Ines of My Soul by Isabel Allende Page B

was experienced in European tactics. After all, facing badly armed, anarchical Indians was a far different matter from encountering disciplined Spanish soldiers. Also representing Pizarro was his brother Hernando, hated for his cruelty and arrogance. I want to make this part very clear, so that no one can blame Pedro de Valdivia for atrocities committed during those days. Of those I had conclusive proof, for it fell to me to tend the poor wretches whose wounds, months after the battle, still had not healed. Pizarro’s troops had cannons and two hundred more men than Almagro. They were well outfitted with new harquebuses and deadly cannon shot; those iron balls, when fired, burst open and sprayed knife-sharp projectiles. Their morale was good, and they were well rested, while their opponents had just undergone great hardships in Chile as well as the task of putting down the Peruvian Indians’ uprising. Diego de Almagro himself was very ill, and he, like Pizarro, did not personally take part in the battle.
    The two armies met one rosy dawn in the valley of Las Salinas, as from the hillsides thousands of Quechua Indians observed the entertaining spectacle of viracochas killing one another like rabid beasts. They did not understand the ceremonies, or the reasons why those bearded warriors were fighting. First they lined up in orderly rows, displaying their polished armor and sleek horses, then they knelt on one knee while other viracochas in black robes performed some magic with crosses and silver vessels. They put a little piece of bread in their mouths, touched their fingers to their foreheads and chests, received blessings, bowed to their fellows across the field of battle, and finally, after about two hours of this dance, prepared to kill one another. And that they did with methodical and terrible cruelty. For hours and hours, they fought hand to hand, yelling the same words: “Long live the king and Spain!” and “Forward in the name of Santiago!” In the confusion and dust raised by the horses’ hooves and the men’s boots, it was impossible to tell one side from another; all their uniforms had turned the same clay color. In the meantime, the Indians whooped, laid bets, enjoyed their roasted corn and salted meat, chewed coca, drank chicha, got too hot, and finally rested because the battle was lasting too long.
    At the end of the day, Pizarro’s army emerged victorious, thanks to the military acumen of the field marshal, Pedro de Valdivia, hero of the day, but it was Hernando Pizarro who gave the last order: “Slit their throats!” His soldiers, animated by an enmity that they themselves could not later explain or the chroniclers set right, unleashed a bloodbath against hundreds of their compatriots, many of whom had been their brothers in the adventure of discovering and conquering Peru. They finished off the wounded in Almagro’s forces and blasted their way into Cuzco, where they raped the women—Spanish as well as Indian and black—and robbed and pillaged until they had had enough. They were as savage in their treatment of the vanquished as the Incas were, which was saying a lot because the native Peruvians were not known to be merciful. It is enough to recall that among their habitual tortures were hanging a condemned man by his feet, with his guts wrapped around his neck, or flaying him, and then while he was still alive, using his skin to make a drum.
    The Spaniards did not go that far because, as some survivors told me, they were in a great rush. Several of Almagro’s soldiers who did not die immediately at the hands of their compatriots were massacred by the Indians who came down from the hills at the end of the battle, howling with jubilation because for once they were not the victims. They celebrated by desecrating the corpses, hacking them to bits with stone knives. For Valdivia, who from the time he was twenty had fought on many fronts and against many