Pieter-Lucas squinted and hobbled stoop-shouldered into the Grand Place. Leaning on a crooked stick, he carried a beggar’s bag slung over his shoulder and a beggar’s bowl in his mud-smeared hand. He had let his sparse whiskers grow unchecked for three days now, and they were just long enough to itch.
“You are a street beggar,” he mumbled into his ragged jacket, squirming beneath the tight-fitting cap that extended to the nape of his neck.
He skirted the fringes of the square, tapping his stick in all directions, pretending to be straining to find his way over the cobblestones. At the edge of his vision, he saw an array of magnificent buildings with intricately carved gold-decorated facades and impressive toppling gables. What an artist’s utopia! If only he could wander among them and examine each one.
Instead, he must stare through eyes feigning blindness at hundreds of people milling about the square. A heavy somber cloud hung over the crowd. No one smiled or laughed, many talked in hushed little knots or behind protective hands held to their mouths.
Shops remained closed, even though the sun had arisen long hours ago. Soldiers swarmed everywhere, some waving huge banners of red, green, or white. Their long lances and shiny metal helmets glistened in the daylight. They marched or stood as ominous reminders that all of Brussels belonged to the King of Spain.
In Philip’s name, the Duke of Alva had erected a gigantic raised platform in the center of the square. A crude ladder of stairs led up to it, and the pair of high stakes supporting it at two corners were crowned with ominous pointed metal spikes. Draped all over in black cloth, it was furnished with two large black cushions and a table also draped in black.
“A scaffold!” Pieter-Lucas gasped. “The reports were true!”
He stumbled along, raising his head at each building to gawk, blind-man style, in search of the building where Egmont and Hoorne were confined. Every time he stopped, someone shouted, “Move along, despicable beggar.”
The crowd jostled him from all sides and a few people spat on him. Finding one building just behind the scaffold more closely guarded than the others, he lingered and watched and listened for further evidence that this was the spot he sought. But the press of people was so heavy here that from his stooped position, the legs and lances of soldiers barred his way like an impenetrable forest.
He had just started around the scaffold, hoping to find another access to the building, when someone shouted orders out in the square. A wide line of soldiers came marching straight toward him. He backed up awkwardly and tripped over a protruding cobblestone, stumbling to the ground at the edge of the scaffold. While he scrambled to get up, he felt the toe of a soldier’s boot kick him sharply in the shin of his bad leg, shoving him to the ground under the folds of the scaffold’s heavy drapery. His elbows were scraped raw and his face rammed against the rim of his wooden beggar’s bowl. He lay still and hoped no other creatures had taken refuge in this same place.
At that instant, from the church on the edge of the square came the mournful tolling of a huge bell, its vibrations pushing against his ears. An uneasy hush fell over the crowd, and the atmosphere seemed charged with the capricious tumult of a thunderstorm. Each stroke of the bell resembled a strike of lightning and sent a fresh shiver through Pieter-Lucas’ body.
It feels like Judgment Day! he told himself.
Suddenly the hush gave way to the sound of slow measured steps and voices, moving as if in procession across the square. From the crowd came an occasional wailing cry, and the name Egmont echoed in the distance. In no time, Pieter-Lucas heard footsteps on the stairs, then moving across the platform above his head. As if in rhythm with the steps that shook the whole frame, there came Egmont’s loud voice. “Would to God I had been permitted to die, sword in hand, fighting for my vaderland and my sovereign, King Philip.”
Pieter-Lucas heard a scuffling of feet, followed by the condemned man’s plaintive question. “Tell me there is a shred of hope that my sentence can yet be revoked, for as the whole world knows, I have been a long and loyal vassal of His Majesty.”
The response came in a simple muffled grunt. “Nay!”
What was this man’s crime? Pieter-Lucas’ memory painted a picture of Count Egmont, the handsome nobleman who was once a frequent visitor of Prince Willem in Breda. He’d always displayed an arrogant air, especially with the stableboys.
Nor had Egmont been willing to join the revolt, and after the image-breakings, Pieter-Lucas heard he’d taken delight in hanging rebels in his own province of Flanders. He appeared to give to King Philip his unwavering support. Why, then, was he being led to execution by Alva’s men?
Pieter-Lucas heard Egmont’s voice reciting, “Our Vader who in the Heavens is, Thy name be hallowed, Thy kingdom come….”
His last prayer! An unintelligible jumble of voices was followed finally by a cry so loud it set the frame once more to trembling. “Lord, into Thy hands I commit my spirit.”
In a flurry of movement from the far end of the enclosure beneath the platform, the executioner dashed from under the curtain with sword drawn and climbed the stairs swiftly. Pieter-Lucas clapped his hands over his ears to shut out the ominous sounds he knew would follow. But he heard them anyway—the sharp swishing of the sword through the air, a loud crack of blade against bones, and a solid thud on the floor above him. He felt the shuddering silence that gripped the crowd while the bell from the cathedral continued to toll, not missing a beat.
