The Cavalier in the Yellow Doublet

7. THE FENCER’S ARMS

Don Francisco de Quevedo angrily threw down his cloak and hat on a stool and unfastened his ruff. The news could not be worse. “There’s nothing to be done,” he said, unbuckling his sword. “Guadalmedina refuses even to talk about the matter.”

I stared out of the window. The threatening, gray clouds filling the Madrid sky above the rooftops of Calle del Niño made everything seem even grimmer. Don Francisco had spent two hours with Guadalmedina, trying, unsuccessfully, to convince the king’s confidant of Captain Alatriste’s innocence. Álvaro de la Marca had said that even if Alatriste were the victim of a conspiracy, his flight from justice had complicated everything. Quite apart from killing two catchpoles and badly wounding a third, he had left Saldaña with a broken nose and inflicted further injuries on the count himself. “In short,” concluded don Francisco, “he’s determined to see him hanged.”

“But they were friends,” I protested.

“No friendship could withstand this. Furthermore, this really is a very strange affair.”

“I hope at least you believe his story.”

The poet sat down in the armchair made of walnut in which the late Duke of Osuna used to sit when he visited the house. On the table next to it lay paper and quills, a copper inkwell and sandbox, as well as a snuffbox and several books, among them a Seneca and a Plutarch.

“If I didn’t believe the captain,” he said, “I wouldn’t have gone to see Guadalmedina.”

He stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles. He was looking abstractedly at a sheet of paper, the top half of which bore his own clear, vigorous handwriting—the first four lines of a sonnet which I had read while I was waiting.

He that denies me what’s only gained by stealth

Acts quite rightly and deprives me of nothing,

For low ambition, brought to pass with loathing,

Brings with it much dishonor, naught of wealth.

I went over to where don Francisco kept his wine—a sideboard decorated with a frieze made of squares of green glass, beneath a painting depicting Troy ablaze—and poured a large glass of wine. Don Francisco took a pinch of the snuff. He was not a great smoker, but he was fond of that powder made from leaves brought from the Indies.

“I’ve known your master for a long time, my boy,” he went on. “He may be stubborn, he may sometimes go too far, but I know he would never raise his hand against the king.”

“The count knows him too,” I said, handing him the glass.

He nodded, having first sneezed twice.

“True. And I would bet my gold spurs that he knows the captain had nothing to do with it. However, there are only so many insults a nobleman can take: Alatriste’s impertinence, the wound he dealt him in Calle de los Peligros, the beating he received the other night . . . Guadalmedina’s pretty face still bears the marks left by your master before he escaped. Such things are hard to accept when you’re a grandee of Spain. It’s not so much the blow as not being able to make a fuss about it.”

He took a sip of his wine and sat looking at me, meanwhile still fiddling with the canister of tobacco.

“It’s lucky the captain got you out of there in time.”

He continued to regard me thoughtfully. Then he put down the canister and took a longer drink of wine.

“Whatever made you go after him?”

I muttered something about a boy’s curiosity, a liking for intrigues, et cetera. I knew that anyone trying to justify his actions tends to talk too much, and that too many explanations are always worse than a prudent silence. On the one hand, I was ashamed to admit that I had let myself be led into a trap by the poisonous young woman with whom, despite all, I was deeply in love. On the other hand, I considered Angélica de Alquézar to be my affair alone. I wanted to be the one to resolve that particular situation, but as long as my master was safely hidden away—we had received a discreet message from him through a safe channel—all explanations could wait. What mattered now was keeping him out of the hands of the torturers.

“I’m going to tell him what you’ve told me,” I said.

I buttoned up my doublet and picked up my hat. Rain had started speckling the windows, and so I put on my serge cloak as well. Don Francisco watched as I concealed my dagger amongst my clothes.

“Be careful no one follows you.”

There was every likelihood that someone would. The constables had questioned me at the Inn of the Turk, until I managed to convince them, by lying shamelessly, that I knew nothing about what had happened in Camino de las Minillas. La Lebrijana had been of no use to them either, even though they threatened and abused her, albeit only verbally. No one told her the real reason for the captain’s disappearance. It was attributed to a sword fight in which someone had died, but no further details were offered.

“Don’t worry. The rain will help to disguise me.”

I was less concerned about the officers of the law than I was about the people behind the conspiracy, because they, I imagined, would certainly be watching me. I was about to take my leave when the poet raised one finger, as if an idea had just occurred to him. Getting up, he went over to a small desk by the window and removed what looked like a jewelry box.

