The sun, a familiar, golden orb, hung low over the terracotta roofs of his Algarvian manor, casting long shadows across the neatly terraced fields.
João de Carrasca, a man who had commanded fleets across oceans and humbled empires, felt the unfamiliar ache of his bones from a simple overland journey.
The dust of the road, clinging to his boots and cloak, was a poor substitute for the salt spray of the Atlantic, but the scent of wild herbs and sun-baked earth was unmistakably home.
He dismounted, his personal guard falling back to allow him privacy.
The old stone walls, draped with bougainvillea in vibrant purples and reds, seemed to breathe a sigh of welcome.
The courtyard, once merely functional, now hummed with the soft gurgle of unseen water. He noticed it immediately: new channels, cleanly cut, feeding the citrus groves that shimmered with nascent fruit, their leaves dark and glossy.
"My lady?" he called, his voice rough, a tremor of anticipation in it.
From the shaded archway, she emerged, the new Marchioness. Years had passed, her grace was undiminished.
Her smile, hesitant at first, then blossoming into radiant joy.
He crossed the distance in a few strides, sweeping her into an embrace.
When he finally pulled back, holding her gently by the shoulders, his gaze swept over the estate.
"The lands... they prosper, love. The irrigation, it seems vastly improved. My instructions were followed with great care."
He had sent detailed plans for water management, an application of Horizon Brazil's practical engineering to his personal lands.
She nodded, a soft laugh escaping her lips.
"Indeed, my lord. We have a perpetual flow, even in the driest months. The olive yields are up, the almonds too. But there is... other news, more personal, which could not travel well by letter."
João's brow furrowed slightly.
He had left her with their eldest, a spirited boy of a few months when he'd sailed. Had something happened?
"The boy? Is he well? His voice beginning to show signs of panic
A knowing light entered her eyes.
She took his hand, leading him deeper into the cool shade of the manor.
"Our firstborn is a strapping lad, already talking of ships and sails." She paused, turning to face him fully, her expression radiating a profound, tender joy.
"But he is no longer our only one, my lord. We... we have a second son. He was born a hew months after you departed for the East."
João stopped. A second son? His mind raced, accustomed to strategic victories and naval maneuvers, struggled to process such an intimate, unexpected triumph. He had been so far away, so engrossed in the grand tapestry of empires, he hadn't even anticipated this. "A son?" he murmured, a raw, unbidden emotion rising in his chest. "And his name?"
She squeezed his hand. "He bears yours, my lord. João. He is almost two years now. A healthy, robust boy, with your very eyes."
A wave of exhaustion, not from travel but from the sheer emotional weight of the discovery, washed over him.
He had fought to restore a kingdom, to secure its trade, to humble an empire.
But here, on his own sun-kissed land, amid the scent of orange blossoms and the murmur of new waters, was his familly, quietly thriving in his absence.
He looked at her, then at the manor, its walls now filled with the promise of generations. After years of separation, this was more than a reunion; it was a profound homecoming.
"In ccase you don'tknow mydear, you are now a marchioness"
" The queen regent have you the title of Marquis ?"
" Ha so the news didn't arrive here yet...."
She looked at him, thinking : "he talked about that like nothing much, while he began panicking for his son... "
_______
The chandeliers of the Louvre's Salon de l'Oeil-de-Boeuf, still some years from the opulent sprawl of Versailles, cast a cold light on the two men.
It was February of 1662, and the chill wind off the Seine seemed to seep through the very stones of the ancient palace.
"Monsieur de Witt," Jean-Baptiste Colbert, France's formidable Controller-General of Finance, steepled his fingers, his gaze unblinking. "France values stability. An alliance with the Estates-General against... certain maritime provocations... would certainly contribute to the peace of Europe. But such an understanding must be beneficial to both parties, would you not agree?"
Johan de Witt, Grand Pensionary of Holland, though outwardly composed, felt the subtle pressure. He knew Colbert's game: Louis XIV sought to expand into the Spanish Netherlands, and a strong, maritime-focused Dutch Republic was an obstacle.1 Yet, England's renewed naval ambition under Charles II was a more immediate threat. "Indeed, Monsieur Colbert. Our Republic seeks only to secure its trade and its sovereignty. A defensive pact would deter, would it not? It would remind London that we are not isolated." He leaned forward slightly. "Our Companies, both yours and ours, face common challenges in the East from the English interlopers. Perhaps a shared understanding there too?"
Colbert permitted himself a faint, almost imperceptible smile. "Our own Compagnie des Indes Orientales is but a nascent venture. We learn from established powers." He paused, his tone shifting. "However, the sheer cost of... mutual guarantees... must be weighed. Our king's treasury must be attended for France's future."
