THE KISS OF QUILLA
Her women bore Quilla swooning from that ill-fated field, and sick and
sad she remained until once more we saw the City of the Chancas. Yet all
this while strength and sight were returning to her eyes, so that in
the end she could see as well as ever she had done, for which I thanked
Heaven.
Messengers had gone before us, so that when we drew near all the people
of the Chancas came out to meet us, a mighty multitude, who spread
flowers before us and sang songs of joy. On the same evening I was
summoned by Huaracha and found him dying. There in the presence of
his chief captains Quilla and I told him all our story, to which he
listened, answering nothing. When it was finished he said:
“I thank you, Lord-from-the-Sea, who through great perils have saved my
daughter and brought her home to bid farewell to me, untarnished as
she went. I understand now that it was an evil policy which led me to
promise her in marriage to the prince Urco. Through your valour it has
come to naught and I am glad. Great dangers still lie ahead of you and
of my people. Deal with them as you will and can, for henceforward,
Lord-from-the-Sea, they are your people, yours and my daughter’s
together, since it is my desire and command that you two should wed so
soon as I am laid with my fathers. Perchance it had been better if you
had slain the Inca when he was in your hand, but man goes where his
spirit leads him. My blessing and the blessing of my gods be on you both
and on your children. Leave me, for I can say no more.”
That night King Huaracha died.
Three days later he was buried with great pomp beneath the floor of the
Temple of the Moon, not being preserved and kept above ground after the
fashion of the Incas.
On the last day of the mourning a council was summoned of all the great
ones in the country to the number of several hundreds, to which I was
bidden. This was done in the name of Quilla, who was now named by a
title which meant, “High Lady,” or “Queen.” I went to it eagerly enough
who had seen nothing of her since that night of her father’s death,
for, according to the custom of this people, she had spent the time of
mourning alone with her women.
To my surprise I was led by an officer, not into the great hall where I
knew the notables were assembling, but to that same little chamber where
first I had talked with Huaracha, Quilla’s father. Here the officer
left me wondering. Presently I heard a sound and looking up, saw Quilla
herself standing between the curtains, like to a picture in its frame.
She was royally arrayed and wore upon her brow and breast the emblem
of the moon, so that she seemed to glitter in that dusky place, though
nothing about her shone with such a light as did her large and doe-like
eyes.
“Greeting, my Lord,” she said in her soft voice, curtseying to me as she
spoke. “Has my Lord aught to say to me? If so, it must be quick, since
the Great Council waits.”
Now I grew foolish and tongue-tied, but at length stammered out:
“Nothing, except what I have said before--that I love you.”
She smiled a little in her slow fashion, then asked:
“Is there naught to add?”
“What can there be to add to love, Quilla?”
“I know not,” she answered, still smiling. “Yet in what does the love of
man and woman end?”
I shook my head and answered:
“In many things, all of them different. In hell sometimes, and more
rarely in heaven.”
“And on earth which lies between the two, should those who love escape
death and separation?”
“Well, on earth--in marriage.”
She looked at me again and this time a new light shone in her eyes which
I could not misinterpret.
“Do you mean that you will marry me, Quilla?” I muttered.
“Such was my father’s wish, Lord, but what is yours? Oh! have done,” she
went on in a changed voice. “For what have we suffered all these things
and gone through such long partings and dangers so dreadful? Was it not
that if Fate should spare us we might come together at last? And has not
Fate spared us--for a while? What said the prophecy of me in the Temple
of Rimac? Was it not that the Sun should be my refuge and--I forget the
rest.”
“I remember it,” I said. “That in the beloved arms you should sleep at
last.”
“Yes,” she went on, the blood mounting to her cheeks, “that in the
beloved arms I should sleep at last. So, the first part of the prophecy
has come true.”
“As the rest shall come true,” I broke in, awaking, and swept her to my
breast.
“Are you sure,” she murmured presently, “that you love me, a woman whom
you think savage, well enough to wed me?”
“Aye, more than sure,” I answered.
“Hearken, Lord. I knew it always, but being woman I desired to hear it
from your own lips. Of this be certain: that though I am but what I am,
a maiden, wild-hearted and untaught, no man shall ever have a truer and
more loving wife. It is my hope, even that my love will be such that in
it at last you may learn to forget that other lady far away who once was
yours, if only for an hour.”
