The King's Gold

“Sensible man,” commented Alatriste.

“After all,” went on Jaqueta philosophically, “it takes no more effort to say a ‘no’ than a ‘yes,’ does it?”

“Very true.”

Alatriste looked at the man called Sangonera, who was sitting with the rest of the group by the wall. He was thinking.

“Sangonera it is, then,” he said at last, “if you can vouch for him and if I still like him when we’ve spoken. I’ll take a look at that mulatto too, but I still need more people.”

Jaqueta wore an expression of deep concentration.

“There are some other good comrades in Seville at the moment, like Ginesillo el Lindo or Guzmán Ramírez, who are both men with blood in their veins. I’m sure you remember Ginesillo, because he once killed a catchpole who called him a shirt lifter, oh, it must be ten or fifteen years ago now, around the time you were still living here in Seville.”

“Yes, I remember Ginesillo,” said Alatriste.

“Well, you’ll remember, too, that they tortured him by holding his head under water. Three times they did it, and he didn’t so much as blink, far less peach on anyone.”

“I’m surprised they didn’t burn him at the stake, as they usually do to such as him.”

Jaqueta burst out laughing. “He’s not only turned mute, he’s gotten very dangerous indeed, and there’s not a catchpole with any mettle who’ll lay a hand on him. I don’t know where he lives, but he’s sure to be at the royal prison tonight for Nicasio Ganzúa’s wake.”

“Who’s Ganzúa? I don’t know him.”

Jaqueta quickly told Alatriste all about Ganzúa, one of the most celebrated ruffians in Seville, the terror of catchpoles and the pride of Seville’s taverns, gaming dens, and bawdy houses. He had been walking along a narrow street one day when the Conde de Niebla’s carriage spattered him with mud. The count was with his servants and a few young friends of his; there was an exchange of words, swords were drawn, Ganzúa dispatched one of the servants and one of the friends, and, by a miracle, the count himself escaped with only a stab wound to the thigh. A regiment of constables and catchpoles came after him, and at the hearing, even though Ganzúa didn’t say a word, someone mentioned a few other little matters pending, including a couple of murders and a notorious jewel robbery carried out in Calle Platería. In short, Ganzúa was now to be garroted the next day in Plaza de San Francisco.

“A shame, really, because he would have been perfect for what we have in mind,” said Jaqueta regretfully, “but there’s no getting him out of tomorrow’s execution. Tonight, though, his comrades—as they always do on these occasions—will join him for a final meal and help him on his way. Ginesillo and Ramírez are good friends of his, so you’ll probably find them there.”

“I’ll go to the prison, then,” said Alatriste.

“Well, greet Ganzúa from me. This is one of those occasions when your friends really should be by your side, and I’d be there like a shot if I wasn’t in such difficulties myself.” Jaqueta examined me closely. “Who’s the boy?”

“A friend.”

“A bit green, isn’t he?” Jaqueta continued to study me inquisitively and noticed the dagger in my belt. “Is he involved in this?”

“On and off.”

“That’s a nice weapon he’s carrying.”

“You might not think it, but he knows how to use it too.”

“Well, we ruffians have to start young, don’t we?”

The conversation moved on, and everything was agreed for the next day, with Alatriste promising to alert the law officers so that Jaqueta could safely leave the Corral. We said our goodbyes and spent the rest of the day on our recruiting campaign, which took us first to La Heria and Triana, and then to San Salvador, where the mulatto Campuzano—a giant Negro with a sword like a scimitar—also proved to be to the captain’s liking. By evening, my master had signed up half a dozen men to his company: Jaqueta, Sangonera, the mulatto, an extremely hirsute Murcian called Pencho Bullas—highly thought of by the other rogues—and two former soldiers from the galleys known as Enríquez el Zurdo (Enrique the Lefthander) and Andresito el de los Cincuenta, the latter having earned his nickname from the time when he had received fifty lashes and taken them like a man; a week later, the sergeant who had ordered the flogging was found lying near the Puerta de la Carne with his throat neatly cut, and no one could ever prove—although they could easily imagine—who had done the job.

We still needed more pairs of hands, and in order to complete our singular and well-armed company, Diego Alatriste decided to go to the royal prison that night and attend the ruffian Ganzúa’s final meal. But I will tell you all about that in more detail, for Seville’s prison, I can assure you, deserves a chapter to itself.

6. THE ROYAL PRISON

That night, we attended Nicasio Ganzúa’s last meal, but first I spent some time on a personal matter that was greatly troubling me. And although I learned nothing new from the exercise, it served at least to distract me from the unease I was feeling about Angélica de Alquézar’s role in what had happened in the Alameda. My steps thus led me once more to the palace, where I patrolled the entire length of its walls, as well as to the Arco de la Judería and the palace gate, where I stood watching for a while amongst other onlookers. This time, the soldiers guarding the palace were not the ones in red-and-yellow uniforms but Burgundy archers dressed in their striking red-checkered garb and carrying short pikes, and I was relieved not to see the fat sergeant, which meant that there would be no repeat of our earlier confrontation. The square opposite the palace was teeming with people, for the king and queen were going to the Cathedral to pray a solemn rosary, after which they would receive a delegation from the city of Jerez.

There was more to this latter engagement than met the eye, and it might be worth explaining that, at the time, Jerez, like Galicia before it, was hoping to buy representation at the Cortes de la Corona, the Cortes of the King, in order to escape their current subjection to the influence of Seville. In that Hapsburg-Spain-cum-marketplace, there was nothing unusual about buying a seat at the Cortes—the city of Palencia was trying to do the same thing—and the amount offered by the men from Jerez came to the respectable sum of 85,000 ducados, all of which would, of course, end up in the king’s coffers. The deal, however, foundered when Seville counterattacked by bribing the Council of the Treasury, and the final judgment made was that the request would only be granted on condition that the money came not from contributions made by the citizens but from the private wealth of the twenty-four municipal magistrates who wanted the seat. The prospect of having to dip into their own pockets put a completely different complexion on the matter, and the Jerez corporation withdrew the request. This all helps to explain the role that the Cortes played at the time, as well as the submissive attitude of the Cortes of Castile and of others, for—rights and privileges apart—these other Cortes were listened to only when their votes were needed for new taxes or for subsidies to replenish the royal treasury, or to pay for wars or for the general expenses of a monarchy that the Conde-Duque de Olivares deemed to be a powerful and unifying force. Unlike in France and England, where the kings had destroyed the power of the feudal lords and agreed on terms with the merchants and traders—for neither that red-haired bitch Elizabeth nor that vile Frenchie Richelieu were ever ones for half-measures—in Spain, the noble and the powerful formed two groups: those who obeyed royal authority meekly and almost abjectly (these were, by and large, ruined Castilians who had no other protection than that of the king) and those on the periphery, cushioned by local charters and ancient privileges, who protested loudly whenever called upon to defray costs or to equip armies. The Church, of course, did exactly as it chose. Most political activity, therefore, consisted in a constant to-and-fro of haggling, usually over money; and all the subsequent crises that we endured under Philip IV—the Medina Sidonia plot in Andalusia, the Duque de Híjar’s conspiracy in Aragon, the secession of Portugal, and the Catalonia War—were created by two things: the royal treasury’s greed and a reluctance on the part of the nobility, the clerics, and the great local merchants to pay anything at all. The sole object of the king’s visit to Seville in sixteen twenty-four and of this present visit was to crush local opposition to a vote in favor of new taxes. The sole obsession of that unhappy Spain was money, which is why the route to the Indies was so crucial. To demonstrate how little this had to do with justice or decency, suffice it to say that two or three years earlier, the Cortes had rejected outright a luxury tax that was to be levied on sinecures, gratuities, pensions, and rents—that is to say, on the rich. The Venetian ambassador, Contarini, was, alas, quite right when he wrote at the time, “The most effective war one can wage on the Spanish is to leave them to be devoured and destroyed by their own bad governance.”

But let us return to my own troubles. As I was saying, I spent the whole afternoon near the palace, and in the end, my determination was rewarded, albeit only in part, for the gates finally opened, the Burgundy archers formed a guard of honor, and the king and queen in person—accompanied by the nobility and the authorities of Seville—walked the short distance to the Cathedral. The young and very beautiful Queen Isabel nodded graciously to the crowd. Sometimes she smiled with that peculiarly French charm that did not always quite fit with the rigid etiquette of the Spanish court. She was carrying a gold rosary and a small prayerbook decorated with mother-of-pearl, and was dressed according to the Spanish fashion in a gold-embroidered costume of blue satin with sleeves slashed to reveal an underlayer of silver cloth, and draped over head and shoulders she wore an exquisite white lace mantilla sewn with pearls. Arm-in-arm with her walked the equally youthful king, Philip IV, as fair, pale, stern-faced, and inscrutable as ever. He was wearing a costume made of silver-gray velvet, with a neat Walloon collar, a gold Agnus Dei medallion studded with diamonds, a golden sword, and a hat topped with white feathers. The queen’s pleasant demeanor and friendly smile were in marked contrast to her august husband’s solemn presence, for he still conformed to the grave Burgundian model of behavior brought from Flanders by the Emperor Charles and which meant that—apart from when he was actually walking, of course—he never moved foot, hand, or head but always kept his gaze directed upward as if the only person to whom he had to justify himself was God. No one, either in public or in private, had ever seen him lose his perfect composure and no one ever would. On that afternoon, I could never have dreamed that life would later present me with the opportunity to serve and escort the king at a very difficult time for both him and for Spain, and I can state categorically that he always maintained that same imperturbable—and ultimately legendary—sangfroid. Not that he was a disagreeable king; he was extremely fond of poetry, plays, and other literary diversions, of the arts, and of gentlemanly pursuits. Neither did he lack personal courage, although he never set foot on a battlefield except from afar and years later, during the war with Catalonia; however, when it came to his great passion, hunting, he often ran real risks and even killed wild boar on his own. He was a consummate horseman, and once, as I have recounted before, he won the admiration of the people by dispatching a bull in the Plaza Mayor in Madrid with a single shot from a harquebus. His failings were two: a certain weakness of character that led him to leave the business of the monarchy entirely in the hands of the count-duke, and his unbounded liking for women, which once—as I will describe on another occasion—very nearly cost him his life. Otherwise, he never had the grandeur or the energy of his great-grandfather the emperor or the tenacious intelligence of his grandfather Philip II; but although he devoted far too much time to his own amusements, indifferent to the clamor of a hungry population, to the anger of ill-governed territories and kingdoms, to the fragmentation of the empire he had inherited, and to Spain’s military and maritime ruin, it is fair to say that his kindly nature never provoked any feelings of personal hostility, and right up until his death, he was loved by the people, who attributed most of these misfortunes to his favorites, his ministers, and his advisors, in a Spain that was, at the time, far too large, beleaguered by far too many enemies, and so subject to base human nature that not even the risen Christ would have been capable of preserving it intact.

