The Spanish chronicler and poet, Pero Lopez de Ayala, and Nun’ Alvarez’ brother Diogo rode over before the battle and asked to speak with him alone, but succeeded neither in winning him to their side nor in casting suspicion on his loyalty. As he had said when fighting against his brothers earlier in Alentejo, for the land that gave him birth he would fight against his own father. At nine o’clock on the morning of August 15, 1385, the battle began with a great hurling of stones, followed by fighting with the lance, and then at still closer quarters with axe and sword. Nun’ Alvarez was constantly where the fight raged most fiercely, and his words “Fight, Portuguese, fight for king and country” kept ringing out above the din. The flower of Castilian chivalry fell that day and many Portuguese nobles fighting for Castille. Nun’ Alvarez saw his brother the Master of Calatrava fall pierced by a lance, but was never able to find his body. The King of Castille fled to Santarem. The Convent of Alcobaça still preserves a huge cauldron taken from the enemy at Aljubarrota, but the noblest memorial of Nun’ Alvarez’ victory is the Church and Monastery of Batalha. Nun’ Alvarez, not yet as old as Napoleon when he conquered Italy, crossed the Guadiana with a few hundred horse and a few thousand foot and advanced into Castille. All the nobles from the south of Spain who had not been present at Aljubarrota collected to give him battle. The enemy, he was told, were as the grass of the field in number. “All the greater will be our honour,” said Nun’ Alvarez. A trumpeter with a bundle of rods knelt before Nun’ Alvarez seated to receive him: “My Lord Constable, the Master of Santiago, my lord, sends to defy you with this rod,” and the Master of Calatrava, the Master of Alcantara, the Count of Medina Celi and many another had sent him rods of defiance. The Constable received them one by one patiently, gave the messenger a hundred gold pieces and bade him thank the senders for the rods with which he would presently come and beat them. The battle of Valverde that followed was an attack of several hills from which the enemy had to be dislodged. “If Portuguese kneel in battle,” said a later, sixteenth-century historian, “it is to the Cross of Christ”; and certainly it was from no fear or weakness that Nun’ Alvarez, wounded by an arrow in the foot, knelt to pray in the thickest of the fight. Anxious messengers came up with news that his men were hard pressed, imploring his presence, but he, without answering, still knelt in prayer. At last rising with a look of great joy he ordered on his standard to the attack, and a few hours later no Spaniard was to be seen.