Tom Holland

He knows what happened to Cortes in Mexico.

That Cortes ended up cornered in the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, the future Mexico City, and basically had to fight his way out.

And he doesn't want that to happen to him.

So if we think about the map and think about the Inca Empire in thirds, because it's a long, it's not wide, it's just very long.

The Spaniards are in the central third.

So that's basically modern-day Peru.

And they control that, Pizarro and Manco.

Then you've got the southern third, so below that.

And that's modern-day Bolivia and northern Chile.

And that, so far, no Spaniard has been there.

They don't know what it's like.

But as far as they know, it's loyal to Manco.

So that's fine.

But the problem is the northern third.

So that's modern-day Ecuador and southern Colombia.

That is Atahualpa's heartland.

You know, the civil war in the minds of the people of the North is still going on, and the Spaniards are merely a new factor in this war.

And one of Atahualpa's achievements during his imprisonment had been to spare Quito and the north from the attentions of the Spaniards, hasn't it?

He'd sent all the looting parties southwards.

Yes, exactly.