In the cortège I spotted the Conde-Duque de Olivares, cutting as imposing a figure as ever, both physically and in the way his every gesture and look exuded absolute power; also present was the elegant young son of the Duque de Medina Sidonia, the Conde de Niebla, who was accompanying Their Majesties, along with the flower of Seville’s nobility. The count was then only twenty years old or so, and a long way from the time when, as ninth Duque de Medina Sidonia, hounded by the enmity and envy of Olivares and weary of the crown’s rapacious demands on his prosperous estates—whose value had increased because of Sanlúcar de Barrameda’s role in the route to and from the Indies—he was drawn into a plot with Portugal to turn Andalusia into an independent kingdom, a conspiracy that brought him dishonor, ruin, and disgrace. Behind him came a large retinue of ladies and gentlemen, including the queen’s ladies-in-waiting. And as I searched among them, my heart turned over, because Angélica de Alquézar was there too, exquisitely dressed in yellow velvet trimmed with gold braid, and daintily holding up her skirt, which was held out stiffly by an ample farthingale. Beneath her fine lace mantilla, the same golden ringlets that had brushed my face only hours before gleamed in the afternoon sun. I tried frantically to push my way through the crowd to reach her but was prevented from doing so by the broad back of a Burgundian guard. Thus Angélica passed by only a few steps away without seeing me. I tried to catch her blue eyes, but she moved off without reading in mine the mixture of reproach and scorn and love and madness troubling my mind.

But let us change scenes again, for I promised to tell you about our visit to the royal prison and about Nicasio Ganzúa’s final supper. Ganzúa was a prince among outlaws, a notorious ruffian from the quarter known as La Heria, a fine example of the criminal classes of Seville, and much admired by his fellow ruffians. The next day, to the discordant sound of drums and preceded by a cross, he was to be marched from the prison to have a rope placed around his neck, a rope that would rob him of his final breath. For this reason, the most illustrious members of that brotherhood of the blade were gathering—with all the requisite gravity, stoicism, and solemnity—to join him for a final supper. This unusual way of bidding farewell to a comrade was known, in criminal jargon, as echar tajada. And it was a perfectly normal occurrence, for everyone knew that a life of crime or “hard graft”—the common term at the time for earning one’s living by the sword or by other illicit means—usually ended in the galleys, plowing the seas, hands firmly grasping the neck of an oar, beneath the lash of the galleymaster, or else in a fatal dose of that much more dependable and highly contagious disease: the malady of the rope, all too common a malaise amongst rogues.Nothing ’scapes the maw of time,

Scoundrels barely reach their prime

Before the hangman stops their crime.

A dozen or so inebriated male voices were softly singing these words when, at the first watch, a constable—whose hand had been greased and spirits lifted with Alatriste’s bribe of a silver piece of eight—led us to the infirmary, which is where they put any prisoners about to be executed. Far better pens than mine have described the picaresque life lived within the prison’s three gates, barred windows, and dark corridors, and the curious reader wishing to know more should turn to don Miguel de Cervantes, Mateo Alemán, or Cristóbal de Chaves. I will merely relate what I saw on that first visit, when the doors had been closed, and the prisoners who enjoyed the favor of the mayor or of the prison guards and were allowed to come and go as they pleased were all back snug in their cells—apart, that is, from the even more privileged few who, by reason of social position or wealth, could sleep wherever they chose. Wives, whores, and relatives had also left the building, and the four taverns and inns that served the prison parish—wine courtesy of the prison governor and water courtesy of the innkeeper—were closed until the following day, as were the gaming tables in the courtyard and the stalls selling food and vegetables. In short, this miniature Spain had gone to sleep, along with the bugs in the walls and the fleas in the blankets, even in the very best cells, which prisoners with the wherewithal could rent for six reales a month from the undergovernor, who had bought his post for four hundred ducados from the governor, who, as corrupt as they come, grew rich on bribes and contraband of every sort. As in the rest of Spain, everything could be bought and sold, and you could more safely rely on money than you could on justice. All of which only confirmed the truth of that old Spanish proverb, that says, Why go hungry, when it’s dark and there are another man’s fig trees to pick?

On our way to the supper, we had an unexpected encounter. We had just walked down one long, railinged corridor and past the women’s prison—on the left as one entered—when we came to a room that was temporary home to those about to be sent to the galleys. A few inmates were standing there behind the bars, chatting. They peered out at us. A large torch on the wall lit up that part of the corridor, and by its light one of the men inside recognized my master.

“Either I’m blind drunk,” he said, “or that’s Captain Alatriste.”

We paused. The man who had spoken was very tall and burly, and he had thick, black eyebrows that met in the middle. He was wearing a filthy shirt and breeches made of rough cloth.

“Ye gods, Cagafuego,” said the captain, “what are you doing in Seville?”

In his delight and surprise, the giant opened his huge mouth and beamed from ear to ear, revealing, in place of an upper set of teeth, only a black hole.

“As you can see, they’re packing me off to the galleys. I’ve got six years of pounding the waves to look forward to.”

“The last time I saw you, you were safe in San Ginés church.”

“Oh, that was a long time ago,” said Bartolo Cagafuego with a stoical shrug. “You know what life’s like.”

“And what crime are you paying for this time?”

“Oh, for my crimes and for other people’s. They say that me and my comrades here”—his comrades smiled fiercely from the back of the cell—“robbed a few bars in Cava Baja and a few travelers at the Venta de Bubillos, near the Puerto de la Fuenfría.”

“So?”

“So, nothing. I didn’t have the cash to bribe the scribe with, and once they’d strung me and plucked me like a guitar, they sent me here, where I’m busy preparing my back for the rigors of life on the galleys.”

“When did you arrive?”

“Six days ago. After a jolly little jaunt of seventy-five leagues on foot, all of us shackled together, surrounded by guards, and in the freezing cold. It was pissing with rain when we reached Adamuz, where we tried to make a run for it, but the catchpoles caught up with us and brought us here. They’re taking us down to El Puerto de Santa María on Monday.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Oh, don’t be sorry, Captain. I don’t expect much from life, and, besides, it’s all part of the job really. And it could have been worse. Some of my comrades were sent to the mercury mines in Almadén, and that’s the real finibusterre, that is. Not many men make it out of there alive, I can tell you.”

“Is there some way I can help?”

Cagafuego lowered his voice. “If you have a bit of spare cash on you, I’d be very grateful. Me and my friends here haven’t got a bean.”

Alatriste took out his purse and placed four silver escudos in Cagafuego’s great paw. “How’s Blasa Pizorra?”

“Dead, poor woman.” Cagafuego discreetly pocketed the coins, eyeing his companions warily. “She was taken into the Hospital de Atocha. Her hair had fallen out and she had swellings all over her body. It was awful to see her like that, poor thing!”

“Did she leave you anything?”

“Only a sense of relief really. Given her profession, she had the pox, of course, but by some miracle, I didn’t get it.”

“My condolences anyway.”

“Thank you.”

Alatriste gave a half-smile. “You never know,” he said, “perhaps you’ll get lucky. The Turks might capture the galley, and you might decide to convert and end up in Constantinople in charge of a harem.”

“Don’t say such things,” said Cagafuego, apparently genuinely offended. “Let’s get this straight, neither the king nor Jesus Christ is to blame for me being where I am now.”

“You’re quite right, Cagafuego. I wish you luck.”

“Same to you, Captain Alatriste.”

And he stayed there, leaning against the bars, watching as we walked down the corridor. As I mentioned before, we could hear singing and the strumming of a guitar coming from the infirmary, and the prisoners in nearby cells were now providing an accompaniment, banging knives on bars, clapping, and playing improvised flutes. The room set aside for the meal contained a couple of benches and a small altar with a crucifix and a candle, and in the center was a table adorned with tallow candles and surrounded by several stools, which were occupied at that moment, as were the benches, by a select sample of the local ruffianry. They had begun arriving at nightfall and continued to do so, grave-faced and solemn, wearing capes thrown back over their shoulders, old buff coats, tow-stuffed doublets—which had been holed more often than La Méndez herself—hats with the brims turned up at the front, huge curled mustaches, scars, patches, verdigris hearts bearing the names of their ladyloves and other such things tattooed on hands and arms, Turkish beards, medallions of Virgins and saints, rosaries of black beads worn around the neck, and all manner of swords and daggers, as well as yellow-handled slaughterer’s knives tucked in the leg of gaiters and boots. This dangerous rabble of rogues were making short work of the pitchers of wine arranged on the table along with queen olives, capers, Flemish cheese, and slices of fried bacon; they addressed each other as “sir,” “comrade,” “friend,” and spoke with the accents of the criminal classes, mixing up their h’s and their j ’s and their g’s and saying, for example, gerida instead of herida, jumo instead of humo, harro instead of jarro. They toasted the souls of Escamilla and of Escarramán and drank to the soul of Nicasio Ganzúa, the last still very much there and safely ensconced in its owner’s body. They drank, as well, to the honor of Nicasio himself—“To your honor, comrade,” cried the ruffians—and every man there would very gravely raise his mug to his lips to make the toast. Not even at a wake in Vizcaya or at a Flemish wedding would you see such a thing. And as I watched them drinking and heard them, over and over, mentioning Ganzúa’s honor, I marveled that it should be so great.Go for hearts or diamonds

If you seek a winning knave;

Avoid black-hearted spades,

For they will dig your grave.

The songs continued, as did the drinking and the talk, and more comrades kept arriving. Sallow-skinned and menacing, with broad hands and face, and a huge mustache whose ferocious waxed ends reached almost to his eyes, Ganzúa was a strapping man in his late thirties and still as sharp as a razor. He had dressed for the occasion in his Sunday best: a purple, slightly darned doublet, slashed sleeves, green canvas breeches, shoes for promenading in, and a four-inch-wide belt with a silver buckle. It was a pleasure to see him looking so smart and so solemn, accompanied, encouraged, and cheered by his confreres, every one of them wearing a fine hat and looking for all the world like a Spanish grandee, gaily downing the wine, of which several pints had already been drunk and which showed no signs of running out because—not trusting the wine sold by the prison governor—they had brought a large supply of pitchers and bottles from a tavern in Calle Cordoneros. As for Ganzúa, he appeared not to be taking his early-morning appointment too much to heart, and he played his part with courage, decorum, and a proper sense of gravity.

