On a dark, cloudy morning, a young, fair-skinned lady was riding sidesaddle on horseback near a wide river. Since sunrise, she had been looking for a bridge to cross the river. However, heavy fog blanketed the surroundings and kept her from seeing much farther. She nevertheless came upon a bridge not far away, barely covered by the fog, so she decided to get closer to the bank of the river and search for the foot of the bridge. Suddenly, rain began pouring down. As she struggled to get her horse out of the now-muddy ground, her feet slipped from the stirrup and she soon saw herself fall off her horse.
She frantically flailed her arms as she flew in the air, gasping as her helpless body plunged headlong into water. She tried swimming ashore, but she was quickly swept away by the river's deceptively-strong currents. Even trying to stay afloat was getting harder as the weight of her drenched clothing gradually overpowered her and drew her underneath.
The young lady's cries for help echoed through the fog, startling a young man sleeping under a tree at the other bank of the river. He opened his eyes just in time to see her drift into the middle of the river. He unhesitatingly dived into the river to save her from drowning. Despite being slowed down by the weight of her clothing, he held onto her with one arm while paddling on with his other arm until they reached the bank of the river.
He laid her unconscious body on the ground, perpendicular to the slope, before he moved her hair to uncover her pale face. Seeing some water gush out of her nostrils, he undid her overcoat and began to compress her chest repeatedly. Each push hastened the flow of water until the flow weakened with the decreasing amount of water in her lungs. Then he puffed into her mouth several times in an attempt to restore her breathing. He was distraught, seeing that his efforts to save this lady's life seemed to be all in vain.
He was about to attempt resuscitating her for one last time when she suddenly spit out all the remaining water in her lungs and began coughing. When she opened her eyes, she saw the young man who was wearing a tattered gambeson over a drab, roughspun tunic kneeling beside her. She also noticed her tanned carmine overcoat and her silken amber dress splattered with mud. Still disoriented, she began screaming incoherently at the young man.
"Calm down," he tried to soothe her. "You almost drowned in the river, but you are safe now."
"Get away from me!" she demanded, her voice shaking with fury. She pushed him away from her just in case the message didn't come across.
The young man, somewhat intimidated by her loud voice, backed away. He partially understood her flustered words and replied, "I'm sorry, little princess. I just wanted to make sure you're fine."
"Don't you dare call me that!" she snapped, trying to sit up.
"Why not? You look like a princess to me," he asked.
Taking great offense to his attempt to flatter her, she reached into her overcoat and pulled out her scepter. "I am not just any princess. I am the queen of this kingdom, and I will not be spoken to like a child!" she menacingly introduced herself.
Shocked by this revelation, he quickly knelt before her. "Your Majesty, please forgive my ignorance. I had no idea."
The young queen's expression softened slightly, satisfied by the young man's submission, and her eyes wandered until she saw her horse restlessly running around far behind him. "Can you see that?" she asked, still sneering at him. He turned his head to see what she's pointing out at the other bank of the river. "Now, get up and bring my horse to me," she commanded.
He nodded and sprinted to the other end of the bridge, where her horse was waiting. With all the strength she could muster, she walked after him to make sure he was following her order. However, before she could get close to the bridge, he came back, leading her horse with minimal struggle. "Very well," she said, calming down as she tucked her scepter within her overcoat, "I'm pardoning your disrespect for now." As she mounted her horse, she handed him a pennon. "And for saving my life, I can't reward you yet, as I have pressing matters to attend to elsewhere in the kingdom," she said to him. "But I promise I'll be back here in a few weeks. Show this to me when I return from my visit, and I'll reward you for your bravery."
The young queen then rode off, leaving the young man standing by the tree, wondering who she really was.
It was still raining when the queen stopped by a manor near the river, still drenched and shivering. She dismounted her horse and tied its reins to the hitching post outside the wooden gates. Inside, she spotted her old friend, Duchess Urraca, rushing towards her.
"Your Majesty! How nice to see you again," Urraca greeted, curtsying briefly.
The queen nodded and smiled. "It is good to see you, too, Urraca." The two embraced each other warmly, as if they hadn't seen one another in ages.
"What happened to you, Your Majesty? You're still dripping wet!" Urraca asked, breaking her embrace after feeling the queen's damp clothes.
"I had a little accident near the river," the queen replied with a weak smile.
"You need dry clothes. You can borrow some of mine," Urraca offered.
The queen was hesitant. "I don't want to trouble you," she protested.
"Nonsense, my dear. It's no trouble at all," Urraca insisted. "Come in."
After getting inside the manor house, Urraca led the queen to the dressing room and pulled out a dry towel and a fresh set of clothes from a cabinet.
"Here. Please join me at the hearth after you're done changing," Urraca said before leaving the queen in the dressing room.
Later, the queen came out of the dressing room wearing the borrowed clothes. Following the scent of freshly-cooked lamb and barley soup, she carried the towel on one hand and her wet, muddied clothes on the other until she reached the hearth, where she hung her clothes at a rack nearby.
She saw Urraca sitting at a chair near the dining table. "You need to get warm, here's some soup," she offered to the queen a bowl of soup before going back to eating her own.
"Thanks, Urraca," the queen accepted before she sat at the empty chair beside the duchess and began eating.
Urraca finished her bowl of soup before asking the queen, "Can you tell me more about the little accident you had at the river?"
"I lost control of my horse and fell in," the queen admitted.
Urraca gasped, her eyes widening. "Are you alright? Did anyone help you?"
