After his temporary release, Abindarráez returns to Narváez with Harifa

After Rodrigo de Narváez releases Abindarráez for a brief visit to Coín, Abindarráez returns to Álora with Jarifa rather than use his freedom to escape. The return turns a captor’s act of mercy into a test of honor: Abindarráez fulfills his pledged word, and Jarifa makes clear that she will not accept safety or freedom apart from him. Their arrival gives Narváez the means to seek forgiveness for the couple and brings their private marriage into the sphere of public authority.

Background and Terms of Release

The episode belongs to a tale that Felismena recounts at the house of the wise Felicia. Within that embedded story, Rodrigo de Narváez is the Castilian alcaide of Álora and Antequera, known for his courage and generosity. On a summer night, he rides out from Álora with nine knights to scout the nearby frontier. At a fork in the road, the party divides; five men hear a lone rider singing and sighing, then spring from an ambush. The rider is Abindarráez, a Moorish knight traveling from Cártama to Coín to see Jarifa, the woman he loves.

Abindarráez fights the five attackers with striking skill, despite a wound to his thigh. After losing his lance, he appears to flee, retrieves a fallen opponent’s weapon, and turns back to the fight. When Narváez arrives, he sees the Moor’s valor for himself and challenges him in single combat, with the defeated man to be the victor’s prize. Narváez ultimately captures him. Abindarráez then explains that his sorrow is not simply the pain of his wounds or the fact of imprisonment: he had been summoned by Jarifa and was on his way to marry her. The delay threatens to cost him the meeting and marriage he had expected that night.

Moved by the story, Narváez offers a conditional release. If Abindarráez promises to return to the castle at Álora within three days, Narváez will let him continue to Coín. Abindarráez accepts the condition as a knightly pledge. Narváez gives him a fresh horse because Abindarráez’s own mount was injured in the skirmish, and the Moor rides away exhausted and bleeding. The liberty is therefore both a genuine opportunity to reach Jarifa and an obligation whose fulfillment will determine what his word is worth.

The Journey to Coín and Jarifa’s Choice

Abindarráez reaches the fortress at Coín in haste. He approaches by a concealed entrance, pauses to make sure the surrounding country is quiet, and signals at the false door with the butt of his lance, as Jarifa’s maid had instructed him. The maid leads him up to Jarifa’s chamber. Their embrace and relief give way to the explanation of his delay: the journey and the fight have made him late, and he is wounded.

Jarifa tells him that she summoned him so they could be together as husband and wife. She has brought him to the fortress intending to make him master of herself and her father’s possessions under the name of husband; she believes her father would have preferred a wealthier match, but values Abindarráez’s character above wealth. The reunion thus confirms that the journey was not merely a lovers’ visit: it has brought Abindarráez to the marriage he had hoped for, even as his promise to return threatens to separate them almost immediately.

When Abindarráez grows suddenly silent and distressed, Jarifa fears that she has displeased him or that he loves another. He tells her what happened on the road and explains that he is bound to return to Narváez. His anguish comes from the prospect of leaving her, not from regret over their union. Jarifa first proposes that they satisfy the captor’s claim with money from her father’s coffers. Abindarráez refuses: having given his word before their marriage, he considers himself even more bound to keep it now that he is Jarifa’s husband. He will go back in person and accept whatever fortune follows.

Jarifa will not let him return alone. She says she cannot remain free while he is a prisoner, and that fear of her father, whom she has disobeyed, also prevents her from staying behind. Before daybreak, the couple set out secretly for Álora. Jarifa covers her face as they travel, to avoid recognition. Her decision changes the terms of the return: Abindarráez is not simply surrendering himself again but bringing the woman he has just married into Narváez’s hands as well.

Return to Álora and Its Consequences

The couple reach Álora quickly and go straight to the castle. The guards, already informed of what has happened, open the gate. Abindarráez takes Jarifa by the hand and presents their arrival as proof that he has honored his pledge: he promised to return one prisoner and has brought back two. He entrusts both his person and Jarifa’s honor to Narváez. Narváez welcomes them courteously, saying in effect that he cannot tell which of the two has conquered the other, and offers them his house as a place to rest.

The physical cost of the skirmish remains visible. Abindarráez’s wounds have worsened during the hurried journey, and Jarifa is alarmed when she learns of them, though she controls her expression so as not to distress him. Narváez summons a surgeon. The wounds are shallow and not dangerous; with treatment and Jarifa’s attentive care, Abindarráez recovers in four days. His return therefore does not end with the couple’s reception at the castle: it gives Narváez time to hear their case and act on their behalf.

Once Abindarráez has recovered, he asks Narváez to seek forgiveness from Jarifa’s father, the governor of Coín, and from the king of Granada. Jarifa had feared her father’s reaction and had not stayed in Coín; her father is away at Granada. Narváez writes to the king, explaining that Abindarráez returned as promised and that Jarifa chose to accompany him. He also asks the king not to punish the couple for the Abencerraje name: he asserts that Abindarráez and his father were innocent of the alleged conspiracy that brought disaster on their family. The king responds by directing Jarifa’s father to forgive the couple and receive Abindarráez as a son. Thus the return that might have sealed their separation instead enables reconciliation with Jarifa’s family.

Honor, Mercy, and the Story’s Design

The episode makes a pledge more than a condition imposed by a captor. Abindarráez freely accepts Narváez’s terms, then refuses Jarifa’s offer to discharge the obligation through payment. His choice makes personal honor visible in action: even love and a newly secured marriage do not cancel his word. Jarifa’s decision answers his fidelity with a corresponding commitment, as she chooses shared captivity over a freedom that would leave him behind.

Narváez’s conduct completes the exchange. He first recognizes the courage of the man he captures, then grants him a chance to reach Jarifa, receives him again without treating his return as defeat, and uses his standing with the king to seek the couple’s pardon. The tale sets Christian and Moorish characters on opposing sides of a frontier, yet gives their encounter a shared language of courage, fidelity, generosity, and honorable conduct. Abindarráez’s return is the hinge of that design: a potentially violent capture becomes an occasion for mutual trust, and Narváez’s mercy is answered not by flight but by a voluntary return. As Felismena’s inset tale, the episode also widens the surrounding pastoral narrative into a story of frontier conflict resolved through personal virtue and magnanimity.