XXI.
WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THE AYAMARCAS HAD STOLEN TITU CUSI HUALPA.
When the Ayamarcas and their Sinchi Tocay Ccapac stole the son of Inca Rocca, they marched off with him. The Huayllacans of Paulopampa, under their Sinchi Paucar Inca, marched in pursuit, coming up to them at a place called Amaro, on the territory of the Ayamarcas. There was an encounter between them, one side to recover the child, and the other to keep their capture. But Paucar was only making a demonstration so as to have an excuse ready. Consequently the Ayamarcas were victorious, while the Huayllacans broke and fled. It is said that in this encounter, and when the child was stolen, all the orejones who had come as a guard from Cuzco, were slain. The Ayamarcas then took the child to the chief place of their province called Ahuayro-cancha.
Many say that Tocay Ccapac was not personally in this raid but that he sent his Ayamarcas, who, when they arrived at Ahuayro-cancha, presented the child Titu Cusi Hualpa to him, saying, "Look here, Tocay Ccapac, at the prisoner we have brought you." The Sinchi received his prize with great satisfaction, asking in a loud voice if this was the child of Mama Micay, who ought to have been his wife. Titu Cusi Hualpa, though but a child, replied boldly that he was the son of Mama Micay and of the Inca Rocca. Tocay was indignant when he had heard those words, and ordered those who brought the child as a prisoner to take him out and kill him. The boy, when he heard such a sentence passed upon him, was so filled with sadness and fright, that he began to weep from fear of death. He began to shed tears of blood and with indignation beyond his years, in the form of a malediction he said to Tocay and the Ayamarcas, "I tell you that as sure as you murder me there will come such a curse on you and your descendants that you will all come to an end, without any memory being left of your nation."
The Ayamarcas and Tocay attentively considered this curse of the child together with the tears of blood. They thought there was some great mystery that so young a child should utter such weighty words, and that the fear of death should make such an impression on him that he should shed tears of blood. They were in suspense divining what it portended, whether that the child would become a great man. They revoked the sentence of death, calling the child Yahuar-huaccac, which means "weeper of blood," in allusion to what had taken place.
But although they did not wish to kill him then and with their own hands, they ordered that he should lead such a life as that he would die of hunger. Before this they all said to the child that he should turn his face to Cuzco and weep over it, because those curses he had pronounced, would fall on the inhabitants of Cuzco, and so it happened.
This done they delivered him to the most valiant Indians, and ordered them to take him to certain farms where flocks were kept, giving him to eat by rule, and so sparingly that he would be consumed with hunger before he died. He was there for a year without leaving the place, so that they did not know at Cuzco, or anywhere else, whether he was dead or alive. During this time Inca Rocca, being without certain knowledge of his son, did not wish to make war on the Ayamarcas because, if he was alive, they might kill him. So he did no more than prepare his men of war and keep ready, while he enquired for his son in all the ways that were possible.