141 - How the king decided to order the arrest of both the Master of Avis, his brother, and of Gonçalo Vasques de Azevedo, and for what reason

Summary

Following these words with Vasco Gomes, the queen thought about what he told her and what she had previously heard from Gonçalo Vasques; her heart was troubled, for she understood that through that counsellor of the king her ill repute would be made public and all her doings would be revealed. Once this was known, it would bring her great shame and danger, as well as to that knight who shared her guilt, whose death she did not wish to see. She thought that there was no one in the kingdom of the king's lineage more likely to seek revenge for this than his bastard brother, the Master of Avis, as we have already said, and she judged that, if that king's counsellor and this brother of his were dead, she would be entirely safe, because all the other notables of the kingdom were her relatives or had received honours from her.

The queen then pondered how to blame them for something that would give the king a motive for ordering their death. Some say that she had false letters drawn up in the name of the king's brother and of his counsellor, which appeared to have been sent by them to Castile contrary to the interests of the king and those of the entire kingdom. The plan was that these letters should be presented as having been sent already and seized at the border secretly. Some say that they were brought to the king; yet others relate it was to the queen, who showed them to him, and that when the king saw them, he was quite amazed, because he never suspected them of anything like that, nor did he know anything that would lead them to do that.

As for us, we do not have absolute knowledge of how she arranged things in order to satisfy her wish, except that the king, the queen, and presumably the one who shared her guilt, had sight of the letters in question. In speaking of what ought to be done about this, it was agreed between them that it would be good if the two men were arrested, and not to let such a wicked thing as that pass without taking revenge, to act as a warning to everyone that no one should dare to do anything similar.