The Last Days of the Incas by Kim MacQuarrie Page A

to the mainland of Peru, more than four months earlier. In addition, several of their horses had been wounded, although not killed. The Spaniards had exacted a punishing revenge, killing and wounding innumerable natives. Later, hearing rumors of a pending attack on the coast south of Tumbez, Francisco Pizarro had preemptively seized a local chief from a nearby village, along with the chief’s “principal men.” With no evidence other than these rumors, Pizarro had ordered that they all be burned alive, in a sort of primitive auto-da-fé, as the frightened villagers watched. It was a psychological ploy, a clear terror tactic, and obviously an effective one. Francisco de Xerez wrote:
    This punishment filled all the surrounding countryside with fear, so much so that a group of [native] leaders who were said to have been plotting with the local inhabitants to attack the Spaniards was dissolved; and from then on the Indians served better and with more fear than before.
    Thirty-one-year-old Hernando—tall, heavily built, arrogant, and the least popular of the Pizarro brothers—decided to deny the Incas’ report of Spanish casualties, insisting that the information Atahualpa had received was not true.
    “[Chief] Maizabilica is a scoundrel, [Hernando replied scornfully], and neither he nor all the Indians on that river could kill a single Christian. How could they kill Christians or a horse, since they are mere chickens?”
    Hernando paused, waiting for Felipillo to finish translating, before continuing:
    “Neither Governor [Pizarro] nor the Christians mistreat the chiefs unless they are hostile towards him, while he treats those who are good and wish to be friends very well. Those who want war areattacked until they are destroyed. When you see what the Christians do while helping you in your wars against your enemies, you will realize that Maizabilica lied to you.”
    While heavily outnumbered, the Spaniards clearly had the advantage in information control. Hernando knew very well that his older brother carried a signed license from the king and queen of Spain authorizing the plunder and subjugation of the very empire whose monarch he was addressing. Every member of the Spanish expedition knew about the recent history of the Aztecs. They themselves, in fact, were hoping to repeat in Peru what Cortés had accomplished in Mexico. None of them had any doubt whatsoever that their primary goal was to figure out a way to topple this newly discovered empire and in so doing to seize its inhabitants and its wealth for their own—before other Spaniards arrived and beat them to it.
    Atahualpa, on the other hand, despite the previous reports of the Spaniards’ marauding on the coast, didn’t know where the Spaniards were from, knew nothing of their history, had heard of neither Cortés nor Mexico, had never seen the Spaniards fight, and was unsure of their intentions. Yet from the emperor’s point of view, the Incas themselves clearly had an insurmountable advantage. Although the Spaniards were few in number, for some reason they had been brazen and foolish enough to come within striking distance of his own legions of warriors. If he so chose, Atahualpa knew that he could easily crush the entire group. Indeed, from Atahualpa’s perspective, the Spaniards’ fate now lay entirely in his hands. It had been more out of curiosity than anything else that he had even allowed the Spaniards to arrive in Cajamarca in the first place—and it was his decision that they were not now somewhere on the coast dangling lifelessly by their feet from a series of knotted cords.
    Listening to Hernando’s obvious boasting, Atahualpa now made the large, bearded man a pointed suggestion. “A [provincial] chief has refused to obey me. My troops will go with yours and you will make war on him.” As Soto and the other four Spaniards watched the emperor carefully, Hernando gave a characteristic reply: “No matter how many men that chief has,” he said,