Cap. cxviii.—How assistance was given to the Queen of Adea, and how the Prester ordered the great Betudete to be arrested, and why, and how he became free, and also he ordered other lords to be arrested.
Of the chauas, that is the men-at-arms, who came with the Barnagais and Tigrimahom and the gentlemen of their company, Prester John sent fifteen thousand with a gentleman of the title of Adrugaz, already mentioned several times in this book, to go immediately to the Kingdom of Adea and establish the King in peace in his kingdom, and the Queen of Adea was to go more at leisure. The Queen and the Adrugaz set out immediately, and they said that they had more than a month’s journey through the Prester’s country before reaching the Kingdom of Adea. When this Queen had departed, on the following day the King ordered the arrest of the Betudete who had brought the gibri of Gojame. He also ordered that the other Betudete, who was named Canha, should be arrested, and so he ordered with respect to Tigrimahom. They were all made prisoners in one day, and early in the morning he set out and all the Court with him, and we in our turn: the Prester’s ambassador and I were at a river feeding the mules, and there passed by this Betudete who brought the gibri, and he said to me “Abba baraqua,” which means “Father give me a blessing.” I answered “Izi baraqua,” which means “God bless you.” This Betudete was accompanied by fifteen gentlemen on mules, and we mounted and went on in his company. As soon as I approached him he took my hand and kissed it, and again asked for my blessing, saying, “What do you think of this; do they thus make prisoners of great men in your country?” I replied that in my country, if great lords were arrested for small matters or for the anger of the King, they gave them their own houses for prisons, and if it was for great things they were prisoners in large castles and prisons. He, with tears which ran down the whole of his face, again said to me: “Father, pray to God for me, for I shall die of this.” And I continued encouraging and consoling him to the best of my ability until in the afternoon he separated from us, and all those who came with him, both on mules and on foot, were none of them his men. On the following day we again met, and he began again with me as the day before, and I with him; he always begging me to pray to God for him, as he would die in that prison. And the restraint under which he was consisted of a very slender chain a fathom long, just like a chain for holding dogs, and a small thin ring at the wrist, and he carried the chain itself in his hand, and those who accompanied him were all guards. We arrived one Thursday where the king’s tents were pitched, and they say that that night Prester John ordered that they should bring to him the Betudete, and those who guarded him brought him; and two of the Betudete’s sons were that night in his company. When he was before the door of the tent, the Prester from within sent pages to bring the Betudete behind the tent, as he wished to speak to him in person, and the guards and his sons were to wait, withdrawn a little from the door of the tent. There they waited until morning, when the Prester travelled, and all of us with him, without there being any news of the Betudete, whether he was dead or alive; nor what had become of him. The two sons who went with him to the door of the tent, and three who had remained at home, all grown men and great gentlemen, and good knights (according to report), made great lamentation with all their servants and those of their father, for he had a household like that of a great king. Then the Prester ordered that the Betudete’s sons should travel alone, without their servants or those of their father, and so it was. I saw them all five travelling without a groom or anybody; stripped from the waist upwards, and without their black fleecy sheep skins on their shoulders, and from the waist downwards they had black cloths, and their mules were covered with black. Their people and those of their father travelled separately, and in mourning, and all on foot, with their mules saddled in front of them. On the following Tuesday we came to stop at the entrance of the Kingdom of Oyja, and here were preparations[241] to celebrate the feast of the Kings,[242] which they name tabuquete, and they celebrate baptism, as has been related above. Here these sons of the Betudete, as soon as it is morning, go from house to house, that is, to the houses or tents of the great men, as others are used to do, to search for news of their father, if he is alive or dead, or what had become of him, or what was expected to happen to him. They did not find any news until the end of fifteen days, when those came who had carried him to the Kingdom of Fatiguar, to a mountain which they say is at the edge of the Kingdom of Adel, and which is very high, and deep in the middle, and it has only one entrance; and they say that inside this mountain there are great herds of cows, and that anyone who newly enters there does not last more than four or five days, and soon dies of fevers; and that they had left him there without any person to serve him except the Moors, who would keep him there till he died. With this news the lamentation was greater than at first. Then they began to say through the Court that the Prester had given him this death because he had to do with his mother; and such had been the report when she was alive; and they say that he had a son of her; also that the Prester did not choose to kill him in the lifetime of his mother that she might not be more defamed than was already the case. As this began to