No one was more disturbed than Motamid. By every device familiar to that superstitious age, he endeavored to read the signs of futurity and, with the aid of means emphatically condemned by his religion as idolatrous, to ascertain the inscrutable will of God. His attendants carefully noted the occurrence of every mysterious omen and augury. The court astrologers were kept busy with gnomon and astrolabe observing the positions of the planets and the propitious or unfavorable indications of the heavens.
Before dawn, on the twenty-third day of October, 1086, word reached the Moslem camp that the enemy was in motion. The suspicions of the officers of Motamid were verified, and the appointment of a day for the engagement had been only a ruse to facilitate a surprise. The situation of the Andalusians was critical. Their camp was not fortified. Their deficiency in numbers and lack of discipline rendered them ill-fitted to withstand the attack of the entire Christian army. Messenger after messenger was despatched to Yusuf representing the danger. But the Berber chieftain, although his troops were under arms, still remained inactive. He had matured a design of whose success he was confident, and he now only awaited a favorable opportunity for its execution. Without the least solicitude for his allies, whose sarcastic allusions to the intellectual inferiority and uncouth manners of his race had embittered the prejudice already existing between the two nations, he was not unwilling that they should expose their weakness by vainly imploring the aid of those whom they had repeatedly insulted. With the first shock of battle the Andalusians were thrown into disorder, and all, except the soldiers of Motamid, who were soon surrounded and overwhelmed by numbers, fled ignominiously from the field. The Prince of Seville and his followers, although taken at such a fatal disadvantage, sustained with unshaken firmness the furious onslaught of the Christian host. Motamid himself nobly redeemed upon that glorious day the tarnished reputation of his house, and emulated the exploits of the ancient heroes of the khalifate by the performance of prodigies of valor. He courted death and martyrdom in the very thickest of the fight. He was twice wounded, and had three horses killed under him. His armor was broken; his sword dripped with the blood of his enemies; and the heap of corpses which lay before him attested the strength of his arm and the dauntless resolution of his spirit. At length a large reinforcement of Africans arrived, and the diversion they caused permitted the Andalusians a momentary respite. In the mean time the crafty Yusuf, favored by intervening mountains, had gained the rear of the army of Alfonso, and suddenly descended like an avalanche on the Christian camp. Enveloped by thousands of ferocious warriors, the guard was instantly cut to pieces. The tents were set on fire, and the Castilians saw with astonishment and dismay the conflagration of their camp and the plunder of their equipage. Day was breaking as the forces of the Moslems bore down upon their rear. The strange aspect, the odor, and the discordant cries of the camels, of which there were hundreds in the Berber army, frightened the horses of the Christians and threw them into confusion. Motamid’s division, now become the assailants,—for the front of the battle had been reversed through the unexpected manœuvre of the Africans,—inspired by the hope of victory, redoubled its efforts. Thus taken unawares, crowded within a narrow compass, and attacked on opposite sides, the numerical superiority of the Christians was rather a serious impediment than an advantage. Their ranks, disordered by the camels, doubled back upon each other; the closeness of their array prevented effective action; and those exposed to the scimetars of the Berber horsemen were unable either to retire or to defend themselves. In the long series of sanguinary engagements which marked the progress of the Reconquest, none was more stubbornly contested than the battle of Zallaca. Time and again the Moslem position was taken and lost. The pride and valor of the Castilians contested with determined obstinacy the field which a few hours before they had thought already won. The return of the fugitive Andalusians, the prowess of the soldiers of Motamid, and the charge of the guards of Yusuf decided the doubtful fortune of the day. The wavering of the Christian army soon became a rout, the rout a massacre. The infuriated Africans, unaccustomed to the usages of civilized warfare, gave no quarter to their fleeing and helpless enemies. The flower of the Castilian nobility perished. The entire loss of the Christians was more than twenty thousand. The infantry was scattered, and Alfonso, dangerously wounded with the dagger of one of Yusuf’s guards, succeeded in escaping with but five hundred followers. The approach of darkness alone prevented the utter annihilation of the Christian army.