He was about to elaborate on the burdens of naval commitments when the ornate doors burst open.
A royal courier, breathless and mud-splattered despite the palace's grandeur, stumbled in, clutching a sealed dispatch.
"Forgive my intrusion, sirs! Urgent dispatches from Lisbon... and Amsterdam! From the East!"
De Witt's brow furrowed.
"From the East? So soon after the last advices ?" He gestured for the courier to approach. The man presented a missive, its seal broken, its parchment bearing the hasty scrawl of a frightened clerk.
De Witt's eyes scanned the first lines, and the blood drained from his face. His hand began to tremble, his usual composure cracking like ice.
"No... this cannot be... Impossible!" He looked up at Colbert, his face ashen.
"Monsieur Colbert, this dispatch... it speaks of utter catastrophe. Not merely interlopers, but a force unknown... a privateer fleet, under... a Portuguese banner... they have struck the VOC."
Colbert's expression remained impassive, but his eyes narrowed.
"Struck the VOC? How?"
"It claims... Ceylon... Ceylon is lost! Totally freed from our control in August last year! And not only that..."
De Witt stammered, pulling another, even more alarming report from the courier's hand, this one a desperate plea from Batavia. "...it speaks of systematic destruction! Our lesser fleets... annihilated! A contingent of forty ships sent from Batavia... broken, scattered, sunk! Our trade routes... in chaos!"
A profound silence descended, broken only by De Witt's ragged breathing. His earlier plea for a "shared understanding" in the East now sounded utterly hollow.
The formidable Dutch Republic, the pride of maritime commerce, had been dealt a crippling blow, not by England, but by this... this Horizon Brazil.
Colbert watched De Witt, a calculating glint in his eye.
The Dutch Republic's most vital economic artery, the VOC, was demonstrably bleeding.
Their fabled naval strength in Asia, previously thought unassailable, had been decisively humbled.
The strategic landscape had just been redrawn, not by grand European maneuvers, but by a single, audacious force thousands of miles away.
The "circumstantial alliance" they had been discussing minutes ago now seemed utterly transformed.
Why tie France's fortunes to a maritime power so demonstrably vulnerable? Why help shore up a rival who was already faltering, when their weakness could so elegantly serve France's own burgeoning ambitions? Out of question.
Colbert leaned back, his fingers steepled once more.
The terms of any alliance would have to be very, very different now.
Or perhaps, no alliance at all. The future belonged to france, and the Dutch had just uncovered a crippling weakness that Louis XIV could ill afford to ignore, or to prop up.
________
Spain: The Weight of Unfinished Business
In Madrid, the court of the child-king Carlos II, dominated by the Regent Mariana of Austria and her ambitious advisors, felt the sting of Portuguese defiance acutely.
For twenty-three years, Portugal's rebellion had been an open wound, a drain on Habsburg prestige and resources.
Their intelligence, perpetually behind the curve, painted a picture of a kingdom exhausted by protracted conflict, its coffers surely empty, its spirit worn by years of attrition.
Now, with João IV's steady hand removed by death years prior, the time felt ripe.
Spain poured her remaining strength into the grand plan: a decisive blow, a crushing offensive into the Alentejo, aimed at Lisbon itself.
Veterans from campaigns across Italy and Flanders, alongside fresh levies, gathered in the border fortresses.
Cannons, often re-cast from church bells in desperate times, were trundled towards Elvas.
Don Juan José de Austria (often referred to as John of Austria the Younger)., was poised to command a host that, on paper, dwarfed Portugal's standing forces.
They saw a kingdom on its knees, its resources spent, its morale fragile.
They could not have known the true extent of their miscalculation.
Far from empty, Portugal's royal coffers were now swelling with the unprecedented wealth from the Ceylon trade.
The Crown's direct 20% share and the lucrative tariffs alone were sufficient to sustain two full years of the entire Portuguese budget, a financial windfall that dwarfed their historical struggles.
Spain saw weakness; they failed to perceive the newfound, robust financial muscle now reinforcing Portugal's every sinew.
Their anticipated triumph was about to meet a far more formidable and well-resourced foe than they could possibly imagine.
________
England: The Scent of Opportunity
Across the Channel, in the bustling shipyards of Chatham and Portsmouth, a different kind of war preparation surged.
King Charles II, having successfully navigated the treacherous waters of the Restoration, was now fully committed to building England's naval might.
His Royal Navy, while still in recovery from the Interregnum's neglect, was expanding rapidly.
The coffers, augmented by the Portuguese dowry and parliamentary grants for naval expansion, were fueling the construction of sleek new warships, bristling with ordnance.
