the eyes of a heretic as a punishment, but out of compassion then restored them. Rising quickly from his pallet and picking up a lamp, Fray Rogeiro went down to the estuary, giving a fright to many a sentinel who thought they were seeing a ghost, stepped into a boat and, straining at the oars, crossed to the other side. It says here that St Antony miraculously repaired two broken glasses and restored spilled wine to its cask for a woman who pleaded his intercession, thus showing that miracles can be repeated without their efficacy being diminished in the slightest. Where Fray Rogeiro found the necessary strength for the Herculean task assigned him, it is difficult to say, unless fear itself drove him on, but he lost no time in opening the grave and removing the squire's corpse, which he carried on his back to the boat, and breaking out into a cold and hot sweat, returned to the point of his departure, carried the heavy burden uphill as far as'Sao Vicente, and alongside the knight's tomb he dug another grave and reburied the squire's corpse. It says here that when St Antony was in Sicily, he saw one of his devotees fall into a swamp and immediately fished her out unscathed and spotlessly clean. Fray Rogeiro entered his tent and slept like a log for the rest of the night, and when he woke up next morning and remembered what had happened, he was not only suspicious, for his hands and habit were soiled with mud and other disagreeable stains, but outraged at the ingratitude of the knight who had not even come to thank him after so rudely interrupting his precious sleep. It says here that when St Antony was in Rome, he preached in only one language yet people of various nationalities understood him perfectly. Now then, this feat was not the last of knight Heinrich's wondrous manifestations, for it came about that at the head of his tombstone there appeared a palm similar to those the pilgrims would carry in their hands from Jerusalem three centuries later. It says here that in Ferrara, St Antony rescued a woman from an unjust death being plotted by her husband, by making a new-born child speak and declare its mother's innocence. The palm grew, produced leaves and became increasingly tall, and the king came and all the soldiers and ordinary people from the encampments and together they offered heartfelt thanks to God. It says here that in Rimini where he was stoned by the heretics, St Antony walked along the seashore and calling upon the fish, he delivered an admirable sermon. The sick began arriving and took leaves from that palm, and placing them on their neck they were cured there and then of all their ailments. It says here, that passing from Rimini to Padua, St Antony converted twenty-seven thieves with a single sermon. Such wonder, such an edifying miracle. It says here that after firmly reprimanding a boy who had kicked his own mother, the youth was so upset and sorry about the wrong he had done, that he went off to fetch a cutlass and without any warning cut off the offending foot. Others who were sick gathered the palms and then scorched and crushed them, and mixing the dust with water or wine, they drank it, whereupon all their aches and pains disappeared at once. It says here that the penitent youth lost so much blood that he was in danger of losing his life, and his cries brought everyone running from nearby to find out what was happening, and weeping bitterly he explained that Fray Antony had told him this was the punishment he deserved, and at that moment his mother arrived and protested that the friar had murdered her son, attributing the latter's rashness to the saint's excessive zeal. News of the palm's healing powers soon spread, so much so that very shortly the earth was stripped bare of both leaves and stalks, and because there was no effective vigilance, some came at night and pulled up that which had remained underground and carried it off. It says here that St Antony rushed to the youth's assistance and picking up the foot severed from his leg, he fitted it back into position with his own hands, made a quick sign of the cross, and the leg and foot were joined up as firmly and securely as before. There would be no end to the blessed inventory of knight Heinrich's miraculous deeds if we were to list all of them in every detail, besides it would take us well beyond the scope of this narrative, which is not simply to trace out the destiny of Lisbon, something everyone knows, but to explain how we managed, without the help of the crusaders, to bring off the patriotic enterprise of our King Afonso, the first with this name and first in everything. It says here that when St Antony was preaching in Milan, he appeared in Lisbon and had his father acquitted from a debt he did not owe, and it also says that when he was preaching in Padua, he appeared at the same time in Lisbon, where he made a dead man speak and rescued his father from death. Now then, after having witnessed so many marvellous events, two deaf-mutes who had arrived with the fleet, however no one knows whether English, Aquitanian, Breton, Fleming or from Cologne, went one day to the knight's tomb and lay down beside it, pleading