16

“Magnificent! Wonderful!” The Duke of Alva paced across the room, his long strides sweeping the carpet. At the far wall he wheeled and glared at the little semicircle of his officers, waiting by his desk. “The Spanish navy has struck a great blow for Christ. At last they have driven the Beggars from the sea.”

He swung out one arm like a scythe and knocked down a lamp standard.

“While the Spanish army dawdles and haggles and lets itself be put off by a crew of merchants and storemen!”

A page ran to pick up the iron standard. The clay lamp had broken; a puddle of oil soaked into the carpet. Alva strode back through the office, scowling at the floor, his hands on his hips, his cocked elbows spread.

Luis del Rio, the King’s governor in Antwerp, was among the six men looking on. The news of the great victory over the Sea Beggars off the coast of Friesland filled him with relief, and he was unwilling to ask the hard questions that Alva’s flamboyant announcement left so ominously unanswered.

Alva said in a low voice, “The navy will have the King’s ear for this, and we shall have nothing. Nothing.”

Del Rio was watching Alva’s face. The old soldier looked tired, and less than triumphant. Perhaps it was only that the victory had fallen to the navy and not the army. Maybe it was jealousy that kept him from rejoicing fully at this great news.

He had fought wars since his childhood, had Alva, and never lost. Not until now. He put all his faith in the simple Aristotelian logic of force: attack weakness, avoid strength, keep your men fit and well armed. By all the laws of his experience, the Low Countries should have submitted to him as tamely as the Indians to Cortez, by the fact of their several natures. But here the roles were different. He despised the Dutch for merchants and traders, but here their mercantile laws prevailed; and it all came down, in the end, not to strength, fear or faith, or even truth, but to money.

“Your Excellency,” said Viglius, the councillor, “when can we expect some money from Spain?”

Alva grunted explosively. He turned his back on the half ring of his advisers.

“Your Excellency, the army has not been paid in months. They will not fight. Fortunate we are that Orange and the others have not chosen this moment to attack. We need money to meet the payroll, or the troops will mutiny.”

“Surely,” del Rio said, “now that the navy has destroyed the Beggar fleet, a shipment of money will come through.”

Alva wheeled around to face them, his jaw clenched tight as a shark’s. His eyes gleamed. For a moment he faced them in silence. Del Rio thought. He is wondering how much to tell us, and a cold tingle of alarm ran down his spine.

“No,” Alva said, abruptly. “They have not destroyed the Beggar fleet. They hurt them—that was all. They caught them, finally, and did them some damage. That was all.”

He shook his head; his long face worked through a frown. “What about the tenth penny? How much have we collected?”

Del Rio cleared his throat. This was his business. He said, “In Antwerp, almost nothing. In the northern Provinces, some few revenues, but they are poor up there. The great cities are refusing the tax.”

“The Estates voted it! They must pay it.”

“Excellency, they are refusing to trade. It is a tax on trade. If they will sell nothing, buy nothing, there is nothing to tax.”

“How can they refuse to trade? It is their lives.”

Alva swung to face him; del Rio lifted his chin, to look his chief in the eyes. “Because they hate us, Excellency. They would rather die than help us.”

“God’s blood,” said Alva. “Would we could slaughter them all.”

“Your Excellency.” Del Rio leaned forward, intent on what he said, as if he could force his thoughts into the duke’s skull. “Even if you slew every Calvinist, these people would stand against you. It is not merely the Calvinists here, it is everyone—Catholics too. What you have done, Excellency, by your oppressions, is drive them together, to confront us as one people.”

Alva stiffened. His mouth thinned to an angry slit. “What are you trying to say, Luis?”

“Excellency, I am saying you have failed here. Your policy has failed. In fact your policy has strengthened the opposition to the Crown, and made the King’s name despised here.”

The long hard Spanish face of the Duke of Alva tightened into a mask. He jerked his head at Del Rio. “Get out.”

“Your Excellency.” Del Rio bowed deep and started past the other councillors to the door.

“All of you,” Alva snapped. “Get out!”

They shuffled away after del Rio into the antechamber, where at once they let out a round of sighs, a gusty wind of relief. Viglius laughed, shaky.

“We’ll turn this placid Brussels into the breezy Bermoothes.” He put out his hand to del Rio. “Your courage is your escutcheon, my lord.”

“Your loyalty wears a bend sinister,” said Don Federico de Alvarez, Alva’s son. Gloomy, he walked away across the room to the window, his back to the others.

“What do you think he will do now?” said the governor of Mechlin, with a twitch of his head in the direction of Alva’s room.

Del Rio drifted off, letting Viglius manage these idle speculations. At the window he joined Don Federico. They stood side by side, looking out over the park to the busy streets of the capital.

“I can’t understand it,” said Alva’s son. “We win every battle, but they will not see reason and surrender.”

“We have lost control of the sea,” Del Rio said. “The navy must do more than win honorary battles and inflated triumphs if we are to regain it. And there is another thing. You know the legend of Antaeus?”

The tall man shrugged. “I don’t recognize the name.” He was not young anymore, although del Rio thought of him as young; he had grown middle-aged in his father’s shadow.

“It’s a story from Greek times,” del Rio said. “Heracles fought Antaeus, whose mother was the earth; as long as Antaeus touched the earth, her strength sustained him, and he could not be beaten.” He waved his hand at the tree-filled park, the crowded city, the distant hazy farmlands beyond. “This is the Dutch earth.”

“You think we cannot win.”

“We cannot win your father’s way.”

Don Federico spun toward him, taller than he was, tanned from the sun. “God is only testing us. Let our hearts be strong, and we shall triumph. We must triumph. For God’s love.” His hand chopped the air. “We are the Spanish army! We have fought the Italians, the Germans, the French, the Moors, the feathered warriors of Montezuma, and destroyed them all. We are the greatest force on earth! How can a leaderless crowd of bakers and brewers, moneymen and pirates stand against us?”

Del Rio said, “I admire your zeal. At my age, passion’s only a forewarning of indigestion. Let me ask you this—what think you honestly of your father’s policy?”

The dark fierce face turned away, out to the window again, toward the open, the sky, the broad plain. “It’s not soldier’s work—to hang men up to die. If we cannot beat them in a fair fight, we might as well go home.”

Grasping the younger man’s arm, del Rio embraced him. “God have mercy on you. While such as you live, I have no fear for Spain.”

“I am—” Don Federico grimaced. “Out of my time.”

“Perhaps.”

“What will you do now?”

“What do you mean?”

“I know you, Luis. When you speak as you did to my father just now, it is no idle volley, but the opening salvo to a long engagement. You mean to change his policies. How?”

“I have no faith in my ability to change the mind of Don Fernando de Alvarez.”

“What, then?”

“We will write to the King. Ask for his removal.”

Don Federico’s lips twitched. His eyes burned dark as coals. “Well,” he said. “Good. I am tired of being here.” He turned and walked away, out of the room.