The King's Gold

by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

  “Good fishing,” said Guadalmedina.

  No one responded. The master of the boat had cast off, and the sailor, once he had rowed us away from the shore, hoisted the sail. And so, with the help of the current and the gentle breeze blowing from the land, our boat slipped silently downriver, cutting through the black water with its tremulous reflection of Seville’s and Triana’s few lights.

  There were countless stars in the sky, and the trees and the bushes paraded past to right and left, like dense, dark shadows, as we followed the course of the Guadalquivir. Seville was left far behind us, beyond the bends in the river, and the damp night air drenched the wood of the boat and our cloaks. Olmedilla was lying close by me, shivering. I lay contemplating the night, my blanket up to my chin and my head resting on our bundle of provisions, occasionally glancing across at the motionless silhouette of Alatriste, sitting in the stern with the master of the boat. Above my head, the pale smudge of the sail trembled in the breeze, by turns concealing and revealing the tiny luminous points of light studding the sky.

  Almost everyone was silent, a collection of black shapes huddled together in the narrow space of the boat. Apart from the lapping of the water, I could hear the steady breathing of those asleep, as well as loud snores, or else the occasional whispered comment from those who remained awake. Someone was humming a tune in a high falsetto voice. Beside me, his hat over his face and well wrapped up in his cloak, Sebastián Copons was sleeping soundly.

  My dagger was sticking in my ribs, and so, in the end, I took it off. For a while, staring up at the stars with wide eyes, I tried to think of Angélica de Alquézar, but her image kept fading, obscured by the uncertainty of what awaited us downriver. I had heard the count’s instructions to the captain, as well as the latter’s conversations with Olmedilla, and I knew the broad lines of the planned attack on the Flemish ship. The idea was to board her while she was anchored at Barra de Sanlúcar, cut her moorings, and take advantage of the current and the favorable night tide to carry her to the coast, where we would run her aground and then transport the booty to the beach; there we would be met by an official escort who had been forewarned of our arrival, a picket from the Spanish guard, who should, at that very moment, be arriving in Sanlúcar by land, and who would discreetly await the right moment to intervene. As for the crew of the Niklaasbergen, they were sailors, not soldiers, and would, besides, be taken by surprise. As for their fate, our orders were clear-cut: the assault was to look like a bold incursion by pirates. And if there is one certainty in life, the dead do not talk.

  It grew colder toward dawn, with the first light illuminating the tops of the poplars that edged the eastern shore. The cold woke some of the men, and they moved closer to one another in search of warmth. Those not sleeping chatted quietly to pass the time, handing around a wineskin. Some men nearby were whispering, assuming I was asleep. They were Juan Jaqueta, his friend Sangonera, and another man. They were talking about Captain Alatriste.

  “He hasn’t changed,” Jaqueta was saying. “He’s still the same cool, silent son-of-a-mongrel-bitch.”

  “Can he be trusted?” asked one.

  “Like a papal bull. He was in Seville for a while, living from his sword like the best of them. We spent some time in the Patio de los Naranjos together. He got into trouble in Naples. Killed someone apparently.”

  “They say he’s an old soldier and has fought in Flanders.”

  “He has,” said Jaqueta, lowering his voice a little. “Along with that Aragonese fellow asleep over there and the boy. But he fought in the other war too, at Nieuwpoort and Ostend.”

  “Is he good with a sword?”

  “I’ll say. He’s clever too and cunning.” Jaqueta stopped speaking to take a swig from the wineskin; I heard the gurgle of the wine as he poured it into his mouth. “When he looks at you with those ice-cold eyes of his, you’d better get out of his way and fast. I’ve seen him skewer and slash and generally do more damage than a bullet through a buff coat.”

  There was a pause and more swigs of wine. I imagined they were looking at Alatriste, still sitting motionless in the bow, next to the master, who kept his hand on the tiller.

  “Is he really a captain?” asked Sangonera.

  “I don’t think so,” replied his friend. “But everyone calls him Captain Alatriste.”

  “He’s certainly a man of few words.”