be muttered about, proclamations were soon made throughout the Court that no one was to speak of the Betudete under pain of death. This report soon died out, and three months later, when we were near the sea in the country of Tigrimahom, there was news that the Betudete had not died, and that his sons, with the aid of the King of Adel, had rescued him, and that from Adel they were making much war upon the Prester. In these countries proclamations were made that no one was to speak of the Betudete, and they ceased. Then fresh news arose that the Prester had ordered the beheading of twenty Moors who guarded the Betudete, and of two of his own servants, because they had spoken to him, and the Moors because they had given them an opportunity for so doing; and this we learned was the truth. It was also said that the Prester wished to pardon him since God had given him life for so long a time in such a dangerous place, and because he missed him, for he was a man of great mind and a warrior.
Cap. cxix.—How the Tigrimahom was killed, and the other Betudete deposed, also Abdenago from his lordship, and the ambassador[243] was provided for, and Prester John went in person to the Kingdom of Adea.
As soon as we had arrived at the place where we were to keep the feast of the kings or tabuquete, before it was reported where the Betudete was, on the next night Prester John ordered the Tigrimahom to be taken away, neither was it then known where he had been taken to. The following day they sent to take away all that he had got in his tents, and for three days they did not cease to take away, and count and deliver up common silks, and camlets and good cloths of India. We found ourselves there six white men, that is to say, I, and another Portuguese, and four Genoese, and to each of us the Prester ordered to be given six cloths, that is, three camlets and three pieces of Indian stuffs. Many days did not pass before it was said that Prester John had ordered the Tigrimahom to be taken to the Kingdom of Damute to a very high mountain, which had only one entrance, and that one was artificial, and above it was uninhabited and very cold, and that there they sent men who were to die. And where we heard in the country of Tigrimahom news that the Betudete had escaped, that was untrue; but we found there certain news that the Tigrimahom had died in the said mountain, and had died of hunger and cold. In those days when we were at the Court, the other Betudete, who had been arrested, was deposed from his office, and Arraz Anubiata, who was Barnagais, was made Betudete. And they made Balgada Robel Tigrimahom, he who came with thirty well-equipped horses. There was a great rumour and talk at the Court about the death of Queen Helena. They said that since she had died all of them would die great and small, and that while she lived, all lived and were defended and protected; and she was the father and mother of all, and if the king took this road, his kingdoms would become deserts. When the tabuquete or baptism was ended, without the ambassador or I making further requests as to our claims, because we did not venture on account of the great affairs which we saw going on, the Prester sent to call us, and took away from Abdenago, our adversary, the great lordship which he held, and he bestowed on his ambassador both the land which we were claiming and that lordship which he had taken away, and so he dismissed us well satisfied. Before our departure a message arrived from the Adrugaz that they had gone with the Queen of Adea to the assistance of her husband, and that the people would not obey him, and wherever he went all ran away and took refuge in the mountains, and that His Highness should send more men. His Highness determined to go there in person, and to take the queen his wife to a place where we had already been with him, which is in the Kingdom of Orgabija, on the edge of the said Kingdom of Adea, and there to leave the queen and his children and all the Court. So he did, and there went with him some Portuguese, namely, Jorge d’Abreu, Diogo Fernandez, Afonso Mendes, and Alvarenga, and five or six Genoese. When they returned they said that as soon as the Prester had entered the Kingdom of Adea all the people came in, obeying him as their sovereign, and withal he did not desist from going forward to very near Magadoxo; and they said that it was a very fruitful kingdom, very wooded, so much so that they could not travel without cutting trees and making roads. They also said there were there plenty of provisions, and great breeding of herds, and many and very large animals of different sorts. They say that there is in this kingdom a great lake like a sea, which cannot be seen across from side to side, and they say there is in it an island, in which in a former time a Prester John had ordered a monastery to be built, and had put in it many friars, although it was a country of Moors. Pero de Covilham related this, and now these Portuguese and Genoese who went there say that the friars of that monastery nearly all died of fevers, and some few remained in another small monastery out of the island, and near the lake, and so they found them. And that on this occasion Prester John ordered many monasteries and churches to be built, and left there many priests and friars, and many laymen to inhabit and dwell in that kingdom. When the kingdom was pacified they came back to where they had left the Court. They say that this kingdom pays tribute of cows in great number, and which we saw at the Court. They say that they come from there as large as great horses, and white as snow and without horns, with large hanging ears.
