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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 January 2024
We now return to Toledo, which was under siege when we left it. King Enrique had seized a small wooden tower which those inside the city had erected on the Church of San Servando, which stands on the [Alcántara] bridge. One day, some of King Enrique's supporters who were inside the city captured this Abbots’ Tower, which is very high and very strong, and began to shout their support for King Enrique. Those who were in the encampment immediately placed ladders against the tower, and forty men clambered up and placed five banners on it. On seeing this, the city people set fire to the tower which was lower on its inner side. Those on top could not withstand the fire and dashed back down the ladders. Another group of the men inside Toledo, who on a number of occasions sought to provide King Enrique with a way into the city, were discovered and consequently put to death.
As Toledo had now lain under siege for ten and a half months and as it had been harried by the king in a variety of ways, the city had now run very low both in men and food supplies, so that they were eating horses and mules, and a bushel of wheat was worth 1,200 maravedís. King Pedro, who had received reports indicating how much Toledo needed his help and how its inhabitants could not hold out much longer because of the hunger in the city, now sent for all those who supported his cause and negotiated with the Emir of Granada, urging him to give assistance by providing him with some of his forces. Before leaving Seville, King Pedro took his sons, his treasure and his arms and armour and placed them all in the township of Carmona, which he had fortified. When this had been done, he left there men he could trust and departed for Alcántara, where he assembled all the forces which he had summoned forth, with the intent of going to the aid of Toledo.
When King Enrique heard of this, he sent a message to Córdoba commanding all his troops to join him in Toledo, to which he was laying siege, as soon as they knew that King Pedro was leaving Seville, because it was his intention to do battle with him.
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