ismenin | Inca 2 : Scourge of the Sun 21

All hail! Well, two in two days isn't bad going. :D I'm not at all sure about posting next week, because I'll be away at the weekend in

lisabellex 's much anticipated MOOT. But I will do my best.

My grateful thanks to you all for sticking with it, and to

ladysunrope for her excellent beta skills.

Here it be.

Part 21 - Questions and Answers

It was nearly dusk when Dom returned to his tent to see Lizhe, and to rest.

The interview which he had witnessed between the newly arrived Dominican, Father Idelfonso, and Amaru, had not been as simple as he expected. The Dominican's questions were clever - so clever that Dom could see how a man might easily be caught out in a lie. It was fortunate, then, that Amaru was not lying.

Every question he was asked, he answered truthfully. If he was asked his opinion on certain matters, he said "God believes that..." and as Dom knew full well it was Lizhe's opinion that was being stated, he felt a little more confident than he had at the beginning of the interrogation.

Will had been released from his role as interpreter after two hours, as he was complaining of a stomach disorder. Dom was not sure if it was Will's belly, or the questioning that bothered his friend, but he was allowed to leave, and he cast an apologetic glance at Dom and Amaru as he did so.

Both the Inquisitor General and the Dominican took turns in questioning the man, and in trying to convert him to their own religion. However, Amaru answered all their questions with patience, and stated flatly, when commanded to accept Idelfonso's God, that he already had a God, and he would continue to serve that God with all his heart and strength until his life's end, whether that came sooner or later.

He smiled at Dom as he said this, and Dom caught, out of the corner of his eye, the furious expression on the face of the Inquisitor General. It was only when Don Cristobal stated in gentle tones that he thought there had been enough questions asked for one day, that the two Inquisitors swept angrily out of the tent.

Don Cristobal had bowed to Amaru as he left. "You are a good and a great man. Your God must be pleased in you," and Amaru's face shone like the sun.

"I trust he is, Auqui. He has all my obedience, my allegiance, and my love."

Don Cristobal had returned to his tent without visiting Captain Felipe again as he had promised, as he said he felt tired after the interview. Dom, anticipating some time alone with his love, was surprised to find Will fast asleep on his bed, and Lizhe reclining upon the other, sipping soup from a bowl.

Dom approached the bed and kissed Lizhe on the forehead, then sat beside him and waited for him to finish his meal.

"That soup looked delicious! I have a mind to send for some for myself. Where is Khuno?"

Lizhe wiped his mouth and said without looking at Dom, "I have sent him on an errand. You should ask one of the guards outside to fetch your meal."

Dom grinned. "My father insisted that we divide the guard between us, both of us being here on Papal business - as is supposed," he added, hastily as Lizhe's brows drew together.

"Dom, I understand from Will that the robe you wear denotes, in some way, your high authority? Will you explain it to me? I do not understand. I thought your allegiance was now to me."

Dom cast a swift glance at Will who was stirring. "In a little while, querido: when we are alone." There would be no easy way for Dom to explain to Lizhe that he had not told him the truth about his life before he had come to the Land.

Will was abject in his apologies for falling asleep on Dom's bed. "I felt strange, I must tell ye, after a couple o' hours in yon tent. My belly was bubbling like a pot o' porridge, and..."

A look of panic overcame Will's amiable features and he rushed out of the tent without a word of farewell.

It was after Dom had finished his meal, and the papal guard were ensconced outside the tent with instructions to repel any would-be intruders, that Dom began to relate to Lizhe the parts of his early life that he had expunged from his telling.

Dom extinguished the lamp and they lay together on the narrow bed, arms around each other, whilst Dom began his story.

"I did not tell you the whole truth, mi alma. There were parts I concealed from you - tried to conceal even from myself. I was...am...a cardinal. One of the Princes of the Church. I did not tell you, because I was...am...ashamed of it, for I could not keep my priestly vows of celibacy...and...and I volunteered for the mission here because of it."

