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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 December 2023
While the King of Castile was in Santarém, he was joined by all those whose lords had died [in the campaign], and who now sought to take their remains back to their homes in Castile according to what we have previously said. They left Óbidos and Alenquer and the other places that supported Castile and all gathered together with him in that town. When the king left Santarém, everybody departed with him, disposed as follows.
The mourners all went in front, separately from the other men-at-arms, and each group bore their lord on a bier covered with black cloth and carried on a mule, escorted by all those on foot, dressed in deep mourning. Behind came those on horseback who used to attend that lord during his lifetime, with the banner of his arms right next to him. Thus everyone marched in due order, one in front of the other, along a great stretch of road, and such a procession was painful to see.
The King of Castile followed at the rear with his companies in a very sad frame of mind and unattended by the lords and noblemen whom he had brought at the beginning as befitted his royal estate. How could there be any pleasure in the heart of a king who had brought with him so many honourable vassals, well equipped and joyful to serve and help him, and in such a short time saw their corpses being borne before him, with their having added nothing to their honour? You may well believe that, given the great distress that the king was suffering at the time, on account of these and other troops whom he had lost, a distress shared by those travelling with him, and given the great heartbreak of those who accompanied the dead, any small group of men, who happened to come along strongly determined to harm him, would not take long to inflict all the damage they wished.
In the way we describe, the king made his way until he arrived at the frontier, where everyone shouldered the responsibility of taking their lords for burial in the places where they belonged, while the king went to Seville.
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