105 three streaks of ash across their chests; shoulders, and foreheads, which they put their as their faith’s reminder that will return to ash. They mix it with sandalwood; saffron; rose-water, and agarwood. They live in single-storey houses. They sit on very highflat blocks, which are covered once a day in cow dung. They put a very white board on it, four fingers thick, and a cloth of uncarded and undyed black sheep’s wool, which is as big as an Alentejo cape. It is folded over three times and they sit on it with some round and long cushions of cotton and otherfine fabrics that they lean on, and rich carpets they also sit on. However, they always have that uncarded woollen rug next to them or under them, out of ceremony; idolatry and tradition. They often recline on fine white silk or cloth divans and if someone should come to see them, the said wool rug is brought and put beside him and when he leaves, the page carries it folded in front of him, out of circumstance. They always carry a sword, and when they move from one place to another, they always carry it in their hands. These kings never marry and they do not have marriage rites. They only have concubines, who are noble women descended from nairs and who are pretty enough to please them. They are given their own lodgings in a separate inn next door to the palace and are well cared-for there. They are given a monthly or annual allowance, which they stop receving whenever they fall out of favour and the kings take another. Nevertheless, as it is a matter of royal honesty, many of them do not swap or expel them, and it is a great honour for a woman to be the king’s concubine. The children that the kings have with them are not recognised and do not inherit the kingdom, nor anything from the king’s estate, only from their mother’s. Whilst they are children, they are welltreated by the king as if they were someone else’s children that he is raising, but not as if they are his own children, because when they are men, their only honour comes from their mother’s lineage. The king,
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