The Last Days of the Incas by Kim MacQuarrie Page B

“you don’t need to send any of your Indians. Ten Christians on horseback will be enough to destroy him.”
    Until now, Atahualpa’s expression had been solemnand grave. At Hernando’s reply, however, the emperor could not help but smile. What could be more absurd than ten foreigners thinking they could conquer a powerful chief with many hundreds of warriors? “He smiled like a man who did not think so much of us,” Hernando wrote more than a year and a half later, apparently still smarting from the insult.
    Hernando de Soto, seated on his horse as were the others, had meanwhile noticed something. Despite the Inca emperor’s seeming nonchalance with the novelty of their presence, Atahualpa did seem keenly interested in their horses, which he had obviously never seen before. Soto therefore decided to perform a spontaneous demonstration, backing up his horse, rearing it up so that it stood on its hind legs and snorted, then putting it through some showy paces. Noticing the wide eyes on the faces of some nearby warriors, Soto now turned the animal around, dug in his spurs, then suddenly charged directly at them. Although Soto pulled up at the last moment, the charge sent a number of Atahualpa’s elite guard running for cover, with several falling over themselves in a desperate effort to escape. Atahualpa remained seated throughout, watching yet showing no emotion during the entire display. Later that same day, however, he quietly ordered that the entire native battalion be executed. They had shown fear in front of the foreigners and had thus broken with Inca discipline. The sentence was carried out immediately.
    The emperor now ordered drinks to be produced, and soon several women brought out golden goblets filled with
chicha
, or corn beer. None of the Spaniards wanted to drink, however, fearing that the mixture might contain poison, but when Atahualpa insisted they finally lifted the goblets and drank. With the sun now beginning to set, Hernando asked the emperor for permission to leave, and also asked what message he should take to his brother. Atahualpa replied that he would visit Cajamarca the next day, and that he would lodge in one of the three great chambers on the square. He would then meet with their leader, he said. With the valley of Cajamarca now bathed in shadows, the Spaniards turned their horses around and began to make their way back toward the city.
    As they rode past the masses of native warriors, the Spaniards could not have known that Atahualpa had already made a decision. Tomorrow, Atahualpa had decided, he would capture the foreigners, kill most of them, and castrate the rest to use as eunuchs to guard hisharem. Atahualpa would then seize the magnificent animals the foreigners rode in order to breed them in great numbers; the giant animals would surely make his empire even more powerful and would instill fear in his enemies. The strangers’ arrogance and lack of respect had clearly angered him. Atahualpa had no doubt understood little of Soto’s prepared speech, other than that they had been sent here by another king. Any king who had sent so few soldiers, however, Atahualpa no doubt was sure, could possess only a very small kingdom. As he drifted off to sleep that night, covered in the finest linens the empire could produce, Atahualpa presumably slept with the certainty that the foreigners’ fates were as much as sealed.
    When Hernando Pizarro and Soto arrived back in Cajamarca, the sun had already gone down and the stars were out. The air was crisp, clear, and very cold after the rain and the hail that had fallen, cleansing the courtyard and the cut Inca stones and raising the level of water that coursed through the culverts that ran along the centers of the streets. At the two entrances to the courtyard armed Spaniards stood watch, ready to warn the others in case of an attack. The two captains climbed down off their horses, then went directly to the governor’s lodging, which was located in