The History of the Siege of Lisbon

News arrived that another burial site had been consecrated on a plain facing the fortress, beneath the slope on the left-hand side of the royal encampment, because of the work involved in transporting corpses across ravines and marshes as far as the Monte de'São Fransisco, who arrived more battered than a load offish and, in this hot weather, smelling worse than the living. As with this new site for burial, the cemetery of'São Vicente is divided into two sections, Portuguese on one side, foreigners on the other, to all appearances a waste of space yet responding, in the final analysis, to that desire for occupation inherent in human nature, and in this sense serving both the living and the dead. When his hour comes, knight Heinrich will end up here, for whom that other hour is at hand when he will prove the tactical excellence of the assault towers, now that direct attacks on gates and walls have met with failure, the first item on the strategic plan. What he does not know, nor could anyone have told him, is that the moment the hopeful eyes of the soldiers are upon him, with the exception of the envious who already existed even then, this very moment, on the threshold of glory, will be that of his unfortunate death, unfortunate in military terms, let's say, because to that other and greater glory, was finally destined he who had come from so far away. But let us not precipitate. The thirty native casualties who lost their lives during the attempted assault on the Porta de Ferro still have to be buried, their corpses will be transported by boat to the other bank of the estuary then carried uphill on improvised litters made from rough pieces of wood. On the edge of the common grave they will be stripped of any clothing that might be used by the living, unless they are much too bloodstained, and even these will be snatched up by the less scrupulous and squeamish, so that generally speaking the dead are lowered into their grave as naked as the earth that receives them.

Lined up, with their bare feet touching the first fringe of mud kept moist and soft by the high tides and waves, the corpses are subjected to the stares and taunts of the victorious Moors up on the battlements, as they he there waiting to be carried on board. There is some delay in transporting them because there are more volunteers than are actually needed, which may seem surprising when the task is so painful and lugubrious, even if we take into account the enticement of being rewarded with clothing, but in fact everyone is trying to get hired as a boatman or drover, because just recently, there alongside the cemetery, prostitutes have gathered from the ravines and outlying districts where they were awaiting the outcome of the war, if it were to be a case of veni, vidi, vici, any precarious arrangement would do, but if it turned out to be a long, drawn-out siege, as looks likely, forcing them to look for greater comfort, they would select some shady spot out of the heat where they might rest from their labours, and set up some wattle huts and use branches to make an awning, for a bed requiring nothing more than an armful of hay or entwined plants which in time will turn to humus and merge with the ashes of the dead. It would not take much learning to observe, as much today as in those medieval times, despite the Church's disapproval of classical similes, how Eros and Thanatos were paired off, in this case with Hermes as intermediary, for it was common practice to use the clothes of the dead to pay for the services of women who, being in the infancy of their art and the nation as yet in its early stages, still accompanied the raptures of their clients with genuine pleasure. Confronted with this, the following discussion will come as no surprise, I'll go, I'll go, which is not a sign of compassion for their lost comrades nor a pretext to escape the contingencies on the front line of battle for a few hours, but rather the insatiable cravings of the flesh, their gratification dependent, would you believe it, on the likes and dislikes on the part of some sergeant-major.