The crowd uttered a long stunned gasp, then broke into a wild cry of horror, as if from a single voice echoing around the square. A mad scramble of feet and clashing weapons signaled the stampede of a host of people, overcome with shocked grief, shoving their way to the scaffold.
“Why do the soldiers not stop them?” Pieter-Lucas mumbled.
The wailing continued, pierced by hysterical screams. The stampede of feet closed in around the platform. Pieter-Lucas stripped off his uncomfortable beggar’s disguise and stuffed it into his knapsack. He had heard all he needed to hear. He could watch the rest in his own street clothes, which he wore beneath the disguise.
With heart pounding loudly, he crawled out from under the platform and mixed with the mass of frantic mourners. He joined in their wailing sounds and motions, even reaching out with the others to touch the platform. But when they began dipping handkerchiefs in the blood spilling onto the ground, he made haste to find an escape.
The soldiers were pushing the whole crowd back with shields and lances and brawny arms. Pieter-Lucas found himself suffocating in the hysterical press of sweaty surging bodies. Slowly, steadily, he fought his way back farther and farther away from the platform. At times he struggled just to keep from being shoved to the ground and trampled to death by the mob.
He had reached the far edge of the Grand Place when he saw the soldiers parting the crowd to make way for one more procession to the scaffold. The second victim, a straight tall man in a plain black suit with a Milanese cap on his head, followed in his friend’s train. Pieter-Lucas remembered Count Hoorne, too, from occasional visits to the kasteel in Breda. One more of Willem’s one-time friends, separated from him by the revolt.
Pieter-Lucas wrestled with anger and pity as he watched the nobleman ascend the stairs, address the audience, and then kneel on the cushion reserved for his final devotions. He had to force himself to watch the executioner wield the awful weapon, then pick up the severed head and attach it to the spiked pole at the back of the platform opposite the stake where Egmont’s head had already been placed.
Pieter-Lucas pushed on through the mob-clogged streets until he could breathe once more and choose his own direction. By now, every church in the city had joined its bell in the mournful tolling chorus. With enormous effort, he finally passed through the gate and left the gloomy crowds behind. The church bells grew fainter, but the awful heaviness of an almost despair still weighted down his soul.
“I must get far, far from this place—as fast as possible,” he told himself.
When he could no longer see the city, his pathway emerged from a small stand of oaks and poplars. A welcome shower of rain descended from the heavens. The fleeing hole-peeper lifted his face to the drops and let them splash his eyes. He shook out his curls and gave his ears to the water. Somehow, he fancied that the fresh cool water would wash away the spilling of innocent blood that he had been forced to hear and see and feel in his bones.
****
From the Proud Stallion Inn Pieter-Lucas was whisked into a boat and spent a day and night floating down the Rhine River. When finally he succeeded in falling asleep, he dreamed he was back in the Grand Place. The executioner spotted him in his hiding place beneath the scaffold, dragged him up the stairs, forced him to his knees, pointed a sword at his breast, and roared, “Decide, jongen, whether you will fulfill Yaap’s mission like a man or go back to your paintbrushes and the Anabaptist cowards!”
Pieter-Lucas trembled. The executioner’s eyes turned into hot red coals, and he screamed, “Those who cannot choose must die!” Then he grabbed and bound his arms, snatched him by the hair, and pulled his head to the bloody block.
“Have mercy,” Pieter-Lucas strained to cry out. But his throat was filled with strange balls of liquid, and his voice warbled like a drowning man’s.
The executioner laughed with an evil sound so resounding that it brought him sharply awake. His arms were thrashing and the boatman was shouting, “Sit still, you crazy man! You’ll dump us both overboard!”
For the rest of the trip, Pieter-Lucas kept himself awake. He chattered nonsense, moved his legs and arms about, splashed water on his face, and sang loudly. He dared not sleep again.
Paulus met him at the harbor in Strasbourg and led him through the grand old city. Pieter-Lucas stared at the enticing display of painted and sculpted walls, decorative windowpanes, the colorful curved roof tiles. Instinctively his fingers reached to his knapsack for the charcoal and brushes they normally contained.
But he found only a hunk of moldy bread and his beggar costume. This accursed war had stolen his paints and brushes and made him hear and see and touch ugly things instead—soldiers’ bullets, gaping battle wounds, severed heads! He shuddered!
Great God, his heart screamed, tell me I’m not a coward because I hate war! Tell me, God!
He listened and stumbled on behind his guide. The people and animals and carts that swarmed the streets and plazas and alleyways filled his ears with the sounds he did not want to hear. As always, God remained silent.
Paulus brought him at last to Willem in a large hall with tapestried walls and painted glass windows. The prince looked up from his place at one end of a long bench-rimmed table. An official-looking man in velvet doublet and feathered hat sat beside him.
“What is the news, jongen?” Willem asked, his whole body leaning toward him.
“The rumors were true.” Pieter-Lucas fought to control the turbulence in his stomach and give a calm witness. But he felt his voice stumbling as he went on. “Yesterday, in the morning, I witnessed the beheading of both Counts Egmont and Hoorne.” He could say no more.
