25

“Your sister died.”

He nodded, kicking at the sand; they were walking along the beach. There was a storm coming in, and the waves were pounding up well past the line of shell and weed that marked the usual high tide. He said, “She saved us. Had she not cut the dike, they would have taken The Brill.”

He slid his arm around his wife’s waist. For Hanneke he felt both grief and joy; for himself only grief, that he had lost her again, so soon after they had regained each other.

“Mouse told me he saved your life.”

“He did.” Jan gave a little shake of his head. His left arm throbbed painfully now; after the fighting was over he had found, to his surprise, that it was wounded through. “God help me, I felt sorry for him all this time, or contempt for him. He saved my life. There’s a lesson in that I do not mean to forget.”

She hugged him, her cheek against his chest. He did not say to her, You saved us all. She knew that. Everyone knew that.

They walked along the beach, into the teeth of the wind. The storm was sweeping in from the north. Great slate-colored shelves of cloud hung over the sea, and the setting sun stained the western edge dark red. A wave crashed against the beach and washed up toward them, a curling soapy edge of foam, and he steered her out of the way.

“Now what will happen?” she said.

“We have sent for Orange. When he comes …” He said no more. He had no idea what would happen next; it was all new, with no footing in the past, no way to judge it by the past. As if he had died in The Brill, his life was starting over. Like the fierce storm wind, a steady excitement enlivened him. Eagerly he looked forward into the future. It was right, he thought, that this new kingdom should be born here, on land the Dutch had made, on the edge of the world.

“Look!” Eleanor raised her arm to point. “An omen.”

The sun had sunk down under the edge of the cloud roof; its clear piercing light shot across the sea with a brilliance that blazed on every wave top and turned the sand to gold.

Jan made a sound in his chest. “We’ll have a long storm before the sun shines well on us again.” He wanted it; he needed the storm, the power of the storm to weigh his own power against. “Come along,” he said. “I have to make my ship safe.”

They turned and went back toward The Brill.

Many days later, the Prince of Orange entered Holland. The Sea Beggars met him at the border, to give him their homage and to recognize him as their leader. Jan van Cleef waited with the other captains, ready with some cold words for this aristocrat who arrived to take the glory after the deed was done.

They were standing on the flat northern shore, where the Prince was landing in a small boat. A harsh wind blew out of the north and drove the waves onto the beach with a boom and crash of sand-filled surf. The little boat nosed in through the breakers and struck the ground with its keel, and three men leapt out to drag it onshore.

Another man climbed out, knee-deep in the surf, and walked up to the rank of waiting captains. As he came, he smiled, and reached out his hand, first to van Treslong, and next to Dirk Sonoy.

“My friends,” he said. “I come here not to lead—you have proven you need no leaders but God Himself. I come to serve, as best I can, in our common cause.”

He put out his hand next to Jan, who was fumbling with the made-up speeches he had been turning over in his mind all morning. In the face of the Prince of Orange he could remember nothing that seemed fitting. The Prince, seeing his hesitation, lowered his hand.

“Do you have some reservations of me, Captain?”

Jan blurted out, “Many have died here, sir. Do you mean to stay here now, and keep faith with them, and not flee when the going’s hard?”

The other Beggars muttered, angry at that, but the Prince of Orange’s smile only broadened, the lines at the corners of his eyes deepening into fans of wrinkles. Gently, he said, “I am here to make my grave in this land.”

Van Treslong strode forward. “Your Highness, van Cleef’s lost his sister, at The Brill; he is distraught—”

“He has won his rights here,” said the Prince. “I ask of him only the chance to win mine.” He reached out his hand again to Jan. “Have I the honor of your company, Captain van Cleef?”

Jan took his hand in a hard grip. “God be with us both, sir.”

“And we with God; we shall not fail.” The Prince nodded to him. With a gesture to draw them all after him, he walked up the beach, into Holland.

All the candles had gone out but one. The Duke of Alva leaned his forearms on the table and stared into the saffron light, his mind despairing.

He had driven back Louis of Nassau; he had won every battle he had fought. The news of his son’s disaster at The Brill had seemed at first like a minor annoyance. Another army would take The Brill. What did it matter? Why did it matter so?

The letter from his King lay open under the candlelight, the words marching neatly from side to side, the words that ordered him back to Spain, that told him he had failed.

He knew that—knew it in his stomach, in his bones, and in his heart—but he could not see how he had failed. He had won every battle. No one dared to stand against him. He slid his hands up to cover his face, blocking out the light.