“Opinions belong to those who hold them.”
“And that is why you have nothing to say and why you are looking at me in that way, señor Alatriste?”
“That is why I have nothing to say and why, Capitán, I am looking at you.”
Bragado studied him carefully and then slowly acquiesced. The two knew each other well, and in addition, the officer had good judgment when it came to distinguishing between firmness and affront. After a moment he withdrew his hand from his sword and touched his chin, but as he glanced at the men around the table, the hand returned to the hilt of his sword.
“No one has collected his pay,” he said finally, and he seemed to be speaking to Alatriste, as if it had been he and not Garrote who had spoken, as if he were the one who merited an answer. “Not Your Mercies, nor I myself. Not our colonel, nor even General Spínola. Withal that don Ambrosio is Genoese and from a family of bankers!”
Diego Alatriste listened in silence and said nothing. His gray-green eyes were still locked with those of the officer. Bragado had not served in Flanders before the Twelve Year’s Truce, but Alatriste had, and during that time mutinies had been the order of the day. Both knew that Alatriste had more than once experienced mutiny at close hand, when the troops had refused to fight after months, even years, of not collecting their wages. He had never, however, counted himself among the insurgents, not even when the precarious financial situation of Spain had institutionalized mutiny as the one means by which troops obtained their due. The other alternative was sacking, as in Rome and Antwerp:
I have come here without foodbut should I request a morselI am shown a thousand Dutchmenand an impregnable castle.
Nonetheless, in that campaign, except in the case of places taken by attack or in the heat of action, it had been General Spínola’s policy not to inflict excessive violence upon the civilian population, so as not to exacerbate their already exhausted sympathies. Breda, should it fall, would not be sacked, and the fatigue of those who besieged it would not be rewarded. Therefore, facing the prospect of no booty and no pay, the soldiers were beginning to wear long faces and to huddle in corners and whisper. Even a dolt could read the signs.
“Furthermore, as far as I am aware,” Bragado continued, “only soldiers of other nations claim their pay before they fight.”
That, too, was very true. With no money to be had, reputation was all we had left, and it is well known that within the Spanish tercios it was a point of honor neither to demand back pay nor to mutiny before a battle, so that no one could say we had acted out of fear. Even on the dunes of Nieuport and in Alost, troops who were already rebelling suspended their demands and charged into combat. Unlike the Swiss, Italians, English, and Germans, who often asked for unpaid wages as a condition for their service, Spanish soldiers mutinied only after victory.
“I believed,” was Bragado’s last comment, “that I was dealing with Spaniards, not Germans.”
That cutting remark had the desired effect, and the men shifted uneasily in their chairs as they heard Garrote mutter “’Sblood,” as if someone had maligned his mother. At that, Diego Alatriste’s pale green eyes showed the spark of a smile. That insult always worked a miracle; no further word of protest was heard among the veteran soldiers seated at the table, and the officer, now relaxed, was seen to return Alatriste’s hint of a smile. Old dog to old dog.
“Your Mercies must leave immediately,” Bragado said, ending the discussion.
Alatriste again stroked his mustache with two fingers. Then he turned to his comrades. “You heard the captain,” he said.
The men began to get to their feet, Garrote grumbling, the others resigned. Sebastián Copons—small, thin, knotted, and tough as an aged grapevine—had been on his feet for some time, buckling on his weapons without awaiting orders from anyone, as if all the delays, all the unpaid wages, even the very treasure of the king of Persia, all led him to this miserable day: he, a fatalist, like the Moors whose necks were being cut by his marauding ancestors a few centuries earlier. Diego Alatriste watched him put on his hat and cape and go outside to notify other soldiers of the squad who were quartered in the house next door. They had been together through many campaigns, from the days of Ostend to Fleurus and now Breda, and in all those years no one had heard more than thirty words from him.
“’Pon my soul, I almost forgot this,” Bragado exclaimed.
He had picked up the jar of wine and was draining it, all the time eyeing the Flemish woman, who was cleaning scraps from the table. Without interrupting his drinking, holding the jug high, he dug into his doublet, pulled out a letter, and handed it to Diego Alatriste.
“This came for you a week ago.”
The missive was closed with sealing wax, and raindrops had slightly smeared the ink of the address. Alatriste read the name of the sender on the back: From don Francisco de Quevedo Villegas, La Bardiza Inn, Madrid.
As the woman passed by Alatriste without looking at him, one of her firm full breasts brushed against him. Steel glinted as it was slipped into scabbards, and well-oiled leather gleamed. Alatriste picked up his buffcoat and slowly belted it before asking for the baldric with his sword and dagger. Outside, rain continued to beat against the windowpanes.
“Two prisoners at least,” Bragado insisted.
The men were ready: mustaches, beards, hats, folds of waxed capes covered with mended tears and clumsy patches; light arms, appropriate for the job they were about to do; no muskets or pikes or other impediments, only good and simple steeclass="underline" swords and daggers from Toledo, Sahagún, Milan, and Biscay. Also an occasional pistol poked out of the wearer’s clothing, but it would be useless with powder saturated by so much rain. Between them they also had a few crusts of bread and some rope to tie up Hollanders. And those empty, indifferent gazes of old soldiers prepared to face the hazards of their office once again before one day returning to their homeland marked by a crazy quilt of scars, with no bed to lie in or wine to drink and no hearth for baking their bread. And if they didn’t achieve this, they would be what in soldier’s cant were called terratenientes, landowners, claiming five feet of hard-fought Flemish soil in which they would find eternal sleep, with a hymn in praise of Spain forever on their lips.
Bragado finished his wine. Diego Alatriste accompanied him to the door, and the officer left without further conversation: no exchanges, no good-byes. The men watched their commander ride off down the dike on the back of his old field horse, crossing paths with Sebastián Copons, who was on his way back to the house.
Alatriste felt the woman’s eyes on him, but he did not turn to look at her. Without explaining whether they were parting only for hours or forever, he pushed open the door and went out into the rain, immediately feeling water through the cracked soles of his boots. The wetness seeped into the marrow of his bones, stirring the aches of old wounds. He sighed quietly and began to walk, hearing his companions splashing through the mud behind him, following him in the direction of the dike where Copons was standing as motionless as a small, strong statue beneath the steady downpour.
“What a cesspool of a life,” someone muttered.
And without further words, with heads lowered, wrapped in their soaked capes, the line of Spaniards faded into the gray landscape.
From don Francisco de Quevedo Villegas todon Alatriste y Tenorio * Tercio Viejo de Cartagena *Military post of Flanders
I hope, my esteemed captain, that upon receipt of the present you are, Y.M., healthy and of one piece.