  “Yes, he’s the sort who does his talking with his sword. And he’s even better at fighting than he is at holding his tongue. I knew someone who was with him on the galleys in Naples ten or fifteen years ago, on a raid in the channel of Constantinople. Apparently, the Turks boarded the ship he was on, having first killed most of the crew, and Alatriste and a dozen or so others were forced to retreat, defending the gangway inch by inch, finally holing themselves up on the half-deck, fighting like savages, fending off the Turks with their knives, until they were all either dead or wounded. The Turks were taking them and the ship back up the channel, when, as good fortune would have it, two galleys from Malta came to their aid and rescued them from life on a Turkish galley.”

  “Sounds like a plucky bastard,” said one.

  “You bet, comrade.”

  “And he’s known the rack too, I’ll bargain,” added another man.

  “That I don’t know, but for the moment, at least, things don’t seem to be going too badly for him. If he can spring us from prison and slap a noli me tangere on us, he’s obviously got influence.”

  “Who were those three men in the other boat?”

  “No idea. But they smelled like nobs to me. Perhaps they’re the people supplying the lucre.”

  “And what about the man in black? I mean the clumsy clod who almost fell in the water?”

  “No idea, but if he’s a fellow ruffian, my name’s Luther.”

  There were more gurgling sounds of wine being drunk, followed by a couple of satisfied belches.

  “Not a bad job so far, though,” said someone after a while. “Plenty of gold and good company too.”

  Jaqueta chuckled. “Yeah, but you heard what the boss said. First, we have to earn it. And they’re not going to give us the money just for strolling up and down of a Sunday.”

  “Oh, I can live with that,” said one. “For one thousand two hundred reales, I’d steal the morning star.”

  “Me too,” agreed another man.

  “Besides, he certainly deals a fair hand—I’ll be happy to have a few more gold’uns like the ones I’ve got in my pocket now.”

  I heard them whispering. Those who knew how to add up were busy making calculations.

  “Is it a fixed amount?” asked Sangonera. “Or do they share out the total among those who survive?”

  Jaqueta gave the same low chuckle.

  “We won’t find out until afterward. It’s a way of making sure that in the heat and noise of the fighting, we don’t stab one another in the back.”

  The horizon was growing red behind the trees, allowing glimpses of scrub and of the pleasant orchards that sometimes grew down as far as the banks of the river. In the end, I got up and made my way past the sleeping bodies to the stern, to join the captain. The master of the boat, who wore a serge smock and a faded cap on his head, declined when I offered him some wine from the wineskin I’d brought for the captain. He was leaning one elbow on the tiller, intent on estimating the distance from the banks, on the breeze filling the sail, and on any loose logs on the shore that might be dragged downstream. He had a very tanned face, and up until then I hadn’t heard him say a word, nor would I thereafter. Alatriste took a draft of wine and ate the proffered piece of bread and cured meat. I stayed by his side, watching the cloudless sky and the light growing brighter on the horizon. On the river, everything was still very gray and hazy, and the men lying in the bottom of the boat remained immersed in darkness.

  “How’s Olmedilla doing?” asked the captain, looking across at where the accountant lay.

  “He’s finally managed to fa
ll asleep after spending all night shivering.”

  My master gave a faint smile. “He’s not used to this kind of thing,” he said.

  I smiled too. We were used to it. He and I. “Is he coming aboard the urca with us?” I asked.

  Alatriste shrugged. “Who knows?” he said.

  “We’ll have to look out for him,” I murmured, somewhat concerned.

  “Every man will have to look out for himself. When the moment comes, you just worry about yourself.”

  We fell silent, passing the wineskin from one to the other. My master chewed on his bread for a while.

  “You’ve grown up a lot,” he said between mouthfuls.

  He was still watching me thoughtfully. I felt a sweet wave of satisfaction warm my blood.

  “I want to be a soldier,” I blurted out.

  “I thought after Breda, you’d have had enough.”

  “No, that’s what I want to be. Like my father.”

  He stopped chewing and studied me for a while longer, then, in the end, he gave a lift of his chin, indicating the men lying in the boat. “It’s hardly a great future,” he said.

  We remained for a while without talking, rocked by the swaying of the boat. Now the landscape behind the trees was growing red and the shadows less gray.

