'Huarca was captured immediately and sentenced to death. I believe he was ultimately dropped into a pit with a pair of hungry jungle cats. They tore him limb from limb.'
Bassario shook his head. 'Monk, the man who beats his wife is the lowest form of coward—the lowest form. I should think Huarca met a fitting end.'
I left Bassario to his work and repaired to a corner of the citadel to ready myself for the coming mission.
After a short time, Renco joined me to do the same. He was still wearing the Spanish attire that he had stolen from the prison hulk many weeks ago—the brown leather vest, the white pantaloons, the knee-high leather boots. The extra clothing, he once told me, had been of immense value to him during our arduous trek through the rainforest.
He slipped a quiver over his shoulder, began putting his sword belt on around his waist.
'Renco?' said I.
'Yes?'
'Why was Bassario in prison?'
'Ah, Bassario…' he sighed sadly.
I waited for him to elaborate.
'Believe it or not, but Bassario was once a prince,' Renco said. 'A most esteemed young prince. Indeed, his father was no less than the Royal Stonemason, a brilliant builder and fashioner of stone, the most venerated engineer in the empire. Bassario was his son and prot6g6, and soon he too became a brilliant stonemason. Why, by the age of sixteen,
he had surpassed his father in knowledge and skill, despite the fact that his father was the Royal Stonemason, the man who built citadels for the Sapa Inca!
'But Bassario was reckless. He was a brilliant sports- man—indeed as an archer he had no peer—but like many of his ilk, he was prone to drinking and gambling and disporting with the pretty young maidens of Cuzco's more raucous quarters. Unfortunately for him, however, his success with women was not mirrored at the gambling houses. He accumulated a monstrous debt with some less than reputable fellows. Then, when the debt became too great for him to repay, those rogues decided that Bassario would repay it another way—with his considerable talents.'
'How?'
'Bassario repaid them by using his brilliant stonemasonry skills to carve forgeries of famous statues and priceless treasures. Emerald or gold, silver or jade, whatever the substance, Bassario could replicate even the most complex object.
'Once he had copied a famous statue, his nefarious colleagues would break into the home of the real idol's owner and substitute Bassario's fake for the real one.
'Their scheme worked for almost a year and the criminals profited immensely from it until one day, Bassario's “friends” were discovered in the home of the Sapa Inca's cousin, caught in the act of switching a fake idol for the real one.
'Bassario's role in the scheme was soon uncovered. He was sent to prison and his entire family disgraced. His father was removed as Royal Stonemason and stripped of his titles. My brother, the Sapa Inca, decreed that Bassario's family were to be relocated from their home in the royal quarter to one of Cuzco's roughest slums.'
I took this all in silently.
Renco went on, 'I thought that the penalty was too harsh and told my brother so, but he wanted to make an example of Bassario and he ignored my pleas.'
Renco gazed over at Bassario, working away in the corner of the citadel.
'Bassario was once a very noble young man. Flawed certainly, but essentially noble. That was why when it became my duty to rescue the idol from the Coricancha, I decided that I would use his talents to aid my quest. I reasoned that if the criminal elements of Cuzco could employ his skills to suit their own ends, then I most certainly could too, in my mission to rescue my people's Spirit.'
At length Bassario finished his replica of the idol.
When he was done, he brought the fake idol—together with the real one—over to Renco.
Renco held both idols out in front of him. I looked at them over his shoulder and truly such was Bassario's skill that I could not tell which was the real one and which was the fraud.
Bassario retired to his corner of the citadel and began gathering his things together—his sword, his quiver, his longbow.
'Where do you think you are going?' inquired Renco, seeing him stand.
'I'm leaving,' said Bassario simply.
'But I need your help,' said Renco. 'Vilcafor says that his men had to remove a great boulder from the temple's entrance and that it took ten men to do so. I am going to need as many
. again if I am to roll it back into place. I need your help.'
'I feel that I have done more than my share in your quest, noble prince,' said Bassario. 'Escaping Cuzco, traversing the mountains, charging blindly through the perilous forests.
And all the while making a fake idol for you. No, I have done my share, and now I am leaving.'
'Have you no loyalty to your people?'
'My people put me in jail, Renco,' Bassario retorted harshly. 'Then they punished my family for my crime— banished them to live in the filthiest, roughest quarter of Cuzco.
