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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 December 2023
Not long after these squires arrived, the Commander of Zalamea and the Commander of Calatrava rode out one night from Vila Viçosa with a number of horsemen and foot soldiers. They carried out raids around Évora and throughout that district. While they were stealthily advancing in the middle of the night, a Portuguese youth, native to Borba, Rodrigo Valejo by name, was journeying as page to a Castilian called Diego González Maldonado. He ran away from his master on the road at nearly dawn and went to Alandroal to carry the news to Pero Rodrigues, the governor of the town, that those men had made an incursion and raided the area around Évora. He said that there were 200 foot soldiers, including almogávares and others, and 100 on horseback, including some on jennets riding with them. He told the governor the road they were taking and the place they had said they were going to plunder.
When Pero Rodrigues heard this, he was very glad of the news, and much more so were the squires whom Nuno Álvares had sent there, because Vasco Porcalho had given away the property of some of those who were from Vila Viçosa. Pero Rodrigues immediately conferred with them regarding how they thought it best to proceed with such a matter. They all agreed that, although there were many of the enemy, they should go and await them on the road and attack them nonetheless.
Pero Rodrigues at once ordered those he would be taking with him to make themselves ready. With the squires of Nuno Álvares, there were twenty-six horsemen and sixty foot soldiers. They headed for Estremoz, riding as fast as they could as far as the road that runs from Vila Viçosa towards Évora. They took with them the youth who had brought the news, and he led them to the track along which the Castilians had passed, on the foothills of the mountain range. There they agreed to wait for the enemy at the pass where a few men would be as effective as many. Having agreed that they would wait there for whatever fortune God might choose to grant them, the horsemen and foot soldiers took cover in a hollow.
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