17 - How the king entered the town and captured it

Summary

With Ponte de Lima being provisioned and equipped as we have described, its customary defence procedure was as follows: numbers of men from areas outside the town came to keep watch as their turn came, as likewise did men from the town itself, along with them. Very early every morning five foot soldiers went to inspect the wooded areas around the town, to check whether there were any troops or some ambush to threaten it. Once they had surveyed the area and returned to town, they then opened the gates and sent the watchmen off home. Those men from the town who kept watch and patrolled at night slept during the morning. Those who did not have this duty, including Lope Gómez, slept peacefully for as long as they liked and were fully rested, so that well into the morning not one of those whose concern it was to defend the town would you find out and about.

When Estêvão Rodrigues went out in the evening to await the king at the appointed spot, he told the man guarding the gates that he was looking for some mules of his which had gone missing and which he suspected had been stolen. When once he had brought the king to the place we have mentioned and had left him and his men to rest there, he went back to town very early next morning and found the gates were closed. After a short while the gates were opened for the foot soldiers to go and inspect the wooded areas, as was their practice. When they were on the point of going out, they asked Estêvão Rodrigues where he had been.

‘With the devil’, he said. ‘Can't you see where I’ve been? Anyway, where are all of you going?’

‘What do you mean?’ they asked.

‘What do I mean?’ he replied. ‘Ever since last evening I’ve had the wretched job of searching this entire area for two mules which have gone missing. There's not a single wood or valley around this town that I haven't spent all night rushing about in. No way could I find them. I think they must have been stolen.