  “Besides,” Alatriste said suddenly, “it’ll be a couple of years before they’d let you join a company. And we’ve been neglecting your education. So, the day after tomorrow—”

  “I read well,” I said, interrupting him. “I have a reasonably neat hand, I know the Latin declensions and how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide.”

  “That’s not enough. Master Pérez is a good man and he can complete your education once we’re back in Madrid.”

  He fell silent again in order to cast another glance at the sleeping men. The easterly light emphasized the scars on his face.

  “In this world,” he said at last, “the pen can sometimes take you where the sword cannot.”

  “Well, it’s not fair,” I retorted.

  “Possibly not.”

  He had taken a while to respond, and I thought there was a good deal of bitterness in that “possibly not.” For my part, I merely shrugged beneath my blanket. At sixteen, I was sure that I would go wherever I needed to go and arrive wherever I needed to arrive. And as far as I was concerned, Master Pérez had nothing to do with it.

  “It isn’t yet the day after tomorrow, Captain.”

  I said this with something like relief, defiantly, staring obstinately at the river ahead. I didn’t need to turn around to know that Alatriste was studying me closely, and when I did turn my face, I saw that his sea-green eyes were tinged with red from the rising sun.

  “You’re right,” he said, handing me the wineskin. “We still have a long way to go.”

  8. BARRA DE SANLÚCAR

  The sun was directly above us as we passed the inn at Tarifa, where the Guadalquivir turns westward and you begin to see the marshlands of Doña Ana on the right-hand bank. The fertile fields of Aljarafe and the leafy shores of Coria and Puebla slowly gave way to sand dunes, pinewoods, and dense scrub, out of which emerged the occasional fallow deer or wild boar. It grew hotter and more humid, and in the boat, the men folded up their cloaks, unclasped capes, and unbuttoned buff coats and doublets. They were crammed together like herrings in a barrel, and the bright light of day revealed scarred, ill-shaved faces, as well as ferocious beards and mustaches that did little to belie the piles of weapons, leather belts, and baldrics, the swords, half-swords, daggers, and pistols that each of them kept nearby. Their grubby clothes and skin—made grimy by the elements, and by lack of sleep and the journey—gave off a raw, rough smell that I knew so well from Flanders. It was the smell of men at war. The smell of war itself.

  I sat slightly apart with Sebastián Copons and the accountant Olmedilla, for although the latter kept as aloof as ever, I nevertheless felt under a moral obligation, among such a rabble, to keep an eye on him. We shared the wine and the provisions, and although neither Copons, the old soldier from Huesca, nor the functionary from the royal treasury were men of many—or indeed even few—words, I kept close by them out of a sense of loyalty: Copons because of our shared experience in Flanders, and Olmedilla because of the particular circumstances we found ourselves in. As for Captain Alatriste, he spent the twelve leagues of the journey in his own fashion, seated in the stern with the master of the boat, occasionally dropping asleep but only for a matter of minutes at a time and otherwise barely taking his eyes off the other men. When he did sleep, he lowered his hat over his face, in order, it seemed, not to be seen to be sleeping. When awake, he studied each man carefully in turn, as if he had the ability to delve into their virtues and their vices and to know them better. He watched how they ate, yawned, slept, how they reacted—phlegmatically or with ill humor—as they were each dealt a hand from Guzmán Ramírez’s deck of cards, gambling away money they did not yet have. He noticed who drank a lot and who little, who was talkative, who boastful, and who silent; he noticed Enríquez el Zurdo’s oaths, the mulatto Campuzano’s thunderous laugh, and the stillness of Saramago el Portugués, who spent the whole voyage lying on his cape, serenely reading a book. Some were silent or discreet, like El Caballero de Illescas, the sailor Suárez, or the Vizcayan Mascarúa, and some seemed awkward and out of place, like Bartolo Cagafuego, who knew no one and kept making abortive attempts to strike up conversations. There was no shortage of witty and amusing talkers, such as Pencho Bullas or the ever-cheerful ruffian Juan Eslava, who was regaling his fellows with details of how he had personally benefited from the wonders of powdered rhinoceros horn. Then there were the pricklier characters like Ginesillo el Lindo, with his immaculate appearance, equivocal smile, and dangerous gaze, or Andresito el de los Cincuenta, who had a way of spitting out of the side of his mouth, or mean bastards like El Bravo de los Galeones, with his face crisscrossed with scars that were clearly not just the work of a particularly careless barber. And so while our boat sailed downriver, one man would be telling tales of his adventures with women or at the gaming table, another would be roundly cursing as he threw the dice to pass the time, and yet another would be retailing anecdotes, whether true or false, from some hypothetical soldier’s life that embraced the Battle of Roncesvalles and even took in a couple of campaigns fought under the leadership of the Lusitanian, Viriathus. And all of this was spiced with a large dose of oaths, curses, braggartry, and hyperbole.

