Patrick O'Brian - The Wine-Dark Sea

Returning to his now warmer room from this exercise Stephen fell into a dreaming sleep: Diana, sentenced to death for some unquestioned murder, stood before the judge in an informal court, guarded by a civil but reserved jaileress. She was wearing a nightgown, and the judge, a well-bred man obviously embarrassed by the situation and by his task, was slowly tying a hangman's knot in a fine new piece of white cordage. Diana's distress increased as the knot reached completion; she looked at Stephen, her eyes darkening with terror. He could do nothing.

Still another barefoot friar, looking casually into his cell, expressed some astonishment that Stephen should not yet have joined don Eduardo and his company. They were there in the courtyard, the pack llamas already loaded and the sun rising over Anacochani.

So it was: yet the western sky was still dark violet at the lower rim and as he looked at it Stephen remembered the words he had intended to write to Diana before he put his letter to the candle: 'in this still cold air the stars do not twinkle, but hang there like a covey of planets', for there they were, clear beads of unwinking gold. He could not relish them however; his dream still oppressed him, and he had to force a smile when Eduardo told him he had reserved a piece of bread for their breakfast instead of dried potatoes, a piece of wheaten bread.

The high querulous voice of the llamas as they set off, the steady clop of his mule striding along the road, the glorious day rising huge overhead in a sky of immeasurable height, and on every hand brown mountains capped with white, the thin and piercing air growing warm as the sun climbed well above the peaks.

Nobody spoke much; nor would they do so until the warmth and the exercise had loosened their powerful chests - the breath still came steaming from them all and all seemed totally absorbed by their own reflexions. Yet the train had not gone two miles or three before a long wavering Aymara howl stopped each man in his stride.

It was a short stocky Indian just coming into sight behind them, rounding a curve in the mountain side. He was a great way off, but in this brilliant clarity Eduardo at once said 'Quipus', on either side of him his followers murmured 'Quipus'.

'I am sure you have often seen quipus, don Esteban?' said Eduardo.

'Never in life, my dear,' replied Stephen.

'You will see them presently,' said Eduardo, and they watched the far small man as he came running steadily along the track, his coloured staff rising and falling. 'They are knotted cords and thin strips of cloth: our kind of writing, concise, ingenious, secret. I am a sinful creature, but on no more than a few inches I can record all I must remember at confession; and only I can read it, since the first knot gives the clue to all the rest.'

The messenger came running along the line; his face was blue, but his breath was even, unhurried. He kissed Eduardo's knee, unwound the coloured cords and strips from his staff and handed them up. The train moved on; Stephen gathered his reins. 'No,' said Eduardo. 'Pray watch. You will see me read them as quick as a clearly-written letter.'

This he did, but as he read his expression changed. His pleasant ingenuous young face closed and at the end he said, 'I beg your pardon, don Esteban: I had thought it was just my agent in Cuzco asking whether he might send a draft of llamas to Potosi, this being the runner who usually brings his messages'. But now it is quite another matter. We must go no farther south. Gayongos has a ship for Valparaiso that will touch at Arica. We must cut across by the Huechopillan... it is a high pass, don Esteban, but you will not mind a high pass. I am very sorry I must forego the pleasure of showing you the rheas of the altiplano this time and the great wastes of salt; but not far from the Huechopillan there is a lake on which I can almost promise you some most uncommon ducks and geese: gulls too and rails. Forgive me.' He spurred along the track, and as Stephen slowly followed he heard him giving orders that sent three quarters of the train back along the road, such as it was.

Stephen was intimately convinced that the quipus had brought news of some hostile cousins waiting for Eduardo in the context of that movement for liberation he had touched upon the day before as well as word of Gayongos' ship, which might more sensibly have put in a little farther south, in the realm of Chile. For Arica, as both he and Eduardo knew, was still in the government of Peru: yet pointing out the obvious could only cause distress, fruitless argument, bad blood.

The greater part of the returning band flowed round him as he sat there on his mule, passing silently, with apparent indifference or at the most a certain veiled disapproval. Riding on to join those who remained he saw Eduardo's face, impassive and firmly in command, though his eyes sometimes wandered towards Stephen with some hint of anxious questioning. Stephen still said nothing, yet he did observe that now their company was made up of the abler looking (and indeed more amiable) men leading the stronger beasts, and they with larger packs. On, and within half an hour their quiet rhythm had returned.

At noon they were on a broad stony platform, bare flat rock at the convergence of three mountain spurs, hot in the sun; and here their track could no longer be seen at all. Yet neither Eduardo nor his men seemed in any way concerned; they marched steadily across and turned right-handed where the westernmost spur ran down to the little plain, travelling steadily on through a sheltered and relatively fertile stretch of country, green here and there with tola bushes and shaggy with coarse yellow grass.

The going was easier, much clearer in direction and smoother by far. 'We have struck into one of the Inca post-roads,' said Eduardo, breaking the silence. 'In a little while, where there is marshy ground by day, it is paved. My ancestors may not have known the wheel, but they did know how to make roads. Beyond the marshy piece, where we may put up some wildfowl, there is a great tumble of boulders from an earthquake so long ago that they are covered with lichen, and not only lichen but a very curious woody fungus that I believe you may not have seen. It is called yaretta, and it grows at this height from here to the westward; and together with guanaco dung the heads make excellent firing. The rock-fall abounds with viscachas, and if we take our guns we may be spared guinea-pig for a great while: viscachas are capital eating. But Doctor, I am afraid you are sad. I am so sorry to have disappointed you of our altiplano rheas.'

'I am not at all disappointed, friend. I have seen a little flock of white-winged finches and a bird I took to be a mountain caracara.'

Eduardo was unconvinced. He looked into Stephen's face and said, 'Still, if only this weather holds' - glancing anxiously at the pure sky overhead - 'we should reach the pass in three days, and we will surely find wonders on my lake.'

On the morning of the second day the pass was clearly to be seen, a little above the snow-line between two matching peaks that soared another five thousand feet, brilliant white in the almost horizontal sun.

'There is the post-house,' said Eduardo, pointing his glass, 'just under the snow and a little to the right. It was built by Huayna Capac, and it is as strong as ever. The pass is high, as you see, but on the far side there is an easy road, downhill all the way to one of my brother's silver-mines and a village where they grow the best potatoes in Peru as well as corn and barley, and they breed excellent llamas - these animals all came from there, and that is one of the reasons that they step out so well. It is true that after that we have to cross a chasm, with the Uribu flowing far below, but there is a hanging bridge in quite good repair, and you do not dislike heights that fill weak minds with horror. Sailors pay no attention to heights - a circumnavigator is inured to prodigious heights. What have you found, don Esteban?'