“Death, my friends, is of no importance,” he would declare now and then with great aplomb.

Captain Alatriste, who understood this world well, went over and very courteously introduced himself to Ganzúa and company, passing on greetings from Juan Jaqueta, whose situation in the Patio de los Naranjos, he explained, meant that he could not have the pleasure of coming with him that night to bid farewell to his friend. Ganzúa responded equally courteously, inviting us to take a seat, which Alatriste did, having first greeted a few acquaintances who were all busily eating and drinking. Ginesillo el Lindo—a fair-haired, elegantly dressed ruffian, with an affable look and a dangerous smile, and long, silky, shoulder-length hair a la milanesa—greeted him warmly, delighted to see him well and in Seville. Ginesillo was, as everyone knew, effeminate—by which I mean that he had little taste for the act of Venus—but he was as brave as any man, and as deadly as a scorpion with a doctorate in the art of fencing. Others of his ilk proved less fortunate, and were arrested on the slightest pretext and treated by everyone, even by other prison inmates, with terrible cruelty, which only ended when they were burnt at the stake. In this frequently hypocritical and contemptible Spain, a man could, with impunity, lie with his own sister or daughters or even his grandmother, but, as with blasphemy and heresy, committing the abominable sin of sodomy meant only one thing: the pyre. By contrast, killing, stealing, corruption, and bribery were considered mere bagatelles.

I took my place on a stool, sipped some wine, ate a few capers, and listened to the conversation and the solemn arguments that each man offered Nicasio Ganzúa by way of consolation or encouragement. Doctors kill more people than the executioner, one said. Another colleague pointed out that behind every bad lawsuit there’s a sly scribe. Another said that death, though a nuisance, was the inevitable fate of all men, even dukes and popes. Someone else cursed the whole race of lawyers, who had no equal, he affirmed, even amongst Turks and Lutherans. May God be our judge, said another, and leave justice to the fools. Yet another regretted that the sentence imposed on Ganzúa would deprive the world of such an illustrious member of the criminal classes.

“My only regret,” said another prisoner who was also at the wake, “is that my own sentence hasn’t been signed yet, although I’m expecting it any moment. It’s a damned shame it didn’t arrive today, really, because I would gladly have joined you on the scaffold tomorrow.”

Everyone thought this the sentiment of a true comrade and, praising its aptness, pointed out to Ganzúa how much his friends admired him and how honored they were to be able to keep him company at this time, just as they would be the following morning in Plaza de San Francisco—those of them, that is, who could walk the streets without fear of constables. They would all do the same for one another one day, and whatever a fellow ruffian might suffer, he would always have his friends.

“You have to face death with courage, just as you’ve always faced life,” said a man with a much-scarred face and a fringe as greasy as the collar of his shirt. He was El Bravo de los Galeones—a sharp-witted rogue from Chipiona.

“On my grandmother’s grave, that’s true,” replied Ganzúa serenely. “No one did me a wrong they didn’t pay for later, and if ever a man did, then come the Resurrection, when I step out into the new world, I’ll really let him have it.”

All nodded sagely: this was how real men talked, and they all knew that at his execution the following day, he would neither blanch nor turn religious; he was, after all, a brave man and a scion of Seville, and everyone knew that La Heria did not breed cowards, and that others before him had drunk from that same cup and never quailed. A man with a Portuguese accent offered the consoling thought that at least the sentence had been imposed by the king’s justice, and therefore almost by the king himself, and so it was not just anyone who was taking Ganzúa’s life. It would be a mark of dishonor for such a famous rogue to be dispatched by a mere nobody. This last remark was roundly applauded by the other men there, and Ganzúa himself smoothed his mustaches, pleased with such a measured assessment of the situation. The idea had come from a ruffian in a knee-length buff coat; he had little fat on him and little hair, and what hair he had grew gray and curly and abundant around the noble, bronzed dome of his head. It was said that he’d been a theologian at the University of Coimbra until some misfortune had set him on the path of crime. Everyone considered him to be a man of the law and of letters, as well as a swordsman; he was known as Saramago el Portugués; he had a stately air about him, and was said to kill only out of necessity, hoarding all his money like a Jew in order to print, at his own expense, an endless epic poem on which he’d been working for the last twenty years, and in which he described how the Iberian Peninsula broke away from Europe and drifted off like a raft on the ocean, crewed entirely by the blind. Or something like that.

“It’s my Maripizca I feel sorry for,” said Ganzúa, between mugs of wine.

Maripizca la Aliviosa was Ganzúa’s doxy, and he believed that his execution would leave her all alone in the world. She had come to see him that very evening, crying and weeping: ah, light of my eyes and love of my life, et cetera, fainting away every five steps or so into the arms of twenty or so of the condemned man’s comrades. During the tender conversation that followed, Ganzúa had apparently commended his soul to her by asking her to pay for a few masses to be said—because a ruffian would never confess, not even on his way to the scaffold, on the grounds that it was dishonorable to go bleating to God about something he had refused to reveal under torture—and to come to some agreement with the executioner, by offering him either money or her own body, so that, the next day, everything would be done in an honorable and dignified fashion, ensuring that he did not cut a foolish figure when the rope was tightened around his neck in Plaza de San Francisco, in full view of all his acquaintances. La Aliviosa finally bade a graceful farewell, praising her man’s courage and expressing the hope that she would see him again in the next world, “looking just as healthy and handsome and brave.” La Aliviosa, said Ganzúa to his guests, was a good, hardworking woman, very clean about her person and a good earner too, and who only needed the occasional beating to keep her in order. However, there was scarcely any need to praise her further, because she was well known to all the men present, and indeed to all of Seville and half of Spain. And as for the razor scar on her face, well, it hardly spoiled her appearance at all, and besides, he had done it while blind drunk on good Sanlúcar oloroso. All couples had their little misunderstandings, didn’t they? Indeed, a timely cut to the face was a healthy sign of affection, the proof of this being that whenever he felt obliged to give her a good hiding, his eyes always filled with tears. La Aliviosa had shown herself to be a dutiful, faithful companion by taking care of him in prison with money earned by works that would be discounted from her sins, if, indeed, it was a sin to make sure that the man of her heart lacked for nothing. And that was all there was to be said on the matter. At this point, he grew a little emotional, although in a very manly way; he sniffed and took another sip of wine, and various voices chimed in to reassure him. Don’t worry, she’ll come to no harm, my word on it, said one. Mine too, said another. That’s what friends are for, put in a third. Comforted to know that he was leaving her in such good hands, Ganzúa continued drinking while Ginesillo el Lindo warbled a seguidilla or two in tribute to Maripizca.

“As for the grass snake who mentioned my name,” said Ganzúa, “you will, of course, take care of him too.”

These words were greeted with another chorus of protests. It went without saying that the snake who had placed Señor Ganzúa in this woeful situation would, at the earliest opportunity, be relieved of both breath and money; his friends owed the prisoner this and more. For the worst sin any ruffian could commit was to peach on a comrade; and even if that comrade had done said ruffian some offense or harm, it was felt to be entirely unacceptable to betray that person to the law, the chosen option being to remain silent and to exact one’s own revenge.

“If you can, and if it’s not too much trouble, get rid of Catchpole Mojarrilla too, will you? He handled me very roughly at the arrest, and showed me no respect at all.”

Ganzúa could count on it, his friends assured him. They swore on God and all his angels that Mojarrilla could be safely considered to have received the last rites already.

“It might be a good idea,” added Ganzúa after a moment’s thought, “to send the silversmith my greetings as well.”

The silversmith was added to the list. And while they were on the subject, they agreed that if, on the following morning, the executioner proved not to have been sufficiently rewarded by La Aliviosa and failed to do a decent job, by not tightening the garrote as cleanly and efficiently as required, he, too, would get his just deserts. It was one thing to execute someone—after all, everyone had his job to do—but quite another, worthy of traitors and pretty-boys, not to show due respect for a man of honor, et cetera, et cetera. There were many other remarks in the same vein, and Ganzúa was left feeling both satisfied and comforted. He looked at Alatriste, grateful that he should have come to keep him company in this way.

“I don’t believe I have the pleasure of your acquaintance,” he said.

“Some of the other gentlemen here know me already,” replied the captain in the same tone. “And I am pleased to be able to accompany you on behalf of those friends who cannot be here.”

“Say no more.” Ganzúa was looking at me amiably from behind his vast mustaches. “Is the boy with you?”

The captain said that I was, and I in turn nodded in a courteous way that provoked murmurs of approval from the other men present, for no one appreciates modesty and good manners in the young more than the criminal classes.

“He’s a fine-looking lad,” said Ganzúa. “I hope it will be a very long time before he finds himself in my situation.”

“Amen to that,” agreed Alatriste.

Saramago el Portugués also praised my presence there. It was, he remarked—with a Lusitanian slur to his s’s—an edifying spectacle for a young lad to see how men of courage and honor take their leave of this world, especially in these troubled times when shamelessness and ill manners are so rife. Aside from having the good fortune to have been born in Portugal—which was not, alas, a possibility open to everyone—nothing was more instructive than to witness a good death, to speak with wise men, to know other lands, and to read widely and well. He concluded poetically, “Thus the boy will be able to say with Virgil ‘Arma virumque cano’ and with Lucan ‘Plus quam civilia campos.’”

This was followed by much talk and more wine. Ganzúa then proposed a last game of cards with his friends, and Guzmán Ramírez, a silent, grave-faced ruffian, took a grimy pack from his doublet and placed it on the table. The cards were dealt out to the eight players, while the others watched and all of us drank. Wagers were made and, whether by luck or because his comrades were letting him win, Ganzúa had some good hands.

“I’ll wager six ducados, my life on it.”

“It’s your turn to cut the cards.”

“I’ll deal.”

“What a hand!”

“I’ll buy it from you, if you like.”

