Red City on the Ocean

A Moment from the Past - Knighthood

Asilah had not yet been conquered when the men began to renovate the main mosque. Everything appeared to have been tossed out of it except the walls where the adornments that still decorated them were one of the few reminders that it had once been a mosque. Outside, the distinguishable minarets still towered overhead. Now, imported or hastily made crucifixes were hung on the walls of the former mosque, and icons were placed in the spaces between windows. Benches were placed between the entrance to the temple and a wooden altar that had been brought along from Lagos. A path was laid out in the passage. By the evening, a priest had consecrated the temple.

On the eve of knighthood for the heir to the throne, Joao prepared for his accolade; he bathed, put on a white shirt, and over it, a scarlet cape. His boots were decorated with gold spurs. All night he stood at the altar with his head down, praying, and tried not to listen to the screams of the soldiers coming from outside. The following afternoon, Joao stood for mass, offered confession, and received communion.

Finally, the initiation began. King Afonso V of Portugal, father of Joao, girded him with a sword, and Father Pedro, who had accompanied the army, put his hands on the young man's shoulders. Joao felt the eyes of those witnessing the ceremony on his back. Among them were the nobles who accompanied the king on the campaign, Don Daniel, who captured the fortress gates, Duke de Braganza, whose detachment was the first to break into the fortress and who saved his life, and Fernao Gomes, a navigator and assistant to the king who had made multiple trips to African shores. Gomes's face was disfigured by a terrible wound, and the torn and stitched cheek continued to bleed.

At the end of the ceremonial speech, Father Pedro removed his hands from Joao's shoulders and solemnly said, "My son, you are now knighted."

Then the king himself spoke. He put an ancient sword on his son's shoulder. It was a sword of Damascus steel with a handle so richly decorated with rubies that it seemed to be made only of these gems and nothing else. Previously, this sword belonged to the Vizier Shadulla, the now-defeated commander of the Muslim army. After paying tribute to his son's bravery and his art of winning victories, the king entreated him to devote his life to protecting his native land from infidels and troublemakers. Finally, the King said, "And trust, my son, only your friends."

"Who are they, our friends?" Joao asked unexpectedly to everyone.

The King looked confused. It did not immediately occur to him that Joao was dead tired from the fight the day before, then the night spent on his feet at the altar, and finally from the excitement associated with his knighting. Afonso nodded at the guests at the ceremony. "Your friends," the king explained, "are those you trust and those who trust you," and with an iron-gloved palm, the king pointed at the guests. However, this hint did not seem to reach the tired Joao.

Joao looked at the sword that had just been presented to him. The rubies on the hilt sparkled in the rays of the sun that invaded through the small windows. He raised the sword above his head and said, "Here, Father, is my friend whom I trust, and let those who will trust it, who will trust everything it does, find me themselves. They will be my friends and friends of Portugal!"

The young Joao had not yet learned how to express himself in such a way that his words were understandable to those around him and not only to him alone. Judging by the faces of the king and the guests, they failed to understand him now. Only one person among those standing at the altar understood him correctly. Haste was imperative! It was going to be necessary to select people and place them in the king's entourage and in the Cortes quickly, because the day Joao was named king, hard times would come for him, for this man.