News from Asia, confirmed by eager EIC captains, painted a vivid picture of Dutch vulnerability.
The VOC, the seemingly invincible colossus of Eastern trade, was bleeding. Ceylon was lost.
Their famed fleets had been humbled, their arrogance challenged by the audacious Marquis João de Carrasca. This wasn't merely good fortune; it was a divine opportunity.
With the alarming (to the Dutch) absence of a Franco-Dutch alliance following the Ceylon debacle – Louis XIV having decided not to risk his nascent colonial ambitions on a partner whose primary economic engine was demonstrably faltering – England was unconstrained by continental entanglements.
The EIC pushed relentlessly for war, seeing the chance to break Dutch monopolies and seize new markets.
The Navigation Acts, long a source of friction, now served as ample casus belli.
The mood in London was one of confident aggression; the war with Holland, no longer a question of "if," but "when," would come sooner rather than later, likely bursting forth in the coming months of 1663.
_________
France: The Patient Predator's Calculated Watch
In the glittering antechambers of the Louvre, soon to be overshadowed by the emerging grandeur of Versailles, Louis XIV and his tireless minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, watched the unfolding drama with detached calculation.
France, too, was building its fleet, albeit from a lower base than England or the Dutch.
Colbert's vision was grand: a dominant French navy, a thriving French East India Company (soon to be formally founded in 1664), and an empire that rivaled, then surpassed, all others.
The news from Asia – the Portuguese success, the VOC's staggering losses – confirmed their decision not to formally ally with the Dutch. Quietly developing their navy, while others cripple their own, mostly, they would be less prompt and less able to oppose Louis's ambitions in the Spanish Netherlands.
"Let them crush each other," Colbert might have mused to His Majesty, gesturing vaguely eastward.
"Let the English and the Dutch exhaust their treasuries, their fleets, and their manpower in bitter struggle across the narrow seas and distant oceans.
Every cannonball they fire, every ship they lose, every guilder or pound sterling spent, is a gain for France."
Louis, with his keen sense of strategic advantage, would have nodded in agreement.
France would remain aloof, conserving its strength, building its own formidable instruments of power, ready to pick up the pieces, or simply step into the vacuum, once their rivals had bled themselves dry.
The stage was set for a multi-front struggle, with Portugal fighting for survival, England for dominance, and France for eventual supremacy.
________
The dry, dusty plains of the Extremaduran borderlands shimmered under the late spring sun of march 1663. From a modest rise, Don Juan José de Austria, his dark, piercing eyes surveying the vast encampment, felt the familiar thrill of command. This was no scattered band of frontier guards; this was the hammer, finally forged and ready to descend upon the defiant Kingdom of Portugal.
Before him stretched the assembled might of the Spanish Monarchy, an army built on the stubborn pride of a fading empire but infused with a renewed, desperate determination.
At its core were the famed Tercios Viejos, or what remained of their legendary discipline – hardened veterans, their faces tanned and seamed by campaigns across Flanders, Italy, and Catalonia.
These were the pikemen, forming impenetrable hedges of steel-tipped ash, and the musketeers, their heavy calivers and matchlocks gleaming dully in the sun. Beside them marched fresh levies from the Castilian heartland, eager but raw, their uniforms a less weathered shade of buff and scarlet.
The army was a tapestry of Habsburg power. There were the disciplined Walloon regiments, their distinctive broad-brimmed hats and heavy cloaks visible amongst the ranks.
German and Italian mercenaries, long serving the Spanish crown, formed their own formidable blocks of pike and shot, their diverse tongues blending into the low hum of a thousand marching feet.
Cavalry squadrons, a mix of light gens d'armes for scouting and harassment, and heavier lancers for a decisive charge, were arrayed on the flanks, their horses restless, their standards snapping in the breeze.
But it was the siege train that truly underscored the army's purpose. Mammoth siege guns, some dragged from distant arsenals, rumbled over the uneven terrain on massive wooden wheels, their gleaming barrels promising the breaching of any Portuguese fortification.
Barrels of gunpowder, stacks of cannonballs, and endless carts laden with fascines, gabions, and trenching tools stretched back for miles, a testament to the immense logistical effort required.
Don Juan José, a man of considerable military talent and royal lineage, knew the weight of expectation.
His reputation, forged in the reconquest of Catalonia, lent an air of decisive confidence. He saw not a formidable kingdom, but a rebellious province, its resources surely depleted by decades of defiance, its populace ready to crumble once faced with true imperial might.
This army, proud and disciplined, was the instrument of inevitable reconquest, the final, unyielding argument of the Spanish Crown.