And they were happily occupied in this fashion when steps were heard in the corridor and in came the court scribe, the prison governor with his constables, and the prison chaplain, all black as crows, to read the final sentence. And apart from Ginesillo el Lindo, who stopped playing the guitar, no one took the slightest notice; not even the condemned man himself showed a flicker of interest; instead, they all continued downing their wine, each player holding his three cards and keeping one eye on the card that had just been turned up, which happened to be the two of hearts. The scribe cleared his throat and declared that, according to the king’s justice, and the prisoner’s appeal having been refused on such and such a date and for such and such a reason, the aforementioned Nicasio Ganzúa would be executed in the morning. Ganzúa listened impassively, concentrating on his cards, and only when the sentence had been read did he open his mouth to look at his partner and raise his eyebrows.

“I’ll see you,” he said.

The game continued as before. Saramago el Portugués put down a jack of clubs, another comrade played a king, and another an ace of diamonds.

“The jack of hearts,” announced a comrade known as El Rojo Carmona, placing that card on the table.

“The two of hearts,” said another, putting his card down as well.

Luck was with Ganzúa that night, because he had a card that beat a two of any suit, and with one hand placed defiantly on his hip, he flung down the four of hearts. And only then, while he was picking up the coins and adding them to his pile, did he look up at the scribe.

“Could you just repeat what you said? I wasn’t listening.”

The scribe grew angry, saying that such statements could be read only once, and that it was Ganzúa’s own fault if, as he put it, he blew out the candle without first making sure he’d understood the deal.

“To a man like me,” replied Ganzúa with great aplomb, “who has never bowed his head except to take communion, and then only when I was a boy, and who has since fought five hundred duels and been in five hundred scraps and fearlessly fought in a thousand more, the details are about as important to me as a fleabite. All I want to know is do I face execution tomorrow or not?”

“You do. At eight o’clock prompt.”

“And who signed the death sentence?”

“Judge Fonseca.”

Ganzúa gave his companions a meaningful look, and they responded with winks and silent nods. It would seem that the informer, the catchpole, and the silversmith would not be making their journey alone.

“The judge,” said Ganzúa philosophically to the scribe, “is perfectly at liberty to hand down a sentence and take away my life, but if he ever had the decency to face me, sword in hand, then we’d see who would take whose life.”

There were more solemn nods from the circle of ruffians. What he had said was as true as the Gospel. The scribe shrugged. The friar, an Augustine with a gentle air and filthy fingernails, came over to Ganzúa.

“Do you wish to confess?”

Ganzúa looked at him while he shuffled the cards.

“You wouldn’t want me to blurt out now what I refused to reveal under torture.”

“I was referring to your soul.”

Ganzúa touched the rosary and the medallions that he wore around his neck. “I’ll take care of my soul,” he said after a long pause. “And tomorrow, in the next world, I’ll have a few words with the appropriate person.”

His fellow players nodded approvingly. Some had known Gonzalo Barba, a famous rogue who began his confession to a young and inexperienced priest by admitting straight out to eight murders. Seeing the look of alarm on the young priest’s face, he said, “Honestly, I start with the small stuff, and already you’re shocked. If you react like that to the first eight, then I’m not the right man for you, Father, and you’re not the right man for me.” And when the priest insisted, he added, “Look at it this way, Father, you were ordained the day before yesterday and here you are trying to confess a man with hundreds of murders under his belt.”

They returned to their cards while the friar and the others headed for the door. Just as they were about to leave, however, Ganzúa remembered something and called them back.

“Just one thing, Señor Scribe. Last month, when they tied the rope around my friend Lucas Ortega’s neck, one of the steps on the scaffold was loose, and Lucas nearly fell when he was climbing them. It doesn’t bother me particularly, but be so kind as to repair it for whoever comes after, because not all men have my courage.”

“I’ll make a note of it,” the scribe assured him.

“I’ll say no more, then.”

The men of law and the friar left, and those who remained carried on playing cards and drinking while Ginesillo el Lindo resumed his strumming.Though he killed his father and his mother

And did his elder brother in,

And put two sisters on the game,

They hung him high on the gallows tree

Of old Seville because he stole

The lives of strangers, one, two, three.

The game continued in the grubby light of the tallow candles. The ruffians drank and played, solemnly keeping watch over their comrade with many “Ye gods” and “I’faiths” and “By my troths.”

“It hasn’t been a bad life,” Ganzúa suddenly said very thoughtfully. “Hard, but not bad.”

Through the window came the sound of the bells of the church of San Salvador. Out of respect, Ginesillo el Lindo stopped his singing and his strumming. Everyone, including Ganzúa, doffed his hat and interrupted the game to make the sign of the cross. It was the Hour of All Souls—midnight.

The next day dawned with a sky worthy to be painted by Diego Velázquez, and in the Plaza de San Francisco, Nicasio Ganzúa climbed the steps of the scaffold with great aplomb. I went to watch with Alatriste and a few companions from the previous night. We were just in time to get a place, because the square was crammed from end to end with people who crowded around the platform and filled the surrounding balconies, and it was said that from a shuttered window of the Audiencia, even the king and queen were watching. Country folk and important figures alike had come to see, and the best places, which had been hired out for the occasion, gleamed and glittered with the finest stuffs: ladies’ mantillas and skirts, gentlemen’s velvets and feathered felt hats and gold chains. The crowd below was full of the usual selection of idlers, thieves, and ne’er-do-wells, and those skilled in the art of picking pockets were making their fortunes by slipping two sly fingers into other men’s purses and drawing out a fistful of coins. Don Francisco de Quevedo pushed his way through the crowd to join us and was observing the spectacle with keen interest, because, he said, the execution would prove really useful for one particular passage in The Swindler, the book on which he was currently working.

“One doesn’t always draw one’s inspiration from Seneca or Tacitus,” he explained, adjusting his eyeglasses the better to see with.

Someone must have told Ganzúa that the king and queen were there, because when they brought him from the prison dressed in his smock, mounted on a mule, his hands bound in front of him, he raised both hands to his face to smooth his mustaches and even gestured up at the balconies. His hair was combed, he looked clean and elegant and utterly calm, and the only sign of last night’s carousing was a slight redness of the eyes. Along the way, whenever he spotted a familiar face amongst the crowd, he would again wave graciously, as if he were part of a religious procession heading for the Prado de Santa Justa. In short, he bore himself with such grace that it almost made one feel like being executed oneself.

The executioner was waiting beside the garrote. When Ganzúa climbed slowly up the scaffold steps—the rickety step was still rickety, and this earned the scribe, who was standing nearby, a stern look—everyone commented on his excellent manners and his courage. With his raised hands he greeted his comrades and La Aliviosa, who was standing right at the front, comforted by some dozen ruffians, and who, despite her copious tears, nonetheless felt proud of how handsome her man looked as he made his way to death. Then he allowed the Augustine friar of the previous night to preach to him a little, and nodded solemnly whenever the friar said something pithy or pleasing. The executioner was becoming visibly grumpy and impatient, and Ganzúa said to him, “Don’t hurry me, I’ll be with you in a moment. After all, the world’s not about to end and there are no Moors to fight.” He then recited the Creed from beginning to end in a strong, steady voice, kissed the cross with great feeling, and asked the executioner to ensure that he placed the hood properly on his head and, afterward, wiped any drool from his mustache, so that he would not look undignified. And when the executioner said the customary words—“Forgive me, brother, I am only doing my duty”—Ganzúa retorted that he was forgiven from there to Lima, but to make sure he did a good job, because they would see each other in the next life, where Ganzúa would have nothing to lose if he took his revenge. Then he sat down and did not flinch or grimace when they placed the rope around his neck, looking, instead, almost bored. He smoothed his mustaches one last time, and at the second turn of the garrote, his face grew perfectly calm and serene, as if he was sunk in thought.

7. ALL’S FISH THAT COMES TO THE NET

The treasure fleet was about to arrive, and Seville, along with all the rest of Spain and Europe, was preparing to make the most of the torrent of gold and silver it was carrying in its holds. The vast squadron now filling the horizon with sails had arrived at the mouth of the Guadalquivir, escorted from the Azores by the Atlantic Armada, and the first galleons, laden almost to the gunwales with merchandise and other riches, were beginning to drop anchor opposite Sanlúcar or in the Bay of Cádiz. In gratitude to God for having kept the fleet safe from storms, pirates, and the English, the churches were organizing masses and Te Deums. Shipowners and those employed in unloading the ships were already counting their profits; merchants were clearing their shops to make room for the new merchandise or arranging for it to be transported elsewhere; bankers were writing to their correspondents to draw up letters of exchange; the king’s creditors were drafting invoices that they hoped would soon be paid; and customs clerks were rubbing their hands at the thought of lining their own pockets. All Seville was smartening itself up for the great event; business picked up; crucibles and dies were made ready for minting coins; the two towers, the Torre de Oro and the Torre de la Plata, were prepared as storehouses; and El Arenal was a hive of activity, crowded with carts, piles of provisions, curious onlookers, and black and Moorish slaves laboring by the quayside. The doorways of houses and shops were scrubbed and swept; inns, taverns, and bawdy houses were spruced up; and everyone, from the proudest aristocrat to the humblest beggar and the oldest jade, rejoiced at the prospect of the fortune in which they all hoped to have a share.

“You’re lucky,” said the Conde de Guadalmedina, looking up at the sky. “You’ll have good weather in Sanlúcar.”

That same afternoon, before we set off on our mission—we were to meet the accountant Olmedilla on the pontoon bridge at six o’clock prompt—Guadalmedina and don Francisco de Quevedo came to say goodbye to Captain Alatriste. We had met in El Arenal at a small inn, by the wall of the old arsenal, constructed out of planks and canvas rifled from the nearby careening-wharf. Tables and stools stood outside beneath a makeshift porch. At that hour, the inn, frequented only by a few sailors, was quiet and private, and a good place for a drink and a chat. It enjoyed a pleasant view, too, over the lively port, where long-shoremen, carpenters, and shipwrights were working on the boats moored on either shore. Triana—all whites and reds and ochers—gleamed resplendent on the far side of the Guadalquivir, with the caravels of the sardine fleet and the little ferryboats coming and going between the two shores, their lateen sails unfurled to catch the late-afternoon breeze.

“Here’s to plenty of booty,” said Guadalmedina.

We all raised our mugs and drank.The wine might not have been special, but the occasion was. Don Francisco de Quevedo, who would, in a way, have liked to join us on that expedition downriver, was irritated by the fact that, for obvious reasons, he could not. He was still very much a man of action, and it would not have bothered him in the least to add the boarding of the Niklaasbergen to his other experiences.

