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 234 A HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES 
following year, and recommending Raymond de Vilanova to them. 21 It seems
likely that Urtubia had died, and that Berard and Peter Bordo had sold Thebes
to Nerio, and then joined Mahiot in the Morea to see what the future might
hold. Of all this there is of course no evidence, but it would have been
impossible for Dalmau to enter into any sort of alliance with the new Navarrese
Company if any of its leaders still held Thebes. 
While Dalmau was in Greece, he had discussed with Louis Fadrique the possibility
of his son Bernaduch's marrying Louis's daughter Maria. Just about the time
of Dalmau's return to Barcelona, however, Louis died, and the outstanding
Catalan in Greece was lost to the cause of Aragon. On November 18, king Peter
sent countess Helena Cantacuzena an expression of his distress to learn of
her husband's death and of his royal desire to preserve her honor and well-being.
At the countess's request he granted her daughter Maria the castle of Siderokastron
for her lifetime, but he added the proviso that to get the castle, Maria
must go through with the projected marriage to Bernaduch Dalmau.22 But Maria
Fadrique did not marry the young lord Bernaduch, and presumably she never
held Siderokastron, to which no further reference occurs in the Catalan documents.
In the late summer of 1382 the municipality of Athens sent an emissary to
Peter IV, asking royal confirmation of the privileges, concessions, and immunities
which the Catalan kings of Sicily had granted to Athens in past decades.
The emissary found the king at Tortosa by the Ebro. He acceded to the requests
on December 5, recalling how the Catalans in Athens had always preserved
the natural tie which bound them to the fatherland.23 There is indeed abundant
evidence of the attachment of the Catalan creoles in Greece (and of course
in Sicily) to their Iberian homeland, but they also came to love the sunny
skies and evening breezes of Athens and Thebes. By a letter patent of April
1368, for example, addressed to the then vicar-general Roger de Liuria and
the municipalities of the duchies, king Frederick III besought protection
for one Bartholomew de Valerio, who had been serving the crown in Sicily
but now proposed to return to Greece "and to see again the city of Thebes,
his beloved home" (ac civitatem Thebarum eius dulcem patriam revidere).24
The emissary who brought the Athenian requests to Tortosa 
21. Dipl., doc. DXXI, p. 575. 
22. Dipl., doc. DXXVI, pp. 5 79—580, and cf. docs. DXXVII, DXXVIII,
pp. 580—58 1. 
23. Dipl., docs. DXXXII, DXXXIII, pp. 583—5 85. 
24. Dipl., doc. CCXCIX, p. 387, and cf. Setton, Catalan Domination, pp. 87—88.