Part 10

But the king had sworn, and the Cid entered his service and soon conquered Castile, so that Alfonso became monarch of Castile, Leon, Galicia, and Portugal, and took the title of Emperor of Spain. As adelantado, or lord of the marches, Ruy Diaz now occupied himself with the Moors,--fighting where hostility reigned, taking tribute for the king from Seville and other cities, and settling with the sword the disputes of the chiefs, or aiding them in their quarrels. Thus he took part with Seville in a war with Cordova, and was rewarded with so rich a present by the grateful king that Alfonso, inspired by his secret hatred for the Cid, grew jealous and envious.

During these events years passed on, and the Cid's two fair daughters grew to womanhood and were married, at the command of the king, to the two counts of Carrion. The Cid liked not his sons-in-law, and good reason he had, for they were a pair of base hounds despite their lordly title. The brides were shamefully treated by them, being stripped and beaten nearly to death on their wedding-journey.

When word of this outrage came to the Cid his wrath overflowed. Stalking with little reverence into the king's hall, he sternly demanded redress for the brutal act. He could not appeal to the law. The husband in those days was supreme lord and master of his wife. But there was an unwritten law, that of the sword, and the incensed father demanded that the brutal youths should appear in the lists and prove their honor, if they could, against his champion.

They dared not refuse. In those days, when the sword was the measure of honor and justice, to refuse would have been to be disgraced. They came into the lists, where they were beaten like the hounds that they had shown themselves, and the noble girls were set free from their bonds. Better husbands soon sought the Cid's daughters, and they were happily married in the end.

The exploits of the Cid were far too many for us to tell. Wherever he went victory attended his sword. On one occasion the king marched to the aid of one of his Moorish allies, leaving the Cid behind him too sick to ride. Here was an opportunity for the Moors, a party of whom broke into Castile and by a rapid march made themselves masters of the fortress of Gomez. Up from his bed of sickness rose the Cid, mounted his steed (though he could barely sit in the saddle), charged and scattered the invaders, pursued them into the kingdom of Toledo, and returned with seven thousand prisoners and all the Moorish spoil.

This brilliant defence of the kingdom was the turning point in his career. The king of Toledo complained to Alfonso that his neutral territory had been invaded by the Cid and his troops, and King Alfonso, seeking revenge for the three oaths he had been compelled to take, banished the Cid from his dominions, on the charge of invading the territory of his allies.

Thus the champion went forth as a knight-errant, with few followers, but a great name. Tears came into his eyes as he looked back upon his home, its doors open, its hall deserted, no hawks upon the perches, no horses in the stalls. "My enemies have done this," he said. "God be praised for all things." He went to Burgos, but there the people would not receive him, having had strict orders from the king. Their houses were closed, the inn-keepers barred their doors, only a bold little maiden dared venture out to tell him of the decree. As there was no shelter for him there, he was forced to seek lodging in the sands near the town.

Needing money, he obtained it by a trick that was not very honorable, though in full accord with the ethics of those times. He pawned to the Jews two chests which he said were treasure chests, filled with gold. Six hundred marks were received, and when the chests were afterwards opened they proved to be filled with sand. This was merely a good joke to poet and chronicler. The Jews lay outside the pale of justice and fair-dealing.

Onward went the Cid, his followers growing in number as he marched. First to Barcelona, then to Saragossa, he went, seeking knightly adventures everywhere. In Saragossa he entered the service of the Moorish king, and for several years fought well and sturdily for his old enemies. But time brought a change. In 1081 Alfonso captured Toledo and made that city his capital, from which he prepared to push his way still deeper into the Moorish dominions. He now needed the Cid, whom he had banished five years before.

But it was easier to ask than to get. The Cid had grown too great to be at any king's beck and call. He would fight for Alfonso, but in his own way, holding himself free to attack whom he pleased and when he pleased, and to capture the cities of the Moslems and rule them as their lord. He had become a free lance, fighting for his own hand, while armies sprang, as it were, from the ground at his call to arms.

In those days of turmoil valor rarely had long to wait for opportunity. Ramon Berenguer, lord of Barcelona, had laid siege to Valencia, an important city on the Mediterranean coast. Thither marched the Cid with all speed, seven thousand men in his train, and forced Ramon to raise the siege. The Cid became governor of Valencia, under tribute to King Alfonso, and under honor to hold it against the Moors.

The famous champion was not done with his troubles with Alfonso. In the years that followed he was once more banished by the faithless king, and his wife and children were seized and imprisoned. At a later date he came to the king's aid in his wars, but found him again false to his word, and was obliged to flee for safety from the camp.

Valencia had passed from his control and had more than once since changed hands. At length the Moorish power grew so strong that the city refused to pay tribute to Spain and declared its independence. Here was work for the Cid--not for the benefit of Alfonso, but for his own honor and profit. He was weary of being made the foot-ball of a jealous and faithless monarch, and craved a kingdom of his own. Against Valencia he marched with an army of free swords at his back. He was fighting now for the Cid, not for Moorish emir or Spanish monarch. For twenty months he beseiged the fair city, until starvation came to the aid of his sword. No relief reached the Moors; the elements fought against them, floods of rain destroying the roads and washing away the bridges; on June 15, 1094, the Cid Campeador marched into the city thenceforth to be associated with his name.