“I wish I could have just a glimpse of your recruits,” he said, polishing his spectacles with a handkerchief that he produced from the sleeve of his doublet.

“Oh, so do I,” agreed Guadalmedina. “I’m sure they form a highly picturesque band, but we cannot involve ourselves further. From now on, the responsibility is entirely yours, Alatriste.”

The poet put on his spectacles and twirled his mustache, and a sly look appeared on his face. “This is so typical of Olivares. If things go well, there will be no need to bestow any public honors, but if things go badly, heads will roll.” He took two long swigs of wine and sat staring thoughtfully into his mug.

“Sometimes, Captain,” he said gravely, “I regret ever having gotten you into this.”

“No one’s forcing me to do it,” said Alatriste, expressionless. He was staring across at the Triana shore.

The captain’s stoical tone made the count smile.

“They say,” he said in an insinuating murmur, “that our King Philip knows all about the plan. He’s delighted to have this chance to play a trick on the old Duque de Medina Sidonia and to imagine the look on his face when he finds out. And, of course, gold is gold, and His Catholic Majesty needs it just as much as any other man.”

“Possibly more,” Quevedo said with a sigh.

Guadalmedina leaned across the table and lowered his voice: “Last night, in circumstances I need not go into here, His Majesty asked who was in charge of the attack.” He left these words hanging in the air for a moment to allow their meaning to penetrate. “He asked this of a particular friend of yours, Alatriste, and that friend told him all about you.”

“And praised him to the skies, I suppose,” said Quevedo.

The count shot him a look, offended by that “I suppose.”

“As I said, he was a friend of the captain’s.”

“And what did the great Philip say?”

“Being young and adventurous, he showed considerable interest. He even spoke of turning up tonight at the embarkation point—incognito, of course—just to satisfy his curiosity. Naturally, Olivares was horrified at the idea.”

An awkward silence fell.

“That’s all we need,” commented Quevedo, “to have the king on our backs.”

Guadalmedina was turning his mug around and around in his hands.

“But whatever happens,” he said after a pause, “a success would suit us all very well.”

He suddenly remembered something, put his hand inside his doublet and removed a piece of paper folded in four. It bore the seal of the Audiencia Real and another from the master of the king’s galleys.

“I was forgetting your safe-conduct pass,” he said, handing it to the captain. “It authorizes you to go downriver to Sanlúcar. Needless to say, once there, you must burn the document. From that moment on, if anyone asks why you’re going to Sanlúcar, you’ll have to find your own excuse.” The count was smiling and stroking his goatee. “You can always say you’re going fishing for tuna and palm them off with that old saying: All’s fish that comes to the net.”

“I wonder how Olmedilla will acquit himself,” said Quevedo.

“There’s no need for him actually to board the ship. He’s only required to take charge of the gold once it’s been unloaded. His well-being depends on you, Alatriste.”

The captain was studying the document. “I’ll do what I can.”

“Please do. For all our sakes.”

The captain tucked the piece of paper into the leather band inside his hat. While he remained as cool and collected as ever, I kept fidgeting about on my stool. There were too many kings and count-dukes involved in this affair for a simple lad like me to be expected to sit still.

“There will, of course, be protests from the ship’s owners,” said the count. “Medina Sidonia will be furious, but no one involved in the plot itself will breathe a word. With the Flemish, though, it will be different. We’re sure to get protests from that quarter, exchanges of letters, and storms in the chanceries. That’s why we need to make it look like a private affair—an attack by bandits or pirates.” He raised his mug of wine to his lips, smiling mischievously. “Although no one can demand the return of gold that doesn’t officially exist.”

“Remember,” said Quevedo to the captain, “if anything goes wrong, everyone will deny all knowledge of the matter.”

“Even don Francisco and myself,” added Guadalmedina bluntly.

“Precisely. Ignoramus atque ignorabimus.”

The poet and the aristocrat sat looking at Alatriste, but the captain, who was still staring across at the Triana shore, merely gave a brief nod and said nothing.

“If things do go wrong,” Guadalmedina went on, “be very careful, because there will be hell to pay. And you will have to cover the cost of any broken pots.”

“If, that is, they catch you,” said Quevedo.

“In short,” concluded the count, “under no circumstances must anyone be captured”—he shot me a quick glance—“no one.”

“Which means,” explained Quevedo with his usual pithiness, “that there are only two options: you either succeed, or you die with your mouth closed.”

And he said this so clearly and frankly that his words barely weighed on me.

After saying goodbye to our friends, the captain and I walked through El Arenal to the pontoon, where the accountant Olmedilla was waiting for us, as punctual and proper as ever. He walked beside us, a thin, austere, silent figure, all in black. Beneath the slanting rays of the setting sun we crossed the river, heading for the sinister walls of the castle of the Inquisition, a sight that stirred my worst memories. We were all equipped for the journey: Olmedilla was wearing a long black cape, and the captain his cloak, hat, sword, and dagger, and I was carrying an enormous bundle containing, more discreetly, a few provisions, two cotton blankets, a full wineskin, a pair of pistols, my dagger—its hilt having been repaired in Calle de Vizcaínos—gunpowder, bullets, Constable Sánchez’s sword, my master’s buff coat, and a newer, much lighter one for myself, made of good, stout buffalo skin, which we had bought for twenty escudos in a shop in Calle Francos. The meeting point was the Corral del Negro, near the Cruz del Altozano. Leaving behind us the bridge and the collection of long-boats, galleys, and skiffs moored along the shore as far up as the harbor used by the local shrimpers, we reached the Corral just as night was falling. Triana was full of cheap inns, taverns, gaming rooms, and places where soldiers congregated, and so there was nothing unusual about the sight of men bearing swords. The Corral del Negro was, it transpired, a vile inn with an open-air courtyard that served as a drinking den, which on rainy days was covered over with an old awning. People sat out there with their hats down over their eyes and their cloaks wrapped about them, and given that it was a cool night and given the nature of the customers who frequented the inn, it seemed perfectly normal for everyone to have his face covered so that only his eyes were visible, and to wear a dagger in his belt and a sword beneath his cloak. The captain, Olmedilla, and I took a seat in one corner, ordered some wine and some food, and cast a cool eye around us. Some of our men were already there. At one table, I recognized Ginesillo el Lindo—without his guitar this time but with an enormous sword at his belt—and Guzmán Ramírez, both of them with hats pulled down low and cloaks muffling their faces, and a moment later I saw Saramago el Portugués enter alone and take a seat, where, by the light of a candle, he immediately took a book out of his pouch and started reading. Then in came Sebastián Copons, as small, compact, and silent as ever. He sat himself down with a pitcher of wine without so much as a glance at anyone, not even his own shadow. Not one of them betrayed by the merest flicker that they knew one another, and gradually, alone and in pairs, the others arrived too, swaggering and shifty-eyed, swords clanking, finding a place to sit wherever they could, but never saying a word. The largest group to arrive was a threesome: Juan Jaqueta of the long side-whiskers, his friend Sangonera, and the mulatto Campuzano, who had all been allowed to leave their ecclesiastical seclusion thanks to the opportune intervention of the captain, courtesy of Guadalmedina.

Although accustomed to a fairly rough clientele, the innkeeper observed such an influx of ruffians with a suspicion that the captain soon dissipated by placing a few silver coins in his hand, the perfect way to render even the most curious of innkeepers blind, deaf, and dumb, as well as acting as a warning that if he talked too much, he might easily end up with his throat neatly slit. Within half an hour, the whole crew was there. To my surprise, for Alatriste had made no mention of him, the last to arrive was Bartolo Cagafuego. With his cap worn low over his bushy brows and wearing a broad smile that revealed his dark, toothless mouth, he paced up and down beneath the arcade near our table, winking at the captain and generally behaving about as discreetly as a bear at a requiem mass. My master never passed any comment on the matter, but I suspect that, although Cagafuego was more braggart than blade, and although the captain could doubtless have recruited another man made of sterner stuff, he had arranged for Cagafuego to be set free more for reasons of sentiment—if such reasons are attributable to the captain. Anyway, there he was, and he could barely conceal his gratitude. And well might he be grateful, for the captain had saved him from six long years chained to an oar in the galleys with a galleymaster yelling at him to row ever harder and faster.

This completed the group, and no one failed to make the rendezvous. I watched Olmedilla’s face to see his reaction to the fruits of the captain’s recruitment campaign, and although the accountant maintained his usual cold, inexpressive, mute façade, I thought I saw a glimmer of approval. Apart from those already mentioned—and as I learned shortly afterward when told their real or assumed names—there was Pencho Bullas, the man from Murcia, the old soldiers Enríquez el Zurdo and Andresito el de los Cincuenta, the grimy and much-scarred Bravo de los Galeones, a sailor from Triana called Suárez, another called Mascarúa, a very pale, hollow-eyed man looking every inch the down-at-heel hidalgo known as El Caballero de Illescas, and a rubicund, bearded smiling fellow from Jaén, with a shaved head and strong arms, Juan Eslava by name, who was notorious in Seville as a pimp (he lived off the earnings of four or five women and cared for them, almost, as if they were his daughters), a fact that justified his sobriquet, earned fair and square, namely the Lothario of the Alameda.

Imagine, then, the scene, dear reader, with all these brave fellows in the Corral del Negro, their faces muffled by cloaks and who, with every movement, gave off a menacing clank of daggers, pistols, and swords. If you hadn’t known they were on your side—at least temporarily—you would have been hard put to find your own pulse, because your heart would have stopped beating out of sheer dread. Once this fearsome retinue was all assembled, Diego Alatriste put a few coins on the table, and, to the great relief of the innkeeper, we set off with Olmedilla to the river, through the pitch-black narrow streets. There was no need to look around. From the sound of footsteps echoing at our backs, we knew that the recruits were slipping one by one out of the inn door and following behind us.

Triana slumbered in the darkness, and anyone still up and about prudently stepped out of our path. The waning crescent of the moon was bright enough to provide us with a little light, enough for us to see a boat, sail furled, silhouetted against the shore. There was one lantern lit at the prow and another on land, and two motionless shapes, master and sailor, were waiting on board. Alatriste stopped at that point, with Olmedilla and me by his side, while the shadows following us gathered around. The captain sent me to fetch one of the lanterns, which I did, placing it at his feet. The tenuous light of the candle lent a gloomier aspect to the gathering. Faces were barely visible, only the tips of mustaches and beards, the dark shapes of cloaks and hats, and the dull metallic gleam of the weapons they all carried at their waists. There was a general murmuring and whispering amongst the comrades as they recognized one another, but the captain abruptly silenced them all.

