ismenin | INCA Thirteen

THIS is Primsie's Birthday Present to me! Gulp. Thank you my darling. xxx

It is Tuesday, and my birthday, so in true Hobbit tradition, I offer you

Thanks as always to ladysunrope for her beta.

Part Thirteen - Yearnings

Dom had counted to twenty six before the Villac--Uma expertly caught the next blow before it fell, and had Tupac carried to the healing rooms.

Rimac helped Dom to his own room, which was nearer than the Spaniard's, and held his head while he was woefully sick into a bowl.

Dom gratefully wiped his face with a damp cloth, and sat on the new bed, whilst Rimac stared at his friend, a soft smile lifting the corners of his mouth.

Dom had counted manfully as the whip had fallen, and had never faltered even when Tupac's back was reduced to a bloodied pulp, but as soon as it had stopped he had felt very sick indeed.

"Such punishment will come to all who disobey the laws of God. There is no-one within the sound of my voice who can expect to escape punishment for such a heinous crime," Villac had announced before Tupac was taken out.

Dom, remembering, cleared his throat, and tentatively sipped the coca Rimac was holding out to him.

"Drink. It is good to stop sickness," Rimac urged.

"Do you think he means to subject me to such treatment, Rimac? I have a great dislike for violence... the thought of this..." He wiped his face with a cloth again, waiting for his friend to answer.

Rimac laughed. "No indeed. You need not fear that this is what lies in store for you."

"How do you know that for certain? Did he tell you so? And why do you think Tupac was so angered with me? It makes no sense -- the man does not know me."

Rimac clapped his hands and sent a servant for a light meal, and, at Dom's earnest plea, some cool water. It had been many hours since Dom had eaten anything, and he did not answer until the man had brought it.

"I do know why Tupac was angry, but I gave my word to God that I would say nothing. Please do not ask me to break this vow."

Dom was gratefully drinking a long draught of the icy mountain water, and after he had emptied the goblet, he said with a wry grin,

"I would ask no man to do that. Your word is your bond. Nevertheless, that does not stop me from wishing to know what was said. I cannot imagine what it could be that would cause such hatred to appear in the man's face, when he knows nothing of me."

Rimac nodded wisely. "But there, my friend, you are wrong. He knows a great deal more of you than is comfortable for him. Come, I think you should cleanse yourself in the hot springs. We will eat later. After such a trial, it will do us both much good."

Dom looked askance at Rimac who was smiling at him and holding out his hand. Dom clasped it, but said worriedly," Will he not be angry that we use it without permission?"

"It is not without permission, for God told me himself that you or I could use it at any time, together or alone. He saw how much benefit you gained from it. Dom, he is not a heartless man."

Dom sighed. "I know that only too well. I have not been blind to his attributes, I... I...just...I... Let us go!"

Rimac stopped on his way to collect two finely woven lawn gowns from the linen rooms, which, he said, would be more comfortable for them when they come out of the waters.

The water was indeed relaxing, and the two men spent a full hour lounging in the hot water. No one came to disturb them and that saddened Dom. He would have been glad if Lizhe had entered unannounced - but Lizhe was with the Coya, who was not well.

"I hope the Coya recovers quickly, Rimac. She is such a tiny thing, there cannot be much strength in her."

Rimac rose slowly out of the water and reached for a large linen towel. "It is always so with delicate people. Others think they have no substance to them but the Coya is a strong woman, despite her physical appearance. And God is to take the leaves tonight, to see if there is anything that can be done to strengthen her after the loss of the child."

"He has also sent to the Valley for the children to be brought home. He thinks the sight of Hualpa would benefit his mother, and little Lissa on whom she dotes. God, too, has missed them sorely."

******

When Dom rose in the morning, after a better night's sleep than he had anticipated, it was to discover, from the Villac-Uma, that Lizhe had been unable to take the leaves that night. Why this was he had refused to divulge to Dom.

The Spaniard missed Lizhe more than he would admit even to himself. After he had written the previous days happenings in his notebook, he wandered aimlessly about the city, hindering Will's work. David was employed elsewhere that morning, and not able to help and so Will was harassed and had no time to stop. Interrupting the men in the counting rooms who were busily knotting their quipu, by asking for someone to help him study his knots was all he could think of to occupy his time.

They spared him a fourteen-year-old boy, which, he said to the sniggering lad, showed how much they thought he knew, or could learn of the tangled skein that he brought out of his pocket for the apprentice to see.

"Auqui! What is this... this... mess? Shall I get some new string for you to practise on?... I cannot see how you can tell anything from this jumble."

Dom straightened out the strings. "I will tell you what I have here, and then we will practice other knots on a different string. I would learn more -- I wish to be a help to God, not a hindrance to him."

They sat on a bench outside the counting house, and spent several hours until the midday meal, engrossed in what they were doing. When the boy saw that Dom was really interested, and learned fast, he threw himself with gusto into the role of a tutor.

Dom learned all the numbers from one to a thousand, several ways of counting herds, how to tally the riches of the storehouse, both in gold and grain, and several more names, and they parted in perfect amity, Dom going off to eat with his friends and the boy returned to the counting rooms, secure in the knowledge that he had taught an Auqui something important that morning. Even if he was a foreign Auqui with a hairy face.

