44. CHAPTER XLIV.
How King Ferdinand foraged the Vega; and of the
battle of the Bridge of Pinos, and the fate of the two
Moorish brothers.
Muley Abdalla el Zagal had been under a
spell of ill fortune, ever since the suspicious death
of the old king his brother. Success had deserted
his standard; and, with his fickle subjects, want of
success was one of the greatest crimes in a sovereign.
He found his popularity declining, and he lost all confidence
in his people. The christian army marched
in open defiance through his territories, and sat down
deliberately before his fortresses; yet he dared not
lead forth his legions to oppose them, lest the inhabitants
of the Albaycin, ever ripe for a revolt, should
rise and shut the gates of Granada against his return.
Every few days, some melancholy train entered
the metropolis, the inhabitants of some captured
town, bearing the few effects that had been spared
them, and weeping and bewailing the desolation of
their homes. When the tidings arrived that Illora
and Moclin had fallen, the people were seized with
consternation. “The right eye of Granada is extinguished,”
exclaimed they; “the shield of Granada is
broken: what shall protect us from the inroad of the
foe?” When the survivors of the garrisons of those
towns arrived, with downcast looks, bearing the
marks of battle, and destitute of arms and standards,
the populace reviled them in their wrath; but they
answered, “we fought as long as we had force to
fight, or walls to shelter us; but the christians laid
our towns and battlements in ruins, and we looked
in vain for aid from Granada.”
The alcaydes of Illora and Moclin were brothers;
they were alike in prowess, and the bravest among
the Moorish chevaliers. They had been the most
distinguished in all tilts and tourneys which graced
the happier days of Granada, and had distinguished
themselves in the sterner conflicts of the field. Acclamation
had always followed their banners, and
they had long been the delight of the people. Yet
now, when they returned after the capture of their
fortresses, they were followed by the unsteady populace
with execrations. The hearts of the alcaydes
swelled with indignation; they found the ingratitude
of their countrymen still more intolerable than the
hostility of the christians.
Tidings came, that the enemy was advancing with
his triumphant legions to lay waste the country about
Granada. Still El Zagal did not dare to take the
field. The two alcaydes of Illora and Moclin stood
before him: “We have defended your fortresses,”
said they, “until we were almost buried under their
ruins, and for our reward we receive scoffings and
revilings; give us, oh king, an opportunity where
knightly valor may signalize itself, not shut up behind
stone walls, but in the open conflict of the field.
The enemy approaches to lay our country desolate:
give us men to meet him in the advance, and let
shame light upon our heads if we be found wanting
in the battle!”
The two brothers were sent forth, with a large
force of horse and foot; El Zagal intended, should
they be successful, to issue forth with his whole
force, and by a decisive victory, repair the losses he
had suffered. When the people saw the well-known
standards of the brothers going forth to battle, there
was a feeble shout; but the alcaydes passed on with
stern countenances, for they knew the same voices
would curse them were they to return unfortunate.
They cast a farewell look upon fair Granada, and
upon the beautiful fields of their infancy, as if for
these they were willing to lay down their lives, but
not for an ungrateful people.
The army of Ferdinand had arrived within two
leagues of Granada, at the Bridge of Pinos, a pass
famous in the wars of the Moors and christians for
many a bloody conflict. It was the pass by which
the Castilian monarchs generally made their inroads,
and was capable of great defence, from the ruggedness
of the country and the difficulty of the bridge.
The king, with the main body of the army, had attained
the brow of a hill, when they beheld the advance
guard, under the marques of Cadiz and the
Master of Santiago, furiously attacked by the enemy,
in the vicinity of the bridge. The Moors rushed to
the assault with their usual shouts, but with more
than usual ferocity. There was a hard struggle at
the bridge; both parties knew the importance of
that pass.
The king particularly noted the prowess of two
Moorish cavaliers, alike in arms and devices, and
whom by their bearing and attendance he perceived
to be commanders of the enemy. They were the
two brothers, the alcaydes of Illora and Moclin.
Wherever they turned, they carried confusion and
death into the ranks of the christians; but they
fought with desperation, rather than valor. The
count de Cabra, and his brother Don Martin de Cordova,
pressed forward with eagerness against them;
but having advanced too precipitately, were surrounded
by the foe, and in imminent danger. A
young christian knight, seeing their peril, hastened
with his followers to their relief. The king recognised
him for Don Juan de Arragon, count of Ribargoza,
his own nephew; for he was illegitimate son
of the duke of Villahermosa, illegitimate brother of
king Ferdinand. The splendid armor of Don Juan,
and the sumptuous caparison of his steed, rendered
him a brilliant object of attack. He was assailed on
all sides, and his superb steed slain under him; yet
still he fought valiantly, bearing for a time the brunt
of the fight, and giving the exhausted forces of the
count de Cabra time to recover breath.
