En realidad las cosas verdaderamente difíciles son todo lo que la gente cree poder hacer a cada momento. - Julio Cortázar

     We put on our chain mail, strapped our swords to our belts, and raised the banners bearing the sign of the cross. I looked at the knights, who were elevated on horses. They looked like heroes. Their spears were ready to pierce the armor and flesh of our Almohad enemies. As we started to advance, I said a quick prayer.
God, please give me strength to kill your enemies today. Help us stop these monsters who pillage and destroy your people. Amen.
As we advanced, my heartbeat quickened. Sweat dripped from my hair. I was ready. I was ready to kill these men and take back this land for the cross. I was ready to die for the faith. But as we approached the Almohads, I saw something. I could barely see the enemy through the front lines of the god-like calvary, but I noticed something that I hoped I would never notice. I realized that my worst fears were coming true. All those stories I had heard about horrific Muslim monsters growing up weren’t true. I realized that they were men. They were men just like me.

     In the year of our Lord 1212, my life got turned on its head. I, Alfonso Guerrero Delgado, a poor farm boy from the town of Toledo, Spain, joined the army of God. They were passing through Toledo on their way to the battlefields down South in June and the noble we worked for at the time offered me up to fight with them. This didn’t upset me because I truly wanted to go. After growing up and hearing stories about the horrific Almohads, I was ready to fight them and take back God’s land. I wanted to go see the rest of the country too. My landlord gave me a small sword, a coat of mail, and a helmet. The army provided food for all of the soldiers along the way. My division of the army was led by king Alfonso VII of Castile, but we traveled alongside Sancho VII of Navarre, Afonso II of Portugal, and Pedro II of Aragon, each with his own divisions. This was the largest force assembled against the Muslims since the beginning of la Reconquista some 400 years earlier. When Muslims took over our homes in 755, they instituted policies of heavy taxation for the natives. They also limited our Christian rights to worship God and tried to force Islam on us. That’s why la Reconquista began. I thought it was a noble cause to take back God’s territory for Him. My home town of Toledo was recaptured in 1080, and we’ve been making more progress every year since then. Growing up, I had heard incredible stories about the monsters who called themselves Muslims and the Spanish heroes who had killed them and liberated territory after territory in God’s name. That’s why I was so excited to embark on la calle a Las Navas de Tolosa.

