Nuno Álvares, who was in Palmela, learned how the king [of Castile] had raised the siege and was in Santarém, which news pleased him greatly. He received confirmation that there the king had mustered but a few, poorly equipped troops to assign to his border garrisons. When Nuno Álvares, who was very astute and bold in all things, found this out, as well as the fact that there would be many corpses and sick people from the king's army going with him, he thought that they would be spread out along the road without too many precautions. So, with a great and brave heart, he was entirely seized with the desire to come out on the road ahead of the king and, with God's help, to attack and rout him together with all his men.

Some say, when giving a brief account of this story, that he sent for permission from the Master to do this; that the latter replied he was very pleased about it, but asked Nuno Álvares to wait for him since he wanted to join with him in that action; that because the matter was delayed, and the Master did not set out in time, the King of Castile went his way without hindrance from anyone; that Nuno Álvares was much aggrieved at this and at the fate of his request for permission. But another compiler of these deeds, from whose writings we insert longer passages into this work as appropriate, relates it as follows. He says that when Nuno Álvares was in Palmela and learned the above-mentioned news, and how the king was departing with a powerful desire to return to the kingdom with greater forces to subjugate it through warfare, he decided to go and speak to the Master, as much about his plan to do battle with the King of Castile, as about other things that were very necessary to the former's service, despite the fact that the whole [Castilian] fleet was still lying off the city exactly as it had lain beforehand.

For this reason, he went to the promontory of Montijo in the Ribatejo, which is 2 leagues from the city, where he had a small boat in readiness to take him across the water.