A warm steamy sun beat down on Pieter-Lucas’ head as he approached what had been the camp of Ludwig when he left it. But all had changed. Where just days ago stew pots had bubbled and angry men had demanded gold, today all was desolate, ominous, bleak. Gone were the tents that had lifted their poles on the horizon. Gone were the cannons, guards, and bridges. A strange mixture of oppressive odors that wafted along the riverbank and across the swampy countryside set Pieter-Lucas’ nostrils and innards to quivering.
He sniffed. “Burnt wood?”
He sniffed again. “Rotting bodies! War has been here!”
Pieter-Lucas clutched at the sack of supposed onions draped around his shoulders, grateful for the cover his peasant costume provided both for him and for the coins he had collected from Ludwig’s friends. Not that there were enough to pay all the troops, but it was something. Unless their number had been…nay, he refused to think that way. Ludwig must still be out there somewhere with an army. He stood beside the burnt timbers and looked in all directions. “Which way did he go?” he said into the breeze that slapped gently at his cheeks. “And his pursuers?”
The ruin and stench around him told him that whatever the battle amounted to, Ludwig had lost it. Alva could be on his way home by now. How far away depended on how many days had passed since the battle and how fast they moved. And who but Alva could know? How many of his men might still be lurking about, eager to find a wandering messenger of the patriots?
Ja, it was good to be a peasant farmer once more—good that Blesje lay safely in Emden. Pieter-Lucas looked at the city of Groningen with its high thick walls, ornate church towers, and sharp spires reaching up out of the streets as if in search of new air. All was too quiet—like the countryside he’d passed through to get here. The roadway leading up to the tower gate that guarded the moat was deserted. The gate itself was tightly shut, and no one either came or went through it.
He searched the other horizons, away from Groningen, and finally set off walking in the direction of Den Dullart. He hadn’t gone far when he noticed a black heap of charred rubble set back off the roadway. It must be a farmhouse, but it was burnt past recognition! Not far down the road, there was another, then another….
Shivers ran up and down Pieter-Lucas’ back. With tentative steps, he followed the line of burnt houses until, in a grove of blackened willows, he spotted a small group of people sifting through the rubble. Leaving the roadway, he picked his way through the trees and around the no longer smoldering ashes. Not until he stood directly behind the people did they seem to realize he was there. A woman and two young children!
“Ach! God Almighty! Have mercy,” the woman cried out.
Frantically she gathered her children into the safety of her skirts and eyed Pieter-Lucas wildly. Her face was young and pretty, but along with her clothes, it was smudged with ashes. Her hair hung in unkempt strings from beneath a once white cap of the Frisian style.
“I’m sorry I frightened you,” Pieter-Lucas said.
“What do you want?” she challenged.
One look at her plight, and his search for Ludwig seemed suddenly unimportant. What if this were Aletta and the child she would soon bear him? What would he want a traveling messenger man to do for her?
“Why…is there something that can I do to alleviate your suffering?”
“Nay, just go away,” she said.
“But the torch has left you with nothing. Here, let me give you some bread for you and your little ones.” He lowered the bag from his shoulders and began to open it. Two sets of eyes peered out at him from the mother’s skirts. The sight filled him with an overwhelming compassion.
“That’s kind of you, young man,” the mother said, “but I must not take it.”
“I offer it freely,” he said, holding two small hunks of bread out to her. “They are not fresh, but at least they have not been burned to cinders.”
She eyed him for a long while and appeared almost ready to accept. Then she shook her head with shuddering motions and said, “Nay, I cannot. My…husband has gone looking for food. He’ll return soon. Just leave us alone.”
Pieter-Lucas dropped his hands with the bread. The children’s eyes were fixed on the food. Ravenous, they were. Inwardly he knew there was no husband out foraging for food. What could he do?
“I leave you, then,” he said. “But first, can you tell me, did you see the armies that torched your house and all the others along the roadway?”
Eyeing him tentatively, she offered, “We saw the smoke of others, then fled into the woods and hid until they’d passed.”
“Were they soldiers who did this awful deed?”
She stared hard at him. “If you are a peasant farmer, why do you ask about soldiers? What is your real reason to prowl around amid our misery?”
How much dared he say? This was a woman of thinking mind, not some simpleton. How could he be certain she was not also covering up her real person, perhaps searching the rubble for booty? She did not look like a masquerading thief, but then the dangerous ones never did. Ach! Could one never trust a stranger—not even an innocent woman protecting her pure-eyed children?
