When Roales had been taken in this way, the king departed towards Valderas with the duke and his men.

Sancho de Velasco, the bastard son of Pedro Fernández de Velasco, was stationed to guard this town, with eighty horsemen. Also there were Gonzalo Fernández de Aguilar, Gómez Yáñez Maldorme, and Gonzalo de Paredes, a famous crossbowman and a fine shot, along with those on the king of Castile's payroll, as well as Sir Robert de Braquemont, with a force of Frenchmen and other foreigners who had been posted to guard that district. Thus, the town was well supplied with all that was needful for its defence.

The king had with him a small scaling ladder and a siege engine, should they be necessary to deal with any town wall. Because this wall was in poor condition, made of wattle and daub and weak in places, the king and the duke resolved to attack the town and take it by force, to cause other towns to fear them. When the scaling ladder and the siege engine were set up and everyone was assigned to battle stations and armed, even before the trumpets were sounded, those within took great fright at that hoist the like of which they were not accustomed to see, especially Sancho de Velasco, who was in command of the town. He saw clearly that there was nothing to prevent the town from being entered by force. So, he sent forth an armoured knight from the town, who shouted to ask if Pedro Afonso da Âncora, a Portuguese knight, was there, for he was being summoned to receive the greyhound that he had been promised by him. The king, who heard him, had Pedro Afonso da Âncora summoned, and asked him how it was that he was being called for by one of the men of the town. The latter said that he remembered no such promise, but that within there was a brother of his wife's and some relatives of his, and he believed that they were calling him to be a mediator between the king and the men of the town.