And now began that career as soldier of fortune which has furnished themes to Spanish poets of high and low degree, and which, transformed and idealized by tradition, has made of Rodrigo the perfect cavalier of crusading Christian Spain. He offered first, it would seem, his service and that of his followers to the Christian Count of Barcelona, and when refused by him, to the Moorish King of Saragossa. This State was one of the more important of those resulting from the distribution of the Caliphate of Cordova. The offer was accepted, and Rodrigo remained here until 1088, serving successively three generations of the Beni-Hud, father, son, and grandson, warring indifferently against Christians and Moors, and through his successes rising to extraordinary distinction and power. At this time--1088--the attention of both Mostain, the King of Saragossa, and of his powerful captain Rodrigo, was drawn to Valencia. This city after the fall of the Caliphate of Cordova had been ruled for forty-four years by descendants of Almanzor, the great Prime Minister of the last period of the Ommiad dynasty. Mamoun, King of Toledo, who sheltered the fugitive Alfonso, deposed the last of these Valencian kings, his son-in-law, and annexed the State to his own dominion. At Mamoun's death in 1075 Valencia revolted; the governor declared himself independent and placed himself under Alfonso's protection. Ten years later Mamoun's successor, the weak Cadir, finding his position a desperate one, offered to yield up to Alfonso his own capital Toledo, on condition that the latter should place Valencia in his hands. Alfonso consented. Valencia was too weak to offer resistance, but Cadir proved equally incompetent as king and as general. Depending entirely upon his Castilian soldiery, captained by Alvar Fanez, a kinsman of Rodrigo, he grievously burdened the people in order to satisfy the demands of this auxiliary troop. But grinding taxes and extortions alike failed; and the soldiery, their wages in arrears, battened upon the country, the dregs of the Moorish population joining them. The territory was delivered at last from their robberies, rapes, and murders, by the appearance of the Almoravides. This new Moslem sect had grown strong in Africa, attaining there the political supremacy; and in their weakness the Moorish kings of Spain implored its assistance in repelling the attacks of the Christian North. King Alfonso, alarmed at the appearance of these African hordes, recalled Alvar Fanez, was defeated by the Almoravides at Zallaca in 1086, and could think no more of garrisoning Valencia for Cadir. The position of Cadir became thus critical, and he appealed for help both to Alfonso and to Mostain of Saragossa. Mostain sent Rodrigo, ostensibly to his assistance; but a secret agreement had been made, Arabic historians assert, between the king and his general, whereby Cadir was to be despoiled, the city fall to Mostain, the booty to Rodrigo (1088).