. The entire slow-moving column, led by the Governor's brother, was now visible to her.

Anamaya breathed quick, stuttered gasps of air. She looked for him.

But scrutinize each face, each man's apparel and hat as she might, she couldn't make out Gabriel among the men approaching the ridge. She couldn't make out his black doublet, or his reddish-brown horse with a long white stain on its hindquarters. Nor could she make out the blue scarf he invariably wore around his neck, in order to "carry the color of her eyes with him," as he said, and that normally helped her pick him out from afar.

Anamaya's fingers trembled without her realizing it. Her heart beat strongly, too strongly. She was ashamed of her fear, but she pulled a low branch aside to see more clearly, despite the risk of being seen herself.

At last the blue patch of the scarf fleetingly appeared behind a palanquin. She caught a brief glimpse of the bay. She let out a little spontaneous laugh.

And ...

Présentation de l'éditeur

In this haunting second book of the internationally bestselling Incas trilogy, the Incan empire is threatened by the Conquistadors, whose insatiable hunger for gold will destroy a glorious, ancient civilization -- unless they can be thwarted by a mystic force greater than any army....

Princess Anamaya's hypnotic blue eyes have seen too much. Having guarded the passage of the dying Emperor, she is now chosen by the gods to stand beside the new Emperor and divine the future of the Incan Empire -- a future shadowed by brutal warriors who worship foreign gods. The Conquistadors and their armies seek to enslave the Incas and loot their sacred temples and royal treasuries, despite Anamaya's attempts to foster peace. When it comes to a prize as valuable as Cuzco, the city of the sacred puma, they refuse to heed her warnings.
The soldier Gabriel has come among Anamaya's people as a conqueror, but the honorable Spaniard is untainted by his companions' lust for wealth and power. His fascination with the splendor of Anamaya's land, and its ancient heritage, is matched only by the passion he and Anamaya come to share. But when his countrymen push forward in their quest to plunder Cuzco, he is forced to join the battle, leaving Anamaya struggling with divided loyalties and their forbidden love in the wake of this first major confrontation between the Spanish and the Incas.
Filled with romance and adventure and colored by the changeless desires that link man and woman throughout the ages, The Gold of Cuzco is a thrilling follow-up to The Puma's Shadow, the first book in the Incas trilogy.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Atria
• Date d'édition: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0743432754
• ISBN 13: 9780743432757
• Reliure: Broché
• Numéro d'édition: 1
• Nombre de pages: 384