Chapter 6

The voice was suddenly silenced, leaving Altulay immediately free, who instantly grabbed the dagger and ran to where the rumor indicated where in the huge room, who had spoken to her, she did not reach her. Cautiously Altulay peeked into the corridor illuminated by the firelight and it was lonely, immediately the woman returned his gaze, ran to the window and scrutinizingly looked everywhere, but it was useless, there was no one there.

In the morning Altulay shared the royal breakfast and looked attentively at the services that attended them; the mistress of the voice, if she was a woman, knew her room very well, since it was impossible for her to reach it.

Her daughters ate apart, together with their half-sisters, in complete silence. Saba Tamac was quite absent today and something was twitching nervously in her eyes. Altulay was not surprised by the too perfect routine of the court; nor, being born yesterday, could he fail to know, that among the servants and slaves was rolling Inca gold and Timotocuicas.

All wanted to know from the gestures, words and expressions of the Chibcha court, something that would indicate even fleetingly, where the intentions of preference in the candidates for marriage with the princesses were directed.

If Saba Tamac decided mostly for marriages with the Timotocuico princes and Caciques, the great Inca would invade, something not difficult to achieve, since he already had enough Inca contingents passing and moving on both sides of the southern border. If Saba Tamac, was inclined mostly, yielding to the pressures of his father-in-law the great Inca Huapac Manco Capac, then, the Timotocuicas would break the commercial alliances, so necessary for the nourishing subsistence of the Chibchas towns, creating the chaos in the rigid tribal organization.

If Saba Tamac yielded to his own council and gave his daughters to his own subordinate chieftains, he would offend his neighbors equally.

But what Altulay was sure of, whatever it was, Saba Tamac would choose, if they let him, the worst decision.

So the princess looked with a hint of pity at her husband, who kept eating guavas in syrup, with an expression that they tasted bitter to him. So much concern was seen, that when the stunning third wife, Ave Azul, entered, the man did not even make a gesture of courtesy when he saw her.

True to her habit, she entered the dining room and in a corner she began to eat her usual simple food. Raw iguana meat, guanabanas and cucumbers in fish roe mayonnaise salad and coconut oil.