Chapter 1 - How the count’s death was planned on a number of occasions and yet was not carried out

Summary

When some people discuss the death of Count Juan Fernández, which is where the great deeds of the Master of Avis begin, they come out with an allegation which does not please us: they declare that fortune frequently postpones the death of certain men for a long time, in order to give them a more dishonourable end later on. This, they claim, is what fortune did in the case of the said Count Juan Fernández, in that it delayed many times the death which certain people planned for him, in order to leave him in the Master's hands so that he would kill him in a more dishonourable way. We are not happy with this assertion, because, both with regard to the person who killed him, as well as to the circumstances of his death, none of the others could have killed him without this being an occasion of far greater dishonour to him.

But we consider that God Most High, in Whose providence nothing ever fails, and Who had arranged that the Master should become king, so ordained matters that none other but he should kill the count; moreover, that he should do it at a particular time and subject to certain circumstances, even though he was quite capable of doing it in a different way. One thing is certain: for a considerable time, the count had continued to perpetrate the great evil which we have mentioned, namely of sleeping with the wife of his liege lord, from whom he had received so many favours and such increase in his status, and this fact could scarcely resound in the ears of great lords and noblemen without generating within them a particular and profound desire to avenge the dishonour that had befallen King Fernando.

But in order to bring this about, two great hindrances had to be overcome. The first one was that Count Juan Fernández was protected by many doughty noblemen, who constantly accompanied him by day and by night; the second was that anyone undertaking the task would put his own life in jeopardy and could be totally destroyed, a risk which most men are afraid of taking.