Calmly—so calmly that he startled himself—he replied, “I am no soldier.” Turning all round, he went on. “You can see for yourself I carry no weapons. You must believe me, young woman, I’m on an errand of mercy for my master.”
He watched her face, looking for a light that never went on. She stared at him as blankly as before, but something in her bearing would not be ignored. “Who is your master?” she demanded.
Feeling almost powerless to do otherwise, he told her the truth. “I come from Prince Willem van Oranje.”
“Then I suppose you are searching for Count Ludwig and his men?” she asked, still betraying no feelings.
“Has he passed this way?”
Tears formed in her eyes. “The count has roamed these fields and bogs and woods for months now. Often he and his men pounded on our doors and begged for a crust of bread or a contribution of gold coins. I’ve heard said that he nailed notices on some people’s doorposts threatening to burn them about the ears if they did not give him the gold coins he needed to hire his troops and fight off the terrible Alva. No such notice ever appeared on my door, however.”
“Did Ludwig’s men ever burn a house?” Pieter-Lucas stood trembling inside.
“Not that I know about. We all wanted him to win, if indeed he could get rid of Alva and restore our peace and quiet. But the tales we heard of the Spaniards made us despair. Then we heard there was a bloody skirmish in Groningen, and after that…” She stopped and eyed him once more.
“You need fear no reprisals from me. In fact, if you can enlighten my way, I have the possibility to strengthen Ludwig’s cause, when I can find him.”
“I…I do not know where he is,” she stammered. “I only know his men came fleeing through here with torn clothes, bleeding wounds, and tattered bags. Two of the soldiers came prowling around our little house and sneaking out through the woods. I overheard one of them saying he would never go to Jemmingen.”
“Deserters from the army, were they?”
She shrugged. “Who knows? I was so fearful, I clutched these babies in bed with me, and my husband took the big sword from its place above the mantel and lay wait in the animal shelter—it used to stand there,” she interrupted, pointing toward a pile of burned rubble.
“Did they burn your house?” Pieter-Lucas asked.
She shook her head. “’Twas Alva came later and did that. We always knew if he won a victory over Ludwig, he’d punish us all. And if we hadn’t hidden in the woods, he would have ravaged and burnt us along with the buildings.”
She stopped, then pulled her lips inward and said with obvious agitation, “Now I’ve told you what you wanted to hear, what savage thing do you plan to do to me?”
What savage thing? Pieter-Lucas stood breathless and tried to disbelieve what he had just heard. “Woman, I plan only to promise you the good hand of our God in payment for your kindness. Do I look to be a savage man?”
“Looks mean not a thing in war,” she said and suddenly burst into tears. Grabbing her children, she turned them around with her and fled into the woods.
“Halt!” he shouted after her. “I mean you no harm.”
But she did not stop, and he dared not follow after her. He reached into his bag and pulled out two gold coins. Tearing a large square of cloth from his peasant shirt, he wrapped the coins with the two hunks of bread and left them at the spot where he had found her. Her children’s empty bellies would draw her back when he was gone.
“Great God,” he mumbled to himself as he walked back to the road, “do all the faces of war have nasty fangs that gouge the soul?”
****
Pieter-Lucas climbed up over the earthen dike that sealed off the Ems River Valley from the tidal waters of Den Dullart. He searched the eastern horizon just as the brilliant rays of the sun broke through a long slender hole in the cloud cover and set off sparks of golden reflection up and down the Ems River on the edge of the world. It lit up the distant meager skyline of Jemmingen—a single church spire and the blades of a windmill rising from a cluster of lower roofs crouched down in the boggy pastureland.
In the still morning air, Pieter-Lucas could hear a rumble of shouts. Pouring out of the village, a stream of men appearing like mice flowed across the field.
What sort of battle maneuver was this? And which army? He strained his eyes to make out the colors of the banners flying above the encampment of tents on the far side of the village. He was too far away to be certain, but it looked like the orange-white-and-blue of Ludwig’s troops. As the men drew closer, he recognized beggar uniforms among them.
In no time they were upon him, Ludwig leading the parade. Each man carried a spade, a halberd, or some other sharp implement.
“Dig till the dikes are useless!” Ludwig barked.
Even Pieter-Lucas knew that Alva and his men were not sailors. Partly because of the heavy coats of armor they wore, they would not swim or attempt to cross water that was too deep for wading. With the dikes destroyed, the approaching high tide could turn these fields into a wave-lapping grave for Alva and his water-fearing soldiers!
