The marques of Cadiz was accordingly sent in advance, with two thousand horse, to keep a watch upon the garrisons and prevent all entrance or exit until the king should arrive with the main army and the battering artillery. The queen, to be near at hand in case of need, moved her quarters to the city of Jaen, where she was received with martial honors by the belligerent bishop, who had buckled on his cuirass and girded on his sword to fight in the cause of his diocese.
In the mean time, the marques of Cadiz arrived in the valley and completely shut up the Moors within their walls. The castles were under the command of Mahomet Lentin Ben Usef, an Abencerrage, and one of the bravest cavaliers of Granada. In his garrisons were many troops of the fierce African tribe of Gomeres. Mahomet Lentin, confident in the strength of his fortresses, smiled as he looked down from his battlements upon the Christian cavalry perplexed in the rough and narrow valley. He sent forth skirmishing parties to harass them, and there were many sharp combats between small parties and single knights; but the Moors were driven back to their castles, and all attempts to send intelligence of their situation to Granada were frustrated by the vigilance of the marques of Cadiz.
At length the legions of the royal army came pouring, with vaunting trumpet and fluttering banner, along the defiles of the mountains. They halted before the castles, but the king could not find room in the narrow and rugged valley to form his camp; he had to divide it into three parts, which were posted on different heights, and his tents whitened the sides of the neighboring hills. When the encampment was formed the army remained gazing idly at the castles. The artillery was upward of four leagues in the rear, and without artillery all attack would be in vain.
The alcayde Mahomet Lentin knew the nature of the road by which the artillery had to be brought. It was merely a narrow and rugged path, at times scaling almost perpendicular crags and precipices, up which it was utterly impossible for wheel carriages to pass, neither was it in the power of man or beast to draw up the lombards and other ponderous ordnance. He felt assured, therefore, that they never could be brought to the camp, and without their aid what could the Christians effect against his rock-built castles? He scoffed at them, therefore, as he saw their tents by day and their fires by night covering the surrounding heights. “Let them linger here a little while longer,” said he, “and the autumnal torrents will wash them from the mountains.”
While the alcayde was thus closely mewed up within his walls and the Christians remained inactive in their camp, he noticed, one calm autumnal day, the sound of implements of labor echoing among the mountains, and now and then the crash of a falling tree or a thundering report, as if some rock had been heaved from its bed and hurled into the valley. The alcayde was on the battlements of his castle, surrounded by his knights. “Methinks,” said he, “these Christians are making war upon the rocks and trees of the mountains, since they find our castle unassailable.”
The sounds did not cease even during the night: every now and then the Moorish sentinel as he paced the battlements heard some crash echoing among the heights. The return of day explained the mystery. Scarcely did the sun shine against the summits of the mountains than shouts burst from the cliffs opposite to the castle, and were answered from the camp with joyful sounds of kettledrums and trumpets.
The astonished Moors lifted up their eyes and beheld, as it were, a torrent of war breaking out of a narrow defile. There was a multitude of men with pickaxes, spades, and bars of iron clearing away every obstacle, while behind them slowly moved along great teams of oxen dragging heavy ordnance and all the munitions of battering artillery.
“What cannot women and priests effect when they unite in council?” exclaims again the worthy Antonio Agapida. The queen had held another consultation with the grand cardinal and the belligerent bishop of Jaen. It was clear that the heavy ordnance could never be conveyed to the camp by the regular road of the country, and without battering artillery nothing could be effected. It was suggested, however, by the zealous bishop that another road might be opened through a more practicable part of the mountains. It would be an undertaking extravagant and chimerical with ordinary means, and therefore unlooked for by the enemy; but what could not kings effect who had treasure and armies at command?
The project struck the enterprising spirit of the queen. Six thousand men with pickaxes, crowbars, and every other necessary implement were set to work day and night to break a road through the very centre of the mountains. No time was to be lost, for it was rumored that El Zagal was about to march with a mighty host to the relief of the castles. The bustling bishop of Jaen acted as pioneer to mark the route and superintend the laborers, and the grand cardinal took care that the work should never languish through lack of means.*
* Zurita, Anales de Aragon, lib. 20, c. 64; Pulgar, part 3, cap. 51.