1548: Conquest
To the Magnificent Lords, the Judges of the Royal Audience of his Universal Majesty, who reside in the city of Saint Dominic.
Magnificent Lords: I have been made aware of rumors which come to your worships’ ears by some cabal of rumor-mongers who seek to dissuade me from my service to his Majesty. It has seemed well to me to write a summary of what I have undertaken, and what I now pursue, so that you may be informed of the truth without infection by the squirming of my enemies in your holy and good judgment.
My company makes way from the Rock of the Owl in pursuit of the furtive Indian princess called Leonor, sometimes known as Curicuillor. She is of the line of Atahualpa, defeated fifteen years hence by the mighty armies in which I served as your dutiful and faithful vassal.
Curicuillor was, for a time before and after our triumph, the center of a savage Indian cult here which seduced even such noble Spaniards as Hernando de Soto, by whom she was taken concubine but afforded great power and influence unbecoming both her treasonous heritage and her feminine frailty. I must with great regret inform your worships that during her time married to Soto, she continued to practice a great many of the unregarded arts of her primitive kin, even teaching some of these ways to her mestizo children and those creoles who were seduced by her exotic wiles.
It is I who sought to put an end to this obscenity and to undertake a proper uprooting of Curicuillor’s foul influence from the city, though I was disturbed to discover that the lady herself has long since escaped the Rock of the Owl. But with gratitude to God, I managed to capture an Indian page named Kilako. I caused the page to be tortured, and he was so stubborn in his evil creed that I could not gather anything from him, but that he held a true devotion to his princess and would not accept light into his heart.
My good chaplain, a former attendant of Queen Joanna and master of Indian speech, stayed my hand from slaying the page and instead dealt with him in his own way, which yielded great intelligence. We make for an Indian mosque in the mountains, where the page says Curicuillor holds court and practices her arts.
If the mosque is as my chaplain describes, it may be a fine place for Christian settlement. I intend to have all traces of pagan practice struck from the mountains within the year. I write this account to your worships because, if any other statement is made, this is the truth. May our Lord long guard and prosper the magnificent persons of your worships, and may we see the Universal Light of our Empire spread to every corner of this dark place.
Done in this city, April, 1548. At the service of your worships, Alfonso de Soraluce.