Hark you,
Urco wearies me so much that sometimes I wonder whether he really is my
son. Who can tell? There was a certain lord of the coastlands, a hairy
giant who, they said, could eat half a sheep at a sitting and break the
backs of men in his hands, of whom Urco's mother used to think much.
But who can tell? No one except my father, the Sun, and he guards his
secrets--for the present. At least Urco wearies me with his coarse
crimes and his drunkenness, though the army loves him because he is a
butcher and liberal. We quarrelled the other day over the small matter
of this lady Quilla, and he threatened me till I grew wrath and said
that I would not hand him my crown as I had purposed to do. Yes, I
grew wrath and hated him for whose sake I had sinned because his mother
bewitched me. Lord-from-the-Sea," here his voice dropped to a whisper,
"I am afraid of Urco. Even a god such as I am can be murdered,
Lord-from-the-Sea. That is why I will not go to Yucay, for there I might
die and none know it, whereas here I still am Inca and a god whom it is
sacrilege to touch.
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