King Pedro was also very zealous in the protection of women in his household as well as those of his officials and all the other women among his people. He therefore bestowed great punishments on any men sleeping with married women, maidens, or nuns in orders.

It so happened that in his house there was a Chief Justice called Lourenço Gonçalves, a very intelligent and sensible man. He carried out everything the king ordered him to do and was never corrupted by false offers that interfere with men's judgements. Since the king considered him as loyal and very faithful, he put great trust in him and was very well disposed towards him. This Chief Justice was an important man and enjoyed a high status in his household, was very jovial and a good conversationalist. He was, at that time, in his middle age. His wife, Catalina Tosse by name, was a proud woman, beautiful and very elegant, graceful in manners and very refined.

At that time, there lived with the king a good and valiant squire whose name was Afonso Madeira. He was young, rich, distinguished then for his many remarkable qualities, a great jouster and horseman, a great hunter of large and small game, a fit and very dexterous fighter who had mastered all the skills and arts that every man of distinction is required to know. For all those reasons, the king loved him immensely and was very generous in the favours he granted to him.

This squire came to fall in love with Catalina Tosse and, not caring about the dangers that could befall him as a result of that affection, he plunged so deep in his love for her that he could not bear her to be out of his sight and was unable to restrain his desire, so besotted was he. But since neither place nor time was appropriate for him to speak to her as he would have liked and in order to have the opportunity to entice her into his knavish love relationship, he struck up such a great friendship with the herberger, that wherever the king travelled, whether it was to a town or some village, Afonso Madeira would always be given lodgings next to or very near the Chief Justice.