The Sisterhood

Chapter 28


From the Chronicle of Las Sors Santas de Jesus, by the pen of Esperanza, the Hacienda of the Sun and the Moon, January 1554





Salome’s home, the Hacienda of the Sun and the Moon, lies three days away. Like Salome and her Inca husband, it is a house of two worlds, Spanish and native. It stands on the ruins of an Inca palace, and Salome tells me that it was one of many palaces belonging to her husband’s family. After it was destroyed by a great earthquake the stones were used to rebuild it in a kind of Spanish style, around a courtyard with a fountain. She is not at all a fine Spanish lady like the colonial wives, but a handsome, reflective woman at one with the house, with the place.

Beside the gate there is a family chapel with a stone altar and a dazzling gold-and-silver altar screen and wooden statues of the saints with native faces. The house itself is very large and low, filled with the tapestry-like hangings of wool dyed beautiful colors that caught my eye in the convent, earthenware pots and other fine native artifacts, as well as silver candlesticks and the heavy carved furniture that is common here. Her house is tranquil, comfortable, and well ordered. Her slaves and servants go quietly about their work, with less of the excitable ways I have seen elsewhere. Inside the rooms lead one into another around a tiled courtyard with a fountain and many flowers. When we admired it, Salome said there was once a garden made of gold and silver, with jeweled flowers. But, she said with a smile, she prefers living things and oversees the garden herself.

There is nothing of the fashionable colonial lady about her. Salome wears a kind of native tunic of fine wool over a longer, plainer dress of cotton, which suits her very well. Her hair is nearly gray now, and her sad eyes are beautiful and deep. She is very like Sor Beatriz in looks and manner. When she speaks, it is in a considered and intelligent way, like Sor Beatriz.

One of the rooms is a small library with a splendid view of the mountains in the distance. She spends much of the day here, reading, praying, and writing to her daughter, Beatris, and son Fr. Matteo all the news of the hacienda, births and deaths and marriages of the servants and natives and slaves on the estate, the crops and animals, her garden. The library was made especially for her by her husband. She bears her widowhood stoically and does not speak of her grief, but she does not need to. It hovers about her.

She welcomed Sanchia and me very kindly. The morning after our arrival, Sanchia went off to watch the excitement in the garden where the gardeners were trying to catch a large poisonous snake. In what would become the pattern of our days there, Salome saw to her housekeeping and gave orders for meals, then drew me into her study to talk until dinnertime, as Sanchia rode or explored outdoors. We spoke easily of many things.

I told her it had come as a shock to learn Sor Beatriz had a daughter, and gave her all the news of her mother and the convent. I told her how kind Sor Beatriz had been to me, how she had trained me as her assistant. “It sounds like you took my place,” said Salome. “I am glad. And the Inquisition? We hear a little. Is it really as bad now as they say?”

I said it was, and she was alarmed to learn that a tribunal had come to Las Golondrinas just at the time we left, although I did not explain why the Abbess did not want it to find us.

It took a long time to tell Salome all the convent news. It had not been possible for her to send or receive letters from Spain until the conquistadors had come, and after that she had written many times to the convent but never received a reply. I assured her that no letter from her had come, and that it wasn’t until Sor Serafina repeated her brothers’ tales of the colony that the order realized the missionaries had not drowned or been taken by pirates. Once Salome asked, “I don’t suppose my mother ever spoke to you of my father? No? She would never speak of him to me either. I believe she had her reasons for keeping that secret.”

She looked so pensive and sad that I changed the subject, telling her about Don Tomas Beltran and how he had abducted our friend. This made Salome laugh. She said it was very like Tomas to do such a thing, that as an only son he had been dreadfully spoiled until he believed he must have his own way in everything. Don Miguel had become his godfather when Don Miguel was only sixteen. Since then he had gotten Tomas out of many scrapes, placated many an infuriated husband and father, and he now hoped that Tomas would be content with one woman for the time being. Salome patted my hand reassuringly and said that Marisol sounded as if she had a mind of her own, and she understood Dona Luisa took the birth of Marisol’s twins as a personal compliment—twins ran on her side of the family. Poor Rita, who had finally been married, was now expected to produce twins, too.

Another day I told Salome about Pia.

I woke each day hoping it might bring Don Miguel to the hacienda, but there was no sign of him. Salome said that he lived in his own wing of the house, but family business often obliged him to be gone for long periods of time. She was clearly uncomfortable speaking of his absence. I understood what she did not wish to say. Don Miguel lives with a mistress, probably with their children as well, as is the way here. I said nothing more about Don Miguel. It was her turn to tell me her story. There was so much I longed to know. It took the better part of a week for her to tell me, and I recorded it as she did.


I left Spain over thirty years ago on what I believed was an adventure to build a mission in Gran Canaria. The Abbess had obtained permission from the church to send missionaries to establish a convent and a school for native women and girls there. I believe the church authorities agreed because Muslim traders in Gran Canaria had begun building mosques and the church and Spain wanted to forestall the Muslim presence there.