"I told you my mother had a wife in mind for me - she did not. It was all her hope that I should be an ornament and a benefit to the church, be obedient to its standards and tenets within my own house and country, and in the world at large. She did not know - had no inkling - of my desperate physical needs, nor that my preference was for men. How should she? I trust I hid these things from her, but it seems my father knew, although he gave no hint of it. I broke my vow of celibacy many times before I found you, my last and only love."

Lizhe did not speak for a moment, and when he did his voice was low and trembled slightly. "My father, Manuel, told me that the cardinals were second only to the Holy Father, and it was from their ranks that the new Pope was chosen. Do you tell me that you were of this order?"

Dom could not look at Lizhe; much afraid that the blue eyes would hold condemnation, or at the least, reproach.
His eyes closed, he nodded. "I am."

Lizhe drew a deep shuddering breath, and stared, shocked, into Dom's eyes. "You are? Dom - you are?"

Dom winced when he saw, in Lizhe's eyes, the despair and fear he had hoped never to see there again. With a shudder, once more he accepted that it was he who had put them there.

"Do you mean, " Lizhe continued, his voice growing firmer as he spoke, "Do you mean that the vows of obedience that you first made as a priest - before you took those of total obedience and love to me as Ray of Inti - are upheld by you still?"

Dom shook his head, and gasped, "No! - never will I renounce the vows I have made to you in fealty and love. Do you not know that?"

Lizhe rose from the bed and stood, his arms clasped tightly across his chest, his back turned to Dom. Dom could sense the tenseness in his shoulders even in the dark.

"No, I do not know it - at least, I am not sure. Here, you are back with your own people, clad in priestly robes, making signs in the air at them. Men kneel at your feet in the mud, Khuno told me these things, but I was secure in the knowledge you were still playing a part, as were we all."

He turned to Dom, his eyes filled with despair. "And now I find you were not play-acting, Dom - you are a priest like those men who tortured children at Cuzco. No, do not attempt to deny it -they are all part of your church! Khuno saw them, and told me what they did there.

Dom rose quickly and came to Lizhe and knelt at his feet. Quietly and reverently he repeated the words he had spoken to Lizhe years before as he was inducted as Ray of Inti, but this time he spoke in the priestly tongue.

"I am thine; my mind, body and soul are in thy keeping, Great God. I beg that thou wilt tell me thou knowest I speak truth!" Dom continued, as the oath came to an end, his face a mask of misery. Lizhe touched him gently on the cheek.

"I know thou art speaking the truth to me now, my love - but how do I know that thou wilt continue to keep the vows, when thou hast already broken so many made to thy first God?"

He walked, still a little unsteady, to the table and poured a drink of chicha.

"I have hopes that thou speakest truth; but in my heart of hearts, Dom - until this matter is resolved, and we are left to live our lives here in peace - I shall never be certain of it."

Dom stood aghast at Lizhe's words. He realised immediately why his lover felt as he did. It was all his own fault for not being truthful from the beginning about his former life. The fact that he wished, above all things, to forget about it, did not help in this present. Lizhe doubted him, and this was as a sword to his heart.

He moved slowly to Lizhe and the Inca took him in his arms, and Dom laid his head on Lizhe's shoulder. "I cannot prove my devotion to you with any words I can utter, for they are empty in the face of your doubts. Only in my continued obedience to you will you see that I can keep the vows I made."

Lizhe sighed. "Come, mi corazon; let us to sleep."

The night was long, for, although both men desired sleep as a respite to their aching hearts, it was to come to neither of them.

***

It was in the dark of the night after the moon had set that Dom heard a commotion outside. "But you must let me in, man! Don Cristobal has been taken ill!"

Dom leapt from the bed and flung on his nightrobe. "Let him enter!" he commanded, and Maitre Michel, a mite dishevelled, appeared through the flap.

"You heard?" he said without preamble.

"I did. What has come to him?" Dom grabbed the physician's arm in a tight grip. "Is it serious?"

The Frenchman folded his arms. "He has taken the purging sickness, which many in the camp now suffer. But I must admit to it not being a form with which I am familiar. He desires to speak with you now the purging has passed, but he is in much pain, and weak.Will you come to him?"

