"My lady, here is our captain who has come to pay you his respects."
She replied in a very weak voice:
"Very well. He is welcome."
Tirant said:
"My lady, it is by faith that I must believe that the one speaking to me is the empress."
"Captain," said the emperor, "whoever holds the captaincy of the Greek Empire has the power to open windows, and to look everyone in the face, to remove the mourning they bear for a husband, father, son or brother."
Tirant asked for a lighted torch to be brought, and it was done immediately. When the light was cast on the room the captain discovered a pavilion entirely in black. He went up to it, opened it, and saw a woman dressed in coarse cloth with a large black veil over her head that covered her entirely, down to her feet. Tirant removed the veil from her head so that her face was uncovered, and when he saw her face he knelt to the ground and kissed her foot and then her hand. She held a rosary in her hand, made of gold and enamel; she kissed it and then had the captain kiss it. Then he saw a bed with black curtains. The infanta was reclining on the bed, dressed in a black satin skirt and covered with a velvet garment of the same color. A woman and a maiden were sitting at her feet on the bed. The maiden was the daughter of the Duke of Macedonia, and the woman was called Widow Repose, and she had nursed the infanta with her own milk. In the back of the room he saw one hundred seventy women and maidens, all with the empress and the infanta Carmesina.
Tirant approached the bed, made a deep bow to the infanta, and kissed her hand. Then he opened the windows. And it seemed as though all the women were coming out of a long period of captivity: they had been plunged into darkness a long while because of the death of the emperor's son. Tirant said:
"My lord, speaking by your leave I will tell Your Highness and the empress my idea. I see that the people in this notable city are very sad and troubled for two reasons. The first is because of the loss of the prince, your son. Your Majesty should not be troubled, for he died in the service of God, upholding the holy Catholic faith. Instead you should praise and give thanks to the immense goodness of God, our Lord, because He gave him to you and it was His wish to take him from you for His own good, and He has placed him in the glory of paradise. The second reason they are sad is because all the Moors are so nearby that they are afraid of losing their possessions and their lives, and as a lesser evil that they will become captives of the infidel. That is why Your Highness and the empress must show smiling faces to everyone who sees you: to console them in their grief so that they will gather courage to fight against the enemy."
"The captain's advice is good," said the emperor. "It is my wish and my command that men as well as women shed their mourning immediately."