The Sun Over Breda

I do not know how, but we survived. My recollections of the slope of the Terheyden redoubt are confused, just as they are for that hopeless assault. I know that we jumped to the top of the parapet, some quickly crossed themselves, and then, just as the nearest English were about to pick up our standard, we ran downhill like a pack of savage dogs, howling and brandishing our daggers and swords. They stopped short, terrorized by this unexpected aggression when they thought our resistance had been broken. They were still paralyzed, hands reaching out toward the staff of the flag, when we threw ourselves on them, killing at will. I fell upon the standard, clutching it in my arms, determined that no one would take it from me without first taking my life, and I rolled with it down the terreplein, over the bodies of a dead officer, Lieutenant Chacón, the good Rivas, and over the English that Alatriste and the others were slicing up as they descended the slope. We came with such momentum and ferocity—the strength of desperate men is that they do not expect salvation—that the English, demoralized by our assault and seeing the punishment they were taking, began to lose heart and fell back, tripping over one another. Then one turned his back, and others quickly followed suit. Captain Alatriste, Copons, the Olivares brothers, Garrote, and the others were red with enemy blood and blind from killing. Then, unexpectedly—exactly as I am telling you—the English began to run by the dozen, retreating, and our men were after them, wounding them from behind as they went on this way. They fought forward as far as the corpse of don Pedro de la Daga, then farther, leaving the ground behind them a slaughterhouse. I slipped and rolled down that bloody trail of butchered English with the standard held tightly in my arms, then followed, howling with all my might, yelling my despair, my rage, and the courage of the race of men and women who made me. As God is my witness, I was to know many more battles and combats, some as closely fought as this, but it is when I remember that day that I still burst out weeping like the boy I was, when I see myself barely fifteen years old, clutching that absurd piece of blue-and-white-checked linen, yelling and racing across the blood-soaked slope of the Terheyden redoubt. The day that Captain Alatriste looked for a good place to die, and I, along with his comrades, followed him through the midst of the English troops because we were all going to die one way or other and because we would have been ashamed to let him go alone.

EPILOGUE

The rest is a painting, and it is history. It was already nine years later, when I crossed the street one morning to visit the studio of Diego Velázquez, who was Keeper of the Wardrobe to our lord and king in Madrid. It was a winter day, and an even more disagreeable gray than those days in Flanders. My spurred boots crunched through icy puddles, and despite the protective collar of my cape and the hat set firmly on my head, the cold wind was cutting into my face. I was grateful for the warmth of the dark corridor and, once in the large studio, for the fire happily blazing in the hearth. Large windows lit paintings hanging on the wall, displayed on easels, and stacked back to back on the parquet wood floor. The room smelled of paint, linseed oil, varnishes, and oil of turpentine, and also, deliciously, of chicken broth seasoned with spices and wine, which was simmering in a large kettle beside the hearth.

“Please serve yourself, señor Balboa,” said Velázquez.

Since the day some eleven or twelve years ago that I first saw Velázquez on the steps of San Felipe, the most popular mentidero, or gossip spot, in Madrid, he had lost a good part of his Seville accent, owing, no doubt, to a trip to Italy, life at court, and the patronage of our king, Philip IV. At that moment he was engaged in meticulously cleaning his brushes with a cloth before lining them up on a table. He was dressed in a black jacket spattered with paint, his hair was unruly, and his mustache and goatee were uncombed. Our monarch’s favorite painter never did his toilette until midmorning, when he interrupted his work to rest and fill his stomach after taking advantage of the early-morning light. None of those close to him dared bother him before that midmorning pause. Afterward, he would work a while longer, till the afternoon, when he enjoyed a light meal. Later, if pressing appointments or responsibilities at the palace did not require his presence, he would walk to San Felipe, the Plaza Mayor, or the Prado meadows, often in the company of don Francisco de Quevedo, Alonso Cano, and other friends, disciples, and acquaintances.

I deposited my cape, gloves, and hat on a footstool and went to the kettle, where I poured a dipperful into a glazed clay jug, warming my hands as I sipped it.

“How goes life at the palace?” I asked.

“Slowly.”