The Collected Novels of José Saramago (225 page)

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.

M
ORE 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 pretension was so absurd and opposed to all laws and customs, whether written or transmitted by custom, that their only reaction was to shrug their shoulders and say dismissively, They’re being childish, by which they meant, They’re being small-minded, in those days people had some regard for etymology, unlike today when you cannot call anyone childish, even though patently minor, without a summons being served immediately for slander. Undecided, the captains sent a missive to Dom Afonso Henriques advising him to pay out the wages without further delay, inasmuch as discipline was breaking down and the troops were becoming more restive each time the sergeants ordered them to attack, muttering to themselves, Why doesn’t he go, after all he’s wearing the stripes, and the commentary was most unfair, for no sergeant ever stayed behind in the trenches to watch the outcome of an assault, when he should advance to gather the laurels or remain to censure the cowardly deserters. At the end of yet another week, when subversive opinions were no longer being expressed in whispers but proclaimed aloud in gatherings either spontaneous or concerted, word spread that the soldiers were finally about to be paid. The captains sighed with relief, but soon held their breath when the pay-masters reported that no one had come forward to be paid. In the king’s own encampment the turn-out was very small, and even that had to be interpreted as the result of intimidation, for the soldiers were in danger of coming face to face with Dom Afonso Henriques at any minute who would ask them, So, you’ve been to receive your wages, and where would the timid private find the courage to reply, No, I have not, Your Majesty, unless they pay me the same rate as the crusaders I shall be doing no more fighting.

The captains’ greatest fear was that the Moors might learn of the disaffections spreading throughout the Christian encampments, and should take advantage of the unrest and sally forth from the five gates simultaneously sweeping some out to sea and sending others down the slopes to their death. Therefore, before it was too late, they summoned, not the officers for there were none, but a group of soldiers who, because they were always making their voices heard, had gained a certain ascendancy over the others, and fate decreed that at the Porta de Ferro, one of those soldiers should happen to be Mogueime whose love for Ouroana did not distract him from his responsibilities to society and from pursuing personal and collective interests. So three delegates went to the captain and when questioned they presented their case. Mem Ramires’s impassioned speech, no doubt like those delivered in the other encampments, was full of patriotic exhortations, yet for all their novelty, they failed to dissuade the soldiers, and even the loud threats that followed produced little effect, and finally turning to Mogueime, an emotional Mem Ramires exclaimed, How is it possible that you Mogueime of all people could be involved in this conspiracy, you, who were my comrade in arms at Santarém, where you generously loaned me your shoulders and height so that I might throw a rope-ladder up to the battlements that all of us later climbed, and now, forgetful of the vital role you played on that glorious day, having repudiated your captain and shown ingratitude towards your king, there you are scheming with a gang of ambitious scoundrels, how is it possible, whereupon Mogueime, unperturbed, simply replied, Captain, if you should need to climb on to my shoulders again in order to reach the tallest battlement in Lisbon with your sword, your hands or a ladder, you may count on me, let’s go at once, if you want, but that is not the question, our concern is that we should be paid like the foreigners, and take note, Captain, just how reasonable our demands are, for we have not come to ask that the foreigners should be paid what we have been paid. The other two delegates assented in silence, for such eloquence needed no repeating, and the conference ended.