“Tell the captain that I’ll do whatever I can. It’s a shame poor don Andrés Pacheco passed away so recently, and that Medinaceli is in exile and the Admiral of Castile has fallen from grace. All three were very fond of me and they would have been perfect as intermediaries.”

It grieved me to hear this. Monsignor Pacheco had been the highest authority in the Spanish Inquisition, higher even than the Court of the Inquisition, which was presided over by our old enemy, the fearsome Dominican friar Emilio Bocanegra. As for Antonio de la Cerda, Duke of Medinaceli—who in time would become a close friend of don Francisco’s and my protector—his impulsive young man’s blood meant that he was now exiled from the court after using force to try to free a servant of his from prison. And the fall of the Admiral of Castile was public knowledge. His arrogance had caused unease in Catalonia during the recent visit to Aragon, after he had squabbled with the Duke of Cardona over who should sit next to the king when the latter was received in Barcelona. (His Majesty, by the way, returned without having extracted a single doubloon from the Catalans, for when he asked them for money for Flanders, they replied that they would uncom plainingly lay down life and honor for the king, as long as it involved no other expense, and declared that the treasury was the patrimony of the soul, and the soul belonged only to God.) The Admiral of Castile’s misfortunes were compounded at the public washing of feet on Maundy Thursday, when Philip IV stripped him of the privilege he normally enjoyed of handing the king a towel on which to dry his hands, asking the Marquis of Liche to do so instead. Humiliated, the admiral had protested to the king, asking his permission to withdraw. “I am the first knight of the kingdom,” he said, forgetting that he was standing before the first monarch of the world. And the king, annoyed, not only gave him permission to withdraw, he went even further. The admiral was to stay away from court, he said, until he received orders to the contrary.

“Do we have no one else?”

Don Francisco accepted that “we” as perfectly natural.

“Not of the stature of an Inquisitor General, a grandee of Spain, or a friend of the king, no, but I’ve asked for an audience with the count-duke. At least he doesn’t allow himself to be taken in by appearances. He’s intelligent and pragmatic.”

We exchanged a none too hopeful look. Then don Francisco opened the small box and took out a purse. He counted eight doblones de a cuatro—more or less half of what was there, I noticed—and handed them to me.

“The captain might well have need of that powerful gentleman, Sir Money,” he said.

How fortunate my master was, I thought, to have a man like don Francisco de Quevedo show him such loyalty. In our wretched Spain, even one’s closest friends tended to be freer with words or sword-thrusts than with money. Those five hundred and twenty-eight reales were minted in lovely pale gold; some bore the cross of the true religion, others the head of His Catholic Majesty, and others that of his late father, Philip III. And each and every one of those coins would have been quite capable of blinding one-eyed Justice and buying a little protection—as indeed would coins bearing the Turk’s crescent moon.

“Tell him I’m only sorry I can’t give him double the amount,” added the poet, returning the box to the desk, “but I’m still eaten up by debts. There’s the rent on this house—which I was fool enough to buy simply in order to evict that vile sodomite, Góngora—and that alone drains forty ducats and my life’s blood from me, and even the paper I write on has just had a new tax slapped on it. Oh well. Tell him to be very careful and not to go out into the street. Madrid has become an extremely dangerous place as far as he’s concerned. Of course, he might console himself by meditating on the thought that he is the sole author of his woes:

It’s the mark of both a miser and a louse

To want to buy but not to pay the price.

Those lines made me smile. Madrid was a dangerous place for the captain and for others as well, I thought proudly. It was all a question of who drew his sword first, and hunting a hare was not at all the same thing as hunting a wolf. I saw that don Francisco was smiling too.

“Then again, the most dangerous thing about Madrid is perhaps Alatriste himself,” he said drily, as if he had guessed what I was thinking. “Don’t you agree? Guadalmedina and Saldaña soundly beaten, a couple of catchpoles dead, another well on the way, and all in less time than it takes to say ‘knife.’ ” He picked up his glass of wine and looked at the rain falling outside. “That’s what I call killing.”

He sat for a moment, staring thoughtfully into his glass, then raised it to the window as if drinking a toast to the captain.

“Your master,” he concluded, “doesn’t carry a sword in his hand but a scythe.”

God was hurling the rain down in torrents on every inch of His good earth as I, wrapped in my cloak and with my hat dripping, walked to Lavapiés along Calle de la Com pañía, seeking shelter beneath arcades and eaves from the water that was falling now as if every dyke in Holland had burst over my head. And although I was soaked to the skin and up to my gaiters in mud, I walked unhurriedly through the curtain of rain and the drops that were riddling the puddles like musket fire. Zigzagging up various streets, just to see if anyone was following me, I finally reached Calle de la Comadre, jumping over rivulets of mud and water to do so, and after one last prudent glance around me, entered the inn, where I shook myself like a wet dog.