“We will be going downriver to perform a task which I will explain to you once we reach our destination. You have all been paid something in advance, so there is no going back. And I need hardly say that we are all of us dumb.”

“You need hardly tell us that,” said someone. “More than one of our number has been on the rack and never uttered a word.”

“Yes, but it’s always good to make these things clear. Any questions?”

“When do we get the rest of the money?” asked one anonymous voice.

“When we’ve completed our mission, but, in principle, the day after tomorrow.”

“Will we be paid in gold again?”

“You certainly will, in double-headed doubloons, just like those you’ve each received as an advance.”

“Will there be much killing involved?”

I glanced at the accountant Olmedilla, a dark figure in his black cloak, and I noticed that he was scraping at the ground with the tip of his shoe, as if embarrassed, or else far away, thinking of something else. He was, after all, a man of paper and ink and unaccustomed to certain harsh facts of life.

“I would hardly bother recruiting men of your caliber,” replied Alatriste, “merely to dance the chaconne.”

There was some laughter and a few appreciative oaths. When this had died away, the captain pointed to the boat.

“Get on board and make yourselves as comfortable as you can. And from now on, consider yourselves part of a militia.”

“What does that mean?”

In the dim lantern light, everyone could see how the captain rested his left hand, as if casually, on the hilt of his sword. His eyes pierced the darkness.

“It means,” he said slowly, “that if anyone disobeys an order or even so much as pulls a face, I’ll kill him.”

Olmedilla looked hard at the captain. We could hear the whine of a mosquito. Each man was thinking about what the captain had said and resolving not to arouse his leader’s displeasure. Then, in the silence, not far off, near the boats moored by the bank of the river, came the sound of oars. Everyone turned to look: a small boat had emerged from the shadows. Against the gleam of lights on the farther shore, we could make out half a dozen oarsmen and three black shapes standing in the prow. In less time than it takes to describe, Sebastián Copons, ever ready, had leapt into action; as if by magic, two enormous pistols appeared in his hand, and he had them trained on the people in the boat; Captain Alatriste, meanwhile, had whipped out his sword and was already brandishing its bare steel blade.

“All’s fish that comes to the net,” said a familiar voice in the darkness.

As if this were a password, both the captain and I relaxed, for I, too, had been about to reach for my dagger.

“They’re friends,” said Alatriste.

This calmed the men, and my master sheathed his sword and Copons put away his pistols. The boat had come to shore just beyond the prow of our vessel, and in the faint light of the lantern we could now make out the three men standing up. Alatriste walked past Copons and went over to them. I followed.

“We’ve come to say goodbye to a friend,” said the same voice.

I, too, had recognized the Conde de Guadalmedina’s voice. Like his companions, he kept his face almost concealed with cloak and hat. Behind them, amongst the oarsmen, I caught the glow of the slow-burning matches on two harquebuses. The count’s companions were clearly men of a cautious nature.

“We don’t have much time,” said the captain bluntly.

“We wouldn’t want to get in your way,” replied Guadalmedina, who was still with his companions in the boat. “You carry on.”

Alatriste looked at the other two men. One was heavily built, a cloak wrapped about his powerful chest and shoulders. The other man was slimmer, wearing a featherless hat and a brownish-gray cloak that covered him from eyes to feet. The captain lingered for a moment longer, studying them. He himself was lit by the lantern on the prow of the boat, with his hawklike profile and mustache red in the light, his eyes vigilant beneath the dark brim of his hat, and his hand touching the bright hilt of his sword. In the gloom, he cut a somber, menacing figure, and I imagine that he must have made the same impression on the men in the boat. Finally, he turned to Copons, who had hung back a little, and to the other members of the group, who were waiting farther off, concealed by the darkness.

“Get on board,” he said.

One by one, with Copons at their head, the ruffians filed past Alatriste, and the lantern on the prow lit each one as they boarded the boat with a great scrape and clang of ironware. Most of them covered their faces as they passed the light, but others, indifferent or defiant, left them uncovered. Some even stopped to cast a curious glance at the three cloaked figures, who watched this strange procession without uttering a word. The accountant Olmedilla paused for a moment at the captain’s side, anxiously observing the men in the boat, as if uncertain whether or not he should speak to them. He finally decided against doing so, put one leg over the gunwale of our boat, and, encumbered by his cape, would have fallen into the water had not a pair of strong hands hauled him on board. The last to get on was Bartolo Cagafuego, who was carrying the other lantern, which he handed to me before clambering on board, making so much clatter that one would have thought he had half of all the steel produced in Vizcaya either buckled to his belt or in his pockets. My master had still not moved, watching the men in the other boat.

“There you have it,” he said in the same brusque tone.

“Not a bad troop of men,” commented the taller and stronger of the three.

Alatriste looked at him, trying to penetrate the gloom. He had heard that voice before. The third man, slimmer and slighter, who was standing between the other man and Guadalmedina, and who had watched the embarkation in silence, was now scrutinizing the captain’s face.

“Well,” he said at last, “they certainly frighten me.”

He spoke in a neutral, well-educated voice, a voice accustomed to being obeyed. When he heard it, Alatriste stood as still as a statue. For a few seconds, I could hear his breathing, calm and very slow. Then he put his hand on my shoulder. “Get on board,” he ordered.

I obeyed, carrying with me our luggage and the lantern. I jumped over the gunwale and took a seat in the prow, among the other men, who were wrapped in their cloaks and who smelled of sweat, iron, and leather. Copons made room for me, and I used the bundle as a seat. From there I could see that Alatriste, on the shore, was still looking at the men in the smaller boat. He raised one hand as if to doff his hat, although without completing the gesture—merely touching the brim—then threw his cloak over his shoulder and climbed into the boat.

“Good fishing,” said Guadalmedina.

No one responded. The master of the boat had cast off, and the sailor, once he had rowed us away from the shore, hoisted the sail. And so, with the help of the current and the gentle breeze blowing from the land, our boat slipped silently downriver, cutting through the black water with its tremulous reflection of Seville’s and Triana’s few lights.

There were countless stars in the sky, and the trees and the bushes paraded past to right and left, like dense, dark shadows, as we followed the course of the Guadalquivir. Seville was left far behind us, beyond the bends in the river, and the damp night air drenched the wood of the boat and our cloaks. Olmedilla was lying close by me, shivering. I lay contemplating the night, my blanket up to my chin and my head resting on our bundle of provisions, occasionally glancing across at the motionless silhouette of Alatriste, sitting in the stern with the master of the boat. Above my head, the pale smudge of the sail trembled in the breeze, by turns concealing and revealing the tiny luminous points of light studding the sky.

Almost everyone was silent, a collection of black shapes huddled together in the narrow space of the boat. Apart from the lapping of the water, I could hear the steady breathing of those asleep, as well as loud snores, or else the occasional whispered comment from those who remained awake. Someone was humming a tune in a high falsetto voice. Beside me, his hat over his face and well wrapped up in his cloak, Sebastián Copons was sleeping soundly.

My dagger was sticking in my ribs, and so, in the end, I took it off. For a while, staring up at the stars with wide eyes, I tried to think of Angélica de Alquézar, but her image kept fading, obscured by the uncertainty of what awaited us downriver. I had heard the count’s instructions to the captain, as well as the latter’s conversations with Olmedilla, and I knew the broad lines of the planned attack on the Flemish ship. The idea was to board her while she was anchored at Barra de Sanlúcar, cut her moorings, and take advantage of the current and the favorable night tide to carry her to the coast, where we would run her aground and then transport the booty to the beach; there we would be met by an official escort who had been forewarned of our arrival, a picket from the Spanish guard, who should, at that very moment, be arriving in Sanlúcar by land, and who would discreetly await the right moment to intervene. As for the crew of the Niklaasbergen, they were sailors, not soldiers, and would, besides, be taken by surprise. As for their fate, our orders were clear-cut: the assault was to look like a bold incursion by pirates. And if there is one certainty in life, the dead do not talk.

It grew colder toward dawn, with the first light illuminating the tops of the poplars that edged the eastern shore. The cold woke some of the men, and they moved closer to one another in search of warmth. Those not sleeping chatted quietly to pass the time, handing around a wineskin. Some men nearby were whispering, assuming I was asleep. They were Juan Jaqueta, his friend Sangonera, and another man. They were talking about Captain Alatriste.

“He hasn’t changed,” Jaqueta was saying. “He’s still the same cool, silent son-of-a-mongrel-bitch.”

“Can he be trusted?” asked one.

“Like a papal bull. He was in Seville for a while, living from his sword like the best of them. We spent some time in the Patio de los Naranjos together. He got into trouble in Naples. Killed someone apparently.”

“They say he’s an old soldier and has fought in Flanders.”

“He has,” said Jaqueta, lowering his voice a little. “Along with that Aragonese fellow asleep over there and the boy. But he fought in the other war too, at Nieuwpoort and Ostend.”

“Is he good with a sword?”

“I’ll say. He’s clever too and cunning.” Jaqueta stopped speaking to take a swig from the wineskin; I heard the gurgle of the wine as he poured it into his mouth. “When he looks at you with those ice-cold eyes of his, you’d better get out of his way and fast. I’ve seen him skewer and slash and generally do more damage than a bullet through a buff coat.”

There was a pause and more swigs of wine. I imagined they were looking at Alatriste, still sitting motionless in the bow, next to the master, who kept his hand on the tiller.

“Is he really a captain?” asked Sangonera.

“I don’t think so,” replied his friend. “But everyone calls him Captain Alatriste.”

“He’s certainly a man of few words.”

“Yes, he’s the sort who does his talking with his sword. And he’s even better at fighting than he is at holding his tongue. I knew someone who was with him on the galleys in Naples ten or fifteen years ago, on a raid in the channel of Constantinople. Apparently, the Turks boarded the ship he was on, having first killed most of the crew, and Alatriste and a dozen or so others were forced to retreat, defending the gangway inch by inch, finally holing themselves up on the half-deck, fighting like savages, fending off the Turks with their knives, until they were all either dead or wounded. The Turks were taking them and the ship back up the channel, when, as good fortune would have it, two galleys from Malta came to their aid and rescued them from life on a Turkish galley.”

