The History of the Siege of Lisbon

Without the help of the crusaders, who are already way out on the open sea, Raimundo Silva finds himself deprived of the military weight of these twelve thousand men in whom we had placed so many hopes, leaving him with no more than roughly the same number of Portuguese, not nearly enough men to constitute a vanguard capable of surrounding the entire city, and being in full view of the Moors, they will find it impossible to move away together, to carry out an attack, for example, on one of the gates, without their movements alerting those inside that they have sufficient time to reinforce the position about to be attacked by those on the outside who have to pass over hill and dale and a fair amount of water. It becomes necessary, therefore, to reconsider their strategy, and in order to examine the theatre of operations in loco, Raimundo Silva once more climbs up to the castle from whose lofty towers he can survey the terrain, rather like a chessboard, where the pawns and knights will fight each other, objectively speaking, beneath the gaze of the king and bishops, perhaps with the assistance of several additional towers, built, if the suggestion of one of the foreigners who remained with us should be taken up, Let's raise them to the height of the walls and push them up close, so that all we have to do is to jump over and kill the infidels, It sounds easy, replied the king, but we must see if we have enough carpenters, Don't let that worry you, retorted the other, that Heinrich who bore his name and was a man of great piety, fortunately we live in an age when every man can turn his hand to anything, sow grain, harvest the wheat, mill it, bake bread, and eventually eat it, unless he dies beforehand, or, as in this case, construct a wooden tower and climb it, sword in hand, to kill the Moor or be killed by him.