I was longing to go, and my prayers were answered when the Abbess chose me. My mother and I wept when we parted, but we expected she would come with a second party of nuns when the new mission was established. I can still remember how exciting the trip to Seville seemed. The world beyond the convent walls was vast! Mountains and valleys, farms, villages and peasants, castles, the rivers and plains—then Seville itself! Sor Maria Manuela, who was in charge of the party, was continually telling us to lower our veils.

The ship and the sea seemed wonderful at first. It was agreeable flying over the water with a salt breeze on our faces, though the sailors pointed to the horizon and told us that was the Sea of Fog and Darkness, where sea djinnis dwell and prey on ships blown their way. They reassured us that Gran Canaria was less than ten days away and there was nothing to fear. But next morning the sky had turned dark, and suddenly there was a terrible storm with lightning and howling winds, and we were locked into the hold as waves crashed across the deck.

I can still remember that terrifying ordeal. It was dark in the hold and we lost track of whether it was day or night as the ship shuddered with the pounding of the waves. We were violently ill, seawater had soaked into our cabin and everything around us was foul and cold. Worst of all, we knew we had been blown into the awful Sea of Fog and Darkness whose perils the sailors had described to us. As the miserable hours, then days passed, I thought of my mother and prayed she not blame herself for giving permission. We realized that we would never reach Gran Canaria, and tried to encourage each other to meet death bravely. Then as suddenly as it had come, the storm died, and the captain threw open the hatch and shouted, “Sisters! The storm has passed and Gran Canaria lies ahead!”

It seemed a miracle when air and sunshine poured into our hold. We crawled up onto the deck and saw land ahead and the sailors prostrated in prayer in the Muslim way, abandoning all pretense of Christianity after deliverance from such an ordeal. We knelt, too, and gave thanks. When we finished we saw that the closer we drew to land the more puzzled the captain looked. It was certainly not the busy harbor the sailors had described. After we anchored in a deserted cove he tried to work out where we might be from his charts. The sailors set about assessing the damage to the ship and found freshwater on land. That night we feasted on fish roasted over the fire and strange fruits growing on the edge of the forest. In a few days we had all regained strength and the captain and a few of the older sailors sat awake late into the night trying to determine where we were by the stars.

Then one afternoon painted men appeared out of the forest, and attacked us with bows and arrows, wounding the captain badly. We hurried back onto the ship and sailed on along the coast, as close as the sailors dared, our party now taking turns to watch for reefs under the water.

Having avoided death at sea, it began to seem we would perish near land, though no one knew what land this might be. Some thought India and some thought China. Different tribes along the way met us with hostility each time we tried to pull in to shore, and the captain’s wound festered. He grew feverish and drifted in and out of consciousness in his cabin. We had our medicines and treated him as best we could, but the poor captain finally died in great agony. After they dropped his body overboard next day, a row blew up between those who believed we should go forward and those who were determined to turn back. The argument was decided as we saw we were approaching a narrow isthmus and the plan in favor of turning back was agreed, when, just as the ship came about, we saw a great mass of water swirling around itself on the way we had just come. The lookout shouted the alarm and an order to come about again at once—it was a trap of the devil to suck ships and men straight down to hell. Sailors rushed to the ropes and pulled with all their might to change the sails. Just in time, our ship changed course and swung back toward the isthmus at such a speed that there was no choice except to sail through.

We went slowly along another coast until we were woken at dawn when the ship ran aground on a submerged rock and water poured in through a hole in the keel. We all bailed as best we could, and waited most of the day before going ashore to see if our presence had attracted any natives. It had been many days since we had eaten more than a few bites of fish; we were in need of freshwater and we were exhausted from bailing.

We found a stream beneath the trees at the end of the beach. The trees were hung with vines and the air was full of shadows and silence, the calls of strange birds and the sounds of animals or reptiles moving in the undergrowth. Though we saw no one, we felt some presence near the stream so we drank quickly, filled our skins with water, and hastened back. The sailors were busy building a fire and catching fish, discussing how best to mend tears in the sails and patch the hole in the gunnel. The damage was worse than they had thought and they said unhappily that repairs would take days. They unloaded our bundles and chests and we spread their mildewing contents to dry and air in the sun. Beyond the shore, there were snow-covered mountains one behind the other against a bright-blue sky. Had we not been frightened, lost, and hungry it would have been a magnificent sight, but by this time our spirits were very low.

The sun began to sink, and we women hurried to collect firewood from the edge of the forest. We did not notice the warriors approaching. By the time we looked up they had surrounded us.

They were well made, tall and muscular men, with dark hair and deep-brown skin, beardless. They wore a sort of uniform or livery, identical tunics with lengths of cloth wrapped about their heads, much like the Muslims wear. Their commander was the tallest of the group. He had strong, handsome features, and a helmet fashioned like an animal’s head, its mouth bared in a snarl. The light of our fire flickered on their bronze skin, their shields and spears with gold tips, and the great gold discs like the sun that hung from the commander’s ears. They were a frightening sight, but they simply stared, making no move to attack or harm us. Instead they pointed at the ship and conversed among themselves, yet when the commander looked at us huddled together I sensed restraint and courtesy. His eyes were dark and deep, and his chest very broad. Sor Maria Manuela finally nudged me and snapped, “Do not stare so, Salome! Close your mouth!”

