This remark eased the tension. There was laughter, and the men shared amused looks. Amongst such a band of men, this idea was not so very far from the truth.
“And what about those who don’t jump overboard?” asked Mascarúa.
“No crew member will reach the sandbank alive. The more people we frighten at the beginning, the fewer we will have to kill.”
“And what about the wounded, or those who cry mercy?”
“Tonight there is no mercy.”
Some whistled through their teeth. There was mocking applause and subdued laughter.
“And what about our own wounded?” asked Ginesillo el Lindo.
“They will leave the ship with us and be attended to on land. There we will all be paid and, after that, it will be a matter of every owl to his olive tree.”
“And if there are deaths?” El Bravo de los Galeones had a smile on his scarred face. “Do we still earn the same amount each, or divide what’s left between us?”
“We’ll see.”
The ruffian glanced at his comrades and his smile grew wider. “Perhaps it would be a good idea if we could see right now,” he said insinuatingly.
Alatriste very slowly removed his hat and smoothed his hair. Then he put his hat on again. The way he looked at the other man left no room for doubt. “Good? For whom exactly?”
He said these words softly, almost in a drawl, in a tone of solicitous inquiry that would not have fooled even a babe in arms. It did not fool El Bravo de los Galeones either, for he got the message, averted his eyes, and said no more. Olmedilla had sidled up to the captain and whispered something in his ear. My master nodded.
“This gentleman has just reminded me of another important point. No one, absolutely no one,” said Alatriste, fixing his icy gaze on each man in the group in turn, “will, for any reason, go down into the ship’s hold. There will be no personal booty, none at all.”
Sangonera raised his hand and asked curiously, “And what if a crew member holes himself up in there?”
“Should that happen, then I will decide who goes down to fetch him.”
El Bravo de los Galeones was thoughtfully stroking his hair, which he wore caught back in a greasy pigtail. Then he asked the question that was in everyone’s mind:
“And what is there in this ‘tabernacle’ that we can’t see?”
“That’s none of your business. It’s not even my business. And I hope not to have to remind anyone of that fact.”
El Bravo gave a jeering laugh. “Not if my life depended on it.”
Alatriste stared at him hard. “It does.”
“Now you’re going too far, by God.” El Bravo was standing, legs apart, shifting his weight from one to the other. “By my faith, we’re not a load of sheep to put up with being threatened like that. Me and my comrades here—”
“I don’t give a damn what you can and can’t put up with,” Alatriste broke in. “That’s the way it is. You were all warned, and there’s no going back.”
“And what if we want to go back?”
“You talk boldly enough in the plural, I see.” The captain ran two fingers over his mustache, then pointed to the pinewoods. “As for the singular you, I will be happy to discuss the matter alone, just the two of us, in that wood.”
The ruffian made a silent appeal to his comrades. Some regarded him with what seemed like a glimmer of solidarity, and others did not. For his part, Bartolo Cagafuego had stood up, brows beetling, and was approaching menacingly in support of the captain. I, too, reached for my dagger. Most of the men looked away, half smiling or watching as Alatriste’s hand brushed the hilt of his sword. No one appeared bothered by the prospect of a good fight, with the captain in charge of the fencing lessons. Those who knew his past record had already informed the others, and El Bravo de los Galeones, with his low arrogance and ridiculous swagger—hardly necessary amongst such a crew—was not much liked.
“We’ll talk about it some other time,” he said at last.
He had thought it over, and preferred not to lose face. Some of his fellow ruffians nudged one another, disappointed that there would be no fight in the woods that afternoon.
“Yes, let’s do that,” replied Alatriste gently, “whenever you like.”
No one said anything more, no one took him up on his offer or even looked as if he would. Peace was restored, Cagafuego’s brows unbeetled, and everyone went about his own business. Then I noticed Sebastián Copons withdrawing his hand from the butt of his pistol.
The flies buzzed around our faces as we peered cautiously over the top of the dune. Before us lay Barra de Sanlúcar, brightly lit by the evening sun. Between the inlet at Bonanza and Chipiona Point about a league farther on, where the Guadalquivir flowed into the sea, the mouth of the river was a forest of masts with flags flying and the sails of ships—urcas, frigates, caravels, small vessels and large, both oceangoing and coastal—either anchored amongst the sandbanks or else in constant movement back and forth, this same panorama stretching eastward along the coast toward Rota and the Bay of Cádiz. Some were waiting for the rising tide in order to travel up to Seville, others were unloading merchandise onto smaller boats or rigging their ships so as to sail on to Cádiz once the royal officials had checked their cargo. On the farther shore, we could see, in the distance, prosperous Sanlúcar, with its houses reaching right down to the water’s edge, and on top of the hill, the old, walled enclave, the castle turrets, the ducal palace, the Cathedral, and the customhouse, which, on days such as this, brought wealth to so many. The harbor sands were speckled with beached fishing boats, and the lower city, gilded by the sun, teemed with people and with the small sailing boats that came and went between the ships.
“There’s the Virgen de Regla,” said Olmedilla.
He lowered his voice when he spoke, as if they might be able to hear us on the other side of the river, and he wiped the sweat from his face with an already sodden handkerchief. He seemed even paler than usual. He was not a man for long walks or for traipsing over sand dunes and through scrub, and the effort and the heat were beginning to take their toll. His ink-stained forefinger was pointing out a large galleon, anchored between Bonanza and Sanlúcar, and sheltering behind a sandbank just beginning to be revealed by the low tide. Its prow was facing into the southerly breeze rippling the surface of the water.
“And that,” he said, pointing to another ship moored closer to us, “is the Niklaasbergen.”
I followed Alatriste’s gaze. With the brim of his hat shading his eyes from the sun, the captain was scrutinizing the Dutch galleon. It was anchored separately, near our shore, toward San Jacinto Point and the watchtower that had been erected there to prevent incursions by Berber, Dutch, and English pirates. The Niklaasbergen was a tar-black, three-masted urca, or merchant ship, its sails furled. It was a short, ugly, rather clumsy-looking vessel, with a high prow above which hung a lantern painted in white, red, and yellow, a perfectly ordinary cargo ship that would not attract attention. It, too, had its prow facing south, and its gunports had been left open to air the lower decks. There appeared to be little movement on board.
“It was anchored next to the Virgen de Regla until day-break,” explained Olmedilla. “Then it went and dropped anchor over there.”