Though hastily assembled, the dinner was splendid indeed: a tender and pleasantly gamy sort of llama, lightly grilled, and five kinds of fish; with this masses of potatoes and of maize, roasted and salted and heaped with melted fat. Great cauldrons of soup were brought by one of the dragons, full of lumps later revealed to be frogs, nevertheless delicious; and were accompanied by the whole fried guinea pigs that so delighted Temeraire and the other dragons.
Besides the four dragons who had already swung over, three more came, each carrying a sizable clan, and two more dragons alone, evidently younger beasts.
“Yes; we have prospered,” Curicuillor said, with pardonable pride as she swung her faded vision over the extent of her sprawling clan. “I have given my offspring each two families, when they had grown wise enough to have charge of an ayllu of their own; and if they have done particularly well, I have let them have more.” She sighed and rearranged herself for more comfort, scales rasping faintly over the stone. “And I will do so again, soon. I am not one of those greedy clutching creatures; I will not need so many people to look after when I have gone to the other world.”
So she said, but a certain reluctance in her tone made Laurence skeptical of her claims, and her foreleg curled in jealous protection around Taruca. He made no objection, however, but sat with beatific expression holding on his lap one of his great-grandchildren, a child too young to speak and sucking thoughtfully on a rattle, made of gold and which would likely have fetched a thousand pounds at a low estimate, despite the toothmarks.
“I am endlessly grateful to you, Captain,” he said, when Laurence and Hammond had opportunity to speak with him, albeit over Curicuillor’s foreleg. “I did not believe truly until I heard the voices of my children: but you have brought me home. This is my daughter, Choque-Ocllo,” he reached out his hand, groping, to a matronly woman sitting beside him. “I have been telling her of your wish to see the Sapa Inca.”
Choque-Ocllo nodded to them equably, and said, “I do not see why it should be impossible to arrange. It has been a long time since Atahualpa, after all, and those were plainly lawless men. Your king has sent a great ayllu to speak for him, and you have proven that you are men of a different character; it is only fitting that the Sapa Inca should receive you. Although it is unfortunate you have no women with you; that girl cannot have had a child yet.”
Hammond looked confusion at Laurence, but bowed and said, “Madam, the rigors of so great a journey and a sea-voyage are sufficient to bar our subjecting a woman to them without cause; I hope their absence will give no offense, as I assure you no lack of confidence in our hosts is meant.”
“Offense?” she said. “No, none at all; but that is not the same as letting you see the Sapa Inca. But I am sending a message with you—my son Ronpa there is weaving it already, you see—and my father will add his personal testimony; if they will not let you see the Sapa Inca directly, at least the governor of Collasuyo—that is this province—will see you, and he is high in the councils of the Sapa Inca.”
The message was a peculiarly knotted cord, which Taruca called a khipu, from which long strands descended in colors; the young man was expertly forming the cord from a heap of yarn, and tying knots in irregular distances. When he had finished, he passed it along to Taruca himself, who despite his blindness ran his fingers over the cords, consulted once or twice as to the color of various strands, and then swiftly knotted on another sequence.
“Yes, here you can feel the words,” Taruca said, putting Laurence’s hand on the knots. “Some young people these days put markings on paper instead, the way you Europeans do: it is quicker, I imagine, but the old ways are best when it is information of any importance. What if it should get wet, or be torn; or chewed by insects? You could not rely upon such a thing.”
“I only wish there were some way to inquire, without giving offense, what standing his daughter has to send such a message,” Hammond said in an undertone to Laurence back at their own seats, irresolute as he turned over the mass of the knotted cord in his hands. “Are we carrying a note from a family matron, a noblewoman, or—” He shrugged helplessly.
“Any note of introduction must be an advantage,” Laurence said, “regardless; and sir, you have only to look about you: this is no private householding, but a great estate. You may surely ask the population of the place.”