Ludwig’s was the first spade to tear into the earthen dike, and the whole retinue followed his lead. Startled, Pieter-Lucas realized the count was thrusting a halberd into his hand as well. He attacked the wall with all his strength, swinging again and again, tearing huge chunks of the musty-smelling earth and dragging at the fill of rocks.
Soon the water of the sea began trickling, then running in rivulets toward his feet. It made him ravenous to see more. He hacked away again and again. A most unexpected euphoria possessed him. Just when he’d decided he could stay at it for hours, Ludwig grabbed him by the arm.
“Come with me, jongen,” the count said.
Pieter-Lucas looked up, startled. “But…” he began, then remembered the bag of gold coins and stopped digging.
Ludwig was shouting to his men all along the dikes, “Keep at it, men. Send the Spaniards floundering in the rushing sea.”
Pieter-Lucas ran after the count across the field, not stopping till they reached the single narrow roadway that led into the little village where the troops were holed up. They stood before five imposing cannons pointed directly at them, and Pieter-Lucas listened to Ludwig’s instructions.
“We are doing all we can to turn Jemmingen into an island so Alva can’t touch us. I’d hoped we might be able to keep him at bay until our position was a bit more secure. But if he is as near as I fear”—he gestured helplessness—“we need to be prepared. Go back to the beggars’ ship in Emden, jongen, and tell them to bring the fleet closer, for Alva approaches. We may need fortification from the sea.”
He was already beginning to walk toward the cannonaded entry to his encampment. Pieter-Lucas stopped him. “Your Excellency, what shall I do with this bag of gold pieces I have collected from your friends in Friesland?”
Ludwig gasped and drew up close. “Say not the word,” he whispered. “I’ve finally turned the men’s minds toward their mission. A bag of gold coins flashing before them now will only inflame them, and all will be certainly lost. Take it with you back to Emden for safekeeping until I call for it. Blessed be the men who emptied their pockets and you who prompted them to do so.”
The men parted, and Pieter-Lucas heard Ludwig yelling back over his shoulder, “Come directly back with your horse, ready to carry news of our victory to Willem!”
Pieter-Lucas nodded, waving as he hurried off northward toward the sea Beggars.
“Victory!” Ludwig had said. He wished he could feel Ludwig’s confidence. “And if things go not as planned?” He threw his apprehensions to the winds and pushed on.
****
Pieter-Lucas delivered his message to the sea Beggars and headed quickly back to Emden. By the time he’d delivered the gold to the safekeeping place Ludwig indicated and had retrieved Blesje from the stable at The Black Swan Inn, the sun stood nearly overhead.
The last place he wanted to go was Jemmingen. Unlike Ludwig, who seemed only to envision the village with the orange-white-and-blue banners of the revolt flying in the breeze, Pieter-Lucas imagined it as a gigantic hornets nest of armed Spaniards.
But he must follow orders! Together, he and Blesje pushed on through the streets of Emden toward the east gate. At his first glimpse of the water, he saw something that turned his blood cold. A flotilla of hats, horse bridles, armor, and body parts bobbed in the choppy waves of the harbor.
The tide whose rise he himself had so eagerly welcomed early in the morning had turned into a swift ebb tide, sweeping the evidences of a bloody battle down the river and into Den Dullart. The helmets and hats were those worn by Beggars and patriots, and the bodies did not belong to Spaniards.
“The quick and terrible sword of the iron man!” Pieter-Lucas exclaimed. “I knew it would happen, but so soon?” He closed his eyes and gave way to shuddering movements that convulsed his body, unbidden.
He passed through Emden’s east gate and headed south along the Ems River. The closer he drew to Jemmingen, the more bodies floated past him. In places, blood ran through the water in ribbons of red.
By the time Pieter-Lucas came even with the battle site, the long twilight had begun. He found a clump of willow trees, where he tethered Blesje and pulled the last hunk of bread from his bag, pondering his next move. But the sounds and smells and sights of gunfire, the moans of the dying and the jubilant shouts of the bloodthirsty conquerors, killed his stomach for food.
All through the nearly moonless night that followed, a flood of escaping soldiers swam ashore in search of safety. Pieter-Lucas spent the night pulling wearied and wounded men from the water, doing all he could to make them comfortable. If only he had Aletta’s herbal apothecary cabinet! Midst the profusion of grasses and swamp weeds growing along the riverbank, there must be plants that could heal. If only he knew!
