DE GON. FER. DE OVIEDO.

"This (writes Oviedo) lasted well four hours, and from there the king left, and at the time he was leaving, as I was at the door and serving in the chamber, he said to me: 'Oviedo, the Queen, my sister, wants you to go with her, and I command you to do so for my love; because her wardrobe master has left for the French (who has served her for twenty-five years since he raised her), and she wants you to have her chamber, because you were raised in that of the lord Prince of Castile.' Do it so, for everything will end well, and soon we will all return to Naples. What I felt with the same anguish of death, and kneeling, I begged him that he might find it good that I go to die where Your Majesty might go. And he said: 'Do what I say: for although you go with the Queen, my sister, you do not cease to serve me' 28."

While the sad Don Fadrique embarked the remains of that political shipwreck to take refuge on the island of Ischia original: "Isela", Princess Doña Juana, who a few years before wore the crown of Naples 29, departed from that capital with all her servants on seven galleys, which the Great Captain had sent under the command of Don Iñigo Lopez de Ayala so that he might take her to Sicily. Oviedo went in her company, and having arrived at Palermo with that squadron in the first days of August 1501, he remained in the service of the Queen for the space of ten months, a time in which he sought to cultivate the friendship of Gonzalo Fernandez de Córdoba, not neglecting to amass his memoranda, now with the account of the feats of such an illustrious leader, heard from his own mouth, now with exotic news of that celebrated island, now finally with the narration of the events of which he was a witness. In May 1502, Queen Doña Juana set sail again, heading for the city of Valencia, where she arrived within eight days, having the pleasure of embracing there in her arms her elderly mother, who had gone out to receive her. After a few months, Oviedo gave a full account of the chamber placed in his care, and with the permission of Doña Juana, he took leave of her service, heading to Madrid, his homeland, not without first stopping in Zaragoza, a city where the Catholic King was at the time holding Cortes parliamentary assembly 30.