On one occasion, when Queen Isabel was in Valladolid, high words broke out between Don Fadrique Enriquez, son of Ferdinand’s uncle the Admiral of Castile and a certain Ramir Nuñez de Guzman, Lord of Toral. In spite of the fact that his enemy had received a safe-conduct from the Queen, Don Fadrique attacked him in a public square, striking him several times. Isabel’s indignation was unbounded, and she at once rode to Simancas, whose fortress belonged to the Admiral, demanding either its instant surrender or that of his son. The Admiral, faced by this plain issue, dared not disobey; and, since he was ignorant of his son’s hiding-place he gave up the keys of his stronghold. Isabel then returned to Valladolid, but her anger was unappeased; and when questioned as to its cause she replied: “I am suffering from the blows that Don Fadrique hath struck at my safe-conduct.” Not till the offender appeared himself at Court to sue for pardon would she relax her coldness to his family; and even then she refused to see him, but ordered that he should be led a prisoner through the streets and thence to a fortress at Arévalo. Here he remained in close confinement, until at his relations’ intercession he was instead exiled to Sicily, there to remain at the Queen’s pleasure. His enemy, Ramir Nuñez de Guzman, refusing to take warning from his rival’s fate, attempted to assassinate the Admiral in revenge for the attack made on himself, as soon as he had recovered from his wounds; with the result that he was brought before the royal judges and deprived of all his goods and revenues. Such stern but impartial justice was of the type to inspire awe, but severity alone might have defeated its own ends. The chivalry of Castile had been fostered from its cradle in scenes of war and carnage. It could not cool its hot blood suddenly to accept the discipline of what it regarded as inglorious peace. Some outlet must be found for the wild strain that looked to the rapier and the dagger rather than to books or arguments. That outlet the sovereigns provided, when they took up the challenge of the Moorish Sultan, and began again the old crusade, that was the heritage of eight hundred years. “Master, God give you good fortune against the Moors, the enemies of Our Holy Catholic Faith.” With these words Ferdinand and Isabel had handed to the new Master of Santiago his standards, when they gave him the insignia of his Order at the Cortes of Toledo in 1480. Little over twelve months was to find those standards in the battlefield, and the nobility of Spain risking its life, not in private brawl nor a vain struggle with the law, but against the enemies of its Queen and Faith. CHAPTER VI THE MOORISH WAR 1481–1483