Ascending its highest tower, he gazed with joy upon the fair possession which he had won with his own good sword without aid from Spanish king or Moorish ally, and which he proposed to hold for his own while life remained. His city it was, and today it bears his name, being known as Valencia del Cid. But he had to hold it with the good sword by which he won it, for the Moors, who had failed to aid the beleaguered city, sought with all their strength to win it back.

During the next year thirty thousand of them came and encamped about the walls of the city. But fighting behind walls was not to the taste of the Cid Campeador. Out from the gates he sallied and drove them like sheep from their camp, killing fifteen thousand of them in the fight.

"Be it known," the chronicle tells us, "that this was a profitable day's work. Every foot-soldier shared a hundred marks of silver that day, and the Cid returned full honorably to Valencia. Great was the joy of the Christians in the Cid Ruy Diaz, who was born in a happy hour. His beard was grown, and continued to grow, a great length. My Cid said of his chin, 'For the love of King Don Alfonso, who hath banished me from his land, no scissors shall come upon it, nor shall a hair be cut away, and Moors and Christians shall talk of it.'" And until he died his great beard grew on untouched.

VALENCIA DEL CID.

Not many were the men with whom he had done his work, but they were soldiers of tried temper and daring hearts. "There were one thousand knights of lineage and five hundred and fifty other horsemen. There were four thousand foot-soldiers, besides boys and others. Thus many were the people of My Cid, him of Bivar. And his heart rejoiced, and he smiled and said, 'Thanks be to God and to Holy Mother Mary! We had a smaller company when we left the house of Bivar.'"

The next year King Yussef, leader of the Moors, came again to the siege of Valencia, this time with fifty thousand men. Small as was the force of the Cid as compared with this great army, he had no idea of fighting cooped up like a rat in a cage. Out once more he sallied, with but four thousand men at his back. His bishop, Hieronymo, absolved them, saying, "He who shall die, fighting full forward, I will take as mine his sins, and God shall have his soul."

A learned and wise man was the good bishop, but a valorous one as well, mighty in arms alike on horseback and on foot. "A boon, Cid don Rodrigo," he cried. "I have sung mass to you this morning. Let me have the giving of the first wounds in this battle."

"In God's name, do as you will," answered the Cid.

That day the bishop had his will of the foe, fighting with both hands until no man knew how many of the infidels he slew. Indeed, they were all too busy to heed the bishop's blows, for, so the chronicle says, only fifteen thousand of the Moslems escaped. Yussef, sorely wounded, left to the Cid his famous sword Tisona, and barely escaped from the field with his life.

Bucar, the brother of Yussef, came to revenge him, but he knew not with whom he had to deal. Bishop Hieronymo led the right wing, and made havoc in the ranks of the foe. "The bishop pricked forward," we are told. "Two Moors he slew with the first two thrusts of his lance; the haft broke and he laid hold on his sword. God! how well the bishop fought. He slew two with the lance and five with the sword. The Moors fled."

"Turn this way, Bucar," cried the Cid, who rode close on the heels of the Moorish chief; "you who came from behind sea to see the Cid with the long beard. We must greet each other and cut out a friendship."

"God confound such friendships," cried Bucar, following his flying troops with nimble speed.

Hard behind him rode the Cid, but his horse Bavieca was weary with the day's hard work, and Bucar rode a fresh and swift steed. And thus they went, fugitive and pursuer, until the ships of the Moors were at hand, when the Cid, finding that he could not reach the Moorish king with his sword, flung the weapon fiercely at him, striking him between the shoulders. Bucar, with the mark of battle thus upon him, rode into the sea and was taken into a boat, while the Cid picked up his sword from the ground and sought his men again.

The Moorish host did not escape so well. Set upon fiercely by the Spaniards, they ran in a panic into the sea, where twice as many were drowned as were slain in the battle; and of these, seventeen thousand and more had fallen, while a vast host remained as prisoners. Of the twenty-nine kings who came with Bucar, seventeen were left dead upon the field.

The chronicler uses numbers with freedom. The Cid is his hero, and it is his task to exalt him. But the efforts of the Moors to regain Valencia and their failure to do so may be accepted as history. In due time, however, age began to tell upon the Cid, and death came to him as it does to all. He died in 1099, from grief, as the story goes, that his colleague, Alvar Fañez, had suffered a defeat. Whether from grief or age, at any rate he died, and his wife, Ximena, was left to hold the city, which for two years she gallantly did, against all the power of the Moors. Then Alfonso entered it, and, finding that he could not hold it, burned the principal buildings and left it to the Moors. A century and a quarter passed before the Christians won it again.