23
Place of the Turtledoves
‘It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it?’ said Teya. She was standing with Mateo high up over Cusco, the stones of Sacsayhuaman lying below them like the jumbled bones of a dead giant, fallen in battle. ‘It would have been all crazy and full of people – the royalty and the priests and the Chasquis coming and going, and the Mamacunas and Acllas and everything. It looks so lonely now.’
‘I know what you mean,’ said Mateo.
‘It would have been incredible. I wish I could have seen it that way, not all smashed up like this. When we came up here last time I didn’t really get it. It almost makes it worse, knowing everything I know now.’
It seemed a lifetime ago that she and Papan had walked these steps up to the ruins above Cusco, although in reality only a week had passed.