  “I swear by Christ that I’m a Christian as pure of blood and as noble as the king himself,” I heard one man say.

  “Well, I, by God, am purer than that,” retorted another. “After all, the king is half Flemish.”

  To hear them, you would have thought our boat was filled by the very cream of Aragon, Navarre, and the two Castiles, Old and New. This was a coinage common to every purse, and even in such a restricted space and among such a small group as ours, each man played the part of a proud, distinguished native of this region or that, one side joining forces against another, with Extremadurans, Andalusians, Vizcayans, and Valencians taking it in turns to heap reproaches on one another, brandishing the vices and misfortunes of every province, with much heavy banter and joking, and all agreeing on one thing: their shared hatred of the Castilians—and with every man presuming to be a hundred times worthier than he actually was. This gang of roughs thrown together by chance was like a Spain in miniature, for the gravity and honor and national pride depicted in the plays of Lope, Tirso, and others had vanished with the old century and now existed only in the theater. All that remained was arrogance and cruelty, and when you considered the high regard in which we held ourselves, our violent customs, and our scorn for other provinces and nations, one could understand why the Spanish were, quite rightly, hated throughout Europe and half the known world.

  Our own expedition naturally enjoyed its share of all these vices, and virtue would have been about as natural a sight as the Devil plucking a harp and wearing a halo a
nd a pair of white wings. However nasty, cruel, and boastful our fellow travelers were, they nonetheless had certain things in common: they were bound by their greed for the promised gold; their baldrics, belts, and sheaths were kept oiled and polished with professional care; and their burnished weapons glinted in the sunlight when they took them out to sharpen or clean them. Accustomed as he was to these people and this life, Captain Alatriste was doubtless coolly comparing these men with others he had known in other places, and would thus be able to guess or foresee how each man would react when night fell. He could, in other words, tell who would be worthy of his trust and who not.

  It was still light when we rounded the final long bend of the river, on whose banks rose the white mountains of the salt marshes. Between the sandy shore and the pinewoods we could see the port of Bonanza, its bay already crowded with moored galleys and ships, and farther off, clearly visible in the afternoon sun, stood the tower of the Iglesia Mayor and the tallest of Sanlúcar de Barrameda’s houses. Then the sailor furled the sail, and the master steered the boat toward the opposite shore, seeking out the right-hand margin of the broad current that, a league and a half downstream, would flow out into the sea.

  We disembarked—getting our feet wet in the process—in the shelter of a large dune that reached its tongue of sand down into the river. Three men watching from a clump of pines came to meet us. They were dressed in dun-colored clothes, like hunters, but as they approached, we saw that their swords and pistols were hardly the kind one would use to go hunting for rabbits. Olmedilla greeted the apparent leader, a man with a ginger mustache and a military bearing that his rustic outfit did little to disguise. While they withdrew to converse in private, our troop of men clustered together in the shade of the pines. We lay for a while on the needle-carpeted sand, watching Olmedilla, who was still talking and occasionally nodding impassively. Now and then, the two men would look across at a raised area of land farther off, about five hundred paces along the riverbank, and about which the man with the ginger mustache seemed to be giving detailed explanations. Olmedilla finally bade farewell to the supposed hunters, who, after casting an inquisitive glance in our direction, set off into the pines; the accountant then rejoined us, moving across the sandy landscape like some strange black smudge.