A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar): A Contribution to the History of India c21.s3.t4.35

c21.s3.t4.35

AFTER Salvatinia had arrived and had been well received by the King, and after the lapse of some days, the King told him that he desired to fulfil all the wishes expressed in the testament of King Narsynga, one of which was to capture Rachol, which was a very strong city and amongst the principal ones of the Ydalcão, who had taken it from the kings his ancestors; and because there was now peace between both parties, and had been so for forty years, he knew not how he could manage to break it. But Salvatinia said that since the peace had been made under certain conditions—one of which was that if on either one side or the other any land-owners, captains in revolt, or other evil-doers should be harboured and their surrender should be demanded, they should forthwith be given up—there was now great reason for breaking the peace, since many land-owners and debtors to His Highness had fled into the kingdom of the Ydalcão. He counselled therefore that the King should send to demand the surrender of these men, and that on refusal to give them up there would be good ground for breaking the peace. Many, however, disagreed with this advice. Now it happened at this time that the King (of Bisnaga) sent Cide Mercar with forty thousand *pardaos* to Goa to buy horses, which Cide Mercar was a Moor in whom the King of Bisnaga confided on account of various affairs with which he had already been entrusted; and this man, when he arrived at a place where the Moors lived which was called Pomdaa and is two leagues from Goa, fled from that place, Pomdaa, to the Ydalcão, carrying with him all the treasure. Some say that the Ydallcão wrote to him a letter as soon as he got there. As soon as they gave to the King this news of the flight of Cide, and how he had carried off all the money, he said that he would write to the Ydallcão to send the man back to him with all the money, since he was his friend. Then the King caused a letter to be written, in which he spoke of the friendship that had existed for so many years so that nothing could shake it, and that he hoped that a traitor would not be the cause of breaking a peace of such long standing as had been between them; and he begged that he would send Cide back at once.