Cap. cxx.—Of the manner in which the Prester encamps with his Court.
The method which is followed in encamping the Court of the Prester. It is always encamped on a plain, for otherwise they would not find room, and the Prester’s tents are pitched on the highest ground of the plain, if there is any. The back of the tents is always placed to the east and the doors to the west; four or five tents are pitched together; all belong to the Prester, and they surround them all with curtains, which they call mandilate; these are woven like a chess-board, half white and half black. If he is going to remain several days they surround these tents with a large fence, which will make a circumference of half a league. They say that they make in this enclosure twelve gates; the principal one is to the West, and apart from it, at a good distance, are two gates, each on its own side, and one of these serves for the church of St. Mary, which is to the north, and the other serves for the church of Holy Cross, which is to the south. Beyond these gates which serve for these churches, almost at a distance equal to what there is between them and the principal entrance, are two other gates on each side, and that which is to the south serves for the tents of the queen mother of the Prester, and that which is to the north serves for the pages’ quarters. There are guards at all these gates, but I did not get behind to see, for they let no one pass there; only they say that in the whole there are twelve gates, and I know for certain that there is one gate at the back, because it serves for the kitchen pages; for I saw it from a distance, how the pages brought and carried the viands. These gates are made when the tents are surrounded by a fence, and when they are not enclosed, there will only be the tents surrounded by curtains, which they call mandilate, as has been said. Behind the tents, quite a crossbow shot or more, are pitched the tents for the kitchens and the cooks, divided into two parts, because there are the cooks of the right hand and of the left hand. When the food comes from these kitchens, it is in this manner (according as I saw it in a district called Orgebeia, from being on some hills close to the kitchens, for in other parts the tents were pitched on such level ground that there was no means of seeing). They came with a large canopy of tafetan, as it seemed, red and blue, of six pieces in length. This canopy was raised like a pallium on canes, which in this country are very good, and they make with them the shafts of lances. Under this pallium came other pages who carried viands in large trays which were made like trenchers for cleaning wheat in, except that they are very large, and in each they brought many little round dishes[244] of black earthenware, in which were the meats of their fowls and small birds, and many other things, and white food, which are made more of milk than of anything else; and also little pipkins, black like the dishes, with many other dainties and broths of different kinds. These viands that I speak of which came in these trays, I do not say that I saw them when they brought them, because they were far off from where I stood; but I saw them when they sent them to us, for they came in the same trays as they came from the kitchens and without the canopy, and the little pipkins were still covered with their lids, and closed with dough; and the trays which they sent us came full without showing that they had been moved; and for this I say that so they come from the kitchens. All these victuals in which spices of ginger or pepper can be put, they put so much in them, that we could not eat them from their much burning. Among these tents of the kitchens and cooks, or almost behind them, is the Church of St. Andrew, and it is called the cooks’ church. In this part of the camp where the kitchens are, and behind them, nobody goes.
Cap. cxxi.—Of the tent of justice and method of it, and how they hear the parties.