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Malacca's walls can be stormed. What makes it rich cannot be captured.
When hidden guns open on a Portuguese embassy squadron at Malacca, Magalhães, with no rank and no entry in any register, turns his boat back into the river for the men ashore. He pulls Francisco Serrão from the water. Others are left behind as the squadron slips its cables, among them Rui de Araújo, who begins writing the town down on the backs of other men's bills and smuggling the pages out in cargo.
When the armada returns in force, the town gives up its prisoners and refuses the one thing that matters. Bombardment and assault take ground that cannot be held after dark, and while both sides fight correctly, the trade that is the real prize quietly slips out of the harbor, a hull at a time.
