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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 December 2023
Nuno Álvares reached land before dawn, and those who saw him were very pleased at his coming. They brought him a mule to ride on, with his page behind him with the sword that Pedro Sarmiento had sent him as a gage when he was to have joined battle with him at Évora. All his men went on foot around him, along with many others accompanying him.
He went straightaway to the Monastery of São Domingos to attend Mass in [the Church of] Santa Maria da Escada, for whom he had special veneration. When Mass was over, he went directly to the palace where the Master was lodging. Having already heard that he had come, the Master was making ready to receive him. While doing so, he was told that Nuno Álvares was about to arrive, so the Master went down to the gates of a large and spacious courtyard that lay before the palace. When he saw him, he was seized with great pleasure and rushed to embrace him. Not only did the Master do this, but his men also did the same, embracing those accompanying Nuno Álvares, kissing their cheeks, as if neither group could take enough pleasure in the other.
Nuno Álvares went down on his knees before the Master in order to kiss his hands, but he did not wish to allow that. He remained on his knees before him, trying to kiss his hands, and the Master trying to raise him up, the latter saying that it was not for someone such as Nuno Álvares to be given his hands to kiss, but rather he should receive many marks of favours and preferment. ‘Especially’, said the Master, ‘from one such as myself, who remained here, penned up in this courtyard, unable to do anything of any consequence.’
To that, Nuno Álvares replied with such fine and decorous words, that the eyes of many who were there, seeing such an amiable contest, were filled with tears of joy, which ran down their cheeks.
Even at the end of his speech, Nuno Álvares still did not want to rise until the Master allowed him to kiss his hands. Then, he got to his feet and both of them went to the chamber where, during the days that he was there, they spoke of many things concerning the provisioning of the war in which they were engaged and expected to go on being.
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