Now I shrank as from a sword prick, since first loves, whatever the tale
of them, as Quilla guessed or Nature taught her, are not easily forgot,
and even when they are dead their ghosts will rise and haunt us.
“And my hope, most dear, is that you will be mine, not for an hour but
for all our life’s days,” I answered.
“Aye,” she said, sighing, “but who knows how many these will be?
Therefore let us pluck the flowers before they wither. I hear steps. The
lords come to summon us. Be pleased to enter the Council at my side and
holding me by the hand. There I have somewhat to say to the people. The
shadow of the Inca Kari, whom you spared, still lies cold upon us and
them.”
Before I could ask her meaning the lords entered, three of them, and
glancing at us curiously, said that all were gathered. Then they turned
and went before us to the great hall where every place was filled. Hand
in hand we mounted the dais, and as we came all the audience rose and
greeted us with a roar of welcome.
Quilla seated herself upon a throne and motioned to me to take my place
upon another throne at her side, which I noted stood a little higher
than that on which she sat, and this, as I learned afterwards, not
by chance. It was planned so to tell the people, of the Chancas that
henceforth I was their king while she was but my wife.
When the shouting had died away Quilla rose from her throne and began to
speak, which like many of the higher class of this people she could do
well enough.
“Lords and Captains of the Chanca nation,” she said, “my father, the
king Huaracha, being dead, leaving no lawful son, I have succeeded to
his dignities, and summoned you here to take counsel with me.
“First, learn this, that I, your Queen and Lady, have been chosen as
wife by him who sits at my side.”
Here the company shouted again, thus announcing that this tidings
pleased them. For though by now only the common people still believed me
to be a god risen from the sea, all held that I was a great general and
a great man, one who knew much that they did not know, and who could
both lead and fight better than the best of them. Indeed, since I had
slain Urco with my hands and overcome Kari, who as Inca was believed to
be clothed with the strength of the Sun and therefore unconquerable,
I was held to be unmatched throughout Tavantinsuyu. Moreover, the army
that had fought under my command loved me as though I were their father
as well as their general. Therefore all greeted this tidings well enough
without astonishment, for they knew it was their dead king’s wish that I
should wed his daughter and that to win her I had gone through much.
In answer to their shoutings I, too, rose from my seat, and drawing the
sword Wave-Flame, which I wore girt about my dinted armour, with it I
saluted first Quilla and then the gathered nobles, saying:
“Lords of the Chancas, when on an island in the sea, my eyes fell upon
this lady who to-day is your queen, I loved her and swore that I would
wed her if I might. Between that day and this much has befallen. She was
snatched away to be made the wife of Urco, heir to the Inca throne, and
afterwards, to escape him whom she hated, she took refuge in the House
of the Inca god. Then, people of the Chancas, came the great war which
we shared together, and in the end I rescued her from that house of
bondage, and slew Urco while he strove to steal or stab her. This done,
I conquered Kari the Inca, who was as my brother, yet because I saved
your lady from his god the Sun, became my enemy, and together she and
I returned to this, her land. Now it is her will to wed me, as it has
always been mine to wed her, and here in front of all of you I take her
to wife, as she takes me to husband, hoping that for many years it may
be given to us to rule over you, and to our children after us. Yet I
warn you that although in the great war that has been, if with much
loss, we have held our own against all the hosts of Cuzco and won an
honourable peace, by this marriage of ours, which robs the Inca god of
one of a thousand brides, that peace is broken. Therefore in the future,
as in the past, there will be war between the Quichua and the Chanca
peoples.”
“We know it,” shouted the nobles. “War is decreed, let war come!”
“What would you have had me do?” I went on. “Leave your queen to
languish in the House of the Sun, wed to nothingness, or suffer her to
be dragged away to be one of Urco’s women, or hand her back to Kari to
be slain as a sacrifice to a god whom you do not accept?”
“Nay!” they cried. “We would have her wed you, White Lord-from-the-Sea,
that she may become a mother of kings.”
“So I thought, Chancas. Yet I warn you that there is trouble near. The
storm gathers and soon it will burst, since Kari is not one who breaks
his oaths.”
“Why did you not kill him when he was in your hand, and take his
throne?” asked one.
“Because I could not. Because it would not have been pleasing to Heaven
that I should slay a man who for years had been as my brother. Because
in this way or in that the deed would have fallen back upon my head,
upon the head of the lady Quilla, and upon your heads also, O people of
the Chancas, because----”
At this moment there was disturbance at the end of the hall, and a
herald cried:
“An embassy! An embassy from Kari, the Inca.”
