"Do whatever you like."
He kissed his hand, and then the queen's hand. They set out on their journey very early in the morning, and finally they reached the sea port. Philippe slipped into a room on the ship without letting anyone see him. When the ship had weighed anchor and they were two hundred miles out to sea, Philippe revealed his presence to Tirant. Tirant was very surprised at this, but because they were so far out to sea, they had to continue on their course toward Portugal, and they arrived at the city of Lisbon. When the King of Portugal learned that Philippe, son of the King of France, was on the ship, he sent a knight who graciously begged him to come ashore to rest from the long sea voyage. Tirant and Philippe dressed in their finery, and accompanied by many knights and gentlemen who had come with Tirant, they left the ship and went to the palace. When the king saw Philippe he embraced him and paid him great honor, and did the same to the others. They remained in the king's court ten days.
When they decided to leave, the king had them fill the ship with everything they needed. From there Tirant sent a gentleman to the King of France with letters explaining what had happened to his son. When the King of France learned that his son was in such good company he was very pleased, and the queen was especially happy, because so much time had passed with them knowing nothing that they thought he was either dead or had entered some monastery.
Philippe took his leave of the King of Portugal, and the ship set sail, reaching the Cape of Saint Vincent to pass through the Straits of Gibraltar. There they encountered many Moorish vessels, and when they saw the ship, all the vessels went into formation. They attacked it fiercely, and the combat lasted half a day, with many men from both sides dying. After Tirant's men had rested, they renewed the battle, and it was very fierce. Now Tirant's ship was much larger and lighter than any of those of the Moors, but it was alone, while there were fifteen of the others, large and small, and all of them carried weapons.
One very able sailor on the ship, named Cataquefaras, had sailed a great deal, and he was very clever and valiant. When he saw that the situation was taking a turn for the worse, he took many ropes from the ship and made a net. He placed those ropes from stern to prow and around the mast, and he put them up so high that the men did not find their weapons hindered in any way; instead it kept them from being taken prisoner. For the missiles that the Moors launched were so many and so thick that it was a great marvel to see, and if the ship had not been covered by that net of ropes, it would have been completely filled with stones and iron bars. In that way it was protected so that no stone could pass through it; instead, when a stone hit against the ropes, it bounced into the sea. What else did this sailor do? He took up all the mattresses that he found on the ship, and he covered the forecastles and the sides of the ship, and as the missiles fell on top of the mats they could not damage the ship. And he did still more. He took boiling oil and tar, and when the ships drew alongside, they threw the oil and boiling tar with ladles, causing grave injuries to the Moors, who had to draw apart from the ship. But still they passed through the entire Straits of Gibraltar, fighting night and day. There were so many missiles, darts and spikes that the sails were pinned to the ship's mast when the Moors left them. They were very near land, and certain that the ship would run aground, stern first, near the city of Gibraltar. But the sailors were so capable that they quickly put the ship around and raised the sails. Then they passed out of the Straits and entered the great sea.
Philippe, Tirant and many others were wounded in these battles. They went to a deserted island near the land of the Moors, and there they tended to their wounds and repaired the ship as well as they could. Then they sailed along the Barbary Coast where they fought many battles with Genoese and Moorish vessels until they were close to Tunis. There they decided to go to the island of Sicily to take on wheat. They went to the port of Palermo where the king and queen were, with their two sons and a very beautiful daughter named Ricomana, a very intelligent maiden of many virtues. When the ship was in port, they made a scribe disembark along with five or six men, with orders to tell no one about Philippe or Tirant, but rather to say that their ship had come from the west and was on its way to Alexandria with some pilgrims who were going to the Holy Sepulcher.
When the king learned that they had come from the west he had the scribe from the ship and all the others called before His Majesty so he could have news of those lands. Before the king, they told about the great battles they had had with the Moors and Genoese in the Straits of Gibraltar, and forgetting at that moment Tirant's words, they mentioned that Philippe, son of the King of France, was there, in the company of Tirant lo Blanc. When the king heard that Philippe was on that ship, he had a great wooden bridge, covered with cloth and satin, constructed from land to the ship. And to pay him honor, the king went on board the ship with his two sons, and implored Philippe and Tirant to come on land and rest a few days from the great hardships they had endured at sea, and from their battles with the Moors. Philippe and Tirant thanked him and told him that, to please him, they would go with His Majesty.
The king brought them to the city, furnished them with very nice quarters, and had them served excellent dishes and other things men need who have been at sea.
Philippe, following Tirant's counsel, told the king that they would not stay in their room until they had seen the queen. And the king was very pleased. When they were upstairs in the palace, the queen, along with her daughter, the princess, received them very graciously. And when they returned to their lodgings they decided that she was everything a king's daughter should be.
Afterward, everyday at mass or after eating, they were with the king and especially with the infanta, who was so pleasant to the foreigners who came and went, that everyone spoke of her great virtue. And by speaking with the infanta everyday at the king's court, Philippe grew very enamored of her, as she did of him. But Philippe was so shy when he was in her presence that he scarcely dared speak, and when she asked him questions, he did not know how to respond to some of them. Tirant quickly answered for him and said to the infanta: