The Sun Over Breda Read online

  But back to my story. I was telling Your Mercies that there in Oudkerk, the usual entourage of troops on campaign—soldiers’ wives, whores, sutlers, gamblers, and people of every ilk—had set up their stalls outside of town, and soldiers were coming and going between these attractions and the town, dressing up threadbare duds with new trifles, plumes on hats, and other fripperies—as the sacristan knows, easy come, easy go. There was wanton disregard of the Ten Commandments, and few theological or cardinal virtues were left inviolate. It was, in short, what the Flemish call kermesse and we Spaniards jolgorio, a rowdy celebration. Or as the veterans put it, we could have been in Italy.

  The happy-go-lucky youth in me took in everything that day, as youths will do. Along with Jaime Correas, I saw every sight from Micah to Mecca, and although I was not much of a drinker, I downed the precious grape along with everyone else, among other reasons because drinking and gambling were what soldiers did, and there was no shortage of acquaintances who offered me a quaff free of charge. As for gaming, I did none of that because we mochileros had no pay to collect, past or current, so I had naught to play with. But I stood around watching the circles of soldiers gathered round the drumheads they used for throwing dice and playing cards. For if most of the miles gloriosus among our men were strangers to the Ten Commandments and scarcely knew how to read or write, had writing been based on the markings of a pack of cards, everyone would have been as familiar with the book of prayer as they were with their deck of forty-eight.

  Fair dice and loaded dice rolled across drumheads, and cards were as handily shuffled as if the action were taking place in the Potro square in Córdoba or the Patio de los Naranjos in Seville. There were numerous card games where players could throw in their money, among them rentoy, manilla, quínolas, and pintas. The center of the camp was one enormous gaming house, with “I’m in” and “I’m out,” and more swearing than artillery fire, with a “Damn that whore of gold” here and an “It’s your play” there, and not least a “’Fore God and your blessed mother.” Those who talk loudest in such moments are the ones who in battle show more fear than iron in their spine but who make a great show of courage in the rear guard and who who wield the swords on cards faster than they unsheathe their own. One soldier gambled away the six months of pay that had been his reason to mutiny, losing it through blows of fate as mortal as any dagger. In fact, such blows were not always metaphorical; from time to time cheating would be revealed—a shaved card, a pin-pricked king, a die weighted with quicksilver—and then the air thickened with “’Pon my life” and “’Pon your life,” “You lie through your teeth,” and worse, followed by a downpour of blows as daggers cut, swords slashed, and blood was spilled that had nothing to do with the barber or with the art of Hippocrates.

  What rabble is this? What men, what breeds?

  Soldiers, Spaniards, plumes, and finery,

  words, wit, lies, and gallantry,

  Arrogance, bravura, and foul deeds.

  I have already told Your Mercies that it was during this time that my virtue, like many other things, was carried off on the winds of Flanders. And in that regard I ended that day visiting, with Jaime Correas, a wheeled conveyance sheltered beneath a canvas and some boards where a certain pater brothelia, a pious enough calling where there is want, offered three or four of his parishioners to assuage manly woes.

  There are six or seven varieties

  of women, Otón, who sin,

  all of them strolling along these shores,

  shall we gather one in?

  One of those “varieties” was a flamboyantly robed girl, fair of mien and limb and of a reasonable age, and my comrade and I had invested a good part of the booty we had harvested during the sacking of Oudkerk in her company. We had no jingling purse that day, but the girl, half Spanish, half Italian, a wench who called herself Clara de Mendoza—I never met a trollop who did not boast of being a de Mendoza or de Guzmán though she came from a line of swineherds—had looked on us with favorable eyes for some reason that escapes me, unless it was the insolence of our years and perhaps her belief that she who takes a young and grateful youth as a client will keep him all her life. At the end of the day we went down to her neck of the woods, more to look than with coins to spend. The vivacious Mendoza, though she was occupied in activities proper to her office, nonetheless sent a friendly word our way, along with a dazzling, if somewhat snaggletoothed, smile. A certain loudmouthed soldier who was consorting with her at that moment did not take kindly to this. He was a fellow from Valencia, with a chestnut mustache and villainous beard, a burly, pugnacious type, and with his “Be off with you, forsooth!” he added a kick for my comrade and a slap for me, apportioning us equal shares. The punch to my cheek was more painful to my honor than to my face, and my youthful spirit, which a quasi-military life had not made more tolerant when confronted with such nonsense, duly responded. My right hand, of its own accord, went to the belt where my good Toledo dagger was snugged against my kidneys.

  “Appreciate, Your Mercy,” I said, “the disparity between our persons.”