The commander and his men gathered around the terrified sailors, who with signs and pointing, attempted to explain where we had come from. The commander pointed at us, and the sailors shook their heads and gestured violently to explain that we were not their women. One of them pointed to us and then to the sky, over and over. “Kneel and say prayers; show them,” one of the sailors called out. So we did, making a great show of folding our hands and bowing our heads. There was more pointing at the heavens.

The natives pointed up, too, directly at the setting sun. The sailors nodded and pointed at us, then at the disappearing sun. They pointed at themselves, then at the other men, and shook their heads. They made signs of small people—children we supposed—with their hands, pointed at us, and then shook their heads. The natives looked bewildered, and it would have been amusing if we had not been so frightened. Finally one of the sailors pointed to his codpiece, and made a crude rocking motion with his hips, then shook his head no and pointed at us. Then he pointed at the setting sun again. The commander gasped, stepped back and snapped an order, and to our relief, the warriors disappeared.

On the beach the sailors made a fire and sleeping place for us some distance from theirs. At first glance the sailors had seemed so much rougher than the few men, priests and pilgrims and beggars, that we saw in the convent that we had been nervous about our situation with them, but as we became better acquainted we learned most were from converso families and they boasted Muslims made the best sailors. They insisted that honor obliged them to regard us as their sisters.

That night we overheard them discussing what to do when the repairs were finished, whether to sail on in the hope of reaching some known place or whether to turn back and brave the Sea of Fog and Darkness again. And was it safer for the women to stay behind while they sought the best passage, to return for us later, or was it preferable if we took our chances with them? All agreed they could not leave us here alone, and decided to draw lots to select three to remain behind with us.

As they debated, we huddled together for warmth and had our own discussion. There were already too few sailors to crew the ship. It was not right to separate the men and jeopardize their chance of a return to their families. We finally agreed they must leave us here. Sor Maria Manuela said that the natives had not harmed us; perhaps we could obtain shelter from them. The other three nuns agreed, saying we must trust God and stay. The beatas, one by one, said that they would abide by the decision of the nuns and that the novices should do the same. The other novices, however, wept and wished to go back. I was prepared to trust the commander.

We all fell quiet. I kept my book by my side at all times, with a pen and the last cake of ink wrapped in the pocket of my habit. I hugged the book to my chest and folded my hands in the sleeves of my habit, trying to meditate on something besides the memory of the commander’s handsome face, muscular arms, and broad shoulders. The sailors finally slept and we watched on, turning our backs to the fire for warmth. Hunger makes us feel the cold sharply. We had eaten so little in recent weeks that our teeth were loose in our mouths.

Then, without our hearing a sound, we looked up to see ourselves surrounded. A silent group of native women in tunics stared curiously at us. Like the men earlier, they were handsome, straight and tall and with bronze skin that glowed in the firelight, dark haired, with steady gazes and calm manners. They were not armed, but carried cloaks in their arms. They pulled us to our feet and put the cloaks around our shoulders. These cloaks were made of some wonderful material, miraculously soft and warm.

Then the women put their arms around us and drew us away. Befuddled with cold and sleep, we did not call out to the sailors until it was too late, and by then the women had taken us into the forest, where we came to a low building of stone whose entrance was lit by great torches. It seemed to be a kind of native palace. Inside many fires sent light dancing on objects of gold and silver placed around the rooms. The walls were covered with hangings woven in many colors and patterns, and the same cloth covered some low divans in an inner room where we were seated. The sensation of warmth was almost painful to our aching limbs.

They brought us bowls of gruel with strips of what appeared to be leather, which was dried meat, like mutton—strange but delicious, though we sucked it instead of chewing on account of our poor teeth. There were brightly colored fruits, sweet and starchy, and silver bowls of some warm bitter drink that made us feel light-headed, yet revived. “Chicha,” the women murmured. We did not know if this was the name of their tribe or a kind of welcome—later we learned it was the favorite drink of the place.

We were unsure whether to be cheered or frightened by these attentions. Finally we were led to a room with couches piled with more finely woven coverings and left to sleep, which we did at once, deeply. Such splendor to find among the native people! The last thing I remember is thinking how fortunate it was that I had been clutching the book in my arms when the native women appeared. I still had it when I fell asleep.

The next day we could not tell if we were prisoners or guests. We tried to communicate in signs, but the women’s response was to point to the sky. We nodded vigorously and pointed to the sky and then to ourselves, trying to indicate that we served God who lived in heaven. The women nodded some more and spoke to each other in their language. For the next week we submitted to being cared for, sleeping much of the time.

After a week we were restored and anxious to return to the sailors. Covered litters arrived, born by men who averted their eyes in fear while we were made comfortable. The litters were lifted onto their shoulders, but we soon realized that instead of returning to the sailors we were traveling toward the mountains! We went on for days, stopping each night at houses, like refugios, where the women who walked behind our litters had hurried ahead to build fires, and prepare food and bedding. We reached the foothills of the great white-capped mountains, where the slopes were terraced for orchards and gardens, just as they were in Andalusia, and strange long-necked beasts stared with human eyes as we passed. We were now worried and frightened.

