The Last Days of the Incas (20 page)

One can certainly imagine how this letter was read and reread
by the writer’s family, how it was passed around, unfolded and refolded carefully, circulating among the many family members, relatives, and friends, and how excerpts were undoubtedly also read aloud to interested visitors, eager as everyone was to learn of the miraculous adventures occurring on the distant fringes of the known world. This particular letter writer, however, who had left for the Indies in his teens, would never see his family or home again. Only four months after handing the bar of Inca gold and the letter to his friend, Gaspar would be killed in battle in Peru. It would take at least another year before the news of his misfortune would reach his family.

As the last gold and silver bars were being distributed, Atahualpa no doubt watched the unfolding events with a growing sense of despair. When he learned that Hernando Pizarro was departing for Spain, in fact, he had apparently sunk even further into his gloom. Hernando had been Atahualpa’s best ally among the Spaniards, a man he had often played chess with and whom he had clearly befriended. The big, bearded, arrogant Pizarro brother was also a powerful influence in the camp, having served as Francisco’s right-hand man thus far during the campaign.

When Hernando rode out of camp, therefore, leading a pack train of llamas that was carrying the king’s treasure, Atahualpa “wept, saying that they would kill him since Hernando Pizarro was leaving.” Years later, Hernando would tell the king that Atahualpa had actually begged Hernando to take him with him to Spain. If he didn’t, Atahualpa had assured him, then “this fat man (meaning the [royal] treasurer [Alonso Riquelme]) and this one-eyed man (meaning Don Diego de Almagro) will kill me when you leave.” If Atahualpa did indeed say this to Hernando, then it was a prescient thought. Obviously, the Inca emperor didn’t like the hungry, penetrating look in Almagro’s single eye. With the gold and silver already delivered as promised, yet with new Spaniards in town and his freedom nowhere to be seen, Atahualpa must have realized that Pizarro had lied to him. Pizarro, after all, had promised Atahualpa that he would restore him to power in Quito. Now, however, all Atahualpa saw were Spaniards readying their equipment and horses for a march south toward Cuzco. Clearly, Pizarro and his men were planning an expedition of conquest—a far cry from the triumphal march that Atahualpa had envisaged leading down the Andes in the wake of his brother Huascar’s defeat.

Rumors now begin to swirl in the city that Atahualpa had
actually sent secret orders to his northern army to rescue him, since it was now obvious to all that the Spaniards had no intention of fulfilling their side of the bargain. A local chief even told Pizarro that Atahualpa’s northern army was already marching on its way south,

Pizarro immediately ordered that a permanent guard be mounted around the city and then went to confront Atahualpa with the incriminating information. “What kind of treason is this that you have prepared for me?” Pizarro angrily demanded. “After having treated you … like a brother, and having trusted in your words?” Pizarro had obviously missed the fact that it was hardly treasonous to want to escape from your kidnappers, especially if your kidnappers had agreed to a bargain that they now refused to honor.

“Are you joking?” Atahualpa had replied, trying at first to make light of Pizarro’s accusation. ”You’re always telling me jokes. What reason would my men or I have of troubling men as brave as you? Stop telling me jokes!” When Pizarro replied that this was no joking matter and that if the rumors were true that Pizarro would kill him, Atahualpa attempted to reason with his captors, among whom paranoia was currently spreading as fast as an exploding contagion.

“It is true that if any warriors were coming they would be marching here from Quito on my orders,” Atahualpa replied calmly. “Find out whether it is true. And if true, you have me in your power and can execute me!” Wrote one eyewitness:

Atahualpa’s arguments did him little good, however, for Pizarro,
not wanting to take any chances, now ordered that a chain be fastened around Atahualpa’s neck to prevent the emperor from escaping. Pizarro next called for a meeting of his top commanders to discuss Atahualpa’s fate.

While the rank-and-file Spaniards waited nervously in the city, scanning the hills for signs of an approaching army, a handful of their leaders now debated what to do with the captive Inca king. The makeshift jury included the corpulent royal treasurer, Alonso Riquelme; the Dominican friar, Vincente de Valverde—whose mistreated breviary had set off the massacre eight months before; Almagro; Francisco Pizarro; and a few others. Almagro, Riquelme, and several other captains wanted to execute the Inca emperor immediately, believing that once Atahualpa was dead, it would be easier to pacify the country. Pizarro and another group of captains, on the other hand, were in favor of keeping Atahualpa alive. They had been able to rule the country through Atahualpa for eight months, after all—so why couldn’t they continue? And who knew how the natives might react if their lord suddenly turned up dead? The entire country might rise up against them.

Like a hung jury, the Spaniards were unable to agree on whether Atahualpa had been sending out secret messages or had been telling the truth. They thus couldn’t agree on whether they should execute the Inca lord or spare his life. In order to address their most immediate threat, Pizarro decided to send Hernando de Soto with four horsemen to ride north and investigate. If they found no native army, then it was possible that Atahualpa had been telling the truth. If, on the other hand, they found an army, then one thing was certain: before the Spaniards lost their lives, Atahualpa would surely lose his own.