     For the first week of the journey, I dreamed solely of killing the Muslims. What a glorious day it would be. I had lived my entire life with that goal. All I had wanted was to expel the monsters that pillaged towns, destroyed homes, and rejected the truth of the gospel. I hardly believed they were men, those savages from Africa. They drove Spain into the dirt and spat at the cause of Christ! How could we let this go on for one day longer? Or so I thought. How could I have thought differently when that was all I had ever been told? On June 30, I was sitting at a fire with several senior soldiers. They were peasants from farms too, but they were much older and had been fighting for the cause for a long time. One of the oldest had even been at la Batalla de Alarcos when we suffered a crushing defeat. What I heard there changed my perspective, or at least started to change it.
     “This cursed conflict has gone on too long. How much longer can the rich use us like this?” said Montaner. Nobody listened to him because he had a reputation for complaining about everything. But the words came like daggers to my ears.
     “What? What are you talking about? We’re fighting for God, not for the rich!” I retorted.
     “Yeah. That’s what they tell everyone to get young people with dreams like you to join. All this is is a power grab. The Spanish just want this for the money and power, same as the Muslims. No difference except who they say they’re fighting for.”
     “You’re wrong! That’s not true! Look at the symbol on your shield, Montaner,” I commanded. He turned his head to look at the shield leaning against the log on which he was sitting. He slowly picked it up and held it in front of him. After a few moments, he opened his mouth to say,
     “It would have meant something to me once… Not anymore. Nothing more than an excuse to kill and take money from people.” He spat on the red cross and tossed it in the dirt. That night I didn’t dream about killing Muslims. I dreamed that I was in the midst of a ferocious battle, but when I focused on the enemy, it was me. I looked around, but all I could see under the sign of Muhammad was myself. Every one of them was me. But when I rose to execute one of them, I noticed that my hand was dark. It was the color of the African Muslims that occupied our country. I surveyed the armies under the banner of the cross, and they were all black like me. We were the monsters! But most horrifying of all was when I looked at the ground. The dirt was soaked with the blood of fallen soldiers, with the mingled blood of Muslims and Christians. The blood flowed through the dirt like two great red streams, picking up dirt and soot along the way. The once pure streams of blood were powered by separate bodies, but they met in a vast ocean where the Christian blood was inseparable from that of the Muslims and the dirt was just as much a part of this sea of blood as the salt is a part of the ocean surrounding my home country of Spain. I woke up in a cold sweat. Am I a soldier for God or a monster?
     As the journey to the plains continued, so did my thoughts. I continued to hear soldiers talk about the impure motives behind this war. I continued to tell myself that they were wrong. Looking back on that time, I don’t know what I believed. It was impossible to completely disregard those soldiers, but how could everyone who told me about the glory of fighting for God be wrong? How could so many people believe that the Muslims were monsters who destroyed and stole if it wasn’t true? I convinced myself that it had to be true. But the doubts stayed in the back of my mind.
     On July 12, 1212, we reached the Pass of Losa. Much to our leaders’ dismay—but to my relief—there was a Muslim guard there according to a scout that was sent out earlier that day. Through the night the tacticians and leaders of the army made plans and scrapped them over and over again trying to find a way to get around the Pass of Losa without alerting the Muslims as to our whereabouts. The answer came in the morning from an unexpected source. A shepherd who had frequented this area for more than twenty years notified our army that there was a small goat path that our army could sneak through without alerting the Muslims if done carefully. After thanking the man vigorously, the leaders resumed their planning with this new knowledge in mind. Eventually they decided that the best course of action would be to wait until nightfall and sneak the entire army through the pass in order to surprise the Muslims in the morning. With this knowledge, I tried to prepare myself for the coming battle. I told myself that I was ready to face the monsters, but I was worried that I wasn’t fighting for God. I was worried that I was a pawn in a rich man’s scheme.
      As night slowly conquered day, you could have cut the tension in the camp with a knife. It was time. We packed up our camp and made the difficult trek around the Pass of Losa. We walked most of the night, but when we finally arrived at the other side we were able to see the host of Almohad campfires glimmering like the stars of heaven on the clearest of nights. I tried to count them, but there were far too many. Some of the men slept that night, but all I could do was stare at the gleaming mass of Muslims ahead of me. The horde of monsters. Enemies of God.
     I can only imagine the panic the Muslims felt when they saw us the next morning. You could see the commotion in their camp in the distance. Las Navas de Tolosa was a vast plain with hills surrounding it, giving everyone inside it a feeling of claustrophobia—or maybe I was the only one who felt like that.
      “Men of God, today is the day that we take back God’s land from his enemies! We carry the sign of the cross with us, and God will deliver his enemies into our hands and make them our footstool!” shouted Alfonso, king of Castile, to his company of troops. As we began to put on our chain mail and strap on our swords, a bishop blessed our mission and forgave us of our sins in the name of God. I believed him. I knew that I was fighting for God. I knew that everyone here in the camp of the Christians was fighting for God. We ran to battle. The Muslim ranks rushing toward us looked like a wall of swords and shields. As a peasant, I was placed behind the ranks of noble cavalry with their lances pointing forward. Through the gaps in the wall of horses I could see the Almohads getting closer and closer. I strained my eyes to see their animal-like features, but what I saw was the last thing I had ever hoped to see. I saw men.
      The two lines crashed together. Our cavalry made loops to the backs of our ranks to prepare for another charge. Now it was our turn. As I stepped over the mass of dead men, I became overwhelmed with everything, lost consciousness, and fell to the ground. Where my cheek touched the ground was a pool of blood, and the last thing I saw before the darkness closed in was the young Almohad man—he was a man, I was sure of it—whose blood I was resting in. He looks like me.  I could see the expression of terror still on his face, terror that he was going to die in service of his religion. I saw a terror that reflected his final thoughts before his breath left his body. What if I’m wrong? What if the Christians are just fighting for their god like we’re fighting for Allah? These same thoughts swirled in my head until the darkness completely surrounded me.
      When I woke up, the battle was far progressed. My left side, which had been pressed against the ground, was soaked with blood. All around me the field was empty except for the bodies of the fallen. Behind me I heard the sounds of battle. I didn’t want to go, but the consequences of deserting the cause of Christ were enough to motivate me to grab the scimitar of a fallen Almohad and run toward the battle. When I arrived, I noticed that the main battle was over. Now the cavalry was making charge after charge on a large ring of African slaves surrounding the tent of the king of the Almohads, Miramamolín. There must have been at least 5,000 slaves with their arms locked with one another, making an extremely dense and impenetrable ring around the tent. Our king Alfonso was watching the attacking calvary from a distance of about fifty meters. The battle was almost won. As I gazed at King Alfonso, who was seated on his horse about fifteen meters from me, I saw a burly wounded Almohad rise from the ground behind King Alfonso and pick up a javelin. He began to rush at the king. I didn’t have time to think. I sprinted and intercepted the man just before he reached the king. I caught him off guard when my sword pierced his flesh. He turned to look at me and tried to say something, but couldn’t force it out of his deflated lungs. I watched as he died. I had killed him—a man.
      After the battle at Tolosa, the armies of God penetrated the final defense around the king’s tent and slew him. They then went on a hunt for all the survivors and killed them. 100,000 Muslims died that day. They were killed. Did they deserve to die? Did the 2,000 Christians who died that day deserve it? These questions haunt me even after all these years. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of the young Muslim lying next to me on the battlefield, the only difference between us that he was dead and I alive. I think about the man I killed. I wonder what he was going to say with his last breath. Furthermore, King Alfonso de Castile witnessed the whole event. He turned around just in time to see me slay his attacker. He saw the blood on my face and assumed I was a mighty warrior. There are stories told all around Spain about Alfonso Guerrero Delgado: The Scourge of the Almohads. What they don’t know is that I was the one soldier who stayed unconscious most of the battle. They don’t know that the one man I did kill was an accident. For all they know the blood dried on my face was there from the hundreds of Muslims I killed. Bards sing about me. They sing of my valiant deeds in battle. I try to forget them.