Finally we saw buildings in the distance. As we approached the outskirts of what appeared to be a native city, a great procession of women in finer garments than those who had accompanied us came singing toward us. As we alighted, the singing grew louder and we were led into the building, which curiously seemed made of one solid piece of stone. However, when we examined it, we saw blocks of stone marvelously cut to fit seamlessly together. Inside, there were the same kinds of beautiful hangings we had seen in the first house, and fine gold and silver ornaments everywhere. As before, there were many women to wait on us. Then came a tall, beautiful woman with two pretty, graceful girls of about eight and ten who resembled her, all finely dressed and wearing a great many gold ornaments and feathers.

We guessed that we were being honored by a lady of standing—a queen or a princess perhaps. This elegant lady spoke for a long time, and though we could not understand the words, their graciousness was plain. She waved her hands to indicate the palace and its contents. Then she and her daughters withdrew in a dignified manner, all the native women and slaves prostrating themselves as they went. Our bows seemed inadequate in comparison.

That night, after a very large and fine meal, we said our prayers and settled on our couches to sleep. All through the night we heard each other turning restlessly and sighing—we were uneasy and very worried about the poor sailors.

Then God sent us a sign. The next morning after our prayers, we heard the familiar chirping. “Golondrinas!” we exclaimed joyfully. Following the sound we discovered a garden where the dear, familiar birds hopped between glossy plants and vivid flowers, like none we had ever seen, lush and oddly glittering. A novice bent to pluck a flower and drew her hand back quickly with a shriek. The garden was made of silver and gold and precious stones!

“No food for you here,” said Sor Maria Manuela briskly to the swallows. “We must scatter crumbs for you. And here I think God teaches us a lesson, sisters—if these birds cannot subsist on gold and jewels, we cannot do God’s work if we give way to luxury and comfort. God must have led us here instead of Gran Canaria to establish our mission. We must return to a lifestyle proper for nuns, learn the natives’ language, and make ourselves useful in this place.”

Her bracing words recalled us to our duty. Our first attempts to assist with the tasks of the household were rebuffed by our scandalized serving women and slaves. Plainly anxious to fulfill our wishes, they nevertheless tried to prevent our putting a hand to any task, however light. To their dismay we persisted, and in the days that followed, working side by side, we asked the names of things—women, water, food and animals, cloth, washing, sleeping, sunlight, rain, and so on—in the language we came to understand was Quechua. After our evening prayers we shared what we had learned and little by little were able to converse with the women. The most important word in the language seemed to be “Inca,” meaning the country, the people, and their king, all of which are one.

We had left our belongings airing on the beach and despaired of seeing them again but one day, to our joy, our serving women carried in our trunks. To our surprise our spare habits and shifts and shoes and missals and rosaries, together with our medicine chest, pens and ink, the book on herbs and the medical treatise, were all there. We hung Sor Maria Manuela’s crucifix on the wall of our central room at once, and felt that we had established ourselves a little. We thanked the women and tried to express our relief that our things had not been stolen. The native women were unable to understand what “stolen” meant. When we managed to explain, they were shocked, insisting that in the Kingdom of the Four Quarters of the Earth, as they called the country, no one would take what did not belong to him.

Our ignorance was a source of wonder to the serving women. Little by little we learned that the Inca people worshipped many gods, of whom the sun was the supreme ruler, and the natives’ king was called the Sapa Inca. They believed he was the all-powerful son of the sun god, and revered him beyond expression. The novices scoffed at this as heathen superstition but one of the beatas remarked, “Think how quickly the cold descends as soon as the sun sets, even on a hot day. It is not surprising that their religion looks to the sun, and that they believe without it all the world would remain as cold and dark as the nights we spent on the beach.”

But it was some time before our conversations with the women allowed us to understand our extraordinary reception by the people here, and how best we might serve God in this place.

We learned there are native nuns, the Virgins of the Sun, dedicated to the sun god from childhood. Those of noble birth lived a life of strict seclusion in their great house between the royal palace and a great temple, just as convents are often located near a church. Each year there was a great ceremony honoring the sun, with religious processions led by the Sapa Inca himself, followed by feasting and dancing and sacrifices. Virgins of the Sun devoted their lives to weaving the exquisite cloth for the royal garments and making the mead drink on ceremonial occasions, living only among other women, served by virgin servants, and never allowed to see a man or leave their house. They belonged all their lives to the Sapa Inca, their emperor and the sun on earth in human form. Of all men, only the Sapa Inca may see these virgins face-to-face, though by custom he did not exercise this privilege.

For any other man, setting eyes on a virgin offended the sun and carried dreadful penalties. The maiden was buried alive and the offending man hanged, his family and neighbors killed, all animals destroyed, the village razed, and their fields and crops plowed up.

These rules were relaxed in the regions into which the land is divided, where there are lesser houses of virgins who also live secluded from men and work for the Inca royal family, but from time to time the Sapa Inca chooses concubines from among them or gives them as wives and concubines to his allies. Usually these lesser virgins serve for a period and return to their homes, with much honor, and often marry.