They marched towards Portugal not with caution, but with the conviction that their sheer power would prove insurmountable.
__________
Lisbon, November 1662.
The sea winds carried the chill of the coming winter, but inside the bustling Portuguese capital, the atmosphere crackled with a different kind of urgency. João de Carrasca, freshly returned and now the architect of Portugal's sudden wealth, met with General Frederick Schomberg and several senior Portuguese generals, among them the seasoned Dom Afonso, in a war room far from the sea-charts João usually favored.
"Gentlemen," João began, his voice commanding the room's full attention. "The 2,000 English veterans already under arms are proving their worth. Their drills, General Schomberg, are exemplary."
Schomberg, ever pragmatic, nodded. "They are disciplined, Marquis. But the Spanish host gathering on the frontier... their numbers are formidable. We need more."
João's gaze intensified. "Precisely. Which is why, I propose to commission and transport three thousand more of these seasoned English soldiers."
A stunned silence fell, broken only by the scratching of a quill from a nearby clerk. Three thousand additional men, to be recruited, equipped, and brought across the winter seas.
"Such a feat, Marquis," Dom Afonso managed, "to secure so many, so quickly... and the cost?"
João turned, his expression firm. "The cost, my lords, will be significant. My domain, as you well know, lies on the waves, not on the land. My fortune, as vast as it is, was built for fleets and distant ventures. But the independence of Portugal, which underpins every cruzado we now earn from the East, that is the ultimate prize."
He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a persuasive, almost intimate tone.
"Consider this a patriotic support, an extraordinary measure by Horizon Brazil. Our ships will be at their disposal, our funds will guarantee their swift passage and thorough equipping. General Schomberg,"
he addressed the German directly, "I would entrust their immediate recruitment, their transport, and their readiness entirely to your unparalleled expertise. They must be disciplined, integrated into our lines, and ready to meet the enemy by March 1663."
Schomberg's stern features softened slightly, a glint of professional satisfaction in his eyes. He had wanted more men, but never imagined such a swift and massive augmentation.
"It is an immense undertaking, Marquis, but with the necessary resources... it can be done. These are good men, veterans. They will follow the coin, and they will fight."
The other generals, initially shocked by the sheer scale of the proposal, now looked at the strategic genius in it.
The wealth of Ceylon, the bold hand of João de Carrasca, and the hard-won experience of English pikes and muskets—it was a combination that might just turn the tide.
For the independence of Portugal, it was a gamble they had no choice but to take.
________
Lisbon, November 1662.
The news, carried by a breathless aide-de-camp, struck the office of the Count of Sarzedas, the Secretary of State for War, with the impact of an unexpected cannonball. Not bad news, but one of those announcements that change the course of a war. The Marquis de Carrasca, that intrepid admiral returned from the Indies with coffers overflowing with gold and spices, had just made a formal proposal.
The Count of Sarzedas, a man whose features were weathered by decades of service and concern for the kingdom's borders, reread the dispatch, as if the words might change. Horizon Brazil was going to finance, from its own funds, the engagement of three thousand additional English auxiliaries.
A smile, imperceptible at first, spread across his tired lips. Three thousand men. Not recruits who would need months of training, but veterans, the very same who had broken the old order in England. Hardened musketeers, pikemen disciplined by rigorous training, men who knew how to die and how to kill.
"Three thousand men," he murmured, a number that resonated like an answered prayer. His mind flew to the desperate reports from border spies, to the movements of Don Juan José de Austria's troops, to the figures of his own levies, always insufficient, always at their wits' end.
This gift was unprecedented. Every Portuguese soldier cost the royal Treasury, a Treasury that Carrasca's distant victories had only just begun to replenish. But here, it was a net contribution, a reinforcement paid for by private funds, entirely dedicated to the land war effort, the domain that kept him awake at night. The cannons, the powder, the rations for these three thousand men, everything would be covered by Horizon Brazil. The burden weighing on his ministry, on supplies, on the pay of existing troops, would be considerably lightened.
"By the Holy Heavens," he gently struck the table. "This Carrasca... He is a man of the sea, but he sees further than all the land strategists combined." He imagined Schomberg's face, the German general so demanding about troop quality, receiving these reinforcements. A professional army, delivered on a silver platter, ready for March 1663.
Horizon Brazil's gesture was not just financial aid; it was an act of survival. It was confirmation that the success of Portugal's independence was now everyone's business, from palaces to merchant ships, from the Crown to the most audacious entrepreneurs. The Count of Sarzedas felt a wave of hope wash over him. The war was far from won, but with such allies, such resources, the balance of destiny tilted a little more in favor of the kingdom.