The Sun Over Breda

I heard him sigh softly, barely a breath expelled from his lungs, and then he made a move to get to his feet. I handed him the letter. He took it without a word and looked at me closely before he started reading, and now it was I who stared at the distant walls of Breda, as expressionless as he had been a moment before. Out of the corner of my eye I watched the hand with the scar rise to stroke his mustache again. Then he read. Finally I heard the crackle of the paper as he folded it, and once again I held the letter in my hands.

“There are things…” he began after a moment.

Then he stopped, and I thought that was all he would say, which would not have been strange in a man given more to silences than to words.

“Things,” he continued finally, “that they know from the time they are born. Though they are not even aware that they know them.”

Again he cut himself short. I heard him shifting uncomfortably, seeking a way to finish.

“Things it takes us men a lifetime to learn.”

Then silence again, and this time he did not say anything more. Nothing in the vein of “Take care, guard against our enemy’s niece,” or other comments that one might have expected under the circumstances, and that I, as he undoubtedly knew, would have immediately ignored with all the arrogance of insolent youth. For a while he stared at the distant city, then put on his hat and stood up, settling his cape over his shoulders. And as I sat and watched him on his way back to the trenches, I wondered how many women, how many wounds, how many roads, and how many deaths—some owed to others and some to oneself—a man must know for those words to remain unspoken.

It was mid-May when Henry of Nassau, Maurice’s successor, tried to test Fortune one last time, attempting to deliver Breda and to leave our bollocks buried in the ashes. It was the whim of fate that at that time, just on the eve of the day chosen by the Hollanders for their attack, our colonel and some of his staff were making a round of inspections along the northwest dikes and that Captain Alatriste’s squad, chosen that week for the duty, was serving as escort. Don Pedro de la Daga was traveling with his usual ostentation: he and a half-dozen others on horseback with his commander-of-the-tercio standard, six Germans with halberds, and a dozen soldiers, among them Alatriste, Copons, and other comrades on foot, harquebuses and muskets shouldered, clearing the way for the general’s party. I was bringing up the rear, carrying my pack filled with provisions and a supply of powder and balls, looking at the reflection of the string of men and horses in the quiet water of the canals, which the sun was tinting even more red as it sank toward the horizon. It was a peaceful dusk, with a clear sky and pleasant temperature; nothing seemed to announce the events that were about to be unleashed.

There had been movement of Dutch troops in the area, and don Pedro de la Daga had orders from General Spínola to take a look at the Italian positions near the Merck River, on the narrow road of the Sevenberge and Strudenberge dikes, to ascertain whether they needed to be reinforced with a bandera of Spaniards. Jiñalasoga’s intention was to stop for the night at the Terheyden garrison, which was under the command of the sergeant-major of Campo Látaro’s tercio, don Carlos Roma, and to devote the next day to making the necessary arrangements. We arrived at the dikes and the Terheyden fort before sunset, and everything seemed to be going as planned. Our colonel and his officers were lodged in the tents that had been prepared for them, while we were assigned to a small redoubt of wood stakes and gabions beneath the stars, where we wrapped ourselves in our capes after the meager mouthful the Italians, good and happy comrades, offered on our arrival. Captain Alatriste went to the colonel’s tent to inquire if he might offer some service, and don Pedro de la Daga, with his usual disdain, replied that he had no need of him and that he should do as he wished. Upon the captain’s return, as we were in a place unknown to us and there were both honorable and trustworthy men within Látaro’s contingent, he decided that with the Italians or without them we should set up a guard. And so Mendieta was chosen for the first watch, one of the Olivares brothers for the second, and Alatriste kept the third for himself. Mendieta, therefore, took his place close to the fire, his harquebus primed and cord lit, while the rest of us lay down to sleep any which way we could.