Lions of the Sea

1

The sun was still high over the Andalusian fields when Manuel Velazquez finished his chores and came out of the barn. He headed to the farmyard, looking around for his brothers. Maybe he was lucky and they were already back from the fields, and allowed him to go to the river with them. But he couldn't find them. Actually, he noticed there was nobody working on the fields as far as the eye could see. Odd, since the lord's collectors would come for the harvest by the end of the week.

Still wondering about it, he turned around the end of the barn and stopped short. His two brothers were there, under the old fig tree, with their good friend Diego Castillano and a dozen neighbors, all of them surrounding his father's tall figure, listening to him attentively.

Manuel hesitated. The grownups wouldn't appreciate a kid like him joining their conversation.

Diego Castillano spotted them snooping from the corner of the barn and waved him over with a warm smile. The boy sprinted toward him.

Jines and Alonso Velazquez saw their little brother come and rolled their eyes. Sometimes they wished Diego's mother would've had another son instead of three daughters, so Diego wouldn't be so fond of Manuel, always treating him like the younger brother he didn't have.

Manuel kept still and quiet by Diego, trying to go unnoticed while the men talked with grave faces, even frowning, but looked like the unusual gathering was almost over. He only got to understand they were discussing a tax, and he heard them agree to meet again at the foot of the hill by nightfall.

All eyes turned that way.

On top of the hill, a white wall with sturdy iron gates glittered in the sun, circling the wealthy dwelling of the lord of the land, the Hidalgo.

The men left and Manuel tugged at Diego's sleeve.

"Let's go to the river!"

Diego leaned toward him to level their eyes and smiled again. "I can't go today, Manuel. Promise we're going tomorrow."

The boy sighed, out of options. Diego patted his shoulder and straightened up. Manuel lingered under the fig tree alone, watching everybody walk away. Why did Diego look worried? Was it something he'd heard?

"Manuel!"

Velazquez's voice startled the boy. His father called him from the barn doors. Oh, no, more chores? Or had he missed something? He'd better hurry. He was surprised to find his brothers there too, sharpening reaping tools.

Velazquez handed him a sickle. "Sharpen it, son."

Manuel set to work without questions.

Back to the house, they had dinner in a thick silence. Manuel noticed his mother looked worried, like Diego had, but his father ignoring her staring.

Jines and Antonio wolfed down their food and left the table, heading out. When Velazquez followed them a moment later, Manuel hurried after him. His mother's tug stopped him. Her arms came out of nowhere to lock around him, pressing him to her side.

"Father!" the boy cried.

Velazquez paused at the door and turned to his wife, dead serious.

"Let go of him, woman."

"No!"

Manuel looked up at his mother, taken aback. He'd never heard her speak to his father like that.

"I said let go."

"No! You're not taking all of my children! You will only get them killed!"

Velazquez's face darkened as he strode across the room, to come stand only one step away from his wife. He didn't say another word, but her arms loosened around the boy and she stepped back.

Manuel scampered out of the house, not looking back.

His brothers waited a hundred yards away down the road and he ran toward them. Only when he joined them and stopped, panting, did he see the distant torches sparkling in the early night toward the hill from the nearby houses.

"What are you doing here, kid?" Jines asked.

"I brought him," Velazquez replied, catching up with them, and handed something to his youngest. "Here, Manuel, take it."

The boy recognized the sickle he himself had sharpened earlier and took it, looking up at his father in surprise, but Velazquez has turned to his other sons. He nodded and the four of them headed to the hill together.

Soon they met a growing group of men carrying torches, blades and sharp tools. They were about fifty when they started up the hill, boasting and laughing out loud, pointing their improvised weapons at the house of the Hidalgo up ahead.

Manuel had no idea what they were up to, or why, and he couldn't care less. For the first time he was welcome among the grownups like the man he almost was, and that alone was enough to make him grin.

However, all the shouting and boasting died away when they came out of the woods at the top of the hill. Another fifty men waited there, outside the gates. They too held torches and weapons, but those were all firearms: pistols and harquebuses, even some muskets.

Velazquez raised his hand to stop the peasants and stepped up to shield Manuel with his own body. From behind him, the boy recognized some of their neighbors among the armed men keeping the gates. Diego was one of them, with his father and his uncle.

"Diego!" he cried.

Antonio grabbed his arms to stop him from running to their friend, and forced him to step back.

"Right there, Manuel. Diego's chosen to stand for the Hidalgo and against us."

The bitter resentment in his voice caught the boy's attention. He didn't heed a word of what his father and one of the armed men yelled at each other, so the sudden shouting around scared him.

The men in his party howled like the Devil was inside them and pushed forward, dragging the boy along as they charged against the gates and the armed men.

It would take Manuel many years to figure out what happened next. At that moment, he could only run with the men. Until he felt the clutch at his arm and the firm tug backwards. A deafening blast from the gates made him crouch down out of instinct as the dark figure of a man appeared before him.

His hands covering his ears, his head sunk between shrugged shoulders, Manuel heard the cries among the yelling and smelled the smoke that seemed about to choke him. But then something or somebody fell on him, knocking him down, and he didn't dare to move. He shrunk where he was, face to the ground, while the night grew full of screams.

Until somebody called his name. A voice he knew.

"Diego!" he cried. But nobody answered.

He tried to move in vain, crushed under that wet weight pinning him down. Among the shouting and the shooting, he heard a different noise, like footsteps coming closer. Suddenly the weight was gone and he was able to crawl away, clutching at the grass with his hands covered in something that looked like mud.

"Here!" somebody called. "He's alive!"

A man kneeled down by Manuel. The boy rolled over to lie on his back, shaking and panting. Two men leaned toward him. And behind them, a raging fire engulfed the house. The glow from the fire helped him to recognize Jose Lugo and his son Jose Angel. They helped him up to his feet and Jose Angel started touching and poking him, as to check he was in one piece. Manuel ignored him, trying to believe his eyes when he looked around. A bunch of dead people lay on the grass, covered in blood. The peasants fought with the lord's men hand to hand. The bodies of his father and his brother Antonio still bled at his feet. Jines was dead too, a few yards away.

And standing in front of him, the harquebus still in his hands, was Diego. Diego Castillano, his friend and hero, watching him in utter horror. He tried to come closer to Manuel, but Jose Lugo stopped him.

"You've done enough for one night," Jose Angel said, standing between him and Manuel.

"God forgive you, boy. How could you shoot them down?" Jose Lugo cried. "They were like family to you!"

Manuel couldn't look away from him, shocked by what they'd said. Until Jose Angel lifted him as if he were a bag of fruits, and hurried away down the hill.

"Come, Manuel. We're taking you home."