176 - How the Portuguese fought against the Castilians and defeated them

Summary

The next day, Thursday, 1 January 1399, the Portuguese began to make their way with the cattle and thirteen prisoners that they were taking with them, trying to reach Portugal as quickly as they could. Going along watchfully, they saw, in the distance, that there were thirty light horsemen drawn up on a hill. When they saw them, they said to each other, ‘Surely those are the men who are coming after us.’ In fact, they had come to see the lie of the land. All the Portuguese immediately gathered together in battle formation with their lances raised, in order to look greater in number.

Then Álvaro Mendes rode off with ten horsemen to see who the men were. He went close enough for them to hear him and said, ‘What manner of men are you and who's that captain approaching there?’

‘The captains’, they said, ‘who are approaching, are such as will today cause you great sorrow.’

The Castilians then asked, ‘And you, what manner of men are you and who is that captain who is approaching?’

‘You shall know today’, Álvaro Mendes replied, ‘that the captains who are approaching are such as will please you little.’

Thus, he took leave of them without there being any further exchange of words. He then turned back to his own men, who did not stop advancing with their flag unfurled, displaying Diogo Nunes's coat of arms and carried by a squire, one of the king's criados, whose name was Gomes Martins.

Almost immediately, they came to a river they call Aguas de Miel, which is within Castile, but it was so full that the horses had to swim across, as did the cattle and all the men. When the Castilians saw the Portuguese plunging into the river, they thought they were fleeing and came out into the open. Once over the river, the Portuguese climbed over a hill they call Bramadera and went down into the valley, dismounted and faced the enemy's advance. They drew up their battle formation like this: on each side of the flag were placed ten men wearing bascinets; they were flanked by those men without bascinets, bearing lances. The foot soldiers and the crossbowmen occupied either side in equal numbers. The pages, horses, cattle and prisoners were all behind them, so as not to have the Castilian light horsemen at their back.