Dom was hurrying into his robes and Lizhe came to help him as his fingers were stiff with apprehension. What if my father should die and we have only now found each other? Dom could see the same thought replicated on Lizhe's face.

"Have a care, my love. I do not wish you to take the sickness." Lizhe's face was pale by the light of the lantern Michel carried.

Dom touched Lizhe's arm. "Go back to bed. It is chill tonight. I will come and tell you how he is as soon as may be. Rest, now."

"Yes," Maitre Michel's voice was loud in the hush of the night. "You still need rest. I shall come to you in the morning," and the two men left the tent in great haste.

"I do not understand it, Dom Domingo. It is usual, once the purging has ceased, for the pain to stop. This is not so in your father's case, and I am at a loss to say what may be done for him; and that man of his, Pablo, is of no use. He just sits in the corner and weeps," Michel whispered as they approached the Don's tent.

Don Cristobal was not in bed, but walking unsteadily around the confined space, his hands pressing convulsively on his belly, his face white with pain. Pablo was indeed, wailing prayers in the corner, and Dom quickly sent the man out.

"Do not come closer, my son," Don Cristobal managed as his son entered. "It may be some contagion in the very air affects me. If only the pain would cease, I could get some rest."

Maitre Michel pursed his lips. "I can, of course, give you a potion, but I am not sure what effect it will have on your constitution, my prince. If only there was a way to ease the pain without medicaments."

Dom started as realisation came to him. "But there is something to be done, Maitre. Do you go and bring Lizhe here. He will come if I ask it. Tell him a shaman's skills are needed." The man rushed out.

Dom's heart lurched within him as Don Cristobal bent over almost double with the pain. "I saw a case like this once in Lisbon, when I visited there. It was...poison, my son. I am afraid for our lives," he gasped as another spasm took him. "I think it is the pain that kills, rather than the poison. It is like knives stabbing my belly, and it is creeping up to my heart. Soon I will not be able to bear it.
Do not eat anything that comes not out of the common pot. I have done so..."

"Father..." Dom, began, nervously, not attending closely to his father's words. Would his father accept a shaman's help? He was a good Catholic. "...Father, we can do something for you, but you must accept it, or it will not work. Lizhe and I can ease you, if you will allow us to do so."

Don Cristobal nodded, now unable to speak. He knelt by the chair, his legs having failed him and clutched the arm of it, gasping in agony as Lizhe, wrapped in a blanket, hurried through the flap.

The Inca cast a quick glance at the prostrate Prince. "May we be permitted to help you, Auqui?" he asked quietly.

"He has said yes, Lizhe," Dom answered for his father.

"I must hear it for myself, Dom. He is not of our people - it may be it will not work if he does not fully accept it."

"I beg you, do something to aid me, or I shall die of it!" Don Cristobal groaned, his breath almost strangling in his throat as the agony rose within him.

There was no more time to waste. Dom could see there was no point trying to get his father to lie down. Lizhe threw off the blanket and stood on one side of the chair with Dom on the other. Lizhe closed his eyes for a few moments, composing himself, drawing his thoughts together, then began the chant.

As Dom joined in and they grasped hands over Don Cristobal's head, the air in the tent grew denser and the lamp flickered slightly as their voices rose and fell together in the night air.

Maitre Michel said nothing, but stood, amazed, as, at length, Don Cristobal's muscles seemed to uncoil themselves from the agony from which he was suffering, and he relaxed onto the ground with a sigh, his back against the chair, as the chanting continued.

Michel had no notion of how long he had watched the three men. One, his eyes closed, his face and body growing more peaceful by the minute, and the two standing over him, their hands locked together, their voices blending into the most mysterious sound he had ever heard.

Lizhe suddenly stopped as if his vocal cords had been cut, and leaned against the back of the chair, his chest heaving. "He will do, now, Maitre. You may put him to bed. But be careful to wash him thoroughly - there are poisons that have leached out onto his skin. He has taken in some foul thing, and our chant has drawn it out of him."