The inn smelled of sour wine, damp sawdust, and grime. The Fencer’s Arms (which bore its owner’s nickname) was one of the most disreputable drinking dens in Madrid. The landlord had been an out-and-out knave and a cheat—he was also said to have been a thief, notorious for his skill as a picklock—until old age caught up with him. Worn down by a lifetime of poverty and hardship, he had opened the inn and turned it into a receiving house for stolen goods—hence his nickname, the Fencer—sharing any profit he made with the thieves. The inn was a large, dark house built around a courtyard and surrounded by other crumbling edifices; its many doors led to twenty or so sordid bedrooms and to a grimy, smoke-stained dining room where one could eat and drink very cheaply. It was, in short, the perfect place for pilferers and ruffians in search of a little privacy. In their attempts to scrape a living, the criminal world came and went at all hours, swathed in cloaks, swords clanking, or laden down with suspicious bundles. The place was filled with roughs and purloiners and captains of crime, with nimble-fingered pickpockets and ladies of the night, with every kind of no-good bent on dishonoring the Castiles, Old and New, and who all flocked there as happily as rooks to a wheatfield or scribes to a lawsuit. The powers that be were nowhere to be seen, partly so as not to stir up trouble and partly because the Fencer—a wily man who knew his trade—was always generous when it came to greasing the palms of constables and buying the favor of the courts. Furthermore, he had a son-in-law serving in the house of the Marquis of Carpio, which meant that seeking refuge in the Fencer’s Arms was tantamount to taking sanctuary in a church. The other denizens, as well as being the cream of the criminal classes, were also blind, deaf, and dumb. No one there had a name or a surname, no one looked at anyone else, and even saying “Good afternoon” could be a reason for someone to slit your throat.

I found Bartolo Cagafuego sitting next to the fire in the kitchen, where the coals beneath the cooking pots were filling half the room with smoke. He was drowning his sorrows with sips from a mug of wine and some quiet talk with a comrade; he was, at the same time, keeping a watchful eye on his doxy, who, with her half-cloak draped over her shoulders, was agreeing on terms with a client. Cagafuego showed no sign of recognizing me when I went over to join him and to dry my wet clothes, which immediately began to steam in the heat. He continued his conversation, the subject of which was a recent encounter with a certain constable. This, he was explaining, had been resolved not with blood or shackles, but with money.

“Anyway,” Cagafuego was saying in his potreño accent, “I goes over to the chief rozzer, gets out my purse, takes out two nice gold ducats of eleven reales each, and I says to the man, winkin’ like, I says: ‘I swear on these twenty-two commandments that the man you’re lookin’ for ain’t me.’ ”

“And who was he, this rozzer?” asked the other man.

“One-eyed Berruguete.”

“A decent son of a bitch, he is. And accommodatin’ too.”

“You’re tellin’ me, my friend. Anyway, he pocketed the cash and that was that.”

“And the pigeon?”

“Oh, he was tearin’ his hair out, sayin’ as how it was me what stole his purse and that I had it on me still. But Berruguete, good as his word, just turned a deaf ear to him. That were a year ago now.”

They continued for a while in quiet and distinctly un-Góngoresque fashion. Then, after a while, Bartolo Cagafuego glanced across at me, put down his mug, stood up very casually, and stretched and yawned extravagantly, thus displaying the inside of his mouth with its half-dozen missing teeth. Then in buffcoat and breeches, his sword sheathed, he swaggered over to the door with all his usual bluff and bravado. I went to join him in the gallery of the courtyard, where our voices were muffled by the sound of the rain.

“No one at your heels, was there?” he asked.

“No one.”

“You sure?”

“As sure as there’s a God.”