Still he had seen nothing of the Inca. When he asked Rimac he returned an evasive answer. This puzzled Dom, who was used to openness from his new friend.

He spent the next few days trying to help in the carpentry shop, and Will, who was still working without David for the moment, was moved to tell Dom that he was not such a great nodcock as he had thought him to be. David was away on a ‘mission of mercy’ but Dom had been useful measuring wood, and instructed the transporting of half-made parts to other workshops to be finished.

Dom missed Lizhe more than ever. Each day without seeing him was as a lifetime, and empty without his lover's presence. Though they had known each other for such a short time, Dom had now realised the extent of his feelings for the man, and was more angry with himself than ever he had been for giving in to his temper. Whatever his feelings were, he had been better keeping them to himself.

That night, as he wrote in his book, he added a line at the end of his scribblings. "I miss him. My heart is sore for the sight of his face."

*****

He was woken during the night by a hard tugging on his arm. "You must come to him, Auqui! He is very sick!"

It was Quisbe, and she would say no more other than urge him to come. Dom, seriously frightened, had donned his blue robe and followed her, running down the corridor like a man possessed.

The room was a shambles. Bedding and furniture were strewn everywhere. Rimac and Villac knelt before Lizhe who was sitting, cowering in a corner, a ceremonial knife in his hand. Villac, he could see, had been already cut by it across the arm, and the blood dripped onto the floor.

Without moving from his position, Villac breathed. "He has taken the leaves for the Coya. He has not been himself these last few days, and I warned him not to. But he is God and I had to obey. Each time he takes them his reaction against them becomes stronger. It had turned his mind, Dom. Help him! The only name he has uttered all night has been yours."

Dom moved forward. Lizhe's eyes were enormous in his face, and wild. There was no recognition in them, either of his surroundings or of the people in the room. Dom knelt before him, and the knife was pointed in his direction.

"Careful!" Rimac whispered as loudly as he dared.

Dom put out his hand. "Lizhe?"he said, softly, but firmly, "Give me the knife."

The blue eyes blinked twice, and the knife wavered in a shaking hand.

"Lizhe!" more loudly this time. The Inca turned his ear to the sound, and the knife dropped onto the floor.

Dom started talking of anything and nothing - of Ispaca, of his visit to Lizhe's father, of the hot spring, anything to take the man's thoughts from the knife.

A thread of a voice came from between trembling lips. "Dom? I hear your voice, my love, but I cannot see you. There are fiends gathered about me..."

"Close your eyes, querido, and hold out your hand and I will take it, and you will know my touch."

Lizhe did as he was told and his grip on Dom's hand was hard and trembling.

"Come with me, Lizhe, to our bed. You are tired, now, and need to rest."

The Inca rose from the floor, his eyes still shut tight. He was covered in sweat and Rimac threw a thin lawn sheet around his shoulders as they walked to the bed.

Lizhe was soon lying on the sheet, and as Dom continued to hold his hand, Rimac and Villac washed the sweat from his body.

"It has to be done," Villac explained. "It is poison to him, else."

Dom glanced in the High Priest's direction, and said, in the same quiet voice as he was using to calm Lizhe, "it seems to be poison to him, anyway, Villac. How could you allow him to...?"

It did not need Villac's answer for Dom to realize why. "He is God!"

"God or not, it must not be permitted again. It is a miracle his heart is still beating. Look at him!"

And indeed, the Inca's heart could be seen pounding in his chest. Quisbe covered both of them with a sheet, and, kissing Lizhe on the forehead, and smiling sweetly at Dom, she snuffed the tapers, and they were left alone, Dom holding Lizhe's hand, Lizhe listening to Dom's voice with his eyes closed, afraid to open them to the monsters of the dark.

Eventually, Lizhe calmed, his heart slowed, and he moved into Dom's arms with a sigh of satisfaction. "Dom!" he murmured - "my Dom!"

Dom did not sleep, as Lizhe did, breathing gently onto his lover's neck in the dark night. He stayed awake, revelling in the touch and smell of his man, feeling the pressure of the small fingers as they brushed Dom's skin as Lizhe moved in his sleep, the silken hair falling over his face.

But all too soon the idyll was over. Long before dawn, Villac came and asked Dom to leave.

"He had not given permission, Dom, for us to call you. In fact, as he felt the drug take hold, he expressly forbade us..."

Dom nodded. He understood, only too well, the High Priest's dilemma - the conflict between his orders and his love for and the needs of the man who had given them.

He rose quickly from the bed, careful not to disturb the sleeping man, and covered Lizhe gently with the sheets. He fastened the belt of his dressing robe tightly around his waist, and returned to his own bed, his arms aching with emptiness but his heart glad that, even for a short while, he had held the man who had become to him the most precious thing on earth.

*****

The next day Dom was surprised to hear from Rimac that Tupac had left for his mountain retreat that morning.

"Was he fit to go?" Dom asked, thinking that if it had been himself under the lash he could not have moved for a month.

