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
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
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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.
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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.