with the utmost devotion that he might show them mercy and compassion. It says here that these were the most significant of the miracles worked by St Antony during his lifetime, but that innumerable miracles were recorded after his death and of such repute that they have compared more than favourably with those instigated by his actual presence, and to give but one example, St Antony made a sterile woman fertile, and transformed the shapeless lump she conceived into a comely creature, thus converting half a miracle into a complete one. Now as the two deaf-mutes lay there, they both fell asleep and knight Heinrich, in the guise of a pilgrim, appeared to them in a dream, and in his hand he was carrying a staff fashioned from palm and he spoke to those two young men and told them, Arise and rejoice, go forth in the knowledge that because of my merits and those of the martyrs who lie here, you have gained the Lord's grace, and that grace goes with you, and that said, he disappeared, and on awakening they found they could hear and also speak, but with such a stutter that it was impossible to tell which language they were speaking, whether it was English, Aquitanian, Breton, Flemish, or the dialect of Cologne, or, as many claimed, the language of the Portuguese, And then, Then the two stutterers returned to the knight's grave with even greater devotion, if that is possible, but their prayers were to no avail, and stutterers they remained for the rest of their lives, and only to be expected, for when it comes to miracles knight Heinrich cannot be compared to St Antony.
Let's have some dinner, suggested Maria Sara, and Raimundo Silva asked her, What do we have for eating, Perhaps some fish, perhaps a capon, but if miracles can also work in reverse, don't be surprised if a toad jumps out of the fiying-pan.
...
MORE THAN TWO MONTHS have passed since the siege began, three months beyond the last payment of the soldiers' wages. Dom Afonso Henriques had high expectations, as we were informed in due course, of the skills of military engineering of knight Heinrich, and also of those unnamed Frenchmen and Normans, but the holy man's calamitous death, even though the mother of further prodigies, and the destruction of the tower that would be used to attack the wall south of the Porta de Ferro, caused the warring zeal of all to pass from incandescent heat to a gentle flame, as may be seen from the delay in the work of those foreigners and from the endless arguments in which the Portuguese master-carpenters waste their time, unable to agree whether it is worth repeating such and such of the German's inventions, by respecting the patent or introducing structural modifications that, in a manner of speaking, might add a national touch to the future tower. The king's aforesaid expectations had been strengthened for two reasons, the one stemming directly from the other, the first reason being that the favourable outcome of the assault meant that the city had been captured, and therefore, the second reason, he could disband the soldiers and send them home until the next campaign, thus saving on wages. Dom Afonso had been honest enough not to conceal the dire straits in which he found himself, his treasury depleted; something that could be turned to his advantage, because simplicity and candour are not qualities commonly found amongst those who govern the world with the exception of our own rulers. But this method of playing politics is never duly rewarded, and here we now have a king with the desirable city of Lisbon before his eyes but out of reach, and obliged moreover to scrape the bottom of his coffers to pay an army that is already grumbling about the delay. Of course this is not the first time that the Crown is late in paying, especially in a state of war, we need only think of the vicissitudes during a time of conflict, the problem of collecting money, transport, the question of exchanges, all these factors combined means that the summons to be paid is usually late and at an inconvenient hour, causing such distress that the poor soldier often dies before receiving his wages, sometimes a matter of minutes beforehand.
If only Dom Afonso Henriques had obtained the money a few days earlier then the history of this siege would have been different, not in its known conclusion, but in its intermediate results. The fact is that with the passage of time, it was already mid-September, and no one knowing how and where this unprecedented idea had come from, the soldiers began to mutter amongst themselves that being as manly or unmanly as the crusaders, they should be considered just as deserving of recompense, and that being subjected to the same death, they should have exactly the same rights as the others when it came to being paid. Putting it bluntly, what they wanted to know was what papal bulls gave the crusaders the mandate to plunder, and it has to be said that most of them had lost any interest in the enterprise, while the wretched Portuguese soldiers had to be content with miserable wages as they watched the foreigners feasting and rejoicing. Rumours of these stirrings and encounters reached the captains, but their
