Peekaboo! After AGES, I managed to write this new chapter. Things were a little more symbolic in the game so I had fun flowering them with some episodes. Studing Ancient Literature and having a penchant with everything tied to culture it was a rather easy game to build something. Of course the downside is that maybe it would be hard to distinguish reality, game and fiction, but I did my best. Sorry for the form, since I am writing this part a bit high on coffee XD (Yes, I'm a bit of a coffee addicted)
Maybe God listened to Dona Isabella, for after few years, England and France declared war to each other. The cause was the Surrender of the Maine, the holding which was given in the treaty of Tours. Regrettably, England was weak but not humble, and so war was declared.
Neither the Lily nor the rose were near to the gardener, as well: if England was so weak that wilting was almost natural, Portugal didn’t wait to support it. As for France, it could count with his vassals while alliances and vassalization was still at the starting line for Castille.
Juan retreated then in developing his domain, starting from hiring Ermenigildo de Zuniga, an old and experienced diplomat, who had a strong way of speak, unexpected from his ailing and fragile physique.
His passionate and decisive campaign as Castille as the champion of the faith, realized by the Avilian poet Paco Ramirez, filled the castillan regions of Soria and Roja of zeal against the Moors, so much that a new and more ordered enlistment was required.
Another beneficial effect of the campaign was that the state of Naples considered to ally with Castille. This sympathy was not stranger to the exploit of the precious dresses of Palencia. The Palencian women, in fact, started to sew magnificent dresses with elegant nuances, thanks to a particular sewing technique discovered by the old and wise Magdalena Alquantara.
The old lady, which was immediately nominated countess of Palencia, was married immediately to the count of Avellino, Maso del Sasso.
Sadly the marriage was abruptly interrupted by the war between Aragon and Naples.
Juan didn’t join the fight, both for his still unready battalions and for the difficult choice between a weak and interesting port and an old-timed friend and companion.
Juan was frustrated by the constant indecision so the claim of Granadians against Sevilla was a beneficial target for all the energies of his nation.
So much people were interested in the incoming fight that nobles asked for help to the king against the migrations. In fact, serfs slowly started to move in cities and become artisans, instead of staying in the latifundia producing raw products. Juan decreed that any serf under an outrageous incoming level (cronicles tells us that any serf with that unprecised income could just buy the whole estate and run it as a noble) couldn’t move out the estate.
Although this spurred corruption and dependence between working class and nobles, two notables exceptions happened:
In Cordoba, the old Hebrew Miriam, who were working under the arrogant Duke Bartolomé Quintana, was saved from a cruel flogging by the apparition of the grancousin of Juan, the Bishop Martin de Sevillan, recently deceased. The apparition was enough for make Martin a Saint (celebrated on the 15th of April) and convince the old Miriam to be baptized with the name of Martina. Her story and genuine faith made conversions so frequent that Juan allowed special permission for even moriscos to take vows, at price of serving for a certain period in the Royal Tailoring, before taking vows.
The fact and second exception of the increasing power of the nobility was exactly the Royal Tailoring, located in Palencia. Dona Magdalena, in fact, pleaded the king for not leave her fellow women without future, and the queen (more than Juan itself) personally coined for the Palencian women the title of Tejedoras Real: each month, the most prolific tailor was invited to supervise the royal tailoring, where the eldest “tejedoras” worked for the crown.
All luck was not only on the economic side: Grenada had to fight a rebellion and it would have been delightful to take this offer from luck...but Juan said “Dogs mingle with trash, lions with gold”. No one was sure about the meaning, but most probably he was saying that, while Granada was getting weakened by the rebels, Castilla could reinforce herself in order to get ready and crush it while it was still prostrated.
Meanwhile, the queen’s lady in waiting Ursula Marescoto was married by the Breton lord Benaed Le Coq, and her dowry counted, as well as jewels and Palencian drapes, even ceremonial weapon, in order to suggest an alliance.
