...Winter dragged on with its dull and timid light, fogs and gray rains, and we, overcoming jitters, obtained forage and carried out robbery - what other French words are there? - on Flemish soil... I almost perfectly mastered many useful skills - I stole chickens, dug edible tubers out of the ground, pestered local peasants with a knife to their throats... In a word, I did a lot of things at that time that I don’t want to remember and which is not something to be proud of, but still he survived and helped his comrades survive the winter and became a man in the fullest meaning of the word. Inigo Balboa and Diego Alatriste go to Holland to fight for Spain, avoid participation in the rebellion, fight on the ground and underground, they manage not to die and end up in a Velazquez painting and a comedy by Calderon. Meanwhile, the fatal Angelica has her sights set on Inigo.