He nodded approvingly, scratching his bushy eyebrows, which met in the middle on his scarred face. Then, without a word, he set off down the gallery, and I followed. We hadn’t seen each other since he’d had his sentence as a galley slave lifted after the attack on the Niklaasbergen and was granted a pardon, courtesy of Captain Alatriste. Cagafuego had pocketed a tidy portion of that Indies gold, which allowed him to return to Madrid and continue in his chosen criminal career as ruffian or pimp or protector of prostitutes. For all his solid build and fierce appearance, and although he had acquitted himself well in Barra de Sanlúcar and slit many a throat, exposing his own throat to danger wasn’t really his line. The fierce air he adopted was more for show than anything else, ideal for striking fear into the hearts of the unwary and for earning a living from women of the street, but not when it came to confronting any real toughs. So profound was his ignorance that only two or three of the five Spanish vowels had reached his notice, yet despite this—or perhaps precisely because of it—he now had a woman posted in Calle de la Comadre and had also come to an arrangement with the owner of a bawdy house, where he kept order by dint of a great deal of swearing and cursing. In fact, he was doing very well. With a record like his, though, it seemed to me even more remarkable that such a tavern-bound tough should risk his neck to help Captain Alatriste, for he had nothing to gain and a great deal to lose if anyone went bleating to the law. However, since their first meeting, years before in a Madrid dungeon, Bartolo Cagafuego had shown a strangely steadfast loyalty toward my master, the same loyalty I had observed often amongst people who had dealings with the captain, be they army comrades, people of quality, or heartless delinquents, or even, occasionally, enemies. Every now and then, certain rare men emerge who stand out from their contemporaries, not perhaps because they are different exactly, but because, in a way, they encapsulate, justify, and immortalize the age in which they live; and those who know such men realize or sense this, and take them as arbiters of how to behave. Diego Alatriste may well have been one of those unusual individuals, but even if he wasn’t, I would say that anyone who fought at his side or shared his silences or met with a look of approval in his green eyes, felt bound to him forever by strong ties. It was as if gaining his respect made you respect yourself more.

“There’s nothing to be done,” I said. “You’ll just have to wait until the air clears.”

The captain had listened intently, not saying a word. We were sitting next to a rickety table spattered with candle wax and on which stood a bowl containing some leftover tripe, a jug of wine, and a crust of stale bread. Bartolo Cagafuego was standing a little apart, arms folded. We could hear the rain on the roof.

“When is Quevedo going to see the count-duke?”

“He doesn’t know yet,” I replied. “But The Sword and the Dagger is going to be performed in a few days’ time at El Escorial, and don Francisco has promised to take me with him.”

The captain ran a hand over his unshaven face. He seemed thinner, more haggard. He was wearing darned stockings, a collarless shirt beneath his doublet, and breeches made from cheap cloth. He did not look well, but his soldier’s boots were standing in one corner, newly polished, and his new sword-belt on the table had just been freshly treated with horse grease. Cagafuego had bought him a hat and cloak from an old-clothes shop, as well as a rusty dagger that now lay sharpened and gleaming next to the pillow on the unmade bed.

“Did they give you much trouble?” the captain asked.

“No, not much,” I said with a shrug. “Besides, no one can prove I was involved.”

“And what about La Lebrijana?”

“The same.”

“How is she?”

I gazed down at the puddle of water on the floor, beneath the soles of my boots.

“You know what she’s like: lots of tears and threats. She swears blind that she’ll be there in the front row when they hang you. But she’ll get over it.” I smiled. “She’s softer than molasses, really.”

Cagafuego nodded gravely, as if he knew exactly what I meant. He looked as if he were about to offer his views on women and their jealousies and affections, but restrained himself. He had too much respect for my master to butt into the conversation.

“And is there any news of Malatesta?” asked the captain.

The name made me fidget in my seat.

“No, not a word.”

The captain was thoughtfully stroking his mustache. Now and then he studied my face closely, as if hoping to read in it anything I might be keeping from him.

“I might know where to find him,” he said.

These words suggested to me some mad plan.

“You mustn’t run any unnecessary risks.”

“We’ll see.”

“As the blind man said,” I commented bluntly.

He looked at me again, and I rather regretted my impertinence. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Bartolo Cagafuego’s reproving glance, but it was true that this was no time for the captain to be prowling the streets or lurking in the shadows. Before he did anything that might compromise him further, he should wait and see what progress don Francisco de Quevedo could make. And I, for my part, urgently needed to talk to a certain maid of honor, for whom I had been watching out for days now, without success. As regards the information I was keeping from my master, any remorse I might feel was somewhat tempered by the thought that, while it was true that Angélica de Alquézar had led me into the trap, that trap would never have been possible without the captain’s stubborn or suicidal collaboration. I had sufficient judgment to make these distinctions, and when you are nearly seventeen years old, no one is entirely a hero, apart from yourself, of course.

“Is this place safe?” I asked Cagafuego, as a way of changing the subject.

Cagafuego gave a fierce, gap-toothed smile.

“Tight as a drum. The law wouldn’t come around here, not even if you paid them. And if some snitch was to peach on him, the captain can always climb out of the window and onto the roof. The captain’s not the only one in trouble around here. If any bluebottles was to turn up, there’s comrades aplenty to sound the alarm. And if that happens, he just has to scarper.”