“Let it be admitted,” said Quilla.
Presently up the central passage marched the embassy with pomp, great
lords and “earmen,” every man of them, and bowed before us.
“Your words?” said Quilla quietly.
“They are these, Lady,” answered the spokesman of the party. “For the
last time the Inca demands that you should surrender yourself to be
sacrificed as one who has betrayed the Sun. He asks it of you since he
has learned that your father Huaracha is no more.”
“And if I refuse to surrender myself, what then, O Ambassador?”
“Then in the name of the Empire and in his own name the Inca declares
war upon you, war to the end, until not one of Chanca blood is left
living beneath the sun and not one stone marks where your city stood. It
may be that a while will pass before this sword of war falls upon your
head, since the Inca must gather his armies and give a breathing space
to his peoples after all the troubles that have been. Yet if not this
year, then next year, and if not next year, then the year after, that
sword shall fall.”
Quilla listened and turned pale, though more, I think, with wrath than
fear. Then she said:
“You have heard, Chancas, and know how stands this case. If I surrender
myself to be sacrificed, the Inca in his mercy will spare you; if I do
not surrender myself, soon or late he will destroy you--if he can. Say,
then, shall I surrender myself?”
Now every man in that great hall leapt up and from every throat there
arose a shout of,
“Never!”
When it had died away an aged chief and councillor, an uncle of
Huaracha, the dead King, came forward and stared at the envoys with his
horny eyes.
“Go back to the Inca,” he said, “and tell him that the threats of the
mouth are one thing and the deeds of the hand are another. In the late
war that has been he has learned something of our quality, both as foes
and friends, and perchance more remains for him to learn. Yonder is
one”--and he pointed to myself--“who is about to become our King and the
husband of our Queen. By the help of that one and of some of us the Inca
won his throne. From the mercy of that one, also, but a little while ago
the Inca won his life. Let him be careful lest through the might of
that one, behind whom stands every Chanca that breathes, the Inca Kari
Upanqui should yet lose both throne and life, and with them the ancient
empire of the Sun. Thus say we all.”
“Thus say we all!” repeated the great company with a roar that shook the
walls.
In the silence that followed Quilla asked:
“Have you aught to add, O Ambassadors?”
“Ay, this,” said the first of them.
“The Chanca tree is about to be cut down, but the Inca still offers a
refuge to the Lion that hides among its branches because he has loved
that Lion from of old. Let the White Lord-from-the-Sea over whom you
have cast the net of your witcheries return with us and he shall be
saved and given place and power, and with them a brother’s love.”
Now Quilla looked at me, and I rose to speak but could not, since all
that came from my lips was laughter. At length I said:
“But the other day when I gave him his life, the Inca named me noble.
What would he think of me if I said yes to this offer? Would he call me
noble then and the Lion that dwells in the Chanca tree? Or, whatever his
lips might speak, would not his heart name me the basest of slaves and
no lion of the tree, but rather a snake that creeps at its roots? Get
you gone, my lords, and say that here I bide happy with her whom I have
won, and that the ancient sword Wave-Flame, on which Kari has looked
of late, is still sharp and the arm that wields it is still strong, and
that he will do well now that it has served his turn, to look on it no
more,” and again I drew the great blade and flashed it before their eyes
there in that dusky hall.
Then, bowing courteously, for every man of them knew me and some of
them loved me well, they turned and went. That was the last that ever I,
Hubert of Hastings, saw of nobles of the Inca blood, though perchance,
ere long, I shall meet them again in war.
“Let them be escorted safely from the city,” commanded Quilla, and
soldiers went to do her bidding.
When they had gone she issued another order, that the door should be
closed and watchmen set about the hall, so that none could approach it
unseen. Then after a pause she rose and spoke:
“My Lord,” she said, “who soon, as I trust, will be my husband and
my king, and you, the chosen of my people, hearken to me for I have a
matter to lay before you. You have heard the Inca’s message and you know
that his words are not vain. He who is great in many ways, in one is
small and narrow. He sets his god before his honour, and to satisfy his
god, whom he thinks that I have outraged, is prepared to sacrifice his
honour, and even to kill one to whom he owes all,” and she touched me
with her hand. “Moreover, these things he can do, not at once but in
time to come, because for every man of ours he is able to gather ten.