Our party seemed to fit into a category of virgins somewhere between the two. In our first encounter with the warriors on the beach, the sailors’ rude gestures not only conveyed the information that we were virgins of the sun god, but also that it was he who had sent us across the water to the Kingdom of the Four Quarters of the Earth on great wings, with superhuman guardians in the form of ordinary men. The commander had ordered the women to welcome us as befitted the sun’s handmaidens, and the warriors not to kill the sailors. Instead the commander sent food and slaves to repair the ship, after which the sailors had departed. We prayed they might find themselves safely home.

We were objects of curiosity and reverence, and we hoped, not suitable concubine material. The handsome woman who visited us with her daughters was not the queen but the commander’s wife. Both had royal Inca blood and it was the custom for such women to maintain close ties to the virgins of the sun, just as the Spanish queen was patroness of Las Golondrinas.

But despite the hospitality shown to us, we learned this is not a gentle land. Many people were sacrificed during the great ceremonies, especially captives of war, and in times of famine or other hardship, their priests would choose the most beautiful children from among the noble families and take them away to the mountains, where they were anointed and blessed, then sacrificed to act as intermediaries with the gods and plead for the humans down below.

Sor Maria Manuela came to believe God’s purpose in bringing us here was to end this practice. We knew we must set an example of virtuous living before we could hope to exert any influence among the people. She ordered the women who served us to forego the daily banquets on golden dishes, insisting we would eat as simply as the peasants, maize porridge with vegetables and fruit. The gold and silver ornaments and cups and plates were exchanged for simple pottery bowls, though we kept the beautiful wall hangings for their warmth. We fashioned new wimples of plain native cloth, and mended our habits. Our days had structure and purpose.

Our preference for plain living met with approval. The next step was to let it be known through our serving women that our virgins were required to serve God not by weaving cloth but by teaching and helping the sick, caring for the poor and crippled and orphans, devising medicines and cures, and instructing girls in these ways of helping others. We gathered that our unusual behavior as virgins was tolerated because the sun god permitted us a certain license not allowed to native virgins.

This emboldened us to take another step we had decided was necessary if we were not to be enclosed against our will. We sent word to the commander’s wife that it was the custom of our virgins to go about among the people, as God protected us and no harm had ever come to any man from gazing on us. We asked her to intercede with the priests. After a time, a message came back that as we had so far demonstrated our virtue, our customs, though unknown to the Inca, would be honored. Little by little we cautiously ventured outside the building.

We arranged one of the rooms as our chapel. We filled it with the finest wall hangings of the house, made an altar of a carved block of stone from the garden, and hung a crucifix above it. We used a beautiful hammered native silver bowl as a font for holy water, and torches of the kind the natives use in place of candles. Like the Abbess, Sor Maria Manuela heard our confessions, and the natives referred to her as mamacunya, the term given to the novice-mistress of their virgins. We decided that she should be formally consecrated as the first Mother Superior of the Holy Sisters of Jesus in the Land of the Four Quarters of the World in the Year of Our Lord 1526. It was the first service held in our little chapel, and the ladies of the royal household, including the commander’s wife and daughters, were invited to attend.

The Inca ladies came dressed for an important ceremonial occasion, in beautiful embroidered robes with trains and jewels and feathers, and watched and listened attentively, gratified to see that our virgins had ceremonies. We had new habits and sang the psalms, anthems, and the prayers of the consecration. The visitors seemed to appreciate our choir, though they were puzzled by the lack of instruments and dancing, which always accompany their ceremonies. When the moment came to consecrate Sor Maria Manuela, we all gathered around her and one at a time laid our hands on her head. She is officially Mother now.

Afterward the queen and all the ladies withdrew and did not join in our simple feast of celebration. But we all felt deeply satisfied, as if we had somehow established our presence in an official manner. We had turned two rooms into an infirmary and soon it slowly began to fill with cases beyond the patience or competence of the local doctors—mostly children who were disfigured or feeble-witted, a few who were lame, and several elderly childless widows. In a land where all were responsible for the welfare of others, our efforts met with approval.

Yet we proceeded cautiously, judging our words and actions against the orderly way things were done here, before the Spanish came. The people lived in a way that reminded us of the bees the nuns kept in Spain, with their workers and their queen bee. Peasants worked hard at their fields for the Sapa Inca. The local authorities ensured that every family had enough for its needs, and if one family fell ill or could not work, others looked after their fields until they recovered. Authorities were punished if any in their supervision were hungry or naked or unprovided for. Young couples received what they needed to marry. Our care for the chronically ill or lame or elderly or those too infirm to work was a contribution to the general welfare, though we had to avoid anything that could be construed as an attempt to usurp the priests’ authority.

After two years we could survey our progress with satisfaction. We had laid out an herbary and begun to study the native medicines and illnesses that prevailed in order to expand our apothecary. We had set aside a room for a school, had a small flock of goats, some ducks, and had begun digging a vegetable garden when scandalized local women arrived to insist on doing it for us. They planted seeds for gourds and maize and shoots of the tuberous vegetable called “potatoes” that are delicious when roasted in the coals. The swallows made nests in the roof, and sang to us of Spain.