My master had not ceased looking at me all this time.

“We have to talk,” he said.

Cagafuego raised one huge hand to his eyebrows by way of a farewell.

“While you’re talkin’ and if you don’t need anythin’ else, Captain, this here herdsman’s goin’ to take a turn around his pastures to see how Maripérez is gettin’ on with the little bit of business she’s got in hand. Like they say, the eye of the master fattens the mare.”

He opened the door and stood silhouetted for a moment against the gray light of the gallery.

“Besides,” he said, “and I mean no disrespect, you never can tell when you might run headfirst into the law and however plucky you might be and however hard you hold out when they plays you like a guitar, it’s always easier to keep quiet about what you don’t know than to keep quiet about what you do know.”

“An excellent philosophy, Bartolo,” the captain said with a smile. “Aristotle couldn’t have put it better.”

Cagafuego scratched the back of his neck.

“I don’t know how brave or not that don Aristotle was, nor how he would stand up to three turns on the rack and never say ‘Nones,’ as is set down by a scribe that yours truly here once did. But you and I know tormentors what could make a stone sing.”

He left, closing the door behind him. I took out the purse that don Francisco de Quevedo had given me and placed it on the table. With an absent air, my master piled up the gold coins.

“Tell me what happened,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Tell me what you were doing the other night in Camino de las Minillas.”

I swallowed hard and again stared down at the puddle of rainwater forming around my feet, then back at the captain. I felt as stunned as a wife in a play does when she discovers her husband in the dark with his mistress.

“You know what I was doing, Captain. I was following you.”

“Why?”

“I was worried about . . . ”

I stopped. The expression on my master’s face had grown so somber that the words died on my lips. His pupils, which had been very dark in the dim light from the window, grew suddenly so small and steely that they seemed to pierce me like knives. I had seen that look on other occasions, occasions that often ended with a man bleeding to death on the ground. I felt afraid.

Then I gave a deep sigh and told him everything, from start to finish.

“I love her,” I said when I had done.

And I said this as if it entirely justified my actions. The captain had got up and was standing at the window, watching the rain.

“Very much?” he asked pensively.

“Too much to put into words.”

“Her uncle is the royal secretary.”

I understood the implications of these words, which were more warning than reproach. However, they showed on what slippery ground we stood. Apart from the matter of whether or not Luis de Alquézar did or didn’t know—Malatesta had, after all, worked for him before—the question was whether or not Angélica was part of the conspiracy, or whether her uncle or others, without being directly involved themselves, were trying to take advantage of the situation and climbing aboard a wagon that was already in motion.

“She is also,” added the captain, “one of the queen’s maids of honor.”

This, it was true, was no small thing either. Then I suddenly caught what he meant by these last words and froze. The idea that our queen could have anything to do with the intrigue was not so very ridiculous. Even a queen is a woman, I thought. She can feel jealousy just as keenly as a kitchen maid.

“But then why involve you?” the captain wondered out loud. “I was more than enough.”

I thought for a while.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It would provide the executioner with another head to chop off, I suppose. But you’re right, if the queen were involved, it would make sense if one of her maids of honor was too.”

“Or perhaps someone simply wants to make it seem that way.”

I looked at him, startled. He had gone over to the table and was studying the little pile of gold coins.

“Hasn’t it occurred to you that someone might want to lay the blame for the incident on the queen?”

I stared at him, openmouthed, aghast at the sinister implications of such an idea.

“After all,” the captain went on, “as well as being a deceived wife, she’s also French. Imagine the situation: the king dies, Angélica disappears, you’re arrested along with me, and on the rack you reveal that it was one of the queen’s maids of honor who lured you into the trap . . .”

I pressed my hand to my heart, offended.

“I would never betray Angélica.”

He looked at me and smiled the weary smile of a veteran.

“Just imagine that you did.”

“Impossible. I didn’t give you away to the Inquisition, did I?”

“True.”

He was still looking at me, but he said no more. I knew what he was thinking, though. Dominican friars were one thing, but royal justice another. As Cagafuego had said, there were torturers capable of loosening the tongue of even the bravest man. I considered this new variant to the plot, and could see that it was not unreasonable. Thanks to our strolls through Madrid’s mentideros, or gossip-shops, and to conversations with the captain’s friends, I was up to date on all the latest news: the struggle between Richelieu, the minister of France, and our Count-Duke of Olivares was already sounding the drum of future wars in Europe. No one doubted that once our froggy neighbors resolved the problem with the Huguenots in La Rochelle, the Spanish and the French would go back to killing each other on the battlefield. Implying that the queen was involved, regardless of whether this was true or false, was therefore not so very outlandish and could prove very useful to certain people. There were those who loathed Isabel de Borbón—Olivares, his wife, and followers among them—and there were those inside and outside Spain—England, for example, as well as Venice, the Turk, and even the pope in Rome—who wanted us to go to war with France. An anti-Spanish plot implicating the sister of the French king was all too credible. On the other hand, it might be an explanation that concealed others.