The battle of Zallaca was not attended with the advantageous and important results to the Moslem cause which its decisive character would naturally indicate. Inordinate greed and official negligence permitted the escape of the wounded monarch, whose capture would have been a fitting termination to such a victory. The clumsy horses of the Christian knights were no match in speed or endurance for the swift coursers of the Desert. The condition and departure of Alfonso and his escort—none of whom escaped unhurt—had been observed, yet the plunder of the fallen and the rich spoils of the camp possessed greater charms for the Berber soldiery than the seizure of a captive whose ransom might be worth a kingdom. The call to prayer upon the battle-field was made by the muezzin from an elevation formed of the heads of thousands of slaughtered Christians.
The day after the battle, Yusuf, who had bestowed his share of the booty on his Moorish allies, received intelligence of the death of his son at Ceuta, and, his mission for the time accomplished and the security of his allies assured, he returned to his dominions, leaving a strong detachment of experienced troops under command of the Prince of Seville.
The danger which had threatened the Moorish dominions on the northern side having been disposed of, Motamid, elated by the distinction he had gained at the battle of Zallaca, determined to attempt the expulsion of the Christians from Eastern Spain. This, as he was well aware, would prove no easy undertaking. The provinces of Valencia and Murcia were at that time controlled by the most formidable bands of mercenaries, adventurers, and outlaws in Europe. The principal seat of this military banditti was Aledo, a fortress occupying the summit of an isolated mountain, and whose defences, natural and artificial, were supposed to be proof against the utmost skill of the mediæval engineer. Here were conveyed indiscriminately the sacrilegious plunder of mosques and churches, the hard-earned possessions of the husbandman, the enslaved peasantry of the Valencian and Murcian villages, and the beautiful female captives of Andalusia. The robbers domiciled in this fortress served under Castilian officers and were nominally Christians, but their allegiance to both creed and crown was precarious; destitute of faith, religion, or loyalty they were composed of the dregs of every nation, and even many renegade Moslems were enlisted in their ranks. The garrison of Aledo could muster thirteen thousand fighting men.
The victory of Zallaca, whose consequences were not permanent even in the region where it had been obtained, had in nowise affected the distant provinces of Eastern Spain. The Moorish population were daily more and more harassed by raids and enforced contributions; the inhabitants of the most fertile districts were greatly diminished in numbers by violence and flight; and it was evident that erelong the feeble remnant of the industrious race which had transformed that portion of the Peninsula into a paradise must be either enslaved or exterminated by the outlaws of Valencia and Aledo.
Motamid, whose meritorious intention to avenge the injuries of the Arabs of the eastern principalities was further justified by the fact that Lorca and Murcia both owed him allegiance—the one by right of inheritance, the other by the title of voluntary submission—and could consequently demand his protection, having assembled his army, which included the Almoravides whom Yusuf had placed under his command, began his march towards Murcia.
But the expedition, commenced with overweening confidence and vainglorious boasts of success, ended in disgrace and failure. The presages declared by the astrologers to be favorable proved delusive. In the first encounter with the Christians, three thousand of the soldiers of Seville were cut to pieces by one-tenth of that number of the enemy. The invasion of Murcia was productive of nothing advantageous. The Berbers of Yusuf, ashamed of the pusillanimity of their allies, sympathized with their adversaries; the designs of Motamid were regularly communicated to the officials of the enemy; and the Prince of Seville, alarmed by the mutinous clamors of his followers, abandoned the enterprise in disgust.