He watched Willem grip his own legs and stare at the floor. “His Majesty King Philip would never forgive the counts for being my friends,” he mumbled. “And Egmont’s vanity deceived him into trusting him implicitly. Hoorne followed blindly in his shadow.”
The prince sat a long while, shaking his head and moaning. “Ach! Egmont, Egmont! How often I tried to warn you!”
After a pause, he breathed deeply, then raised his head and looked directly at Pieter-Lucas. “And the people? Did they cheer the action or mourn it?”
“The city groaned with soul-numbing despair,” Pieter-Lucas said, feeling it again as if he were still in the midst of the dismal crowds. “The only animation I saw was horror and outrage once the deed was done on Egmont.” He stopped and wiped dampening hands on his breeches. “Clearly, they loved the count!”
Willem turned to his host and spoke with eager agitation. “The people are finally ready for resistance. Now is the time to strike. Can you not see it?”
The official sat motionless. “That sort of fervor does not last.”
“Exactly why we must fan the fire into a raging inferno of rebellion now before the embers have died on the hearth of outrage,” Willem pleaded.
“It touches us not here in Strasbourg,” the man responded. “Our businessmen have already poured hundreds of thousands of crowns and florins into your fruitless efforts and seen nothing in return. I cannot extract one more stuiver from any of them.”
Willem spread desperate hands toward him. “There was Heiligerlee! With troops and funds, there will be more!”
“Heiligerlee indeed!” The official laughed. “One tiny regiment of ill-prepared Spaniards caught in treacherous, unfamiliar turf in a lonely corner of Friesland! And look what revenge it has already wrought from the powerful hand of Alva! Have you any idea of Alva’s strength?”
“Obviously you have no idea of the power of a populace enraged by Alva’s arrogance against one of their own champions. I tell you, now is the time!”
At that moment the door opened and Nicolaas and Allard burst through. They bowed hurriedly before Willem. Nicolaas began his report. “The Duke of Alva has already amassed several thousand troops near Brussels, and they are being daily trained in preparation to go to Friesland and cut Count Ludwig and his men in pieces.”
“You have seen his encampment?” Willem asked.
“I have seen it well, Your Excellency. I have watched the men drilling in the fields around the city. Like war horses pawing the ground, pressing for action.”
“The duke himself has plans to take full command at the lead of his troops,” Allard added. “From our precarious peephole in the city chambers, Joost and I heard him boasting of how easily he would lash out at Ludwig with his little finger and instill a holy terror in his heart never to be forgotten or trifled with again while his back was turned.”
“And what mood did you find among the people on the streets?” Willem pressed the question.
“They are terrorized,” Nicolaas said.
Allard nodded his head in vigorous agreement. “All they need is a champion to sweep through the streets the instant Alva has marched out, and they’ll follow, driven by frenzied revenge.”
Willem reached imploringly once more toward his host. “Can you not see how opportune is this moment? We can provide that champion, wage a victorious war of our own, and solidify the support of first Brussels, then Antwerp, and on up the line, while Alva is off up in the far corner of Friesland spending all his choice troops in the petty cause of revenge. But we must have the men and the money to keep them with us.”
The official offered one lame concession. “Your strategies sound almost convincing.” Then, shaking his head, he began, “But I warn you…”
Willem jumped to his feet. “Surely when the merchants of this city have heard what you and I have just heard, they will agree that this is the time.”
The official stood, faced Willem, and went on with his speech as if he’d never been interrupted. “I warn you, even if you told them that Gabriel and all his heavenly hosts had come to your aid, they would do nothing more, Count Willem, nothing more. We’ve given you our last crown.”
The room grew suddenly still. The two officials stared at each other. Pieter-Lucas watched, openmouthed as Willem reached out to shake the man’s hand and said calmly, “I thank you, wise burgermeister of this fair city, for listening to my pleas. It vexes me more than you can imagine that you refuse to trust us at this most auspicious of times. But know this. We move on and will not fail, for ours is the cause of God Almighty. His are the gold mines of this world and the next. Somewhere, somehow, we shall raise our troops and hold them to the cause. Good day.”
Willem strode through the door and the labyrinth of halls and stairways. Pieter-Lucas and the rest followed him out into the midday, up and down cobbled ways in the shadow of majestic old buildings, back to the harbor, and into a waiting boat.
For four long gray days, Pieter-Lucas accompanied Willem to the courts of German noblemen who refused his pleas for support in this “most auspicious of times.” With his ears, he heard the prince’s arguments and the noblemen’s disappointing responses. But his mind, tormented with visions of spears and scaffolds and bloody handkerchiefs, worried two nagging questions, as a dog would worry an old bone. How could he ever tell Willem that nothing could hold him to Yaap’s mission? Failing this, how could he ever tell Aletta, who needed him by her side, that he must fulfill Yaap’s mission? He had to find a way!