Of each person who would talk, he asked one important question. Had they seen Ludwig? Some sneered, others shrugged, a few stared at him expressionless.
“He’ll come swimmin’ out when it’s all over,” offered one crusty old Beggar.
“Will the battle go on tomorrow?” Pieter-Lucas asked.
“Battle?” the rough man exploded. “It’s been over for hours!”
“There’s still gunfire!”
“Ludwig’s men are scattered across the fields from Den Dullart to who knows where. The ones that escaped are hiding out in whatever holes, swamps, or thickets they can find.”
“Are they safe?”
“Humph!” he grunted. “The Spaniards not goin’ to quit till they’ve ferreted out the last one—and killed or wounded them all.”
“Then there’s no hope?” Pieter-Lucas felt as if someone had jabbed him in the stomach with a dagger.
“Only for the ones that swim the river. Spaniards won’t follow us here!”
The old Beggar wandered off, shivering in his wet balloon britches, still wearing the beggar’s bowl around his neck and holding tightly to his sword.
Cold, tough, courageous—like Hendrick van den Garde! Pieter-Lucas shivered.
With daybreak the escapes increased, and the soldiers talked freely about their ordeal. “No battle,” groused one. “That was a massacre!”
“A Spanish hunting party!” shouted another.
“May Alva’s soul be tormented in Hades,” cursed a third.
One soldier sat in the tall riverside grasses and wailed, “We left Ludwig to fire the cannons all alone. We failed him…we failed him….”
All through the day, Pieter-Lucas watched in helpless horror as the Spanish soldiers wandered over the battlefield on the other side of the river, routing men out of their hiding places. They set fire to buildings and thickets and bound men’s hands and feet, then tossed them into the river to drown. The air rang with gunshots and screams and those ever present shouts of “Long live Philip! Victory to Alva!”
By late afternoon the tide had gone out again. Pieter-Lucas stood stroking Blesje’s mane, looking out across the water. “God, don’t let the Spaniards wade across while the tide’s out,” he mumbled.
“They won’t get far.”
Pieter-Lucas jumped at the sound of a strong deep voice behind him. Turning, he stared into the one face he had hoped never to see again. Instead of the peasant cap, it was framed by matted strings of dark hair. The hair on his chin had grown to a long stubble. But the eyes? He’d know them anywhere.
“What are you doing here?” Pieter-Lucas snapped.
“I swam to safety,” he said with a strong Spanish accent.
“Who are you? Why do you never cease pursuing me?” Pieter-Lucas suddenly realized he was clutching Blesje’s reins and leaning hard against the animal’s flank.
The man smiled. If he didn’t know better, Pieter-Lucas would have thought the smile genuine. But how could it be? He had to be a spy whose mission was to destroy Ludwig’s army.
“I am Alfonso. I’m sorry my actions frightened you.”
Pieter-Lucas stared at him. He was still clad in his peasant clothes, a sword swinging from the hilt in his belt. “What do you want from me?” Pieter-Lucas demanded.
“I only want to serve the revolt. I followed you from Duisburg because I heard you were on your way to Count Ludwig’s camp.”
Pieter-Lucas’ heart raced so hard it was almost deafening. “Who told you that?”
“It was the truth, no, señor?” he asked. Nodding an enthusiastic answer to his own question, he rattled on without waiting for a word from Pieter-Lucas. “Sí, sí, you brought me right into the camp of my new master, and I found great peace at last in fighting with the men who love the Book.”
Pieter-Lucas stood immobile and stared at the mysterious Spaniard. “So did you run to Alva with Ludwig’s secrets? No wonder you had such delight in fighting in this ghastly battle where all the men of the Book have been butchered.”
“No, no, no, señor,” he protested. “I did all I could to confuse and mislead the enemies of Ludwig and assist your men in escaping. I know how Alva’s men think and fight. I saved many of your men last night. Look!” He pointed toward the north.
Pieter-Lucas looked all around him and clutched his possessions to his body. He would not let this man catch him by distraction. When he did look, he saw that near the mouth of the river, a flurry of activity had erupted on an island. The Spaniards were wading through the receded waters and spreading over the entire island. With guns and swords and torches, they were routing Ludwig’s men out of their hiding places.
“Come with me, señor,” the Spaniard urged him. “We must help the few who will escape and swim to our shore.”