  I did not actually pull my weapon, but the move was natural to someone born in Oñate, as I had been. As for the “disparity,” I was referring to my being a young mochilero and he a lordly soldier, but this contentious fellow took my words for an insult, thinking that I was questioning his worth. The truth is, the presence of witnesses rubbed this blusterer up the wrong way, and he was also loaded to the gills, for sloshing around in his innards was a great quantity of wine, as his breath betrayed. But without further preamble, the words were scarcely out of my mouth before he came at me like a madman, putting hand to his storied weapon, Durendal. People jumped aside, and not one soul intervened, apparently believing that I was lad enough to back my words with action. May God send down his thunderbolts on those who left me in that pickle. How cruel is the human condition when there is a spectacle to be witnessed, for not one of those bystanders aspired to make redemption his vocation, and I, who at that point in the proceedings could not put my tongue back into its scabbard, had no recourse but to pull out my dagger, hoping to make the game a little more even-handed, or at least to avoid ending my soldierly career like a chicken on a spit.

  Life in the service of Captain Alatriste and the army in Flanders had taught me a certain cunning, and I was a vigorous lad of fairly good size. And besides, La Mendoza was watching. So I stepped back from the sword tip, squarely facing the Valencian, who, completely at ease, began to make passes at me with the sharp edges of his sword, the kind of moves that do not kill but that make you happy to leave the scene. I could not run away, however—there was my reputation to consider—and I could not stand fast because of the discrepancy between our blades. I was tempted to throw my dagger at him, but I kept a cool head, despite my foreboding; I was aware that the final curtain would come down if I missed. My opponent kept coming at me with all the tricks of a Turk, and I kept moving back, well aware that I was inferior in weapons, body, strength, and expertise: He had his Toledo blade, was strong as an ox when sober, and skilled, whereas I was a wet-behind-the-ears youth with a dagger and bravado that would not serve me as shield. I envisioned that at least a split head—mine—would be the booty from this campaign.

  “Com’ere, then, young capon,” the fellow said.

  As he spoke, the wine in his belly caused him to stumble, so without his having to ask twice, I did as he requested. And as with the agility of my young years I was able to dodge his steel, covering my face with my left arm in case he should cut me off midway, I slashed with my dagger: right to left, above and below. Had it been a little longer, that blade would have left the king without a soldier and Valencia without a favorite son. To my good fortune, I jumped clear without major injury, but having only scratched my adversary’s groin—which is where I had aimed my thrust—severing his trouser latchet and drawing a “God’s blood!” that brought laughter from the witnesses and also some applause that, though little consolation, indicated t
hat the crowd was on my side.

  My attack, I can safely say, was a mistake, for everyone had seen that I was not some poor defenseless little boy, and now no one would step in or even plan to step in. Even my comrade, Jaime Correas, was urging me on, delighted with my performance in the altercation. The worst part was that with my blow the wine fumes that had befogged my opponent suddenly dissipated; with renewed vigor, he was now ready to make mincemeat of me. Horrified at the thought of going to my reward without confessing but with little choice, I resolved to make a second and final move: I would slip between the Valencian’s sword and his belly, stay in there somehow, and stab and stab and stab until one of the two of us was sent off with a letter for the devil. Lacking absolution and last rites, I would manufacture the necessary explanations. Strangely, years later a French author would write, “A Spaniard, having determined the move he will make with his knife, will carry through though he be cut to pieces,” and when I read that, I thought that nothing could better express the decision I had made confronting the Valencian. I took a deep breath, gritted my teeth, and as my enemy took one of the two-handed swings he was directing at me, I awaited the moment when the tip of his sword reached the point of the arc farthest from me, and planned to lunge at him with my dagger. And I would have done it, pardiez, had powerful hands not grabbed me by an arm and the nape of the neck at the same time a body stepped between me and my enemy. I looked up, dumbfounded, to meet the cold gray-green eyes of Captain Alatriste.

  “The boy was not much of a match for a brave man like you.”

  The scene had shifted, and now the action was being played out beside the canal and with relative discretion. Diego Alatriste and the Valencian were some fifty strides from the original site, at the foot of the embankment of a dike that hid them from the camp. Up on the dike, considerably higher above them, my master’s friends were keeping away the curious. They were very casual about it but nevertheless formed a barrier that prevented anyone from passing. Llop, Rivas, and Mendieta were there, and a few others, including Sebastián Copons. It was the latter’s iron hands that had plucked me from my imbroglio, and now I was standing beside him, watching what was happening below on the shore of the canal. All around me Alatriste’s friends were acting nonchalant, gazing off in different directions, discouraging anyone attempting to come take a look with fierce glances, twisting of mustaches, and hands poised on the pommels of swords. So that everything would be conducted in the proper manner, they had brought along two of the Valencian’s acquaintances in case witnesses should be needed regarding the settling of affairs.

  “You would never,” Alatriste added, “want to be called a baby butcher.”

