The History of the Siege of Lisbon

The following morning, Raimundo Silva awoke with a clear idea as to how the troops should finally be deployed on the ground for the assault, including certain strategic details of his own making. A good sleep, assisted by intermittent dreams, had dispelled, once and for all, any remaining doubts, natural in someone who had never been trained to cope with the hazards and dangers of a real war, not to mention the onerous responsibilities of being in command. It was more than obvious that any so-called surprise element was now out of the question, that sudden attack taking the enemy by surprise before they can respond or show any reaction, especially when they find themselves unexpectedly besieged, because by the time they realise what is happening it is already much too late. With all this flaunting of military force, this coming and going of envoys, these manoeuvres to surround the city, the Moors are all too aware of what to expect, proof of which are those terraces swarming with soldiers, those walls spiked with lances. Raimundo Silva finds himself in an interesting situation, that of someone who is playing chess on his own and knows the final outcome beforehand, prepared to play as if he did not know and determined, moreover, not to favour consciously either the one side or the other in this contest, the black or the white, here the Moors or the Christians, according to the colours. And he has shown this quite openly, as can be seen from the sympathy, not to say esteem, with which he has treated the infidels, especially the muezzin, not to mention the respect he has shown when describing the city's spokesman, his eloquence and nobility when compared with a certain coldness, impatience, and even cynicism, that always comes to the surface whenever he refers to the Christians. However, we should not conclude that Raimundo Silva's sympathies are reserved entirely for the Moors, his attitude should be seen as one of spontaneous charity because, much as he might try, he cannot forget that in the end the Moors will be defeated, besides since he, too, is a Christian, though not a practising one, he deplores certain forms of hypocrisy, envy and infamy that are given carte blanche in his own camp. In a word, the game is on the table, so far only the pawns and several knights have moved, and in Raimundo Silva's wise opinion an assault should be carried out simultaneously on the five gates, Lisbon has two less than the city of Thebes, with the objective of testing the military strength of the besieged and, with any luck, one of their battalions may prove to be weak, which would soon secure our victory and greatly reduce the number of innocent victims on both sides.