No longer hesitating, Pieter-Lucas followed. They arrived just in time to help the first who swam through the rain of Spanish bullets and hurling spears. From this new vantage point, Pieter-Lucas could see on the far side of the island a small skiff from the sea beggars’ ship pulling someone from Den Dullart.
Not too many managed to escape from the island, but all through the late afternoon and into early evening, Pieter-Lucas and Alfonso scurried up and down the bank, dragging the men onto the shore, drying them off, cleansing their wounds. At first Pieter-Lucas felt a nagging fear of betrayal by his helper. But clearly the man was in control of the situation and did nothing treacherous. Then, oddly, he recited a psalm to each person he rescued.
“It’s from the Book,” he insisted, “and will give you peace.”
“The Lord is my Shepherd, nothing fails me.
He leads me to restful waters….
Even though I walk through a valley of deep darkness,
I fear no ill, for Thou art with me.”
After the first reciting, Pieter-Lucas asked, “Where did you learn those words?”
The Spaniard hesitated. “I learned them from a prisoner.”
“A prisoner?”
He nodded. “A simple servant maiden. I interrogated her when she was first arrested but left her cell feeling as if she had interrogated me. I later went back and begged from her a sheet of the Book that she had quoted to us.”
Pieter-Lucas watched the man worrying a clump of grass with the toe of his boot. “I’m now greatly ashamed to say it, but I gave that little page to the bailiff, and he used it as evidence against her. It helped to condemn her to the stake. Mercifully, she died of a grievous illness before they could torch her, but her friend in the prison, no doubt as innocent as herself, died in her place.”
Pieter-Lucas gulped and involuntarily backed a bit away from the man. How like the story of Betteke de Vriend and Tante Lysbet! He pointed a finger at the man and asked, “How came you, then, to be such a lover of the Book? Did you get it back from the bailiff?”
Alfonso shook his head. “How I wish it had been so! Instead, the words ran around in my mind. I knew there were more, but these few haunted me every day, no matter how hard I tried to rid myself of them. Finally, one day I knew they were from God. In fear and trembling, I cried out to the Shepherd for His forgiveness as the maiden had told me to do, and He gave me peace.”
Pieter-Lucas stared with open mouth. Before he could find words to speak again, Alfonso went on. “The first thing I did was to defect to the army of the revolt. I saw what a dreadful thing my countrymen were doing—trying to keep this Book from the people. I think they know it is more powerful than any sword they carry in their hands.”
Stunned, Pieter-Lucas nodded his head and heard himself mumbling, “Ja.” Was there something to Meester Laurens’ claim for the transforming power of this “maiden’s sword”?
Alfonso nudged Pieter-Lucas with his elbow. His face aglow, he said, “This one little poem—and only a part of it, at that—has changed my whole life. Think what will happen when I find the whole Book!”
Each time Alfonso recited the words, the rescued men grew calm in spirit, no matter how agitated they had been in the beginning. Pieter-Lucas had to admit that he felt his own fears slipping away as well.
The sky was taking on a golden rosy glow when a loud struggle broke out on the edge of the island. Gunshots and boisterous shouts echoed across the water.
Then suddenly a Beggar broke free and began wading out toward the deeper river channel. A Spanish soldier stripped off his corslet and waded out close behind him. As the water deepened, the Spaniard lifted his arm, brandishing a sword.
“Will he swim it?” Pieter-Lucas asked his companion.
“He may try,” Alfonso said, “though it is against orders.”
Pieter-Lucas looked at him askance. “Then why would he do it?”
“If the Beggars have made him angry enough, or he thinks the water is as shallow on this side of the island as on the other, or if he’s a madcap—who knows?”
“Will he make it across?”
“Not as long as he holds his sword overhead and wears that heavy helmet.”
The Beggar was swimming now, his arms a blur of long deep strokes. The Spaniard, too, had sheathed his sword and committed himself to the water. Pieter-Lucas watched breathless as the deadly race went on. When the Beggar reached the bank, Alfonso reached out a hand to pull him up. One look in the Beggar’s face and Pieter-Lucas felt his legs turn to water beneath him. “Hendrick van den Garde!” he cried out.
But he had no time to think about Hendrick. The Spanish soldier had nearly reached the riverbank. Pieter-Lucas looked down the steep slope between him and the water and held his breath.
“Alfonso!” he shouted to his companion—the soldier with the sword. But Alfonso was struggling to keep his balance and drag Hendrick to shore.
