The Sun Over Breda

“Two or three would not go amiss. Apparently our General Spinola believes that the Dutch are preparing to send help to Breda by boat, taking advantage of the rising waters from the rains. It would be helpful if a few men went a league in that direction to confirm the rumor. Done quietly, of course. Discreetly.”

Quietly or with bugles blaring, a league through that rain and the mud of the roads was asking a lot, but none of the men showed any surprise. They knew that the same rain kept the Dutch in their bunkers and trenches and that they would be snoring like pigs while a handful of Spaniards slipped by beneath their noses.

Diego Alatriste stroked his mustache. “When do we leave?”

“Now.”

“Number of men?”

“The whole squad.”

That brought a curse from one of the men at the table, and Captain Bragado whirled around, eyes shooting sparks. All heads were lowered, all eyes cast down. Alatriste, who had recognized the voice of Curro Garrote, sent the Malagueno a reproachful look.

“Perhaps,” Bragado said very slowly, “one of these soldiers has something to say on the subject.”

He had set the jar of wine down on the table without finishing it and had placed his hand to the hilt of his sword. His strong yellow teeth were gritted beneath his mustache. The effect was extremely disagreeable: They looked like the teeth of a bulldog ready to attack.

“No one has anything to say,” Alatriste replied.

“Better so.”

Garrote had looked up, piqued by that “no one.” He was a thin, dark-skinned rough-and-tumble type with a sparse beard that curled like those of the Turks he had fought against while in the galleys of Naples and Sicily. His hair was long and greasy, and he wore a gold earring in his left ear. There was none in the right because, according to him, a Turk’s scimitar had sliced off the lobe while Garrote was on the island of Cyprus, though others attributed the loss to a certain knife fight in a whorehouse in Ragusa.

“But,” he broke in, “I do have something to say to senor Capitan Bragado. Three things. One is that it is all the same to the son of my mother whether we walk two leagues in the rain with Hollanders, with Turks, or with their whoring mothers…”

He spoke firmly, adamantly, verging on impertinence, and his companions watched with expectation, some with visible approval. They were all veterans, and obedience to the military hierarchy was natural, but so was arrogance, for their status as soldiers also made them all hidalgos. The tradition of discipline, the bone and sinew of the old tercios, had been recognized even by an Englishman, a certain Gascoigne, when writing about the Spanish Fury and his account of the sacking of Antwerp. He had said, “The Walloons and the Germans are as undisciplined as the Spanish are admirable for their discipline.” Which is no small recognition from an English author when he is speaking of Spaniards. As for arrogance, it is not wasted time to recount the opinion of don Francisco de Valdez, who had been a captain, a sergeant-major, and then a colonel, and who therefore knew a spade for a spade, when he affirmed in his Espejo y disciplina militar that “nearly always they abhor to be bound to order, particularly the Spanish infantryman, who, being more choleric than others, has little patience.” These men were nothing like the deliberate and phlegmatic Flemish, who, though avaricious in the extreme, did not lie or fly into a rage but proceeded with great calm. The courage and fortitude of the Spaniards in Flanders, which along with their conduct in adversity forged the miracle of iron discipline on the field of battle, also made them less than gentle in other circumstances, such as dealing with their superiors, who had to move cautiously and with great tact. It was not a rare occurrence, despite the threat of the gallows, for a simple soldier to knife a sergeant or a captain over real or supposed offenses, embarrassing punishment, even a word out of place.

Knowing all this, Bragado turned to Diego Alatriste, as if to ask, wordlessly, his judgment of the situation, but he was met only with an impassive face. Alatriste was a person who let each man assume responsibility for what he said and what he did.

“You spoke of three things,” said Bragado, turning again to Garrote with a great amount of calm but even more menacing sangfroid. “What are the other two?”

“It has been a long time since any cloth has come our way, and we are wearing rags,” the Malagueno continued, entirely unintimidated. “No provender reaches us, and since sacking is forbidden, we are reduced to near starvation. These vile Hollanders hide their best victuals, and when they don’t, they ask for gold in exchange.” He pointed with rancor toward their host, who was watching from the other room. “I am sure that if we could tickle his ribs with a dagger, that dog would somehow discover a full pantry or a buried pot filled with nice, shiny florins.”

Captain Bragado was listening patiently; he still appeared to be calm but had not taken his hand from the hilt of his Toledo steel.

“And the third?”

Garrote raised his tone slightly, just enough to express arrogance without overdoing it. He knew that Bragado was not a man to tolerate a word meant to best him, not from his veteran soldiers…not even from the pope. But from the king? Well, he had no choice but to accept that.

“The third and principal item, Capitan, is that these good soldiers, who with good reason you address as Your Mercies, have not collected pay in five months.”

This time quiet murmurs of agreement ran around the table. Only the Aragonese Copons said nothing; he was staring at the crust of bread he had been crumbling into his bowl and then scooping out with his fingers. The captain turned to Diego Alatriste, still at his place by the window. Alatriste’s lips did not move, and he held Bragado’s gaze.

“And do you stand by that, Capitan?” Bragado asked him gruffly.

Alatriste shrugged his shoulders, his expression inscrutable. “I stand by what I say,” he stated. “And at times I stand by what my comrades do, but at the moment, I have said nothing, and they have done nothing.”

“But this soldier has gifted us with his opinion.”

“Opinions belong to those who hold them.”