After Soto and his men had galloped off, the rest of the Spaniards were forced to wait nervously. Some fingered their ingots of gold and dreamed of what they would do with them if they survived this adventure and made it back to Spain. Others no doubt read well-thumbed, contraband novels of chivalrous adventures, such as
Amadis of Gaul.
^*
A few scribbled or dictated letters to their friends or family, hoping to send them home
one day. Pizarro and his captains, meanwhile, were unanimously agreed upon one point: their next step was to march south and then seize Cuzco, the capital of the empire and the wealthiest and grandest of its cities.

But with Cuzco lying some six hundred miles to the south and the Inca road leading there apparently crossing over some of the roughest terrain in the world, Pizarro and his captains worried that they would be unable to prevent Atahualpa from being rescued by Inca troops during their journey. Their isolated Spanish force would be much more vulnerable while traveling, and they would inevitably find themselves exposed amid unknown terrain. According to the three Spaniards who had helped to loot Cuzco, in fact, there were probably a thousand places where Pizarro’s force could be successfully ambushed along the way. If Atahualpa were rescued by his troops, then surely the emperor would quickly galvanize the entire country to rise up against them.

That evening, after dinner, Pizarro and some of his captains began to play cards. The group of
nouveaux riches
undoubtedly bet quantities of gold and silver and generally enjoyed themselves. Suddenly, however, the door to the room burst violently open and a Spaniard rushed in, dragging a reluctant native behind him. The Spaniard, a Basque seaman named Pedro de Anadel, was one of the original conquerors of Nicaragua. The native accompanying him was one of his Nicaraguan servants, not a native from Peru. Nevertheless, Anadel rather breathlessly told the dinner party that his servant had recently journeyed outside Cajamarca and had seen a massive Inca army advancing toward the city, only eleven miles away.

Pizarro rose and began questioning the servant, who presumably spoke basic Spanish. After the servant described in great detail what he had seen, it soon became apparent that a native army was definitely on the move. Everyone in the room now became agitated, especially Almagro,
who had been urging Pizarro to execute Atahualpa ever since the first rumors of the emperor’s presumed treachery had surfaced. A chastened Pizarro quickly sent word to his men to prepare themselves for battle; he also ordered an immediate meeting to plan their strategy and to debate Atahualpa’s fate anew. By now, however, the tide in support of Atahualpa had unmistakably turned. With the sudden and frightening threat of an impending attack, it didn’t take long for those gathered to make a quick decision. “Insisting vehemently on his death, Captain Almagro … [gave] … many reasons why he should die,” one eyewitness remembered. The obese royal treasurer, Riquelme, now sided with Almagro, urging that the emperor be quickly executed before the massing native forces could attack, thus fulfilling Atahualpa’s own prophecy.

When a final vote was taken, all those in attendance voted that Atahualpa should die, the last one to do so being a reluctant Pizarro, who found himself no longer able to support his earlier view that they were better off with Atahualpa alive. An entire native army could not be marching against them without Atahualpa having ordered it, Pizarro no doubt reasoned. And since Atahualpa had thus committed treason—at least to the Spaniards’ way of thinking—Pizarro finally gave the order that the Inca emperor “should die by burning unless he converted to Christianity.”

The son of Huayna Capac—who had fought to gain the Inca throne for years before the Spaniards had arrived and who had had little compunction in killing his own brother to possess it—was quickly informed of the Spaniards’ decision. Not surprisingly, Atahualpa was devastated by the news. “Atahualpa wept [openly] and said that they shouldn’t kill him,” recalled Pedro Pizarro, “for there wasn’t one Indian in the country who would make trouble without his command. And since they had him prisoner,” Atahualpa said, “what were they afraid of?” After trying with no success to convince his captors that his empire would devolve into chaos if he were executed, Atahualpa now tried a last-ditch effort to save his life. “If they were going to do it [kill him] for gold or silver,” Atahualpa said, no doubt looking into his captors’ eyes in order to gauge their reaction, “then he would give them twice what he had already commanded.” The emperor’s last-minute offer didn’t even seem to register on the Spaniards this time, however, and Atahualpa noticed anxiously that Pizarro had difficulty even
looking at him.

“I saw the Governor weep from sorrow at being unable to grant him [his] life,” remembered Pedro Pizarro, “[but] … he feared the consequences and risks to the country if he were released.” Pizarro, however, along with the rest of the Spanish leaders in camp, was now convinced about one thing: if a native army were less than eleven miles outside of town, then that army could launch an attack this very evening. Thus, in terms of keeping their hostage from falling into enemy hands, there was no time to lose. Atahualpa’s life had to be ended immediately.