Pieter-Lucas looked back and saw two hands creeping up over the edge of the bank, grasping at the long grasses. The Spaniard was pulling himself up and would soon be on top of them all. Nay, he could not let it happen!
Then as a shiny helmet rose out of the water and two dark eyes peered up at him, Pieter-Lucas felt a strong wave of strength surge through his whole body. He grabbed at the long hanging branches of a willow tree, then with one foot stomped on the Spaniard’s hands, pressing them into the mud. With the other foot, he landed a swift kick under his chin.
The man swore a defiant oath, jerked his hand out from under Pieter-Lucas’ foot, then plummeted backward into the surging water.
Pieter-Lucas stood watching, not breathing. The man was flailing bloodied hands in the air, then under the water. For a long moment the struggle continued. Then it was as if some giant from beneath the water gripped the soldier by the legs, spun him around, and sucked him down into the angry vortex of a powerful whirlpool. The body went around, then down, and Pieter-Lucas heard a frantic cry for help muffled by the heavy helmet as it sank into the water. He stared, his mouth open, his legs ready to give way.
Hanging on to a tree for support, he heard his name.
“Pieter-Lucas van den Garde!” Hendrick was shouting at him.
Without saying a word, Pieter-Lucas turned and looked at the man in dripping woolen beggar’s clothes.
“You killed a man!” Hendrick said, a leering smile revealing an incomplete line of dingy teeth. Pieter-Lucas’ stomach tightened into a hundred angry little knots.
“Nay!” he gasped. He was trembling so hard that all he could do was hold his mouth with both hands and lean against the willow trunk.
“I didn’t think you could do it!” Hendrick said, his voice a half jeer.
“I couldn’t let him kill you.” The sweat was pouring down his face, his arms, his legs, and he wanted to crawl off in a lonely corner and be sick. But Hendrick was staring at him, a familiar sneer playing at the corners of the mouth that had so often lashed out at Pieter-Lucas.
He took two steps toward Pieter-Lucas and clapped him on the shoulder. “A few more such acts and you might be something more than a coward someday.”
The words could not have stung more deeply if Hendrick had been his real vader.
Faintly Pieter-Lucas heard Alfonso scolding Hendrick. “This young man risked his life to save yours! And you call him a coward?”
In a fog, Pieter-Lucas drew back and swallowed down a throatful of lumps and pain. Why did he still feel so betrayed by this man? Calling on all the strength he could marshal, Pieter-Lucas looked straight into the eyes that had so often intimidated him. “There is no greater coward than a murderer,” he said, his voice even, his heart filled with the headiness of control.
He watched the leathery old Beggar begin to draw back. Moving across the murderous meanness and cold bravado in the familiar dark eyes, Pieter-Lucas detected shadows of a trembling fear. Hendrick first looked down, then made as if he would bolt free and run. But Pieter-Lucas grabbed him by the arm.
“Nay, Hendrick van den Garde, you who murdered my real vader and tried to murder me in the Great Church, this time you will listen to me.”
“Let me go. Let me go,” he begged, tugging against Pieter-Lucas’ grasp, fear now edging his voice. But Pieter-Lucas held him firmly.
“I’ve learned a few things since last we met,” he began.
“Nay, nay. Let me go!” Hendrick insisted.
Pieter-Lucas ignored his pleas. “The man who must rely upon the swinging of a sword to prove his courage will never know its meaning.”
Hendrick’s head was hanging low, and he cast a furtive sidewise glance toward him. “What do you know about sword swinging, you abominable painter?” He spat at Pieter-Lucas’ foot.
Pieter-Lucas ignored his interruption and went on. “The greatest courage comes to those who resist the lure of the sword and search for ways to save life, not destroy it. I leave the battlefield to you and your kind and pray that not all the men who fight Alva are as small-minded and ungrateful as Hendrick van den Garde.”
Pieter-Lucas loosened his grip. Without so much as a parting glance, Hendrick wrenched free and scuttled off down the roadway toward Emden.
Pieter-Lucas stared at his foot. “Great God, how can I get rid of this slime? I killed a man—and to spare the life of that most despicable of all cowards on earth?” A gigantic shudder shook his jowls, his shoulders, his whole being!
From over his left shoulder, he heard Alfonso’s accented voice. “You never been in a war before, have you, señor?”
“If I have my way, I’ll never be in one again!” Pieter-Lucas stumbled along the riverbank until he reached Blesje. He leaned against the trunk of the willow tree that held the reins, then bent over and vomited into the grass.