A son of the cacique Guainacaba[68] visits them; they agree upon friendship with him, and he tells them of the movements of the army of hostile Indians with which they have some encounters before entering Cuzco, where they establish as lord the son of Guainacaba.[69]
Here the Spaniards rested that night, having set good guards, because they were given to understand that Quizquiz was close by with all his men. And on the following morning, came to visit the Governor a son of Guainacaba and a brother of the dead cacique Atabalipa,[70] and the greatest and most important lord who was then in that land; and he had ever been a fugitive so that those of Quito might not kill him. This man said to the Governor that he would aid him to the extent of his power in order to drive from that land all those of Quito, who were his enemies and who hated him and did not wish to be the subjects of a foreign people. This man was the man to whom, by law, came all that province and whom all the caciques of it wished for their lord. When he came to see the Governor, he came through the mountains, avoiding the roads for fear of those of Quito, and the Governor received him with great gladness and replied to him: "Much does what you say please me, as does also finding you with so good a desire to expel these men of Quito, and you must know that I have come from Xauxa for no other purpose than to prevent them from doing you harm and free you from slavery to them, and you can believe that I have not come for my own benefit because I was in Xauxa, sure of having war with them and I had an excuse for not making this long and difficult journey. But knowing the injuries they were doing to you, I wanted to come to rectify and undo them, as the Emperor my lord commanded me to do. And so, you may be sure that I will do in your favor all that seems suitable for me to do. And I will do the same to liberate from this tyranny the people of Cuzco." The Governor made him all these promises in order to please him so that he might continue to give news of how affairs were going, and that cacique remained marvellously satisfied, as did also those who had come with him. And he [Manco] replied: "Henceforth I shall give you exact information concerning all that they of Quito do in order that they may not inconvenience you." And in this manner he took leave of the Governor, saying: "I am going to fish because I know that tomorrow the Christians do not eat flesh, and I shall encounter this messenger who tells me that Quizquiz is going with his men to burn Cuzco and that he is now near at hand, and I have wished to warn you of it in order that you may fix upon a remedy." The Governor at once placed all the soldiers upon the alert, and, although it was already noon, when he knew the needs of the situation, he did not wish to delay even to eat, but journeyed with all the Spaniards straight toward Cuzco, which was four leagues from that place, with the intention of establishing his camp near the city so as to enter it early the next day. And when he had travelled two leagues, he saw rise up in the distance a great smoke, and when he asked some Indians the cause of it, they told him that a squadron of the men of Quizquiz had come down a mountain and set fire [word missing]. Two captains went ahead with some forty horsemen to see if they could catch up with this squadron, which speedily joined with the men of Quizquiz and the other captains who were on a slope a league in front of Cuzco waiting for the Christians in a pass close to the road. Seen by the captains and Spaniards, they [the Indians] could not avoid an encounter with them, although the Governor had them made to understand that they [the Spaniards] would wait for the rest to join them, which they would have done, were it not for the fact that the Indians incited each other with much spirit to encounter them. And before they [the Spaniards] could be attacked, they fell upon them on the skirt of a hill, and in a short time they routed them, forcing them to flee to the mountain and killing two hundred of them. Another squad of cavalry crossed over another slope of the mountain where were two or three thousand Indians who, not having the pluck to wait for them, threw down their lances in order to be able to run the better, and fled headlong. And after those first two squads broke and fled, they [the Spaniards] made them flee to the heights; and [at the same time] two Spanish light horsemen saw certain Indians return down the slope, and they set themselves to skirmish with them. They perceived that they were in great danger, but they were helped, and the horse of one of them was killed, from which the Indians derived so much encouragement that they wounded four or five horses and a Christian, and they made them retreat as far as the plain. The Indians who, until then, had not seen the Christians retire, thought that they were doing it in order to attract them to the plain and there attack them as they had done at Bilcas, and they said so among themselves and were cautious, not wishing to go down and follow them. By this time the Governor had arrived with the [rest of] the Spaniards and, as it was already late, they set up their camp on a plain, and the Indians maintained themselves an arquebuse-shot away on a slope until mid-night, yelling, and the Spaniards spent all that night with their horses saddled and bridled. And the next day, at the first ray of dawn, the Governor arranged the troops, horse and foot, and he took the road to Cuzco, with good understanding and caution, believing that the enemy would come to attack him on the road, but none of them appeared. In this way the Governor and his troops entered that great city of Cuzco without any other resistance or battle on Friday, at the hour of high mass, on the fifteenth day of the month of November of the year of the birth of our Saviour and Redeemer Jesus Christ MDXXXIII. The Governor caused all the Christians to lodge in the dwellings around the plaza of the city, and he ordered that all should come forth with their horses to the plaza and sleep in their tents, until it could be seen whether the enemy were coming to attack them. This order was continued and observed for a month. On another day, the Governor created as lord that son of Guainacaba, for he was young, prudent and alive and the most important of all those who were there at that time, and was the one to whom that lordship came by law. And he did it so soon in order that the lords and caciques should not go away to their own lands which were divers provinces, and some very far away, and so that the natives should not join those of Quito, but should have a separate lord of their own whom they might reverence and obey and not organize themselves into bands. So he commanded all the caciques to obey him [Manco] as their lord and to do all that he should order them to do.[71]
