Whilst working on folios 85 to 89 in Escorial II, I came across a dark tale of treachery and deceit in the tenth century. According to the Estoria, King Blasquez was on rather bad terms with one of his Christian neighbours. So he had a letter written to al-Mansur, the military dictator of al-Andalus, persuading the Muslim commander to murder the said rival. In return, al-Mansur would be entitled to swathes of Christian territory. As for the letter itself, a friendly Moor was employed to draft the correspondence in Arabic. Only, after the poor scribe’s duty was fulfilled, King Blasquez had the Moor permanently silenced, severing his head clean from his body! All I can hope for is that I’ll still have my head at the end of this project…