Dom and Michel said nothing as they carried the Don to bed and stripped him of the soaked nightrobe, casting the sodden thing into a corner. "Burn it," Lizhe said, wearily. "It contains an evil thing."

Lizhe sat in the chair as Dom and Michel washed the sleeping man, and covered him with warm blankets against the chill.

When they had finished, and the Don was seen to be sleeping peacefully, Michel straightened his aching back and took a deep breath, staring at the two men in wonder. "The cramps would have stopped his heart, soon, but you have saved him. I have witnessed a miracle. Can this ...thing...you have done be taught? If so, I would learn it."

Lizhe leaned back in the chair, his eyes closed. "I do not think it can. I have not known it. One is born a shaman; it is not something one can lear..."

His voice ceased and Dom dashed forward before Lizhe hit the ground, and clasped the unconscious man.
"He is not sick - it seems that all one's strength goes into the one being treated, and he was not strong before we began. I am too weak from it to carry him back to our tent, so do you spread a blanket on the floor for him. I would stay with my father, in any case. Would you send the guard for more bedding?"

A guard came at the call, his face white with fear, and made the sign of the cross, staring at Lizhe and Dom, his eyes distended with terror. Dom realised that the guards all must have heard what had taken place, but this was not the time to fret over that. He had to tend to his father, and to Lizhe, with the Maitre's aid.

As he thought about what had happened, a shaft of fear went through Dom. He had believed Will's abrupt exit had been caused by the effects of a simple purge - now he was not sure. Now that he was no longer concerned that his father was moments from death, the Don's words concerning poison came forcibly back. He sent a guard for Captain Sancho, and called at the flap for Pablo for the servant was devoted to his master and now that the danger was over he could be of great help.

The Captain did not immediately come, and when he did, it was a gloomy man that stood by the tent-flap, unsure, it seemed, whether to enter.

"You sent for me, Eminence?" he asked in a tired voice, the dark circles under his eyes plain against his honey-burned skin.

Dom saw there was something gravely wrong. "What is it, man?"

"Captain Felipe has just died, Dom Domingo. I was with him until the last. I have seen many men die, but I hope never again to attend such a death-bed."

Michel excused himself and quickly bowed himself out. It was plain to Dom that he was anxious to see the Captain's body, and to question those who had been in attendance upon him. The stupid man had apparently refused Michel's aid, and now he had paid for it.

Sancho looked at the two sleeping men, one on the floor and one on the bed. "It seems his Highness has had better luck."

He glanced at the servant who was fussing over his master's comfort, drew Dom to the farthest corner, and said in a whisper, "take care, Dom - the guard who fetched me was babbling about witchcraft. Be prepared for harsh questions when Father Benigo gets to hear of it, for he will. The guard was very frightened, and therefore very shrill. Half the camp must have heard him - at least those quartered near Felipe's tent, and who were being kept from sleep by his final screams."

Dom, remembering what his father had said about ingesting poison, would not drink anything in the tent, and asked that an Inca servant be sent with some cola or chicha and soon Dom had a flask of coca, which he, through innocent-seeming questioning, discovered had been drawn from the common pot in the slave's quarters.

He sipped it gingerly, and found it tasted fresh, so he drank a cup, told Pablo to wake him if there was the slightest change in his father's condition, and settled beside the bed - unwilling to sleep near Lizhe, lest the servant prattled of it.

It was past dawn when he awoke. Lizhe was just stirring, and Dom rose and examined his father who was still deep in untroubled sleep. His heart was beating strongly and his breathing was even, so Dom's concern lessened considerably.

"How does he seem, Dom?" Lizhe asked in Quechua, raising his arms above his head and flexing his tired muscles.

"He is sleeping. I have hopes that we have saved him. I thank you for his life, my Lord. I could not have hoped to accomplish it on my own.

Lizhe smiled at Dom, his eyes soft with love. "This is very true. We work well together, do we not?" A shadow passed over his face as he saw Dom put on the cardinal's robe. "I shall be glad when this is all over, and you can consign that...thing...to the flames."

