The Pirates of the Levant

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Book: The Pirates of the Levant Read Online Free PDF
Author: Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Tags: Historical fiction
mentioning his enemy, Luis de Gongora, who wrote these Gongoristic lines in 1610 in praise of the taking of Larache, which was followed, four years later, by the seizure of La Mamora. Both were Barbary towns which, like all such towns, we took from the Moors by dint of great effort, clung on to through great suffering, and, to our great shame and misfortune, finally lost, as we lost everything, due to our own idleness. In this, as in most things, we should have done as others did, and paid more attention to profit than to reputation, opening ourselves up to the horizons we had discovered and broadened instead of becoming entangled in the sinister soutanes of royal confessors, in the privileges of blood, in our dislike of hard work, in matters of the cross and the sword whilst leaving our intelligence, our nation, our soul to rot. But no one gave us the choice.
In the end, much to History's surprise, a handful of Spaniards was able to make the world pay dearly, by fighting until not one of us was left standing. You will say that this is poor consolation, and you may be right, but we were simply doing our job and we paid no heed to governments, philosophies or theology. We were, after all, merely soldiers.
Captain Alatriste and I watched the last red light fade from the horizon. Now the only thing that distinguished sea and sky was the starry vault beneath which our galley sailed, driven by the east wind, and guided only by the knowledge of the pilot who kept one eye on the North Star and the other on the binnacle, in which the ship's compass was lit by the tenuous glow of a candle. Behind us, near the mainmast, we heard someone ask Captain Urdemalas if they could light the poop-deck lantern, to which he replied that if anyone lit anything, however small, he would personally dash their brains out.
'As for rich soldiers,' Captain Alatriste said after a while, as if he had been turning over my words in his mind, 'I've never yet met one who was rich for very long. It all goes on cards, wine, whores, as you very well know.'
There was a significant pause, brief enough for it not to sound like a reproach, but long enough for it to be just that.
And I knew exactly what he was referring to. We had been together for five years, but had spent only some seven months in Naples and on the galleys, during which time he'd had ample opportunity to notice certain changes in my person. Not only physical ones — for I was as tall as he was now, slim but elegant, with good legs, strong arms and not a bad face — but other deeper and more complex changes. I was aware that, ever since I was a child, the Captain had wanted me to have a future away from the army. He had, for this reason, always tried to encourage me — with the help of his friends Don Francisco de Quevedo and Father Perez — to read good books and translations from the Latin and the Greek. The pen, he used to say, has greater reach than the sword, and someone learned in books and the law and with a good position at Court would always have more of a future than a professional killer. My natural inclination, however, proved impossible to change, and although, thanks to his efforts, I did acquire a taste for literature — after all, here I am, all these years later, writing our history — my destiny was shaped by the character I inherited from my father, who died in Flanders, and by having lived at Captain Alatriste's side since I was thirteen, sharing his dangerous life and adventures. I wanted to be a soldier, and I was; I applied myself to the task with the resolute passion and energy of my youth.
'There are no whores on board, and the wine's scarce and very rough,' I replied, rather wounded by his comment. 'So you have no reason to reprimand me. As for cards, I don't intend giving to a louse the money I risked my life to earn.'
I was not using the word 'louse' lightly either. Captain Urdemalas, sick of the quarrels over cards and dice, had banned both, threatening any
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