It was now evident that the Christian power was firmly established in the East, and that the unaided resources of the Moslems were unable to overturn it. All eyes were again turned towards the court of Morocco, and emissaries of the cities affected by the curse of Christian brigandage importuned with repeated solicitations the intervention of the redoubtable Sultan of Africa. The latter, however, while receiving these petitions with courtesy, awaited the action of some one high in authority. At length the exhortations of the faquis, who saw with horror the encroachments of the infidel and the consequent peril of their order, prevailed upon Motamid himself to assume the office of representative of the religious and political interests of the disheartened Moslems of Spain. Yusuf welcomed the royal ambassador with every token of respect; he promised immediate compliance with his request; and, his preparations completed, he again appeared in Andalusia at the head of a well-appointed army.
The siege of Aledo was formed, but, as the place was impregnable to escalade, it was found necessary to reduce it by siege, a proceeding whose delay could not fail to operate to the injury of the allies, impatient of discipline and unaccustomed to the monotonous and inactive routine of the camp. Acting under the instruction of their masters, the partisans of Yusuf, who abounded among the Spanish Moslems, promoted by every resource of intrigue the aims of the ambitious Sultan. His following, especially since his triumph over the infidels, was formidable in numbers and influence. The great body of the nation, taxed and re-taxed, alternately raided by Christians and robbed by collectors of the revenue, oppressed with arbitrary impositions, their privacy invaded, their families insulted, their children enslaved, their property destroyed, were willing, in sheer desperation, to welcome any change as a blessing. The government, which they paid so dearly to maintain, was not able to protect them from outrage for a single hour. In addition to this numerous body of partisans, Yusuf could calculate on the support of the kadis, the muftis, the faquis, and the imams,—all of the subordinate officers of the government, all of the ecclesiastical guides of the people. These two classes regarded the ignorant and fanatical Sultan almost in the light of a Mussulman saint. The ministers of religion especially, whose material interests were at stake in the struggle impending between Moslem tyranny and Christian persecution, were among the most ardent supporters of a change of dynasty. Their admiration was rewarded, and in part created, by the attentive reverence with which Yusuf listened to their admonitions and adopted their counsels. On the other side were the philosophers and the poets, the scientific and literary society of the various capitals, still animated by the intellectual principle which had long been the boast and glory of the khalifate. As a rule, the lords of the various principalities were then, and had been, almost without exception, generous patrons of literary genius. The courts of Seville, Malaga, Almeria, Murcia, and Toledo were inspired by the example of their once celebrated prototype, Cordova. Freedom of opinion was indulged without restraint. The inconsistencies and vices of the theologians were held up to public derision by satirical poets amidst the applause of sympathetic and delighted audiences. The atheistical doctrines maintained by the philosophers with all the resources of learning and eloquence were the scandal and aversion of the orthodox and fanatical believer. The polished Andalusians ridiculed without mercy the blunders and illiteracy of Yusuf. He was unable to express himself fluently in Arabic; indeed, he was scarcely familiar with the rudiments of that tongue. The similies and rhetorical beauties of poetical diction he could neither understand nor enjoy. Like most uneducated persons he was profoundly superstitious, a failing by which his religious counsellors in case their expectations should be realized would not be slow to profit. In his eyes, the opinions of the faquis were oracular; and the promotion of this caste to the practical control of the government boded no good to the favorites of royalty, whose scornful speeches rankled in the minds of the objects of their sarcasm and contempt. A large body of respectable citizens—merchants, farmers, artificers—joined with the philosophers and the wits in opposition to the establishment of an African dynasty. Long before the fall of the khalifate,—a catastrophe not without reason imputed to Berber agency,—that name had been a term of reproach. Savage mercenaries from beyond the strait had repeatedly sacked the capital; had destroyed the magnificent cities of Medina-al-Zahrâ and Zahira; had spread desolation through every province of Andalusia; had swept away forever the proud evidences of a civilization which had been the glory of Europe for centuries. A series of disastrous civil wars had been the consequence of the attempts of these odious foreigners to establish, at the expense of the legitimate proprietors of the Peninsula, a vexatious and intolerable tyranny. Such were the conflicting factions whose machinations were carried on in the face of the enemy before the walls of Aledo.