The Lastoc of the Annumpi: Don Cupido's Desire

[The Annumpi Chronicles are based on the rediscovery of the Annumpi in The Captcha Chronicles.]

Chapter 1

On the night of the new moon, in January, 1810,  the huge, heavy limbs of an ancient plane tree cast a protective shadow that embraced the family home of  Don Hernando. He was poor man now, but he was fiercely  proud, proud as only a hidalgo could be. When he thought about how the royal gift to his grandfather, a gift of a huge estate in the New World, had nearly broken his family, he could only muster a slight, world-weary smile. Such is the gratitude of kings. The New World had ruined him, taken his wife, his health, and his fortune. All he had left was his pride, this old house, some worthless land, and his daughter, Donna Maria.


Don Cupido stood motionless in the deeper darkness cast by the massive trunk of an ancient plane tree. He watched as a candle lit the windows on the stairs one by one, its glimmering light escaping weakly through the closed shutters. The light halted on the upper floor. Donna Maria placed the candle on a small table by the open window and drew the heavy curtains. Don Cupido blinked in the sudden darkness. He still seethed over Don Hernando’s refusal to give his daughter to him.  “I’ll have her,” he swore, pounding his gloved fist into his open palm. “And soon.”

Don Cupido turned away from the house and walked soundlessly to the clearing in the  thicket where he had hobbled his horse. The usually placid mare was pawing the turf and tossing her head anxiously. Don Cupido stepped back into the thicket and drew his sword. He stopped and listened for any sound out of place, for any explanation of his horse’s nerves. Nothing, not a sound. The moonless night revealed nothing but darkness and darker shadows. Don Cupido swiftly removed the hobbles and mounted his horse. As he swung his leg over the mare’s broad back, he brushed against something protruding from the saddle. He reached down and removed a diodart that was lodged in the saddle.

Holding the tiny but deadly dart in his gloved hand, Don Cupido carefully drew a pistol. He snapped the diodart in two and tossed it into into the darkness. Then he slowly turned the horse toward the trail and, one hand holding the reins the other holding the primed pistol, he rode out of the thicket. A few minutes after Don Cupido left, a crouching figure arose from shadows and flicked the hood of his gesconat over his shoulders. “I am very close, Eugusto,” the figure murmured, “I am very close. First I’ll save you and then we will save Donna Maria.”

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For three generations, the Cupido family had ruthlessly sliced away at Don Hernando’s family. Hernando had opposed slavery while the Cupido family had grown rich on slave labor. Hernado family lands in the Pampas separated vast holdings by the Cupido family and when the Hernando family tried to fence their land to prevent being overrun buy the Cupido herds, the Cupido’s hired thugs to tear the fences down. Most of society were on Hernando’s side, but the wealth and power of the Cupido family were too strong to contest.  And then Don Hernando committed an unforgivable crime, a crime that drove him out of society forever.  The grandson of the hidalgo who fought by the King’s side and saved his life, married Lois Spoltal, a beautiful and fierce Annumpi. 

The Annumpi were were a strange, reticent race who pulled deeper and deeper into the Pampas in the face of the Spanish conquest of South America. Some were captured and enslaved by the Spanish, but the Annumpi were useless as slaves. They simply refused to act under duress and no amount to threats or violence could move them. Also they also would not convert to Catholicism, no matter what the the priests did to convince them. The Spanish finally renounced their attempts to enslave them or convert them and got down to the business of eradicating the Annumpi. 

To the Spaniards, the Annumpi were as useless and curious as the spoltal, the small, squat, rough-furred mammals that were the constant companions of the Annumpi. The Spaniards assumed that Annumpi were herdsman and that the spoltal were their flock, but they did not understand. The relationship between the Annumpi and the spoltal started at the gaullie and lasted a lifetime. Spoltals were known to live as long as eighty years, therefore most spoltal and Annumpi lived their entire lives together. The Annumpi word of family includes humans and spoltals.  The Spaniards could never understand the profound link between the Annumpi and the spoltals. The soldiers made crude jokes and priests sniffed a definite odor of paganism. They were both wrong. Well, the soldiers certainly were.