We tried to persuade the local nobles to bring their daughters to our school, but were only successful with the commander’s two daughters because their father wished them to learn to read and write in our language. They were delightful girls, very pretty, quick to learn, and sweet natured. They could calculate and do sums rapidly using an intricately knotted piece of string, and we taught them to read and write in Spanish using lives of the saints—they were fond of stories of the martyrs, the more gruesome the better.

An alcove in the schoolroom held our six precious books from Spain: three missals that had survived their soaking and, except for a few pages, were intact; one illuminated prayer book; one on the distillation of herbs; and another on the treatment of diseases. I used the book on herbs to teach them Latin.

Although we had consecrated Mother Maria Manuela, we had yet to conduct a similar ceremony for the four of us novices to take our final vows. My heart ached when I remembered how I had expected my mother to be present, but that could not be helped. We had begun our preparations and were only awaiting the return of two of the beatas. They had left us to travel to a distant village where a peculiar sickness the local doctors did not understand had caused many deaths and debilitated the entire populace to the point that they could not plant their crops.

We consulted our books and thought it sounded like something brought on by the constant rain and cold of the time of year, and to our surprise had been given permission to try one of our herbal remedies. It was a sign that we had advanced in local trust, and the beatas took the medicine and departed.


But our consecration did not take place as we had hoped. Alas, the two beatas drowned when their raft overturned as they made their way back. It was a sorrowful blow to our little community and we had no heart for joyful celebrations. We remembered them in our prayers and hoped that in time our shrinking numbers would be swelled by local girls who felt a vocation. The commander’s daughters were joined in the classroom by five other noble girls. Noble or not, there was much giggling, and with the loss of two pairs of hands, we were even busier than before.

We continued to postpone the service of profession. The death of the beatas was followed by another disaster, a terrible famine. For an entire year the rains did not come and it was terrible to watch the unripened maize wither. The tubers that are a main foodstuff were diseased, and game disappeared. The people began to suffer as the storehouses emptied. The people shared what food there was, but many died. Another bad year followed. All grew thin and weak. Children had swollen bellies and hung listless in slings on their mother’s backs. Animals perished in the road for want of fodder.

Then we began to see and hear processions of priests going into the mountains. Our serving women confirmed they took children to be sacrificed to plead with the gods to end the famine.

Before the famine we had attempted the delicate task of persuading the priests and officials to end this horrible practice, on the grounds that rather than sacrifice girls to the gods, it would be more useful to give the girls to us to intercede with heaven. Although the priests were generally well disposed to us, this time they grew angry and warned that our insolence would offend the gods further. It was terrible to stand by and do nothing.

Then the commander’s wife came to give us the news, and persuade us that this was an honor, that the priests had selected the commander’s daughters for sacrifice. The poor mother! The girls were to be permitted a last visit to us on their way to the mountains and she begged that we would support them, to strengthen them for what lay ahead. This was the way of their land and their god. Faced with our reaction to the news, she, proud woman, nearly broke down. She and the commander had no other children.

We waited sadly for the farewell visit of these two dear children. It came soon. On a long dry day we were working in the garden, attempting to kill the weevils that eat the little the drought had left us, as always keeping an eye on the road, waiting. It was unnaturally quiet that day; even the swallows ceased their chatter. We were all uneasy, then we heard the awful drums in the distance and knew the priests and the commander’s daughters were beginning their walk into the mountains. The procession with banners flying came into view, with the two girls in the middle. In the unnatural silence the drums and singing were as harsh and cruel as if they welcomed Satan himself.

Outside our house the singing stopped and the two girls stepped away from the procession to us where we waited for them. Smiling, they embraced us one by one. Their eyes were bright and glittering and they seemed in a trance. We knew they had been given the special drink that prepares the victims. We were almost overcome with grief at such a terrible parting, but tried to do as their mother wished. The Incas love flowers, and despite the drought we had managed to find a few to give the girls when this moment came.

Mother Maria Manuela turned to take them from a clay pot of water. She was lifting them out when the pot began to shake of its own accord. As she exclaimed and started back, it fell to the ground and smashed, and suddenly the ground began to shake and the silence was broken by a distant rumbling sound that became a horrible roar. The earth heaved up and down with a sickening force so violent that we were thrown about the garden and the procession scattered, priests and people screaming as rocks began to tumble down from the mountain above us.

Clutching the drugged girls we ran for our house. Just as we got inside, the ground heaved and shook again, followed by rattling showers of pebbles, then the thunder of boulders crashing down, and avalanches of earth and rocks. The terrified serving women pushed behind us into our little chapel where we had dragged the girls and were kneeling in prayer around Mother Maria Manuela. She held her crucifix high so we all might rest our eyes on it in the moment of our death. Outside, landslides thundered and we knew people and animals were trapped and crushed and buried, and every minute we awaited the same fate as our house shuddered and shook. Part of the roof gave way and things crashed against the walls. Then the ground steadied beneath us, but just as we began to look around at each other, marveling at our deliverance, there was another movement that triggered more landslides.

