The Last Days of the Incas (40 page)

Three days after Quizo’s death, a breathless
chaski
runner arrived at Ollantaytambo to Manco’s camp. The emperor sat with a grim face as the
chaski
repeated a message carried by more than sixty different relay runners about the recent disaster on the coast: General Quizo’s string of victories had ended; the general to whom Manco had just presented his sister as a wife was dead—and so was a long list of fine Inca commanders; Quizo’s army had retreated in disarray back into the mountains, Manco was told. The Spanish city had not been overrun. Francisco Pizarro was still alive, his cavalry intact.

For Manco, the news of Quizo’s defeat was devastating. The empire’s finest general, upon whom so many of his hopes had been pinned, had been destroyed. Whether Manco realized it or not, however, he himself was responsible for Quizo’s death. Encouraged by his general’s seeming invincibility, and perhaps also due to sacred omens or to the advice of oracles, Manco had sent his victorious general on a suicide mission. The Inca emperor had apparently ignored the fundamental reason for Quizo’s prior successes—the effective use of Andean topography to neutralize the dreaded Spanish cavalry—and instead had ordered him to
attack on a wide-open plain where that same cavalry could not be stopped. Quizo’s final, desperate charge calls to mind the much later Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, the Australian assault on Gallipoli, the Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimea, or any other number of hopeless military endeavors. No doubt, Quizo himself must have known that he had been ordered to carry out a mission that would very likely result in his death. Yet, under the direct order of his divine emperor, Quizo had had no other choice than to attack.

Inca tradition had further imperiled Quizo’s final assault by ensuring that the Inca general would have a front-row seat when the stakes were at their highest, riding on one of the finest litters in the empire at the very point of the attack. Some Spanish accounts stated that General Quizo was ultimately felled by a harquebus bullet, others that he had died from a lance plunged directly into his heart. No matter. The great warrior was dead, and with him died Manco’s finest military commander—the only Inca general who had thus far managed to successively defeat the Spaniards. With Quizo’s army now in disarray, Manco was no longer in a position to prevent Pizarro’s cavalry from riding in relief of Cuzco. Manco was about to receive even worse news, however: a column of four hundred, fully armored Spanish soldiers was on its way back to Peru—and riding at its head was Pizarro’s one-eyed ex-partner, Diego de Almagro.

DESPITE THE DEATH OF GENERAL QUIZO, MANCO INCA WAS nevertheless determined to continue his siege of Cuzco, hoping that through a combination of starvation and gradual Spanish attrition that he could eventually overcome Hernando Pizarro’s beleaguered men. For four months after Quizo’s death, Manco continued to surround the Inca capital, using the converted fortress of nearby Ollantaytambo as his headquarters. Although Manco’s forces were ultimately unable to prevent the Spaniards from resupplying themselves with food, they were too strong, however, for Hernando and his trapped men to break out of the city and escape.

With the return of Almagro from Chile, conflicts soon erupted over the control of Peru.

Sometime in January
or
February 1537, roughly nine months into the siege, a
chaski
messenger arrived at Manco’s fortress in Ollantaytambo. A large force of Spaniards, the messenger said, roughly four hundred of them and with many horses, had just arrived in the Inca town of Arequipa, a little over two hundred miles to the south. With them rode Manco’s brother Paullu on a royal litter, and also Pizarro’s old partner, Diego de Almagro. Manco no doubt stared at the messenger, who as a commoner stood with averted eyes to the ground, then looked down at the Yucay Valley, stretching out before him. Suddenly, Manco must have realized, despite all his efforts, the balance of power had abruptly shifted, almost as if there had been another
pachacuti
, or overturning of the world. Diego de Almagro had returned to Peru.

The sixty-one-year-old Almagro had left Cuzco some twenty months earlier, with five hundred Spaniards, twelve thousand native auxiliaries, and hundreds of horses. During nearly two years of savage fighting with local natives and a trek of over three thousand miles, Almagro and his men had crossed over Andean passes so clogged with snow that some Spaniards had pulled their boots off only to discover that their frozen toes had come off. Elsewhere, the Spanish invaders had stacked the numberless dead bodies of their native porters as shelter against the icy wind. The members of Almagro’s expedition had endured starvation, constant attacks, and eventually, some two hundred miles to the south of what is now Santiago, Chile, they had run into the fierce Araucanians. The latter not only stopped the Spaniards in their tracks, forcing them to retreat, but would successfully fight off all further attempts to subjugate them for the next two centuries.