“Sounds like a plucky bastard,” said one.

“You bet, comrade.”

“And he’s known the rack too, I’ll bargain,” added another man.

“That I don’t know, but for the moment, at least, things don’t seem to be going too badly for him. If he can spring us from prison and slap a noli me tangere on us, he’s obviously got influence.”

“Who were those three men in the other boat?”

“No idea. But they smelled like nobs to me. Perhaps they’re the people supplying the lucre.”

“And what about the man in black? I mean the clumsy clod who almost fell in the water?”

“No idea, but if he’s a fellow ruffian, my name’s Luther.”

There were more gurgling sounds of wine being drunk, followed by a couple of satisfied belches.

“Not a bad job so far, though,” said someone after a while. “Plenty of gold and good company too.”

Jaqueta chuckled. “Yeah, but you heard what the boss said. First, we have to earn it. And they’re not going to give us the money just for strolling up and down of a Sunday.”

“Oh, I can live with that,” said one. “For one thousand two hundred reales, I’d steal the morning star.”

“Me too,” agreed another man.

“Besides, he certainly deals a fair hand—I’ll be happy to have a few more gold’uns like the ones I’ve got in my pocket now.”

I heard them whispering. Those who knew how to add up were busy making calculations.

“Is it a fixed amount?” asked Sangonera. “Or do they share out the total among those who survive?”

Jaqueta gave the same low chuckle.

“We won’t find out until afterward. It’s a way of making sure that in the heat and noise of the fighting, we don’t stab one another in the back.”

The horizon was growing red behind the trees, allowing glimpses of scrub and of the pleasant orchards that sometimes grew down as far as the banks of the river. In the end, I got up and made my way past the sleeping bodies to the stern, to join the captain. The master of the boat, who wore a serge smock and a faded cap on his head, declined when I offered him some wine from the wineskin I’d brought for the captain. He was leaning one elbow on the tiller, intent on estimating the distance from the banks, on the breeze filling the sail, and on any loose logs on the shore that might be dragged downstream. He had a very tanned face, and up until then I hadn’t heard him say a word, nor would I thereafter. Alatriste took a draft of wine and ate the proffered piece of bread and cured meat. I stayed by his side, watching the cloudless sky and the light growing brighter on the horizon. On the river, everything was still very gray and hazy, and the men lying in the bottom of the boat remained immersed in darkness.

“How’s Olmedilla doing?” asked the captain, looking across at where the accountant lay.

“He’s finally managed to fall asleep after spending all night shivering.”

My master gave a faint smile. “He’s not used to this kind of thing,” he said.

I smiled too. We were used to it. He and I. “Is he coming aboard the urca with us?” I asked.

Alatriste shrugged. “Who knows?” he said.

“We’ll have to look out for him,” I murmured, somewhat concerned.

“Every man will have to look out for himself. When the moment comes, you just worry about yourself.”

We fell silent, passing the wineskin from one to the other. My master chewed on his bread for a while.

“You’ve grown up a lot,” he said between mouthfuls.

He was still watching me thoughtfully. I felt a sweet wave of satisfaction warm my blood.

“I want to be a soldier,” I blurted out.

“I thought after Breda, you’d have had enough.”

“No, that’s what I want to be. Like my father.”

He stopped chewing and studied me for a while longer, then, in the end, he gave a lift of his chin, indicating the men lying in the boat. “It’s hardly a great future,” he said.

We remained for a while without talking, rocked by the swaying of the boat. Now the landscape behind the trees was growing red and the shadows less gray.

“Besides,” Alatriste said suddenly, “it’ll be a couple of years before they’d let you join a company. And we’ve been neglecting your education. So, the day after tomorrow—”

“I read well,” I said, interrupting him. “I have a reasonably neat hand, I know the Latin declensions and how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide.”

“That’s not enough. Master Pérez is a good man and he can complete your education once we’re back in Madrid.”

He fell silent again in order to cast another glance at the sleeping men. The easterly light emphasized the scars on his face.

“In this world,” he said at last, “the pen can sometimes take you where the sword cannot.”

“Well, it’s not fair,” I retorted.

“Possibly not.”

He had taken a while to respond, and I thought there was a good deal of bitterness in that “possibly not.” For my part, I merely shrugged beneath my blanket. At sixteen, I was sure that I would go wherever I needed to go and arrive wherever I needed to arrive. And as far as I was concerned, Master Pérez had nothing to do with it.

“It isn’t yet the day after tomorrow, Captain.”

I said this with something like relief, defiantly, staring obstinately at the river ahead. I didn’t need to turn around to know that Alatriste was studying me closely, and when I did turn my face, I saw that his sea-green eyes were tinged with red from the rising sun.

“You’re right,” he said, handing me the wineskin. “We still have a long way to go.”

8. BARRA DE SANLÚCAR

The sun was directly above us as we passed the inn at Tarifa, where the Guadalquivir turns westward and you begin to see the marshlands of Doña Ana on the right-hand bank. The fertile fields of Aljarafe and the leafy shores of Coria and Puebla slowly gave way to sand dunes, pinewoods, and dense scrub, out of which emerged the occasional fallow deer or wild boar. It grew hotter and more humid, and in the boat, the men folded up their cloaks, unclasped capes, and unbuttoned buff coats and doublets. They were crammed together like herrings in a barrel, and the bright light of day revealed scarred, ill-shaved faces, as well as ferocious beards and mustaches that did little to belie the piles of weapons, leather belts, and baldrics, the swords, half-swords, daggers, and pistols that each of them kept nearby. Their grubby clothes and skin—made grimy by the elements, and by lack of sleep and the journey—gave off a raw, rough smell that I knew so well from Flanders. It was the smell of men at war. The smell of war itself.

I sat slightly apart with Sebastián Copons and the accountant Olmedilla, for although the latter kept as aloof as ever, I nevertheless felt under a moral obligation, among such a rabble, to keep an eye on him. We shared the wine and the provisions, and although neither Copons, the old soldier from Huesca, nor the functionary from the royal treasury were men of many—or indeed even few—words, I kept close by them out of a sense of loyalty: Copons because of our shared experience in Flanders, and Olmedilla because of the particular circumstances we found ourselves in. As for Captain Alatriste, he spent the twelve leagues of the journey in his own fashion, seated in the stern with the master of the boat, occasionally dropping asleep but only for a matter of minutes at a time and otherwise barely taking his eyes off the other men. When he did sleep, he lowered his hat over his face, in order, it seemed, not to be seen to be sleeping. When awake, he studied each man carefully in turn, as if he had the ability to delve into their virtues and their vices and to know them better. He watched how they ate, yawned, slept, how they reacted—phlegmatically or with ill humor—as they were each dealt a hand from Guzmán Ramírez’s deck of cards, gambling away money they did not yet have. He noticed who drank a lot and who little, who was talkative, who boastful, and who silent; he noticed Enríquez el Zurdo’s oaths, the mulatto Campuzano’s thunderous laugh, and the stillness of Saramago el Portugués, who spent the whole voyage lying on his cape, serenely reading a book. Some were silent or discreet, like El Caballero de Illescas, the sailor Suárez, or the Vizcayan Mascarúa, and some seemed awkward and out of place, like Bartolo Cagafuego, who knew no one and kept making abortive attempts to strike up conversations. There was no shortage of witty and amusing talkers, such as Pencho Bullas or the ever-cheerful ruffian Juan Eslava, who was regaling his fellows with details of how he had personally benefited from the wonders of powdered rhinoceros horn. Then there were the pricklier characters like Ginesillo el Lindo, with his immaculate appearance, equivocal smile, and dangerous gaze, or Andresito el de los Cincuenta, who had a way of spitting out of the side of his mouth, or mean bastards like El Bravo de los Galeones, with his face crisscrossed with scars that were clearly not just the work of a particularly careless barber. And so while our boat sailed downriver, one man would be telling tales of his adventures with women or at the gaming table, another would be roundly cursing as he threw the dice to pass the time, and yet another would be retailing anecdotes, whether true or false, from some hypothetical soldier’s life that embraced the Battle of Roncesvalles and even took in a couple of campaigns fought under the leadership of the Lusitanian, Viriathus. And all of this was spiced with a large dose of oaths, curses, braggartry, and hyperbole.

“I swear by Christ that I’m a Christian as pure of blood and as noble as the king himself,” I heard one man say.

“Well, I, by God, am purer than that,” retorted another. “After all, the king is half Flemish.”

To hear them, you would have thought our boat was filled by the very cream of Aragon, Navarre, and the two Castiles, Old and New. This was a coinage common to every purse, and even in such a restricted space and among such a small group as ours, each man played the part of a proud, distinguished native of this region or that, one side joining forces against another, with Extremadurans, Andalusians, Vizcayans, and Valencians taking it in turns to heap reproaches on one another, brandishing the vices and misfortunes of every province, with much heavy banter and joking, and all agreeing on one thing: their shared hatred of the Castilians—and with every man presuming to be a hundred times worthier than he actually was. This gang of roughs thrown together by chance was like a Spain in miniature, for the gravity and honor and national pride depicted in the plays of Lope, Tirso, and others had vanished with the old century and now existed only in the theater. All that remained was arrogance and cruelty, and when you considered the high regard in which we held ourselves, our violent customs, and our scorn for other provinces and nations, one could understand why the Spanish were, quite rightly, hated throughout Europe and half the known world.

Our own expedition naturally enjoyed its share of all these vices, and virtue would have been about as natural a sight as the Devil plucking a harp and wearing a halo and a pair of white wings. However nasty, cruel, and boastful our fellow travelers were, they nonetheless had certain things in common: they were bound by their greed for the promised gold; their baldrics, belts, and sheaths were kept oiled and polished with professional care; and their burnished weapons glinted in the sunlight when they took them out to sharpen or clean them. Accustomed as he was to these people and this life, Captain Alatriste was doubtless coolly comparing these men with others he had known in other places, and would thus be able to guess or foresee how each man would react when night fell. He could, in other words, tell who would be worthy of his trust and who not.

It was still light when we rounded the final long bend of the river, on whose banks rose the white mountains of the salt marshes. Between the sandy shore and the pinewoods we could see the port of Bonanza, its bay already crowded with moored galleys and ships, and farther off, clearly visible in the afternoon sun, stood the tower of the Iglesia Mayor and the tallest of Sanlúcar de Barrameda’s houses. Then the sailor furled the sail, and the master steered the boat toward the opposite shore, seeking out the right-hand margin of the broad current that, a league and a half downstream, would flow out into the sea.

