Virtues, which is near the Alcazar, and there they kept their vigil,
and said prayer and performed masses, as was meet for so honourable a
man.
VII. Three days after the Cid had departed King Bucar came into the
port of Valencia, and landed with all his power, which was so great
that there is not a man in the world who could give account of the
Moors whom he brought. And there came with him thirty and six Kings,
and one Moorish Queen, who was a negress, and she brought with her two
hundred horsewomen, all negresses like herself, all having their hair
shorn save a tuft on the top, and this was in token that they came as
if upon a pilgrimage, and to obtain the remission of their sins; and
they were all armed in coats of mail and with Turkish bows. King Bucar
ordered his tents to be pitched round about Valencia, and Abenalfarax
who wrote this history in Arabic, saith, that there were full fifteen
thousand tents; and he bade that Moorish negress with her archers to
take their station near the city. And on the morrow they began to
attack the city, and they fought against it three days strenuously; and
the Moors received great loss, for they came blindly up to the walls
and were slain there. And the Christians defended themselves right
well, and every time that they went upon the walls, they sounded
trumpets and tambours, and made great rejoicings, as the Cid had
commanded. This continued for eight days or nine, till the companions
of the Cid had made ready every thing for their departure, as he had
commanded. And King Bucar and his people thought that the Cid dared not
come out against them, and they were the more encouraged, and began to
think of making bastilles and engines wherewith to combat the city, for
certes they weened that the Cid Ruydiez dared not come out against
them, seeing that he tarried so long.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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