Frighteningly loud musket fire rang out all around us as Renco dropped down onto his behind and slid feet- first through the narrow gap between the boulder and the floor.
My slide was somewhat less graceful. I dived headfirst onto the dust-covered floor and wriggled clumsily on my chest through the gap and out into a stone-walled tunnel on the other side.
I was getting to my feet just as Renco kicked the helmet out from under the boulder and the great square- shaped stone completed its sealing of the doorway with a loud whump.
I sighed, breathless.
We were safe. For the moment.
'Come, we must hurry,' said Renco. 'It is time we farewelled this wretched city.'
Back in the alleyways. Running posthaste.
Renco led the way, with Bassario behind him and me last of all. At one point in our runnings, we came across a stockpile of Spanish weapons. Bassario took a longbow and a quiver full of arrows; Renco, a quiver, a rough leather satchel—into which he placed the idol—and a sword. For my own part, I took a long glistening sabre. For indeed, although I may be a humble monk, I hail from a family that has bred some of the finest fencers in all of Europe.
'This way,' said Renco, charging up a flight of stone steps.
We hurried up the stairs and came to a series of uneven roofs. Renco hastened out across the rooftops, hurdling low dividing walls, leaping across the small gaps between the different buildings.
Bassario and I followed until at last Renco fell to the ground, behind a low wall. His chest heaved as he breathed, rising and falling quickly.
He looked out over the low wall above him. I did the same. What I saw was this:
I beheld a wide cobblestone plaza filled with perhaps two dozen Spanish troops and as many horses. Some of the horses were freestanding, while others stood harnessed to a variety of wagons and carts.
On the far side of the plaza, set into the outer wall of the city, stood a large wooden gate. This gate, however, was not indigenous to Cuzco, but was rather an ugly appendage affixed to the city's stone gateway by my countrymen after the city had been seized.
Positioned directly in front of the enormous wooden gate was a large flatbed wagon drawn by two horses who faced in toward the city, away from the gate itself. Motmted on the back of this wagon was a sizeable cannon pointed in the other direction.
Nearer to us, at the base of the building on which we now sat, stood about thirty miserable-looking Incan prisoners. A long length of black rope was threaded through the steel manacles that each prisoner wore around his wrists, bind ing all of them together in a long dejected row.
'What are we going to do now?' I inquired of Renco anxiously.
'We're leaving.'
'How?'
'Through there,' said he, indicating the gate on the far side of the plaza.
'What about the sewer entrance?' said I, thinking it to be the most obvious escape route.
'A thief never uses the same entrance twice,' said Bassario. 'At least, not once he has been detected. Isn't that right, prince?'
'Correct,' said Renco.
I turned to appraise the criminal Bassario. He was in fact a rather handsome man, despite his grimy appearance. And he smiled broadly, his eyes twinkling—the smile of a man happy to be part of an adventure. I could not say that I shared his joy.
Now Renco began to rummage through his quiver. He pulled out some arrows whose points had been wrapped in cloth, creating round bulbous heads.
'Good,' said he, looking about himself and finding a lighted torch hanging on a nearby wall. 'Very good.'
'What are you planning to do?' I inquired.
Renco did not appear to hear me. He merely stared out at three horses standing unattended on the far side of the plaza.
'Renco,' I pressed, 'what are you planning to do?'
At which point Renco turned to face me and a wry smile crossed his face.
I stepped out into the wide-open plaza with my hands folded inside my saturated monk's cloak, my sodden hood pulled low over my wet hair.
I kept my head bowed as I crossed the plaza—stepping deftly aside as clusters of soldiers ran past me, ducking quickly as horses wheeled about in my directiondesperate not to sport any attention.
Renco guessed that the soldiers in the plaza would not yet know that a renegade Spanish monk—me—was aiding the Incan raiding party. As such, so long as they did not notice my soggy clothing, I should be able to get near the three unattended horses and bring them over to a nearby alleyway where Renco and Bassario could mount them.
But first I had to clear a passage to the gate, which meant getting the flatbed wagon with the cannon on it out of our path. That task would be harder. It required that I 'accidentally' scare the two horses harnessed to the wagon.
Thus I carried concealed within my sleeve one of Renco's sharply pointed arrows, ready to—God forgive me —surreptitiously jab one of the poor creatures as I walked past them.
