Arturo Pérez-Reverte - The Sun Over Breda

“They’re taking a long time,” Jaime whispered.

I did not answer. At that moment I was thinking of Captain Alatriste in cold water up to his chest, pistol held high to keep the powder dry, a dagger or sword in the other hand, creeping up on the Dutch sentinels guarding the locks. Then I thought of Caridad la Lebrijana and ended up thinking about Angélica de Alquézar as well. Often, I told myself, women do not know what perfection and perdition lie in the hearts of men.

A harquebus shot rang out: only one, distant, isolated, in the night and fog. I estimated it to be more than three hundred paces before us, and we flattened ourselves against the slope even more. The silence returned for an instant, and then a furious succession of shots rang out, pistols and muskets. On edge, feverish from the uproar, Jaime and I tried to peer into the dark but to no avail. Now the firing was coming from both directions, growing louder and more frequent, reverberating across sky and earth as if a storm were discharging its thunder and lightning under the cover of darkness. There was a sharp, loud report, and two more followed. Then we could see that the fog was lifting a little: A pale, milky, then reddish glow grew, diffusing itself in the tiny droplets that filled the air and were reflected in the dark water below the slope where we lay. The Sevenberge dike was aflame.

I never knew how much time had passed, but I do know that in the distance the night was roaring like hell itself. Finally we sat up a little, fascinated, and at that moment we heard the sound of steps running toward us down the dike. Then, a succession of white blurs, shirts racing through the darkness, began to take shape through the fog, passing us and heading in the direction of the Spanish camp. The eruptions of shots continued from the harquebuses ahead of us as the pale silhouettes continued to run past, with the sound of footsteps sloshing through mud, oaths, ragged breathing, and the moan of someone wounded being helped along by his comrades. Now the crack of muskets was coming closer, and the white shirts, which had at first arrived in clusters, were beginning to thin out.

“Let’s go,” said Jaime, jumping up and breaking into a run.

I in turn sprang up, spurred by a wave of panic. I did not want to be left behind, alone. A few stragglers were still passing us, and in each white splotch I tried to make out the silhouette of Captain Alatriste. One shadow was staggering along the dike, running with difficulty, its breathing choked by the moan of pain that escaped with each step. Before the figure reached me it fell and rolled down the slope, and I heard it splash into the water. Without thinking, I jumped down the slope after it, into water up to my knees, feeling through the dark until I touched a motionless body. I felt a corselet beneath the shirt and a bearded face, icy as death itself. It was not the captain.

Shots roared closer with every minute. They seemed to be coming from every direction. I stumbled up the slope to the top of the dike, disoriented, and I realized that I had lost a sense of which was the good side and which the bad. I could no longer see the red glow in the distance, and no one was running past me anymore. Nor could I remember which direction the man who had fallen down had come from or determine in which direction to run. My head was filled with a silent scream of panic. Think! I told myself. Think calmly, Íñigo Balboa, or you will never see the dawn. I knelt on one knee, forcing my reason to tame the wild beating of blood at my temples. The soldier had fallen into quiet water, I remembered. And then I realized that I was hearing the soft sound of the Merck flowing at the bottom of the slope on my right. The river flows toward Sevenberge, I reasoned. And we had come along the right bank, crossing to the left over the pontoon bridge. I was, therefore, facing in the wrong direction. So I turned and began to run, cleaving the dark night as if instead of Hollanders I had the very devil behind me.

I have run like that only a few times in my life. Your Mercies should try it, soaked in water and mud in the black of night. I ran blindly, with my head down, risking a roll down the slope straight into the Merck. As the cold, moist air entered my lungs it turned to fire, and I felt as if my chest were being pricked by red-hot needles. Then, just as I was beginning to wonder if I had gone too far, I came to the pontoons. I grabbed on to the stakes and concentrated on crossing, slipping on the wet wood. I had barely reached the other side, back on solid ground, when a flash lit the darkness and the whir of a harquebus ball passed a hairsbreadth from my head.

“Antwerp!” I yelled, throwing myself to the ground.

“Bugger it,” a voice replied.

Two pale silhouettes, crouched down, were outlined against the fog.

“You’ve just had a lucky escape, comrade,” said the second voice.

I got to my feet and went toward them. I could not see their faces, but I did see the white of their shirts and the sinister shadows of the harquebuses that had been so close to sending me to my rest:

“Did Your Mercies not see my shirt?” I asked, still breathless from running and fright.

“What shirt?” one asked.

I felt my chest, surprised, and did not swear only because I was still not old enough, nor was I in the habit of doing so. During the attack, I had lain face down for so long on the dike, my shirt was now dark with mud.

9. THE COLONEL AND

THE BANNER

During that time, Maurice of Nassau died, to the sorrow of the Estates General and the gratification of the true religion, but not before wresting from us, by way of farewell, the city of Goch, burning the supplies we had stored in Ginneken, and attempting to take Antwerp with a surprise attack that ended up backfiring on him. That heretic, the paladin of Calvin’s abominable sect, would go to hell without allaying his obsessive hunger to end the siege of Breda. To offer our condolences to the Dutch, our cannons spent the day tidily dropping seventy-pound balls on the walls of the city, and at daybreak, through the efforts of our sappers, we blew up a bulwark with thirty good citizens inside, giving them a rather rude awakening and demonstrating that God does not always reward the early riser.

At that point Breda was no longer a matter of military interest to Spain but, rather, one of reputation. The world was in suspense, awaiting the triumph or the failure of the troops of the Catholic king. Even the sultan of the Turks—may Christ visit foul excrescences upon him—was awaiting the outcome to see whether our lord and king would emerge with more or less power. And in Europe the eyes of every king and prince, particularly those of France and England, were focused on the stalemate, eager to benefit from our misfortune or to grieve over Spanish gains, which was equally true in the Mediterranean of the Venetians and even the Roman pope. For His Holiness, despite being the Divinity’s earthly vicar, with all the attendant paraphernalia, and also despite the fact that it was we Spanish who were doing his dirty work in Europe, bankrupting ourselves in defense of God and the Most Blessed Mary, harassed us whenever he could, because he was jealous of our influence in Italy. There is nothing like being powerful and feared for a couple of centuries to cause enemies with malicious intentions, whether or not they wear the pope’s triple crown, to spring up on every side. Under the mantle of pleasant words, smiles, and diplomacy, they take painstaking care in completely buggering you. Although in the case of the sovereign pontiff, his biliousness was, to a degree, understandable. After all, only a century before the problem of Breda, his predecessor, Clement VII, had had to take to his heels, tucking up his cassock as he ran and taking refuge in the Castel Sant’Angelo, when the Spaniards and German mercenaries of our Charles V—who had carried an unpaid bill since the time of El Cid—had attacked his walls and sacked Rome without respecting cardinals’ palaces, or women, or convents. It is therefore only fair we should remember that even popes have a good memory and their own crumb of honor.