“It’s time, I think,” said the captain, looking at his sword, “for me to pay a little visit.”

It was a shot in the dark. Three years had passed, but there was no harm in trying. In his drenched cloak and dripping hat, Diego Alatriste studied the house carefully. By curious chance, the house was only two streets from his hiding place, or perhaps it wasn’t chance. That area of Madrid was one of the worst in the city, home to the lowest taverns, bars, and inns. And if, he concluded, it was a good place for him to hide, then it would be for others as well.

He looked around. Behind him, the Plaza de Lavapiés was veiled by a translucent gray curtain of rain that almost concealed the stone fountain. Calle de la Primavera—“Spring Street, indeed,” he thought with some irony. At that moment it couldn’t have been a less appropriate name, what with the muddy unpaved street awash with filth. The house, formerly the Landsknecht Inn, was directly opposite him; thick trails of water poured from the roof down the façade, where some much-darned white bed linen, put out to dry before the rains came, hung like shrouds from the windows.

He watched for one long hour before deciding to act. He crossed the road and went through the archway into a courtyard that stank of horse manure. There was no one to be seen. A few bedraggled chickens were pecking around beneath the galleries, and as he went up the wooden stairs, which creaked beneath his feet, a fat cat engaged in devouring a dead rat eyed him impassively. The captain unfastened his drenched cloak, which weighed too heavily on him. He also took off his hat, because the brim was so sodden it was obscuring his view. Thirty or so steps took him up to the top floor, and there he paused to think. If his memory served him well, the door was the last one on the right, in the corner of the corridor. He went over and pressed his ear to the door. Not a sound. Only the cooing of the pigeons sheltering in the dripping roof of the gallery. He put his cloak and hat down on the floor and took from his belt the weapon for which, that very afternoon, he had paid Bartolo Cagafuego ten escudos: a flintlock pistol, almost new, with a damascus barrel two spans long and the initials of an unknown owner on the butt. He checked that it was still primed despite the damp, then cocked the hammer—clack. He held it firmly in his right hand and, with his left, opened the door.

It was the same woman. She was sitting in the light from the window, mending the clothes in the basket on her lap. When she saw the intruder enter, she stood up, threw down her work, and opened her mouth to cry out, and only failed to do so because a slap from Alatriste propelled her backward against the wall. Better to hit her once now, thought the captain, than several times later on, when she’s had time to collect her thoughts. There’s nothing like that initial shock and fear. And so, once he had slapped her, he grabbed her violently by the throat, then, releasing his grip, covered her mouth with his left hand and pressed the pistol to her head.

“Not a word,” he whispered, “or I’ll blow your face off.”

He felt the woman’s damp breath on the palm of his hand, her body trembling against his, and while he held her in his grasp, he looked about him. The room had barely changed: the same miserable bits of furniture, the chipped crockery on the table, the same rough tablecloth. Nevertheless, everything was tidy. There was a copper brazier and a rug on the floor. A bed, separated off from the rest of the room by a curtain, was neatly made and clean, and a cooking pot was boiling in the hearth.

“Where is he?” he asked the woman, slightly easing his grip on her mouth.

Another shot in the dark. She might have nothing to do with the man he was looking for, but it was the only trail he had to follow. As he recalled, and according to his hunter’s instinct, this woman was not an insignificant player in the game. He had only seen her once before, years ago, and only for a matter of moments, but he remembered the expression on her face and her anxiety, her disquiet for the man who, at the time, was defense-less and under threat. Even snakes need company, he thought with a sardonic smile; yes, even snakes have their other half.

She said nothing, simply stared at the pistol out of the corner of her eye, terrified. She was a slender, ordinary-looking young woman, neither pretty nor ugly, but with a good figure; the dark hair caught back at her neck fell in loose locks about her face. She was wearing a skirt made of some cheap fabric and a sleeveless blouse that left her arms bare, her shawl having slipped off in the struggle. She smelled slightly of the food steaming in the pot, and of sweat, too.

“Where is he?” asked the captain again.