Mem Ramires sent his report to the king, which was essentially the same as that of the other captains, suggesting with all respect that His Royal Highness should summon the leaders of this movement in the armed forces, who, perhaps in the presence of Your Majesty, might be rather less audacious and unreasonable. Dom Afonso Henriques was hesitant about making any such concession, but the situation was serious, the Moors might suddenly come to realise that their enemies were vacillating, and as a last resort, but furious, he sent for the leaders. When the five men entered the tent, the king with a fierce expression, his powerful arms crossed over his chest, gave vent to his wrath, I cannot decide whether I should order the feet that have brought you here to be cut off or your heads from which, should you dare, you will spout defiant words, and he stared with blazing eyes at the tallest of the delegates, who was,
as one might have suspected, Mogueime. Now then, it was nice to see, perhaps only possible in those innocent times, how Mogueime grew in stature and his voice rang out clearly as he replied, If Your Royal Highness orders our head and feet to be cut off, your entire army will be without head or feet. Dom Afonso Henriques could not believe his ears, that a hired common soldier from the infantry should presume to claim for his base fraternity privileges reserved for a cavalry of noblemen, for there is a real army, the foot-soldiers only serving to surround the enemy on the battlefield or to form a cordon during a siege such as this one. Even so, and because nature had endowed him with some sense of humour, in keeping with the circumstances at that time, he found the delegate’s reply amusing, not so much for the substance of the argument, which he thought more than debatable, but because of the felicitous play on words. Turning to the other four leaders who had also been convened, he said in jovial mockery, This country would appear to be getting off to a bad start, and then, altering his expression and looking directly at Mogueime, he added, I’ve seen you before, who are you, I took part in the conquest of Santarém, Your Majesty, replied Mogueime, and it was I who lent my shoulders to captain Mem Ramires who is standing over there, And do you think that gives you the right to come here to complain and make impossible demands, Not at all, Your Majesty, but my comrades insisted that I should act as their spokesman, And what exactly do you want, Your Majesty knows what we want, that we should be given our fair share of the booty, for we have come here prepared to shed our blood which when spilled is the same colour as that of the foreign crusaders, just as we will stink like them if death should strike and our corpses rot, And if I should refuse you any share of the booty, Then, Sir, you will capture the city with the few crusaders who have stayed behind, This is an act of insurrection you are committing, Sir, I beseech you not to take this attitude, for while it is true that there is some desire for gain on our part, bear in mind that it is also an act of justice to pay the same wages for the same task, and this new country will get off to a bad start unless it is fair-minded from the outset, remember, Sir, the words of our forefathers, That which is born crooked rarely ever grows straight, do not let Portugal become crooked, Sir, I implore you, Who taught you to speak with more eloquence than a prelate, The words are there, Sir, in the air, anyone can learn them. Dom Afonso Henriques was no longer scowling and stroking his beard with his right hand began to think, and there was something sad about his expression as if questioning so many of the decisions he had taken, and those others, as yet unknown, that he would have to weigh up in future according to his state of mind when he came to confront them, and lost in thought for several minutes, with a silence no one there present dared to interrupt, he finally spoke, telling them, Begone, your captains will inform you anon of the outcome of our discussions.

There was rejoicing in the five encampments, and even on the Monte da Graça all fears were dispelled when, the troops having gathered on parade, the heralds arrived to announce that in his bounty the king had decided that all the soldiers, no matter their rank or seniority, would have the same right to plunder the city, in keeping with the customs of the day and excepting the booty reserved for the crown and that promised to the crusaders. There was so much cheering and at such length, that the Moors genuinely feared that the moment had come for the final assault, although there had been no earlier preparations to warn them. No such assault, in fact, took place, but from the walls above they could see that the encampments were in a ferment of activity, the men like ants excited at the sudden discovery of a table laden with food at the side of a road where hitherto they had carried off nothing except dry awns of wheat and the odd crumb. Within an hour the master-carpenters had reached an agreement, within two hours the joiners were hard at work on the rot that had slowly been corroding the towers under construction, a figurative expression, since hylotrupes and anobia are not endowed with cutting and perforating instruments capable of coping with green wood and devouring it, and within three hours someone had the idea that by digging a deep tunnel under the wall and then filling it up with wood and setting it alight, the heat of this furnace would expand the stones and cause the joints to crumble, whereby, with a little assistance from God as well, the entire wall would come tumbling down before you could say amen. Here the sceptics will murmur and those who are always denigrating human nature that these men, formerly insensitive to any love for the fatherland and indifferent to the future of generations to come, out of their love for filthy lucre were now revealing themselves, not only by their hard physical labour, but also in the invisible and superior operations of soul and mind, but it has to be said that they are much deceived, because what moved wills and generated happiness there stemmed infinitely more from the spiritual satisfaction of forging equal justice for everyone as an integral and unassailable right.