The Sun Over Breda

Alatriste showed neither uneasiness nor curiosity at the unusual summons, though his attentive eyes did not miss the discreet, calming smile that Bragado sent him from behind the colonel’s back. There were four other officers in the tent, all of whom he knew by sight: don Hernán Torralba, captain of another of the banderas; Sergeant-Major Idiáquez; and two guzmanes, the two caballeros attached to de la Daga’s military staff. Aristocrats and well-bred hidalgos often served without pay in the tercios

for love of glory or, which was more common, to establish a reputation before returning to Spain to enjoy the sinecures that would be theirs through influence, friendships, and family. All the men were holding crystal wine goblets that had been filled from bottles on a table covered in books and maps. Alatriste had not seen a crystal goblet since the sacking of Oudkerk. A meeting of shepherds and wine, he said to himself, means one dead sheep.

“Would you care for a little, señor?”

The twist of Jiñalasoga’s lips was meant to be amiable as he indicated the bottles and goblets with a casual sweep of his hand.

“It is good Pedro Ximénez wine,” he added. “We’ve just received it from Málaga.”

Alatriste swallowed hard, hoping that no one would notice. At noon in the trenches he and his comrades had feasted on a few sips of dirty water and bread seasoned with turnip oil. For that reason, he sighed: each to his own. It was in the long run more comfortable to keep one’s distance from one’s superiors, just as they were more comfortable keeping theirs from their inferiors.

“With Your Mercy’s leave,” he said after a moment’s thought, “I will have some another time.”

He had slightly adjusted his stance while speaking, as if to stand at attention, attempting to do so with the proper respect. Even so, the colonel arched an eyebrow and after an instant turned his back to him, ignoring him as if he were preoccupied with the maps on the table. The guzmanes

looked Alatriste up and down with curiosity. As for Carmelo Bragado, who was standing in the background beside Captain Torralba, his smile had grown a little broader, but it disappeared when Sergeant-Major Idiáquez took center stage. Ramiro Idiáquez was a veteran with a gray mustache and white hair, which he wore cut very short. An old injury to his nose made it look as if it were slit at the tip, a reminder of the attack and sacking of Calais at the end of the old century, in the days of our good king Philip the Second.

“We have received a challenge,” he said with the brusqueness he used for giving orders and everything else. “Tomorrow morning. Five against five by the Den Bosch gate.”

In those days such events were a normal part of an officer’s duties. Not satisfied with the normal ebb and flow of the war, the antagonists sometimes took things to a personal level, with braggadocio and rodomontades in which the honor of nations and flags was at stake. Even the great Emperor Charles V, to the enjoyment of all Europe, had challenged his enemy Francis I of France to one-on-one combat; the Frenchman, however, and after a great deal of thought, had declined the offer. In the end, history had called in the French toad’s chips when in Pavia he saw his troops demolished, the flower of his nobility annihilated, and he himself lying flat on the ground with the sword of Juan de Urbieta, a citizen of Hernani, resting on his royal gullet.

Then came a brief silence. Alatriste was impassive, hoping that someone would say something more. In the end, it was one of the guzmanes

who spoke.

“Yesterday, two vain, self-satisfied Dutch caballeros from Breda came out to deliver the message. Apparently one of our harquebusiers killed a man of some importance in the trenches of the stronghold. They asked for one hour on open ground, five against five, each man carrying two pistols and a sword. Of course, the gauntlet was picked up.”

“Of course!” the second guzmán repeated.

“Men from Campo Látaro’s Italian tercio asked to participate, but it has been decided that we should all be Spanish.”

“Only natural,” put in the other.