She focused her terrified gaze on him again, breathing hard, but still she said nothing. Alatriste could feel her agitated bosom rise and fall beneath his arm. He glanced around for some sign of a male presence: a short black cape hanging from a hook, a man’s shirts in the basket she had dropped, two clean collars, newly starched. Although, of course, it might not be the same man. Life goes on, and women are women; men come and go. These things happen.

“When will he be back?” he asked.

She remained dumb, staring at him with fearful eyes. Now, however, he saw in them a glimmer of comprehension. “Perhaps she recognizes me,” he thought. “At least she’ll realize that I mean her no harm.”

“I’m going to let you go,” he said, sticking the pistol back in his belt and taking out his dagger. “But if you scream or try to run away, I’ll slit your throat like I would a sow’s.”

At that hour, the gambling den in the Cava de San Miguel was in full swing. The place was packed with gamblers and cheats, and with hangers-on hoping that the winners might toss them a fraction of their winnings. The atmosphere was, in short, thick with possibilities. Juan Vicuña, the owner, came over to me as soon as I walked through the door.

“Have you seen him?” he asked in a low voice.

“The wound in his leg has healed up. He’s well and sends you greetings.”

The former sergeant of horse, maimed in the dunes at Nieuwpoort, nodded, pleased. His friendship with my master went back a long way. Like other denizens of the Inn of the Turk, he was concerned about Captain Alatriste’s fate.

“And what about Quevedo? Is he talking to people at the palace?”

“He’s doing what he can, but that isn’t very much.”

Vicuña sighed deeply and said nothing more. Like don Francisco de Quevedo, Master Pérez, and Licentiate Calzas, Vicuña believed not a word of what was being said about the captain, but my master didn’t want to go to any of them for help in case he implicated them, too. The crime of lèse-majesté was far too serious to involve one’s friends; it ended on the scaffold.

“Guadalmedina is inside,” he said.

“Alone?”

“No, with the Duke of Cea and a Portuguese gentleman I’ve never seen before.”

I handed him my dagger, as everyone did, and Vicuña gave it to the guard on the door. In that city of proud people who all too easily reached for sword or dagger, it was forbidden to bear arms when entering gambling dens or whorehouses. Despite that precaution, however, it was still not uncommon for cards and dice to end up stained with blood.

“Is he in a good mood?”

“Well, he’s just won a hundred escudos, so, yes, but you’d better be quick because they’re talking about going to the Soleras bawdy house, where they’ve arranged a supper and a few girls.”

He squeezed my shoulder affectionately and left me. Vicuña had behaved like a loyal friend by advising me of the count’s presence there that night. After my talk with Captain Alatriste, I had spent a long time pondering a possibly desperate plan—desperate, but one to which I could see no alternative. Then I trudged across the city in the rain, visiting friends and weaving my web as I went. I was now soaked to the skin and exhausted, but I had flushed out my prey in the most propitious of places, something I could never have done at the Guadalmedina residence or in the palace itself. After giving it much thought, I had decided to go through with my plan, even if it cost me my liberty or my life.

I walked across the room, beneath the yellowish light from the tallow lamps hanging from the ceiling. As I said, the atmosphere was as heavily weighted as the dice they used in some of the games. Money, cards, and dice came and went on the half-dozen tables around which sat the players. At one table, cards were being dealt, at another, dice were being rolled, yet another rang with curses—“A pox on’t,” “Damn my luck,” “Od’s my life”; and at every table, sharpers and swindlers, skilled at palming an ace or weighting a die, were trying to fleece their fellow men, either by a slow bloodletting, one maravedí at a time, or by a single fulminating blow, of the sort that left the poor dupe plucked and singed, and all his cargo gone.

A pox on you, vile card—

Accursed, cruel, ill-starred—

Which, with rigor fierce and rash

Has left me cards, but no cash.

Álvaro de la Marca was not one to be fleeced. He had a good eye and even better hands, and was himself a master at cozening, beguiling, and duping. If the fancy took him, he could have gulled any gambler worth his salt. I saw him at one of the tables, in good spirits and still winning. He was as elegantly dressed as ever: gray doublet embroidered with silver thread, breeches, and turned-down boots, with a pair of amber-colored gloves folded and tucked in his belt. With him, along with the Portuguese gentleman Vicuña had referred to—and whom I found out later to be the young Marquis of Pontal—was the Duke of Cea, grandson of the Duke of Lerma and brother-in-law of the Admiral of Castile, a young man of the best family who, shortly afterward, won fame as the bravest of soldiers in the wars in Italy and Flanders, before dying with great dignity on the banks of the Rhine. I made my way discreetly through the throng of hangers-on, gawpers, and cheats, and waited until the count looked up from the table, where he had just beaten two other dice players by throwing a double six. When he saw me, he looked half surprised, half annoyed. Frowning, he returned to the game, but I stood my ground, determined not to move until he took proper notice of me. When he glanced at me again, I gestured knowingly to him and moved away a little, hoping that, if he didn’t have the decency to greet me, he might at least feel curious about what I had to tell him. In the end, albeit reluctantly, he gave in. I saw him pick up his winnings from the table, give a tip to a couple of the hangers-on, and put the rest in his purse. Then he came toward me. On the way, he made a sign to one of the serving boys, who hurried over to him with a mug of wine. The rich never lack for minions to fulfill their hedonistic desires.