The queen smiled faintly. "Yes, a young man saved me. If he didn't hear my cries for help, I'd have drowned there."
Urraca let out a huge breath. "Thank God for sending him to your aid. Do you remember his name?"
The queen shook her head. "No, I was too panicked to ask. He's dressed like a peasant, but I suspect he's a noble. He seems to know his way around horses. Anyway, I gave him one of my pennons and promised to reward him when we meet again." She glanced at the window and noticed that the rain was weakening. "I have to get going," she told Urraca as she rushed to finish her soup. "If you find him, please help him and encourage him to stay nearby."
"I will keep an eye out for him, Your Majesty," Urraca nodded. As the queen prepared to get back on her horse, Urraca warned her, "The next town after this one is far away from here. Do you want me to fetch someone to travel along with you?"
Despite nearly dying a while ago, the queen's bravado seemed undiminished. "Thanks, but I think I can handle myself," she refused.
Still being scared for the queen, Urraca reminded her, "Be careful not to get into another accident. Almost no one lives along the roads outside of town."
"Promise, I will," the queen responded, slightly embarrassed, before riding off.
After rainfall stopped later that day, the duchess went near the river and spotted a red pennon hanging on a tree branch, bearing a yellow triple-towered castle, the kingdom's emblem. Such a pennon is usually reserved for the reigning monarch and those who act in her behalf, and yet the duchess saw at another branch of the tree a young man who looked like neither.
"Excuse me, young man," the duchess asked him, "did you see someone fall into the river this morning?"
"Yes, Senhora. A young woman nearly drowned, but I was able to save her just in time," he responded, pausing from picking fruits from it before asking a question of his own. "Do tell me, is she really the queen as she says?"
"Indeed, she is our queen," the duchess confirmed, confident that she has found young man the queen described to her earlier. "She wants to reward you for rescuing her. Make sure you keep that pennon so that she could find you when she comes back in a week or two." The young man was stunned for a while. Before he could respond, the duchess continued, "In the meantime, she asked me to assist you in any way I can before she returns. I'm Urraca Jiménez, the Duchess of Extremadura, a friend and loyal vassal of Her Majesty. Who are you?"
"João de Aviz, son of the Duke of Guimarães," he introduces himself in turn.
"A fellow noble, I see," she says. She then came to the tree and left some fishing gear on the ground beneath it. "Anyway, here's a fishing rod and some bait for you, João," she offered.
He climbed down the tree, eager to eat something other than fruits in weeks. "Thank you, Dona Urraca."
"And if you need a place to stay for the night, you can come to my manor," she offered again. "It will be the first house you'll see if you go further into the road."
He hesitated, "Thanks, but I want to make sure the queen would find me here, right at the spot where we first met."
The duchess nodded, "Very well. But if you change your mind, my offer still stands." She then left him to try out the fishing gear on his own.
A couple of weeks later, the queen returned to Urraca's manor. After exchanging pleasantries, the queen got back the clothes she left behind, now all cleaned, from Urraca, before going to the dressing room. Minutes later, the queen came out wearing her own clothes, leaving behind the ones she borrowed, and joined the duchess on the porch, taking an empty seat not far from the duchess's.
The queen inquired, "How's the young man who saved me from drowning faring?"
"The last time I saw him, he was fishing near the river," Urraca recalled while she was sewing together a bag. "He accepted a fishing rod and some bait from me but refused to go here."
"Why?" the queen wondered. "Is he afraid of me or you perhaps?"
"Hopefully not," Urraca said, "but he insisted on staying and meeting you there. And I don't remember him being scared of me when I met him. Why would he be afraid of you?"
The queen was silent for a while, collecting her thoughts before speaking. "I was fearing for the worst when I saw him, so I brandished my scepter to prove my identity and threatened to beat him with it."
"You brandished your scepter at him?" Urraca raised her eyebrows. "With all due respect, Your Majesty, you should be more careful, especially to fellow nobles like him."
"Really," the queen gasped, "a fellow noble?"
"Yes. He's a son of the Duke of Guimarães, from the same noble house as your mother," Urraca confirmed. The queen simply looked away from the duchess. "But still, you want to maintain the respect of your people regardless of their status, don't you?"
"I know, Urraca," the queen sighed before she started rambling. "I was just so surprised and scared when I woke up and saw him. I wasn't thinking straight. He still probably thinks I'm a spoiled little princess who'd beat to death anyone over the slightest infractions. How can I show him that I'm not like that? How can I make amends with him?"
"First and foremost, Your Majesty," Urraca said, "you have to apologize to him."
"I'll do that as soon as I see him," the queen nodded. "I was being bothered by my conscience since that day. And the young man being someone my mother possibly knows makes it even worse."
"You are a good queen," Urraca reassured her, "But you're new to your position. You'll inevitably make mistakes while familiarizing yourself with your duties. I'm sure the young man saw that, bad first impression aside, you have a good heart."
"But what if he didn't?" she worriedly asked.
"Well, why don't you try showing him a different side of yourself?" Urraca suggested. "Perhaps you could approach him with humility and kindness. Show him that you are not just a queen, but a person, just like him." The queen simply nodded.
"Also," the duchess added as she went to the dressing room to get the overcoat the queen previously borrowed, "please give him this. It's something he could use if he insists on sleeping outside."
"Great idea! This would make a fine peace offering." They then bid farewell to each other before she rode away from the manor, eager to make things right with the young man who saved her life.