Chapter 102 - How Álvaro Coitado was freed from captivity, and how the Castilians who were carrying him away were defeated

Summary

It was not long afterwards that one morning there arrived a spy whom Pero Rodrigues maintained in Vila Viçosa. He said that that coming night they were going to take Álvaro [Gonçalves] Coitado from Vila Viçosa to Olivença, and that he should consider what it was best to do. Pero Rodrigues at once called the squires into the spy's presence, and they began to speak of how they should proceed in the matter. They agreed that on this night they should set up an ambush near Vila Viçosa, in a pine grove well suited to the purpose, and that the spy should strive to find out the time when the prisoner would be moved, and how. They ordered him to go, and to bring them word at the pine grove.

After sundown Pero Rodrigues, with the sixteen of Nuno Álvares and fifteen of his own squires and fifty foot soldiers, departed from Alandroal, pretending that he was taking the road to Estremoz. After night had fallen, they turned back by another road, as secretly as they could, and went to the pine grove they had chosen. While they were there waiting for word from the man who had been sent to get news, it grew very late. They had received no news from any reliable informer from Vila Viçosa, and had no information except what that man they were waiting for had told them.

Seeing how long he delayed, they began to wonder if what he had said was true. Some said that this could be a trick on his part, a man whom Pero Rodrigues had trusted, and who had betrayed them. The one who feared this the most was Pero Rodrigues himself, so much so that he as well as the others would have been very happy to be far away from there, and not to have begun such an expedition. At this point, the two squires Lourenço Martins and Gomes Lourenço began to speak as follows: ‘Pero Rodrigues, you have come here in the service of God and of the Master. When Nuno Álvares sent us to you, this was the principal mission he commanded to be entrusted to you, namely that Álvaro Gonçalves should be freed from captivity when they tried to take him away from here, if you could do so.