The History of the Siege of Lisbon

To transport the body of knight Heinrich to the cemetery of'Sào Vicente along those tortuous paths at the foot of the sheer slope, two paces away from the water to avoid being stoned or something worse, was, as people were already beginning to tell themselves, a most hazardous task. But the nobility of the deceased man and the magnitude of his final achievement justified this difficult undertaking, which after all bears no comparison with the torments suffered by the troops who now find themselves outside the Porta de Ferro and who took this very same route, an episode described somewhat superficially at the time. Four armed guards were carrying the coffin, with an escort of Portuguese soldiers sent by Mem Ramires, and Ouroana walked behind, as is only to be expected of someone who has lost the master whose pride and vanity she served. In other words, since she was no more than a casual concubine, she was not obliged to accompany the cortège, but she felt in all conscience that it would scarcely be fitting as a Christian to deprive him of this last token of respect, death had not separated them any more than life had, master and concubine for several days. Another life, however, instant and pressing, is coming from behind, a soldier who follows at a distance, not the cortège but this woman who on noticing him, asks herself, What do you want from me, man, what do you want from me, and no reply comes, but she knows very well that he wants to take the place of knight Heinrich, not the place he now occupies under a shroud in this swaying coffin, but another place, any old place where the living can surrender their bodies to each other, a real bed, a grassy patch, a pile of hay, a comfortable spot on the sand. Mogueime was in no doubt that Ouroana would be snatched up by some lord who took a fancy to her, this did not worry him, perhaps because, deep down, he was not convinced that one day, even with the assistance of fate, he might lay a finger on her, and if she, because no one really cared for her, should find no other solution than to join up with the women on the other side, not even then would he push open the gate of the hut she occupied in order to satisfy his male lust with a body that, because it was at everyone's disposal, could never be his. This soldier Mogueime who can neither read nor write, who no longer remembers the country where' he was born nor why he was given a name that frankly sounds more Moorish than Christian, this soldier Mogueime, a simple rung on that ladder used to enter Santarém and now in this siege of Lisbon a poorly armed foot-soldier, this soldier Mogueime trails behind Ouroana like someone who knows no other way of avoiding death, while knowing that he will confront it time and time again and refusing to believe that life is no more than a finite series of postponements. But nothing could be further from soldier Mogueime's thoughts, soldier Mogueime wants that woman, and Portuguese poetry has not yet been born.

It was written sometime earlier, thanks to one of those lucid insights into the future that have no rational explanation, that one day Mogueime washed his bloodstained hands in the waters of the estuary, and that the corpses of two soldiers from the royal encampment who had taken Ouroana by force were subsequently discovered, both of them having been stabbed to death. Knowing with what agility Ouroana wielded knight Heinrich's dagger against the first armed man who tried to grab her, then we can easily imagine that in order to avenge her offended honour, the said Ouroana, unseen by witnesses in the waning light of evening or dawn, at an opportune moment, when her aggressors got within reach, plunged her dagger into their stomachs just below their coats of mail. These soldiers were definitely murdered, but not by Ouroana. But the fertile imagination runs on and bearing in mind that Mogueime's infatuation might have driven him out of jealousy to commit these crimes, the earlier description of Mogueime washing his bloodstained hands would make sense were it the blood of those two wretches which the waters quickly dissolved and swept away just as life evaporates with time. This might have been what happened but, in fact, nothing of the kind, the deaths of these men were mere coincidence, coincidences existed even then although no one paid much attention. One day when they had finally spoken to each other and entered into other intimacies, Ouroana would ask Mogueime if he was responsible for the murder of those lecherous soldiers, No, he replied, thinking to himself that he should have killed them in order to be more deserving of this woman's love.