Toward evening, in front of the company and the doctor Pedro Recio, Sancho launched into a speech. Judges and governors, he said, ought to be made of bronze. People with business come at any hour and want only their own case heard, and if the judge cannot hear them, they curse him and dig up his whole family line. Judges are flesh and bone too, he said, and must eat and sleep. Except himself, he added, since Doctor Recio would not let him eat at all.
Those who knew Sancho were amazed to hear him speak so well. A weighty post either sharpens a mind or dulls it, they said. Doctor Recio promised that for that one night he would let the governor have supper, even if it went against every rule of Hippocrates.
Supper was minced beef with onions and boiled calf’s feet. To Sancho it tasted better than any pheasant from Milan or partridge from Rome. His stomach, he said, was used to goat and beef and bacon and turnips and onions, so from now on they should simply bring him a big stewpot. He would govern this island, he said, without letting go of what was due or taking a single bribe.