The History of the Siege of Lisbon

It soon became clear that knight Heinrich had no intention of wasting time for no sooner had he arrived at the Porta de Ferro than he was discussing with Mem Ramires the number of men he needed for this ambitious project, starting at once with the felling of the trees in those parts, some produced by nature, others planted by the Moors themselves, who could not have foreseen that they were literally providing wood for their own sacrifice, these are, let us repeat once more, the ironies of destiny. But we must go no further with these descriptions, without first mentioning the excitement caused by the arrival of the knight and his retinue, and little wonder, for here was a foreign technician, a German, if you please, which is to be a technician twice over, some, sceptical by nature or persuaded by others, were cautious about the enterprise and its outcome, others felt it was wrong to condemn something that had not yet had time to prove its worth, finally the practical and impartially-minded prevailed by acknowledging from the evidence that it was preferable to fight the Moors in direct confrontation and at the same height rather than have them up there throwing down stones and taking advantage of the laws of gravity, with us down below suffering the effects. Detached from these polemical matters relating to the military-cum-industrial enterprise that was under way, and with eyes only for the woman arriving on a litter, Mogueime could scarcely believe his good fortune. Never more would he need to go prowling around the encampment of Graça, in constant danger of running into a military police patrol, wanting to know, What are you doing here so far away from your own camp, now the mountain truly came to the Prophet, not because the Prophet did not want to go to the mountain, we are all reliable witnesses of how hard he tried, but because above the Prophet as we know there is the sergeant-major, the second lieutenant, the captain, and, this being a time of war, there are even fewer passes for leave than opportunities, even when assisted by invention. This Ouroana who is arriving, if she does not spend all her time shut away in her tent waiting for knight Heinrich to interrupt his carpentry in order to relieve inside her the anxieties which can so easily pass from a soul that wants to be mystical with God to the flesh that only longs to be mystical with flesh, this Ouroana, taking into account the reduced space in this theatre of operations, will be much more often and more readily in sight, when strolling and daydreaming through the encampment or when standing on the river-bank to watch the porpoises leap, during those tranquil hours we associate with evening, when the troops go off to try and recover from their exertions during the fierce heat of the day and the even fiercer heat of battle, It is to be hoped, meanwhile, that all efforts will now be concentrated on building those towers, because given the shortage of able-bodied men it would be tantamount to suicide to disperse them in activities with little chance of success, except for the odd diversion intended to keep the enemy occupied, so that the carpenters can get on in peace with their risky task. In his annotations to Osbern's letter, Fray Rogeiro provided, though he would make no mention of it in the definitive version, a detailed description of knight Heinrich's arrival at the encampment at the Porta de Ferro, including a certain reference, clearly irresistible, to the woman accompanying him, Ouroana in name, as lovely as the dawn, as mysterious as moonrise, to cite the words of the friar, which his own chastening prudence, on the one hand, and the delicate modesty of the person to whom these words were being addressed, on the other, advised him to erase. Now it is quite possible that this and other repressed stirrings of the soul might have been the cause, by means of sublimation, of the care with which Fray Rogeiro began to follow the sayings and doings of the German knight until this point, but above all after his unfortunate, but in no sense ignominious death, as will become clear in time. Putting it more clearly, we would say that because he was unable to satisfy his lust for Ouroana, Fray Rogeiro could find no better excuse, beside one he kept to himself, than to praise to the skies the man who enjoyed her favours. When it comes to human nature, you can expect anything.