This occurred at intervals during that long and terrible night, so that we dared not leave the chapel to see what help we might give. We stayed tightly packed together, the girls between us and the servants praying to their gods, we to ours.

When we ventured outside again the next morning, a horrible sight met our eyes. Houses and empty granaries and stables and fields—whole villages had disappeared, buried under a ton of rocks and earth. There were bodies or parts of bodies of people and animals, and tattered remnants of the banners carried by the priests the day before. We did our best to find survivors, but were not strong enough to do much. A day later a party of soldiers arrived to carry on the rescue, but it was slow work, and though some were dragged alive from the destruction, most were dead of horrible injuries. We learned even the great temple and house of the virgins of the sun had been damaged, killing many.

Our servants and slaves who had pressed into the chapel with us described how we had passed the night, and word spread of the power of our prayers and our God’s protection. A week after the earthquake, it began to rain, and the crops that had not been buried recovered somewhat. We took the injured into our infirmary and kept the commander’s daughters out of sight. The priests did not return for them, to our great relief. But they had been chosen for the “honor of the sacrifice” as people here would have it, and what would happen to them concerned us greatly.

A few weeks later the commander himself arrived. He was a kind of viceroy of the region and had been assessing the extent of the damage. We went to receive him, prepared now to argue against his taking his daughters back to the priests to be sacrificed.

He greeted Mother, calling her mamacunya, and congratulated us that we were favored by our gods who had prevented our destruction. He spoke with dignity of the fact that the priests had chosen his daughters for a sacrifice, but the gods had not willed it. We all began to breathe easier and I looked up quickly at him and realized that although warriors and princes would suffer the most horrible and bloody torments without admitting pain or weakness, his daughters are precious to him. Only the terrible discipline of this place and what was demanded of the royal family if chaos was not to engulf the kingdom prevented his showing the relief he felt.

I was touched by the vulnerability I had glimpsed behind the warrior façade. It affected me so deeply I had to force myself to keep my eyes down, away from his. He was married and heathen and of a people who practice the most dreadful cruelty, but his presence dazzled me. I stared hard at the ground, as if a miracle were about to take place at my feet. Though somehow my eyes strayed of their own accord from the ground to his legs, strong and bare under his tunic. I forced myself to rejoice on his wife’s account that her children had been spared.

And he, too, was speaking of his wife, to say she and his concubines all lay dead after the earthquake! There were exclamations of sympathy from all of us. We felt grief for them all, especially for his graceful and gracious wife.

Then he said something that sent the blood rushing to my head and set my heart pounding. Because our gods kept us safe while so many others had perished, he had come to take a concubine from among us, as was permitted to a prince of royal blood. I gasped and lifted my head. He was looking straight at me and his dark gaze was like a spear into my heart. A concubine? But his wife was dead—and I had an idea.

Mother Maria Manuela was saying with tact but unyielding firmness that his royal rights did not extend to us. “Our virgins,” she began, and I knew she was about to say “would be obliged to choose death instead,” so before she could do so, I sprang to her side and whispered urgently that I had not yet taken my vows and could abandon the novitiate if the commander chose me.

“Certainly not, Salome! Has lust made you mad?” hissed Mother.

“No Mother, wait,” I begged. “God may have sent this opportunity to achieve what we cannot accomplish otherwise. I think the commander is bargaining, one of us for his daughters. You, the mamacunya, must bargain in turn, to demonstrate the value of what he seeks.” Mother looked so shocked I rushed on. “First, you can truly say that Christian virgins may never be concubines. Their God permits them the status of wives, provided they are given to men in accordance to our laws and ceremonies, and never where there is another wife or concubine. And a man who would have one of our virgins as his wife must observe our custom, which is to grant her a wish, otherwise…er, otherwise to dispense with this formality will incur the wrath of her powerful God.”

Mother Maria Manuela snapped, “Salome, you are talking nonsense!”

“No, Mother. If the commander agrees to leave his daughters with us, the priests may follow suit and send girls here to intercede with God instead of sacrificing them. And a good Christian wife might persuade her husband that many wives and concubines are…unnecessary.” I blushed when I said that.

Mother gave me a look that said I was a demon’s changeling, sighed, and turned back to the commander to explain her conditions. He nodded and dispensed with any pretense about which of us he preferred. He pointed to me and asked what wish I had, promising that his honor demanded he grant it. When Mother told him about giving the sacrificial victims to us it was his turn to look shocked, as if he had been tricked and betrayed. I held my breath. The power of his religion and his obligations as a royal prince warred mightily with his inclination, and even more with his sense of personal honor, which would not permit him to revoke his word. But only for a moment. Then he nodded and held out his hand to me. I stepped forward, and clasped it.

That same day a heavy rain began, as if heaven approved our union, although it would be months before the crops that were hastily sown would flourish. With the famine not yet over, would the sacrifices continue? The answer came a few weeks later when three beautiful girls of different ages were taken into the house from the hands of the native priests who delivered them with inscrutable faces.