"Oh, he was fit! He was muttering to himself as he was helped out of the city by four men of his train. He said something to the effect that news of an incredible nature would be brought here, soon, and that, he, Tupac, would be very joyous to hear of it."

"The guards that escorted him to the edge of the city took it to mean the return of the Condor, but I am not so sure. It is not a thing he would rejoice over. He is not a ...kind man, Dom."

Dom cast a sympathetic look at his companion. "Of that I am aware." He then told Rimac of his visit to the Inca's rooms, and what was said by Tupac.

Rimac looked disgusted. "He has no elegance of mind. Once he wanted Lizhe to...to take me whilst he looked on. Lizhe refused, of course, merely, I think, because Tupac had suggested it. He... God... he told me recently... "

Rimac stopped suddenly and blushed

Dom remembered seeing Rimac in bed with Lizhe, and hoped the king would never tell the prince of it. The cast of the man's mind was delicate - his sensibilities great - and yet, his eyes were glowing, now, with some inner thought.

Lizhe had, in bed on their second night of love, told Dom that Quisbe and the Coya were often together whilst he took one or the other, but this was because they needed each other's touch to come to climax, Lizhe had revealed, blushing as he said it.

It seemed, now, to Dom that Lizhe had confided more in him during the past few weeks than ever he had to those with whom he had shared his life and bed for years - yes, and allowed him more licence, too.

He asked Rimac if Lizhe had taken him to see his father.

"No, I have never been with God, but naturally I go alone to see his father. He was my God as well as my uncle and much beloved by me, as were his wife, and Father Manuel also. They were all part of a happy childhood which was made joyous by their presence and their love."

Rimac spent some time telling Dom of his childhood and youth and ended by telling Dom how the Inca had chosen him to be Ray.

"I was with him, one night after Tupac had...upset him, and he said he would take me, if I was willing, as he needed a gentle soul to care for, and who loved him in return."

"He had not been with me - to lie with me, I mean - do not think it, nor would he take me until I was made Ray of Inti. He is great and good, and kind, and I do love him, Dom, very much."

"Tupac was always the most demanding of men, and he had to learn often, the lesson that Lizhe was God and King. It seems he will not be given any more opportunities, and for that I am glad. The past year he has made me...uneasy. I cannot say why, for I do not know."

Dom privately agreed with that assessment, for he, too, felt unsettled in the man's presence, and could not understand why this should be.

"Will Lizhe...God...ever see me again, Rimac? I miss him sorely."

The Auqui patted Dom's arm. "He has had much on his mind, of late, Dom. He forbade me to tell you what he said, so I must abide by his word.”

"He told me this morning that he remembered nothing after he took the leaves, but had dreamed you had spent the night lying in each others' arms and he looked happier than I have seen him in many days. I wish I could have told him it was no dream, just as I wish that I could bring such joy to his eyes, dear friend."

Dom was humbled by such a selfless love, and the friendship given to him by this man from whom he had taken much by lying, in his stead, in the Inca's bed.

Dom was determined if ever he was restored to his place he would see that Rimac received his full share of Lizhe's attentions - as far as it was within his remit so to do. The man was deserving of it.

*****

It was several days later that Lizhe had sent to Dom's room a beautiful golden cup, encrusted with jewels, which, the bearer said, was the God's gift to the Spanish king.
Dom's heart sank, for he thought this might indicate that the Inca thought it time for Dom to leave these lands. He confided his misgivings to Will later.

"Aye, your mouth was always as great as yer temper, lad! I hope it hasna got yer in trouble again - this time for good!" Will had said, as Dom was leaving for his appointed meeting with the knot expert. This lad, in his fourteen years had managed to amass an enormous amount of knowledge of the Inca and his family.

"If I am to be a keeper of history, as I desire - I must know everything about God and his family to record it on the quipu. Today we shall deal with numbers again, for I find you take those into your heart more easily than words."

"I will study to please you, Atoc," Dom said, humbly. He was anxious to learn, and he needed the good will of this young lad if he was to do so.

Several hours - and three knotted strings later - Dom had learned, as well as the numbers, and after a little thought by both of them, how to knot his and the Inca's full names, and then, feeling satisfied with his progress Dom went to sit on the promontory above the city to watch the sun set on the hills, turning the bricks red, and the grass to the darkest green Dom had ever seen.

That night he did something he rarely indulged in - he prayed that Lizhe and the Coya would be well, and for little Hualpa and Ispaca, too. He did not mention himself, or his needs. He did not think God was sufficiently interested in him for that.

He was just about to retire when he heard footsteps clattering along the corridor, and Rimac dashed into his room dressed only in a lawn sleeping robe and flew straight into Dom's arms wide eyed with terror and shivering with shock.

"Dom... he..."

"Calm yourself, my friend," Dom whispered, holding him close, feeling the tremors that shook the slender body through the thin gauze. "Calmly, now. Breathe slowly, and tell me..."

"Huapla!" Rimac gasped, stepping back, still trembling, from Dom's grasp "It is little Hualpa! Tupac has sent men to capture him on the road here and has had him taken to the new place in the mountains!"

"Dom...Dom! He has stolen away God's son!"

INCA Thirteen

PS