ABSTRACT
Natural son of a Spanish colonel and a prostitute, he was born in secret at Trujilla in Estremadura, some thirty miles from Yurta where Charles the Fifth was to die. Pizarro was the military leader; Almagro did the recruiting and organising; and Luque did the administrative work. In fact, a soldier, a manager, and a financier. Duly furnished with the Governor’s authorisation, Pizarro set sail. The expedition was a modest one: two ships, and 140 soldiers and sailors. In the end Pizarro and Almagro joined up at Chicama, near their starting point. They compared information, which was still vague, though it agreed. For seven months Pizarro’s companions floundered in this fetid mud. Their heavy horses, cased in steel as at the Crusades, sank in to their breasts. Strangely similar to the Aztec legend, the Inca tradition relates the exploits of a white demi-god who came from the sea and demonstrated his power by blasting a mountain.