Dom made no answer. The garment afforded Dom little peace.

Lizhe glanced around and saw that Don Cristobal's nightrobe still lay in the corner where it had been thrown the night before. He carefully picked it up. "I shall burn this, and go to our tent to see if Khuno has returned," he said as he swiftly left the tent.

Dom had refrained from asking where Lizhe had sent the old priest. If he did not know, he could not be challenged on it. He was very sure there would be questions asked by the Inquisitor General concerning the night's doings. He would, in this case, be able to give an honest answer.

As soon as Maitre Michel came to examine his father, Dom left the tent to look for Will, hoping his friend was better - fearing to find that he was not. But his fears were unwarranted. Will was sitting outside his favourite mess-tent, eating some quinoa - the nearest thing, he said, to porridge - and holding forth noisily to a soldier concerning the superiority of uisge-beatha over any other drink he had supped.

He grinned at Dom as he approached, and shrugged his shoulders as the soldier knelt in the mud to kiss Dom's hand. The man quickly effaced himself and left the friends in peace. Dom gracefully accepted a stool brought for him by an Inca slave, and thanked him in Quechua, which made the man blink. Soon he was eating quinoa and drinking coca as they discussed, in English, the night's doings.

Soon a Dominican priest was seen hurrying towards them, and went down on one knee before Dom.

"Your Eminence. The Inquisitor General says it is not seemly for someone of your high calling to be seen eating such poor stuff, and in the open air, with a common servant. He invites you to his tent to eat, from his table, the best we have to offer."

Dom lifted his chin and stared coldly at the man, even though he was merely delivering the Inquisitor's message. Will's eyes were blazing green fire, but he said nothing.
The Cardinal smiled at the man, but it was a cold smile.

"Tell the Inquisitor General I thank him for his generous offer, but I choose my own companions, and I eat where, what and with whom I wish. Therefore, I have chosen to eat with his Lordship of Buccleuch, who is no common man, but was born of high degree in the country of Scotland. I do not think, from what I have heard from Don Cristobal, that Father Benigo can claim such a privileged begetting. You may leave me, now. Dominus vobiscum."

The man stood and bowed. "Very well, your Eminence, I shall do as you say, but I tell you now, he will be displeased."

Dom shrugged. "It is of no concern to me whether he is displeased or not. My Lord, accompany to my father's tent, if you please. I have things I wish to discuss with you in private."

"The priest's right, Dom," Will said in a low voice as they made their way to the tent. "It'll do ye no good to antagonise the Inquisitor. Best t' keep on his right side, if ye can - we have Lizhe and Amaru t' consider, after all, and he has far more men at his beck and call than you and y' Da put together."

"I suppose you are right, Will. After we have visited my father, we shall go to Amaru, and I will tread gently as you advise. We must find some way of releasing him before the Dominicans get their teeth into him."

Will did not answer immediately, his attention was riveted elsewhere. He pointed, his finger not quite steady. "It's nae their teeth y' need t' fash over, Dom. I just saw three priests - that Father Idelfonso was one - carrying a brazier and two armfuls of implements into the Inquisitor's tent. It may be they intend t' put Amaru to the test..."

“Sangre de Dios! " Dom exclaimed, pale with fury. "My father will have to wait. Now I shall go to the Inquisitor and order him to countermand the order for this...this...inhumanity. The devil take the man! It is my father who is in charge here, not him! And if not my father, then me. He shall not issue orders of such a bestial nature - not whilst I live and breathe! "

Will sighed, and following in Dom's stormy wake, wondered silently if Dom would live and breathe for much longer if he continued to confront the Inquisitor in this fashion.

Current Mood: relieved
Current Music: Yma Sumac sings Inca songs

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

lireeli.livejournal.com

How will they be able to leave this horrible place and these horrible men??
I don't know and fear the worst!
But still enjoy greatly this story ;)
*hugs tight*

From:

Inca 2 : Scourge of the Sun 21

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