“Well,” he said coldly, taking a sip of his wine. “What are you doing here?”

We went into the small room that Juan Vicuña had set aside for us. There were no windows, just a table, two chairs, and a burning candle. I closed the door and leaned against it.

“Be brief,” said Guadalmedina.

He was looking at me suspiciously, and the coolness of his manner and his words saddened me greatly. The captain must have offended him greatly, I thought, for him to have forgotten that he saved his life in the Kerkennahs, that we attacked the Niklaasbergen out of friendship for him and in the king’s service, and that one night, in Seville, we saw off a patrol of catchpoles together outside a bawdy house. Then, however, I noticed the purplish marks still visible on his face, the awkward way he moved the arm injured in Calle de los Peligros, and realized that we all have our reasons for doing what we do or don’t do. Álvaro de la Marca had more than enough reason to bear my master a grudge.

“There’s something you should know,” I said.

“Something? Too many things, you mean. But time will tell . . .”

Like an evil omen, or a threat, he left those last words floating in the wine that he raised to his lips. He had not sat down, as if to convey that he intended to get the conversation over with as quickly as possible, and he maintained his lofty pose, mug of wine in one hand, the other hand planted nonchalantly on his hip. I looked at his aristocratic face, his wavy hair, curled mustache, and fair beard, at his elegant white hands and at the ring which, alone, was worth the ransom of some poor captive in Algeria. The Spain he inhabited, I concluded, was another world, one endowed with power and money from the cradle onward. For someone in Álvaro de la Marca’s position, there were certain things that could never be contemplated with equanimity. Nevertheless, I had to try. It was my last chance.

“I was there that night, too,” I said.

Darkness had descended. Outside, the rain was still falling. Diego Alatriste remained motionless, sitting at the table, observing the woman sitting equally still in the other chair, her hands tied behind her back and a gag in her mouth. He did not like having to do this, but he felt he had his reasons. If the man he was waiting for was who he thought, it would be too dangerous to leave the woman free to move or cry out.

“Is there nothing I can light the candle with?” he asked.

She did not stir. She kept staring at him, her mouth covered by the gag. Alatriste got up and rummaged around in the larder until he found a match and a few wood shavings, which he threw onto the coals in the kitchen, where he had hung his cloak and hat to dry. While he was there, he removed the pot from the fire and found that the contents had boiled half away. With the match, he lit a candle on the table. Then he emptied some of contents of the pot into a bowl; the lamb and chickpea stew had rather too strong a flavor, was overcooked and very hot, but he ate it anyway, along with some bread and a pitcher of water, and wiped the plate clean. Then he glanced at the woman. He had been there for three hours, and in all that time, she had uttered not a single word.

“Don’t worry,” he lied. “I just want to talk to him.”

Alatriste had used the time to confirm to himself that he was in the right place. Besides observing the short black cape, the shirts, collars, and other clothes in the house, all of which might have belonged to anyone, he had opened a chest and found a pair of good pistols, a flask of gunpowder, a small bag of bullets, a knife as sharp as a razor, a coat of mail, and a few letters and documents evidently giving coded place names and itineraries. There were also two books which he was now leafing curiously through, having first loaded the two pistols and placed them in his belt, leaving Cagafuego’s on the table. One of the books was, surprisingly enough, an Italian translation of Pliny’s Natural History, printed in Venice, which, for a moment, made the captain doubt that the owner of the book and the man he was waiting for could be the same person. The other book was in Spanish and the title made him smile: God’s Politics, Christ’s Governance, by don Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas.

There was a noise outside. Fear flickered in the woman’s eyes. Diego Alatriste picked up the pistol from the table and, trying not to make the floorboards creak, positioned himself to one side of the door. Everything happened with extraordinary simplicity: the door opened and in walked Gualterio Malatesta, shaking his sodden cloak and hat. Then, ever so gently, the captain pressed the barrel of the pistol to Malatesta’s head.