The commander and I were married a month after the earthquake, by Mother of course—there was no one else to officiate at a Christian wedding. She conducted the ceremony with lengthy prayers begging heaven’s blessing on our union. There was nothing else to do. I wore a plain linen shift hastily made for me by the sisters, over which, in the native style, I wore a wedding gift from the commander—a fine tunic of beautiful native embroidery, clasped on the shoulders with gold serpents’ heads with emerald eyes. My hair had grown and I washed and brushed it out to hang down my back, tucking a large red flower over my ear. I could feel my face flushed with happiness and knew my eyes were bright with joy. I hoped the commander would approve.

We were married before as many people as could travel gathered to watch. After the sisters had sung every psalm, every hymn in their repertoire—Inca ceremonies are not official without music, sometimes many days’ worth—Mother blessed us. Then it was time for the Inca part of the ceremony the commander insisted upon, saying people would not accept me as his wife otherwise. He bent and put new sandals made of vicuña wool and gold thread on my feet. I took a new tunic I had made from fine soft wool, and placed it over his shoulders. One of the members of the royal family joined our hands to signify that we were one.

He led me away to this Hacienda of the Sun and the Moon, which was badly damaged by the earthquake. Servants carried my few possessions, including a crucifix my husband particularly wished to hang in our home. There was another sparse wedding feast at our hacienda—corn beer and a few vegetables with the spicy sauce that accompanies everything. I could eat nothing. I was very nervous about the step I had taken, yet very happy on my wedding night. And I wished my mother could give us her blessing.


Salome’s face had softened as she spoke—even now the memory of her wedding to the commander warms her heart. She quickly had three children, the boys, Miguel and Matteo and a girl she named Beatris in honor of her mother. She took care to have them all baptized immediately with as much ceremony and singing as possible, to claim them for the powerful Christian God. The youngest, Beatris, was eight before the stonemasons and workmen finished repairing the hacienda. Salome said proudly that the commander insisted the peasants’ houses, the terraces for the fields, and the roads be repaired before his own home. She praised him as a just man, devoted to his duty to the people and the Sapa Inca, fearless, and good to her and their children. He sought her advice as an equal as well as her intercession with the Christian God. The commander’s daughters passed through the novitiate and took their vows two years later, the first native nuns. The commander and Salome attended their service of profession, and she had the satisfaction of hearing Mother Maria Manuela tell her privately that she had been wise to follow her heart.

Salome followed the example of the commander’s first wife, taking food and blankets woven by the servants, often helping in the school, the infirmary, and the orphanage that had been filled after the earthquake. While orphaned boys were taken to be raised as soldiers, it quickly became established that orphaned girls should be brought to the nuns. From time to time the priests left beautiful girl children at their gates when they wished to supplicate the gods. In due course these little girls became nuns just as the orphans in Spain did. There was no other option for girls who would have been sacrificial victims—once selected, they could no longer remain among ordinary people.

Then Salome drew her story to a close, describing the night that changed their lives forever. A runner had come with an urgent summons for the commander and his soldiers to hurry to the capital. Men with carapaces of metal and strange beasts that breathed fire had flown over the sea with great wings, and there had been signs and omens in the sky to warn of the strangers who had brutalized and slaughtered many of the people en route to the capital. The messenger said the leader was Francisco Pizarro and she was afraid. It was a Spanish name.

Revulsion was plain on Salome’s face as she described the events that had happened as if she had become more Inca than Spaniard. The Sapa Inca, Atahualpa—a ruler so powerful the people did not dare look at him directly—was captured by trickery and executed, garrotted—a “mercy,” since at the last hour he recanted his faith and accepted baptism. Otherwise he would have died at the stake. His death had sown terror among the Inca. They believed that now the sun would withdraw, the world would grow dark and cold, and all would perish. When the sun continued to rise every day, resistance to the fearsome invaders crumbled. The harvest was plentiful, a sign that the gods favored these ruthless invaders.

The Spanish claimed this Kingdom of the Four Corners of the Earth for Spain, sacking and killing and looting all the while. The nuns sent messengers to the nearby house of the virgins of the sun to offer them the protection of a Christian convent. But the messengers found the virgins gone, carried off like prizes, the great blocks of stone still tumbled about by the earthquake. A bishop sent slaves to rebuild it for use as a Christian convent, and the Holy Sisters of Jesus, being terribly crowded in their old house, seized the opportunity and swiftly moved themselves and the children into the rebuilt part.

Salome was sickened by the Spanish and frightened for her husband. She persuaded him to accept baptism for the sake of the region, and the Spanish conquerors thought it advantageous to appoint a member of the Inca royal family and a Christian convert acting governor of the region. It was in the course of his duties as governor that he died last year in a distant province. Salome clings to the part of her life that is Inca and has little to do with the Spanish colonists.


It seemed that Salome had welcomed the opportunity to tell her story, but at the end of three weeks I could see that she becomes tired easily and we thought it best to go. In fact, she seemed almost eager for us to go, and something she let slip made me think her anxiety for us to leave was connected to her expectation of Don Miguel’s return. I tried to put the disappointment of not seeing Don Miguel out of my mind.