148 - How Lourenço Martins had desired to kill Vasco Porcalho and the Master told him that he should not do so
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 January 2024
Summary
As soon as the Master reached Évora, he thereupon took his leave of the queen in order to go to the lands held by his Order and made a pilgrimage on foot to Santa Maria de Benavila, fulfilling the vow he had made while imprisoned. Leaving there, he went to Veiros where he found his steward Lourenço Martins, whom we have previously mentioned, now set free though he had not had restored what was taken from him. The Master told him everything that had happened to him during his imprisonment and the conversation he had had with the queen after his release and what she had said about Vasco Porcalho. To this, Lourenço Martins said:
‘My lord, you well know that I was arrested when you were, and that everything I was found to possess was seized. It appears that everything that was done to you and to me was caused by the things that this traitor went about saying. So, it is well that he be rewarded for his evil and not escape death for saying such a wicked thing as that which he said. Leave the responsibility for carrying out this deed to me and, without your getting involved, I intend to kill him in the near future.’
The Master said that he was very grateful for this and held it as a great service to him. That very night, the Master thought this matter over and the next day took him to one side, saying, ‘Lourenço Martins, I have considered what we spoke about yesterday, and I don't think it a good idea for you to kill this man, for two reasons. First, you know well how this woman is skilled in wrongdoing and well versed in great trickery. Since she saw that she could not carry through her wicked intentions in respect of me while I was in prison, it is possible that she thought of telling me this so that I might be moved to kill this man, in an angry frame of mind and believing that the inexplicable thing that was done to me was caused by him. That way, he would die without good cause, thus bringing great sin upon my soul, and I would find myself forced to leave the kingdom and would have to go outside its bounds. By that means, she would be free of me.
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- The Chronicles of Fernão LopesVolume 2. The Chronicle of King Fernando of Portugal, pp. 254 - 255Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2023