Seeing the peril of these troops and the general
obstinacy of the fight, the king ordered the royal
standard to be advanced, and hastened, with all his
forces, to the relief of the count de Cabra. At his
approach, the enemy gave way, and retreated towards
the bridge. The two Moorish commanders
endeavored to rally their troops, and animate them
to defend this pass to the utmost: they used prayers,
remonstrances, menaces—but almost in vain. They
could only collect a scanty handful of cavaliers; with
these they planted themselves at the head of the
bridge, and disputed it inch by inch. The fight was
hot and obstinate, for but few could contend hand to
hand, yet many discharged cross-bows and arquebusses
from the banks. The river was covered with
the floating bodies of the slain. The Moorish band
of cavaliers was almost entirely cut to pieces; the
two brothers fell, covered with wounds, upon the
bridge they had so resolutely defended. They had
given up the battle for lost, but had determined not
to return alive to ungrateful Granada.
When the people of the capital heard how devotedly
they had fallen, they lamented greatly their
deaths, and extolled their memory: a column was
erected to their honor in the vicinity of the bridge,
which long went by the name of “the Tomb of the
Brothers.”
The army of Ferdinand now marched on, and
established its camp in the vicinity of Granada. The
worthy Agapida gives many triumphant details of the
ravages committed in the vega, which was again laid
waste; the grain, fruits, and other productions of the
earth, destroyed—and that earthly paradise rendered
a dreary desert. He narrates several fierce but
ineffectual sallies and skirmishes of the Moors, in
defence of their favorite plain; among which, one
deserves to be mentioned, as it records the achievements
of one of the saintly heroes of this war.
During one of the movements of the christian
army, near the walls of Granada, a battalion of fifteen
hundred cavalry, and a large force of foot, had sallied
from the city, and posted themselves near some gardens,
which were surrounded by a canal, and traversed
by ditches, for the purpose of irrigation.
The Moors beheld the duke del Infantado pass by,
with his two splendid battalions; one of men-at-arms,
the other of light cavalry, armed à la gineta. In company
with him, but following as a rear-guard, was
Don Garcia Osorio, the belligerent bishop of Jaen,
attended by Francisco Bovadillo, the corregidor of
his city, and followed by two squadrons of men-at-arms,
from Jaen, Anduxar, Ubeda, and Baeza.[1]
The
success of last year's campaign had given the good
bishop an inclination for warlike affairs, and he had
once more buckled on his cuirass.
The Moors were much given to stratagem in warfare.
They looked wistfully at the magnificent
squadrons of the duke del Infantado; but their martial
discipline precluded all attack: the good bishop
promised to be a more easy prey. Suffering the
duke and his troops to pass unmolested, they approached
the squadrons of the bishop, and, making a
pretended attack, skirmished slightly, and fled in apparent
confusion. The bishop considered the day
his own, and, seconded by his corregidor Bovadillo,
followed with valorous precipitation. The Moors
fled into the
Huerta del Rey, or orchard of the king;
the troops of the bishop followed hotly after them.
When the Moors perceived their pursuers fairly
embarrassed among the intricacies of the garden, they
turned fiercely upon them, while some of their number
threw open the sluices of the Xenel. In an instant,
the canal which encircled and the ditches
which traversed the garden, were filled with water,
and the valiant bishop and his followers found themselves
overwhelmed by a deluge.[2]
A scene of great
confusion succeeded. Some of the men of Jaen,
stoutest of heart and hand, fought with the Moors in
the garden, while others struggled with the water,
endeavoring to escape across the canal, in which attempt
many horses were drowned.
Fortunately, the duke del Infantado perceived the
snare into which his companions had fallen, and dispatched
his light cavalry to their assistance. The
Moors were compelled to flight, and driven along the
road of Elvira up to the gates of Granada.[3]
Several
christian cavaliers perished in this affray; the bishop
himself escaped with difficulty, having slipped from
his saddle in crossing the canal, but saving himself
by holding on to the tail of his charger. This perilous
achievement seems to have satisfied the good
bishop's belligerent propensities. He retired on his
laurels, (says Agapida,) to his city of Jaen; where,
in the fruition of all good things, he gradually waxed
too corpulent for his corselet, which was hung up in
the hall of his episcopal palace; and we hear no
more of his military deeds, throughout the residue
of the holy war of Granada.
[4]
King Ferdinand, having completed his ravage of
the vega, and kept El Zagal shut up in his capital,
conducted his army back through the pass of Lope
to rejoin queen Isabella at Moclin. The fortresses
lately taken being well garrisoned and supplied, he
gave the command of the frontier to his cousin, Don
Fadrique de Toledo, afterwards so famous in the
Netherlands as the duke of Alva. The campaign
being thus completely crowned with success, the
sovereigns returned in triumph to the city of Cordova.