Therefore we stand thus; death and destruction stare us in the face.”
She paused, and that old chief of whom I have spoken, asked in the midst
of a silence, as I think was planned that he should ask:
“You have set our teeth in the bitter rind of truth. Is there no sweet
fruit within? Can you not show us a way of escape, O Quilla, Daughter of
the Moon, whose heart is fed with the wisdom of the Moon?”
“I believe that I can show you such a way,” she answered. “You know the
legend of our people--that in the old days, a thousand years ago--we
came to this country out of the forests.
“You know, too, the legend tells that once far away, beyond the forest,
there was a mighty empire of which the king sat in a City of Gold hidden
within a ring of mountains. That king, it is said, had two sons, and
when he died these sons made war upon each other, and one of them, my
forefather, was defeated and driven away into the forests by those who
clung to him. By boats he descended the river that runs through the
forest, and at length with those who remained to him came to this land
and there once more grew to be a king. Is it not so?”
“It is so,” answered the aged chief. “The tale has come down to me
through ten generations, and with it the prophecy that in a day to come
the Chancas would return to that City of Gold whence they came and be
welcomed of its people.”
“I have heard that prophecy,” said Quilla. “Moreover, of it I have
something to tell you. While I sat in despair and blindness in the
Convent of the Sun at Cuzco it came into my mind and I brooded upon
it much, who was always sure that the war between the Chancas and the
armies of the Incas was but begun. In my darkness I prayed to my Mother,
the Moon, for light and help. Long and often I prayed, and at length an
answer came. One night the Spirit of the Moon appeared to my soul as a
beautiful and shining goddess, and spoke to me.
“‘Be brave, Daughter,’ she said, ‘for all that seems to be lost shall
yet be found again, and the light of a certain flashing sword shall
pierce the blackness and give back vision to your eyes.’ This, indeed,
happened, my people, since it was when the sword of my Lord saved me
from death at the hands of Urco that the first gleam of light returned
to my darkened eyes.
“‘Be not afraid, moreover, for the Children of the Chancas who bow to
me,’ went on the shining Spirit of the Moon, ‘since in the day of their
danger I will show them a path towards my place of resting in the west.
Yea, I will lead them far from wars and tyrannies back to that ancient
city whence they came, and there they shall sleep in peace till all
things are accomplished. Moreover, you shall be their ruler during your
appointed days, you and another whom I led to you out of the deeps of
the sea and showed to you sleeping in my beams.’
“Thus that Spirit spoke to me, Councillors, though at the time I did not
know whether the vision were more than a happy dream. But now I do know
that it was no dream, but the truth.
“For did not my sight begin to return to me in the flashing of the sword
that is named Flame-of-the-Wave? And if this were true, why should not
the rest be true also? People of the Chancas, I am your Queen to-day and
my counsel to you is that we flee from this land before the Inca’s net
closes round us and the Inca’s spears pierce our heart, to seek our
ancient home far in the depths of the western forest where, as I trust,
his armies cannot come. Is that your will, O my People? If so, by the
tongues of your Lords and Captains declare it here and now before it be
too late.”
Back thundered the answer:
“It is our will, O Daughter of the Moon!”
When its echoes had died away Quilla turned to me, lovely to look on as
the evening star and with eyes that shone like stars, and asked:
“Is it your will also, O Lord-from-the-Sea?”
“Your will is my will, Quilla,” I answered, “and your heart is my home.
Lead on; where you go I follow, even to the edge of the world and beyond
the world.”
“So be it!” she cried in a triumphant voice. “Now the evil past
is finished with its fears and battles and before our feet, lit by
moonbeams, stretches the Future’s shining road leading us to the mystery
in which all roads begin and for an hour are lost again. Now, too, our
separations end in a perfect unity that perchance we have known before
and shall know again in ages to be born and lands revisited. Now,
Lord-from-the-Sea, at whose coming my sleeping heart awoke to love and
whose sword saved me from shame and death, giving me back to life and
light, here, before this company of our people, I, the Daughter of the
Moon, defying the Sun who held me captive, and all his servants, take
you to husband with this kiss,” and leaning forward Quilla pressed her
lips upon my own. . . .
The remaining parchment sheets of the ancient Manuscript are
rotted with the damp of the tomb in which it lay for centuries
and quite undecipherable.
Editor.