The History of the Siege of Lisbon

Let no one think that anyone in the entourage or in that gathering of foreigners had the insolence to tell the king to be quiet, addressing him only with his name at baptism, as if they had once supped from the same plate, those were simply the words of someone talking to himself, just as one says, Shut your trap, which, as anyone accustomed to listening and searching for those subtle meanings that come to say more than the words themselves well knows, really means that the person who spoke is dying to say what he had apparently decided to suppress. Even so, he must reckon with the benevolent curiosity of others in order to remove this tactical obstacle, by raising, for example, a question more or less in these terms, Come now, out with the rest, don't leave us in suspense, but it might turn out otherwise, it depends on the person and the circumstances, in this case the intervention came from Guillaume Vitulo, that evil-looking fellow, who might or might not have been the one with the Long Sword, and with unseemly bluntness, he dared to express his doubts, Our Lord Jesus Christ helps all Christians alike, and so He should, otherwise it would be the end of religion if some were to be treated like sons and others like stepsons. Several crusaders looked disapprovingly at this meddler, but more because of the manner than the substance of his intervention, because when it came to the latter there must have been general agreement that in the king's speech, in addition to à reprehensible avariciousness that might have spoiled everything, there was much petulance and pride, he sounded more like a bishop than a simple king who does not even have the right to use that tide since it is not recognised by the pope, who three years ago did him the great honour of treating him as dux, and he should consider himself fortunate. The silence did not last as long as this explanation might lead you to believe, but it lasted long enough for the atmosphere to become tense and increasingly hostile, Dom Afonso Henriques was displeased at this lack of confidence, and was about to open his mouth, almost certainly to speak his mind, when Saher of Archelles, one of the more diplomatic crusaders, struck a conciliatory note, That the Portuguese should have captured Santarém with a ladder, we are in no doubt, God assisting as on that memorable occasion when He allowed the walls of Jericho to fall to the sound of trumpets, not even blown by seven warriors but by seven priests, nor is it so very surprising that the Portuguese should have carried out such carnage, when in that same city of Jericho not only were men, women, children and the elderly slaughtered, but also the oxen, sheep and donkeys, what we find really odd is that any man, even though a king, should rashly invoke the name of the Lord, whose will, as we know, only manifests itself where and when He so wishes, not in response to prayers, pleas and supplications, and as for the question of sons and stepsons, I have nothing to say.