  He said it with ice and derision in his voice, and in return the Valencian growled a blasphemous curse. There was no trace of the vapors of wine left in him, and he was running his left hand over his beard and mustache, piqued, still holding his unsheathed weapon in his right hand. Despite his menacing appearance and the threat of the naked blade, one could read between the lines that he was not entirely inclined toward swordplay, otherwise he would already have launched his attack against the captain, resolved to get in the first thrust. Pride and concern for his reputation had brought him here, along with the questionable state of his honor after his encounter with me, but from time to time he glanced up toward the top of the embankment, as if he still trusted that someone would step in before the matter went any further. The primary focus of his attention, however, was on every act of Diego Alatriste, who very slowly, as if he had all the time in the world, had taken off his hat, then, with measured movements, had pulled the bandolier with the twelve apostles over his head and laid it and his harquebus on the ground near the canal. Now, cool and collected, he was unfastening his doublet.

  “A brave man like you,” Alatriste repeated, his eyes locked with the Valencian’s.

  The second time the captain had uttered that como vos, “like you,” with such cold sarcasm, the Valencian had snorted with fury, looked up at the men on the embankment, taken one step forward and another to the side, and whipped his sword back and forth. When not used among good acquaintances, friends, or persons of very different status, that vos, rather than uced or “Your Mercy,” was not very courteous and was often considered an insult by the invariably thin-skinned Spaniard. If we consider that in Naples the Conde de Lemos and don Juan de Zúñiga took out their swords—they and all their retinue, even their servants—and that one hundred and fifty blades were drawn that day because one called the other señoría instead of “Excellency” and because the other returned with vuesamerced instead of señoría, it is easy to judge the extent of such sensitivities. It was painstakingly clear that the Valencian could not willingly endure that vos, and that despite his indecision—it was evident that he knew the man standing before him by sight and reputation—he was left with no option but to fight. To sheathe his sword before another soldier who had addressed him as vos, especially as he was brandishing his sword with such swagger, would have been a black mark on his reputation.

  In Spanish, the word reputation was, in those days, a very weighty word. Not for nothing had we Spaniards fought for a century and a half in Europe, ruining ourselves to defend the true religion and our reputation, while the Lutherans, Calvinists, Anglicans, and other accursed heretics, despite spicing their stew with a lot of Bible and freedom of thought, had fought so that their merchants and their companies in the Indies could earn more money. Reputation was of little concern to them if it did not offer practical advantages. It has always been our way, however, to be guided less by practical sense than by the Ora pronobis and the “What will people say”? So that was how things were in Europe, and that is how things were with us.

  “No one invited you to bring your candle to this funeral,” the Valencian said hoarsely.

  “True,” Alatriste conceded, as if he had thought carefully about candles and funerals, “but I thought that a fine soldier like you”—again that vos—“deserved someone who was more your own size, so I hope to be of service.”

  By now Alatriste was in his shirtsleeves, and the stitched tears, patched hose, and old boots tied below the knee with harquebus cord did not diminish his imposing appearance one whit. The water in the canal reflected the gleam of his sword as he drew it from the scabbard.

  “If it please you, would you tell me your name?”

  The Valencian, who was unfastening a jerkin with as many rips and tears as the captain’s shirt, gave a surly nod. His eyes never left his adversary’s blade.

  “My name is García de Candau.”

  “A pleasure.” Alatriste had put his left hand behind him, and in it now glinted the Vizcaína, his dagger with the shepherd’s crook guards. “Mine…”

  “I know who you are,” the other interrupted. “You are that charlatan captain who gives himself a title he does not possess.”

  Atop the embankment, Alatriste’s men looked at each other. The wine had given the Valencian some nerve after all. Those familiar with Diego Alatriste knew that if the man were hoping to get out of this with nothing more than a wound or two and a few weeks on his back, wading into those deep waters was a fatal card to play. We all watched expectantly, determined not to lose a single moment.

  Then I saw that Diego Alatriste was smiling. I had lived with him long enough to know that smile: a grimace beneath his mustache, a funereal omen, bloodthirsty as a weary wolf once again preparing for the kill but without passion and without hunger, simply doing its job.

  As they pulled the Valencian onto land, blood stained the calm waters of the canal around him. Everything had been done in accord with the rules of fencing and of decency, man to man, feet set, swords slashing, daggers playing, until Captain Alatriste’s blade entered where it was wont. And when questions arose about that death—amid cards, quarrels, and slaughtering knives, three others were dispatched that day, along with half a dozen wounded—the witnesses, all soldiers of our lord and king, and men whose word was trusted, said
straight out that the Valencian had fallen into the canal after drinking himself senseless, wounding himself with his own weapon. So the chief bailiff of the tercio, privately relieved, declared the matter closed and bade everyone to go tend his roses. As if that wasn’t enough, that very night the Dutch attacked. And the bailiff, the colonel, the soldiers, Captain Alatriste, and I as well had—God knows it—more urgent things to think about.