Albert Sanchez Pinol - Victus - The Fall of Barcelona

What I said was: “Good afternoon.”

“It is, a very good afternoon,” he replied. His hands were on the pommel of his saddle, and he was looking up at the sky like a country philosopher. “A very good afternoon indeed .”

“What can we do for you?” I asked.

He took offense. He rode his horse forward and circled me a few times, an act that was obviously most intimidating. I could almost hear people’s hearts pounding inside the masía . I raised my voice. “It’s rude addressing a person who is not mounted from on a horse, even for a gentleman.”

Ballester addressed his men: “A gentleman! Did you hear that? I’m a proper gentleman now!”

His fellow outlaws burst out laughing. Ballester made a gesture of mocking condescension and dismounted.

He did not smell bad — a fact I found strange, because as the son of a seafaring trader who lived with his back to the inland places, I had been schooled in the belief that Miquelets were no better than the dregs and overspillings of the brimstone of hell. Ballester gave off a smell of clean ashes, of thyme, and of rosemary. As did his men.

A year had passed since we had met, but he stated rather than asked: “We know each other.”

“I do believe we’ve met,” I said coolly. “We engaged in a commercial transaction. I came away with nothing, and you with everything.”

He ignored my words, gesturing at the masía . “Why have you shut yourselves inside there?”

“Your reputation precedes you.”

“Oh, dear — and what reputation would that be?”

Since we had decided to defend ourselves, I stood my ground. “They say Esteve Ballester is a murderous brute, a criminal. That he uses the excuse of fighting for the Catalan fatherland to attack poor defenseless travelers. He robs and kidnaps. If the ransom does not arrive in time, he burns his victim’s feet. And that’s when he’s in a good mood.”

He chose to ignore the provocation. “Really?” he said. “And you believe everything people say?”

“I myself happen to know that some people, he strips naked, hangs, and leaves for dead.”

He gave a guffaw. “To the best of my knowledge, I have never taken anything of yours.” He paused, then said, his voice graver: “And as for you, botiflero , you dare to call me a thief?”

If I wanted to bargain with him, it was not good to have him talk down to me like this. Ballester and I were halfway between his men and the masía . I took off my hat. It was the sign for all the firearms to be poked out of the door, the windows and the roof, including the barrels of the rusty muskets, which the women had polished up with rags and spit.

“ Señor , I have twenty rifles pointing directly at your head,” I lied. “Our riders have galloped off to notify the guard. They’ll be along any moment. You know we are poor citizens; there’s no booty to be had here. If this has to be resolved with firearms, there will be no one but you to blame for it.”

I had shouted these words so that everyone could hear. It was a simple calculation: If the prospect of raiding the house didn’t seem profitable, they would leave. And even if they believed only half of my lies, that was enough to give them good cause for doubt. Unfortunately, the proximity of violence changed Ballester. So it is with all men, but in him it was as though something inside snapped. His deep eyes sank deeper. The blue vein across his right temple swelled and throbbed. Years later, I would discover the small things in him that signaled murderous intent: When he was ready to kill, you could smell that sweating of his, incredibly intense.

His voice hissed horribly, the blue vein as thick as a worm: “If your people kill me, mine will kill you, too, you fool.”

“Indeed,” I replied, also whispering. “All in all, it’s a draw.”

Then we heard something: the cries of a terrified child.

One of the horsemen approached with Anfán under his arm. The boy was struggling. When he saw me, he reached out his hands toward me, his fingers splayed open, and began to squeal even more desperately.

Ballester must have seen something change in my expression, because he gave a bit of a grimace, though not a smile, and said: “So it seems that draw of yours has just gone to hell.”

We all have dreams in our childhood in which we are swallowed up in a deep tentacle-filled pit. But to Anfán, this was now reality. He was thirty feet away, and those thirty feet were as insuperable as a whole world.

The boy had been with me for a year. I had clothed and fed him. He slept with me and my woman. I had scolded and corrected him more times than I could count, and he was a little better now than when I had first met him. Just a little, but now, for the first time, I saw tears in his eyes that were not false.

I felt a red curtain drop down over my eyes, descending. I didn’t recognize my own voice as I said: “You are going to release him! Now! Or I swear by my blessed mother that I will kill you. You and that animal who’s holding him.” And I added, so quiet as to be almost imperceptible, “I swear it.”

For a single, endless moment, Ballester stared into my eyes. Anfán was squirming around, and I was about to lose my mind completely. Perhaps Ballester understood: You can’t negotiate with a madman. With a flick of his head — as though the business were nothing to do with him — he gestured for the rider to put Anfán down.

The lad started running, so quickly that he fell and got up and fell again. Even though he was petrified, running with his straw-colored braids in the wind, when he was a safe distance from the horseman, he stopped, stuck out his tongue, and gave him a bras d’honneur . Then he was whimpering and running again, and he didn’t stop till his arms were clinging tightly around my waist.

Ballester moved away from me. It was an odd moment, because it clearly meant something that, though the barrels of a thousand guns were pointing at him, nobody had fired yet. He walked up and down in front of the barricaded doorway, rage in his eyes.

“You people have such a quiet, happy life,” he began. “You think the world is nothing more than chocolatadas and fucking. Fools! The sky is going to fall on our heads when you least expect it.”

To demonstrate his prophet’s disdain, he risked slapping away the barrel of one of the rifles pointed at him. I didn’t react. I made a gesture to the people in the masía , downplaying Ballester’s audacity; better that he give his little speech and then leave. After everything that had happened, it was obvious that at this point, all he wanted was not to look bad in front of his men, with a bit of braggart talk.

“You people all believe the Generalitat’s lies merely because they’re published in official documents. How many poor people do you know to whom I owe anything? I have paid for hundreds of masses, for the upkeep of orphanages. . The only people who need fear me are the botifleros and the Red Pelts.” He was referring to the ministers of the Generalitat, because of their red velvet clothing and hats.

I’ve told you this already? Oh, damn it all.

From inside the masía came an anonymous voice: “You raped my son-in-law’s cousin, ill-born swine! They ought to tear you limb from limb up on the fifth gallows!”

“Slander!” replied Ballester, turning toward the voice. “People have been carrying out attacks and claiming to be acting in my name. Or does anyone really believe that Ballester needs to use payment or force in order for a woman to join him in bed?”

The lively old lady poked her head out through the doorway. She had half-climbed onto the heap of rubble with a rock in her hand, threatening to hurl it at him. “You or any other Miquelets. . what difference does it make? You think you’re so big and strong just because you sleep around a campfire and dine on the venison you’ve hunted. You fight for your own benefit, attacking peaceful people, and now you want to persuade us you’re some kind of mountain saint because every once in a while you happen to kill a drunk Bourbon? Get hanged!”