To his great disappointment, Almagro had gradually come to realize that the governorship the king had granted him contained none of the riches of Peru. Francisco Pizarro had received by far the wealthiest portion of the Inca Empire, Almagro now knew—and he had received its dregs. Eventually, after a long, debilitating trek north during which many more men and horses died, what was left of the expedition reached the town of Arequipa, in what is now the southern Andes of Peru. At least a hundred Spaniards, innumerable African slaves, and over half of Almagro’s horses had died during the expedition. Similarly, most of Almagro’s twelve thousand native auxiliaries had either died or else had abandoned the expedition
and fled. Their dreams of finding a second Peru full of towns, cities, fertile farms, and rich mines now shattered, Almagro’s followers—most of whom had missed out on the distributions of treasure in Cajamarca and Cuzco—were now intent on only one thing: returning to Peru and seizing whatever riches there they could find.

Such was the state of affairs when Almagro first received news that the young Inca emperor Manco Inca had rebelled, that a massive native uprising had occurred, and that several hundred Spaniards were currently trapped in Cuzco, a city that he had personally coveted for years. Paullu, who had accompanied the expedition to Chile, soon sent a messenger to Manco’s camp bearing a letter from Almagro. The messenger, presumably, was accompanied by a literate Spaniard and by a native interpreter who could translate Spanish into
runasimi.

“My well-loved son and brother,” Almagro addressed the much younger Manco,

Almagro had purposely inflated the number of his troops in order to appear more powerful than he actually was, and had also lied about bearing letters regarding Manco’s situation from the king. The conquistador continued:

Almagro quickly followed up his letter by sending two Spanish emissaries to visit with the Inca emperor. Francisco Pizarro, Almagro realized, was obviously now in a much weaker position in Peru than he had been only two years earlier. Pizarro’s weakness presented an unexpected opportunity for Almagro, who was now intent upon discovering whether the present turmoil in Peru could be used to his advantage. With the right diplomatic moves, Almagro reasoned, he might be able to negotiate a truce with Manco while simultaneously blaming the insurrection on the Pizarros. Almagro could thus strengthen his own position to win the king’s approval of his right to govern Cuzco. Almagro therefore decided to head north toward the Yucay Valley, where Manco Inca was currently headquartered, instead of riding in relief of the besieged Spaniards, who were as yet unaware of his return.

Almagro’s Spanish emissaries, meanwhile, soon arrived in the Yucay Valley. Everywhere they looked, the two men observed Manco’s troops sullenly watching them, yet allowing them to pass. Eventually, they arrived beneath the high granite spur upon which Manco’s fortress of Ollantaytambo was situated. Climbing the long flight of stone stairs up to the citadel, they were greeted there warmly by Manco Inca, who had already received Almagro’s letter. The two emissaries now repeated Almagro’s offer: that the governor was shocked by the unjust treatment Manco had received at the hands of the Spaniards in Cuzco; that he, Almagro, would make sure that those responsible received the punishment they deserved; and that if Manco would only end his rebellion, then Almagro would make
sure that the king pardoned Manco’s attack on the Pizarros and on their followers. In a subsequent letter, the two emissaries reported Manco’s response directly to the king.

While Manco conferred with Almagro’s two emissaries, another messenger now arrived at his camp, this one a native auxiliary from Cuzco and sent by Hernando Pizarro. The Spaniards in Cuzco
had finally begun to hear rumors that Diego de Almagro had returned to Peru with a large force of men. Initially, they hadn’t believed the rumors, because they had been hearing apocryphal stories of various relief forces for months now, none of which had ever materialized. Recently, however, the Spaniards had woken up one morning to find that the native levies surrounding the city had suddenly been withdrawn. Sending out a reconnaissance party that presumably captured native informants, Hernando soon discovered that Almagro had indeed returned from Chile and was now only a dozen or so miles away to the east, encamped in the town of Urcos. Hernando also learned that instead of coming to their relief, Almagro was engaged in secret negotiations with the Inca emperor.