Arturo Pérez-Reverte - The Sun Over Breda

A PLUME BOOK

THE SUN OVER BREDA

Internationally acclaimed and bestselling author ARTURO PÉREZ-REVERTE began his career as a war journalist, but now writes fiction full-time. His seven books, including The Queen of the South and Captain Alatriste , have been translated into more than twenty-nine languages in more than fifty countries. His books have sold millions of copies worldwide.

Praise for Arturo Pérez-Reverte and

the Adventures of Captain Alatriste

“Hard-boiled, mordantly funny, unapologetically entertaining.”

—Time

“Wonderful, stirring entertainment.”

—The New York Times Book Review

“It’s great fun in the tradition of historical swashbucklers such as The Three Musketeers or The Scarlet Pimpernel .”

—The Boston Globe

“Few contemporary writers conjure up derring-do as well as Arturo Pérez-Reverte, a Spanish literary maestro. The true thrill lies in Pérez-Reverte’s deft plotting and thread-the-needle resolutions.”

—The Christian Science Monitor

“Thrilling.”

—Detroit Free Press

“Grabs the reader from the get-go with its moody evocation of a lost time.”

—USA Today

“A feast of dark historical detail and believable danger in which celebrated historical figures, such as poet Francisco de Quevedo and painter Velázquez, are mixed in for authentic flavor.”

—The Denver Post

“Intrigue and double-dealing in seventeenth-century Madrid…Pérez-Reverte is a master at evoking the particular color of the times, with brothels, taverns, torero arenas, and dark alleyways.”

—Los Angeles Times

ALSO BY

ARTURO PÉREZ-REVERTE

Captain Alatriste

The Flanders Panel

The Club Dumas

The Seville Communion

The Fencing Master

The Nautical Chart

The Queen of the South

Purity of Blood

THE SUN OVER BREDA

Arturo Pérez-Reverte

A PLUME BOOK

PLUME

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Published by Plume, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Previously published in a Putnam edition.

Copyright © Arturo Pérez-Reverte, 2007

Excerpt from The King’s Gold copyright © Arturo Pérez-Reverte, 2008

All rights reserved

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

The Library of Congress has catalogued the Putnam edition as follows:

Pérez-Reverte, Arturo.

[Sol de Breda. English]

The sun over Breda / Arturo Pérez-Reverte.

p. cm.

ISBN: 1-4295-6754-6

I. Title.

PQ6666.E765S6513 2007 2007000541

863'.64—dc22

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

For Jean Schalekamp,

damned heretic, translator, and friend

A troop of soldiers marches by:

strong, bearded, weapons shouldered,

following their captain’s lead.

Spanish captain, who knew Flanders,

Mexico, Italy, and the Andes,

Of what exploits are left to dream?

—C. S. DEL RÍO,

La esfera

THE SUN OVER BREDA

CONTENTS

1. SURPRISE ATTACK

2. THE DUTCH WINTER

3. THE MUTINY

4. TWO VETERANS

5. THE LOYAL INFANTRY

6. ATTACK WITHOUT QUARTER

7. THE SIEGE

8. ATTACK BY NIGHT

9. THE COLONEL AND THE BANNER

EPILOGUE

1. SURPRISE ATTACK

’Pon my oath, the canals of these Dutch are damp on autumn mornings. Somewhere above the curtain of fog that veiled the dike, a blurred sun shone palely on the silhouettes moving along the road in the direction of the city, now opening its gates for the morning market. That sun was a cold, Calvinist, invisible star unworthy of the name, its dirty gray light falling on oxcarts, countrymen laden with baskets of vegetables, women in white headdresses carrying cheeses and jugs of milk.

I was slowly making my way through the mist with my knapsacks over my shoulder, my teeth clenched to keep them from chattering. I took a quick look at the embankment of the dike where fog blended into the water, and could spy nothing but vague brushstrokes of rushes, grass, and trees. It is true that for a moment I thought I glimpsed a dull reflection of metal, perhaps a morion or cuirass or even naked steel, but it was only for an instant and then the humid breath rising from the canal closed over it again. The girl walking by my side must also have seen it, because she shot me an uneasy glance from beneath the folds of the scarf that covered most of her head and face. She then turned her eyes toward the Dutch sentinels, outfitted with breastplate, helmet, and halberd, whom we could now make out—dark gray upon gray—at the outer gate of the wall, beside the drawbridge.

The city, which, in reality, was nothing more than a large town, was called Oudkerk, and it lay at the confluence of the Ooster canal, the Merck River, and the delta we Spaniards call the Mosa and the Flemish call the Maas. The city’s importance was mostly military, for it controlled access to the canal along which the heretic rebels sent aid to their besieged compatriots in Breda, some three leagues away. The garrison there housed a citizen militia and two regular companies, one of them English. In addition, the fortifications were solid, and the main gate, protected by a bulwark, moat, and drawbridge, was impossible to take by ordinary means. Which was precisely why dawn found me in that place.