We disembarked—getting our feet wet in the process—in the shelter of a large dune that reached its tongue of sand down into the river. Three men watching from a clump of pines came to meet us. They were dressed in dun-colored clothes, like hunters, but as they approached, we saw that their swords and pistols were hardly the kind one would use to go hunting for rabbits. Olmedilla greeted the apparent leader, a man with a ginger mustache and a military bearing that his rustic outfit did little to disguise. While they withdrew to converse in private, our troop of men clustered together in the shade of the pines. We lay for a while on the needle-carpeted sand, watching Olmedilla, who was still talking and occasionally nodding impassively. Now and then, the two men would look across at a raised area of land farther off, about five hundred paces along the riverbank, and about which the man with the ginger mustache seemed to be giving detailed explanations. Olmedilla finally bade farewell to the supposed hunters, who, after casting an inquisitive glance in our direction, set off into the pines; the accountant then rejoined us, moving across the sandy landscape like some strange black smudge.

“Everything is in place,” he said.

Then he took my master aside and they spoke together for a while in low voices. And sometimes, while he was talking, Alatriste stopped staring down at his boots to look across at us. Then Olmedilla fell silent, and I saw the captain ask two questions to which Olmedilla replied twice in the affirmative. Then they crouched down, and Alatriste took out his dagger and started tracing lines with it in the sand; and whenever he glanced up to ask Olmedilla something, the latter nodded again. All of this took some time, and afterward the captain stood quite still, thinking. Then he rejoined us and explained how we were to attack the Niklaasbergen. He did this succinctly, with no superfluous comments.

“We’ll split into two groups, one per boat. The first group will attack the quarterdeck, trying to make as much noise as possible, but there must be no firing of guns. We will leave our pistols here.”

There was some murmuring, and a few of the men exchanged disgruntled looks. A timely pistol shot meant you could kill a man straight off, more quickly than with a sword and from a safe distance too.

The captain went on: “We’re going to be fighting in the dark and at very close quarters, and I don’t want us killing one another by mistake. Besides, if someone’s pistol should go off accidentally, they’ll fire on us with their harquebuses from the galleon before we’ve even climbed on board.”

He paused, quietly observing the men.

“Who amongst you has served the king?”

Almost everyone raised his hand.

Grave-faced and with his thumbs hooked in his belt, Alatriste studied them one by one. His voice was as ice-cold as his eyes. “I mean those of you who really have fought as soldiers.”

Many hesitated, embarrassed and looking shiftily around. A couple of men put their hands down, but others kept them up, until, under Alatriste’s sustained gaze, more men lowered their hands as well. Only Copons, Juan Jaqueta, Sangonera, Enríquez el Zurdo, and Andresito el de los Cincuenta kept their hands up. Alatriste also picked out Eslava, Saramago el Portugués, Ginesillo el Lindo, and the sailor Suárez.

“These nine men will form the group that will attack from the bow. In order to take the crew by surprise and from behind, you will only board the ship when those at the stern are already fighting on the quarterdeck. The idea is that you board very quietly via the anchor and make your way along the deck, and then we all meet up at the stern.”

“Is there someone in charge of each group?” asked Pencho Bullas.

“There is: Sebastián Copons at the bow, and me at the stern with you, Cagafuego, Campuzano, Guzmán Ramírez, Mascarúa, El Caballero de Illescas, and El Bravo de los Galeones.”

I looked from one to the other, confused at first. The difference in the quality of the men in the two groups was glaringly obvious. Then I realized that Alatriste was placing the best men under Copons’s command, and keeping the least disciplined or least trustworthy men for himself, with the exception perhaps of the mulatto Campuzano and possibly Bartolo Cagafuego, who despite being more braggart than brave, would fight well under the captain’s gaze, if only out of a sense of obligation. This meant that the group attacking the bow was the one that would decide the battle, while those at the stern—mere cannon fodder—would bear the brunt of the fighting. And if things went wrong or those boarding at the bow were greatly delayed, the group at the stern would also suffer the greatest losses.

“The plan,” went on Alatriste, “is to cut the anchor chain so that the ship drifts toward the coast and runs aground on one of the sandbanks opposite San Jacinto Point. For that purpose, the group at the bow will carry with them two axes. We will all remain on board until the ship touches bottom on the bar. Then we will come ashore—the water there is only at chest height—and leave the matter in the hands of others who will be waiting.”

The men again exchanged looks. From the pinewoods came the monotonous whir of cicadas. Apart from the buzz of flies swarming about our heads, that was the only sound to be heard while each man thought his own thoughts.

“Will there be much resistance?” asked Juan Jaqueta, pensively chewing the ends of his mustache.

“I don’t know, but we certainly expect there to be some.”

“How many heretics are there on board?”

“They’re not heretics, they’re Flemish Catholics, but it comes to the same thing. We estimate between twenty and thirty, although many will jump overboard. And there is one important point: As long as there are crew members alive, not one of us will utter a word of Spanish.” Alatriste looked at Saramago el Portugués, who was listening intently with the grave demeanor of a scrawny hidalgo, and with, as usual, a book stuffed in the pocket of his doublet. “It would not go amiss if this gentleman here were to shout something in his own language, and for those of you who know English or Flemish words to let fly with those as well.” The captain allowed himself the flicker of a smile. “The idea is . . . that we are pirates.”

This remark eased the tension. There was laughter, and the men shared amused looks. Amongst such a band of men, this idea was not so very far from the truth.

“And what about those who don’t jump overboard?” asked Mascarúa.

“No crew member will reach the sandbank alive. The more people we frighten at the beginning, the fewer we will have to kill.”

“And what about the wounded, or those who cry mercy?”

“Tonight there is no mercy.”

Some whistled through their teeth. There was mocking applause and subdued laughter.

“And what about our own wounded?” asked Ginesillo el Lindo.

“They will leave the ship with us and be attended to on land. There we will all be paid and, after that, it will be a matter of every owl to his olive tree.”

“And if there are deaths?” El Bravo de los Galeones had a smile on his scarred face. “Do we still earn the same amount each, or divide what’s left between us?”

“We’ll see.”

The ruffian glanced at his comrades and his smile grew wider. “Perhaps it would be a good idea if we could see right now,” he said insinuatingly.

Alatriste very slowly removed his hat and smoothed his hair. Then he put his hat on again. The way he looked at the other man left no room for doubt. “Good? For whom exactly?”

He said these words softly, almost in a drawl, in a tone of solicitous inquiry that would not have fooled even a babe in arms. It did not fool El Bravo de los Galeones either, for he got the message, averted his eyes, and said no more. Olmedilla had sidled up to the captain and whispered something in his ear. My master nodded.

“This gentleman has just reminded me of another important point. No one, absolutely no one,” said Alatriste, fixing his icy gaze on each man in the group in turn, “will, for any reason, go down into the ship’s hold. There will be no personal booty, none at all.”

Sangonera raised his hand and asked curiously, “And what if a crew member holes himself up in there?”

“Should that happen, then I will decide who goes down to fetch him.”

El Bravo de los Galeones was thoughtfully stroking his hair, which he wore caught back in a greasy pigtail. Then he asked the question that was in everyone’s mind:

“And what is there in this ‘tabernacle’ that we can’t see?”

“That’s none of your business. It’s not even my business. And I hope not to have to remind anyone of that fact.”

El Bravo gave a jeering laugh. “Not if my life depended on it.”

Alatriste stared at him hard. “It does.”

“Now you’re going too far, by God.” El Bravo was standing, legs apart, shifting his weight from one to the other. “By my faith, we’re not a load of sheep to put up with being threatened like that. Me and my comrades here—”

“I don’t give a damn what you can and can’t put up with,” Alatriste broke in. “That’s the way it is. You were all warned, and there’s no going back.”

“And what if we want to go back?”

“You talk boldly enough in the plural, I see.” The captain ran two fingers over his mustache, then pointed to the pinewoods. “As for the singular you, I will be happy to discuss the matter alone, just the two of us, in that wood.”

The ruffian made a silent appeal to his comrades. Some regarded him with what seemed like a glimmer of solidarity, and others did not. For his part, Bartolo Cagafuego had stood up, brows beetling, and was approaching menacingly in support of the captain. I, too, reached for my dagger. Most of the men looked away, half smiling or watching as Alatriste’s hand brushed the hilt of his sword. No one appeared bothered by the prospect of a good fight, with the captain in charge of the fencing lessons. Those who knew his past record had already informed the others, and El Bravo de los Galeones, with his low arrogance and ridiculous swagger—hardly necessary amongst such a crew—was not much liked.

“We’ll talk about it some other time,” he said at last.

He had thought it over, and preferred not to lose face. Some of his fellow ruffians nudged one another, disappointed that there would be no fight in the woods that afternoon.

“Yes, let’s do that,” replied Alatriste gently, “whenever you like.”

No one said anything more, no one took him up on his offer or even looked as if he would. Peace was restored, Cagafuego’s brows unbeetled, and everyone went about his own business. Then I noticed Sebastián Copons withdrawing his hand from the butt of his pistol.

The flies buzzed around our faces as we peered cautiously over the top of the dune. Before us lay Barra de Sanlúcar, brightly lit by the evening sun. Between the inlet at Bonanza and Chipiona Point about a league farther on, where the Guadalquivir flowed into the sea, the mouth of the river was a forest of masts with flags flying and the sails of ships—urcas, frigates, caravels, small vessels and large, both oceangoing and coastal—either anchored amongst the sandbanks or else in constant movement back and forth, this same panorama stretching eastward along the coast toward Rota and the Bay of Cádiz. Some were waiting for the rising tide in order to travel up to Seville, others were unloading merchandise onto smaller boats or rigging their ships so as to sail on to Cádiz once the royal officials had checked their cargo. On the farther shore, we could see, in the distance, prosperous Sanlúcar, with its houses reaching right down to the water’s edge, and on top of the hill, the old, walled enclave, the castle turrets, the ducal palace, the Cathedral, and the customhouse, which, on days such as this, brought wealth to so many. The harbor sands were speckled with beached fishing boats, and the lower city, gilded by the sun, teemed with people and with the small sailing boats that came and went between the ships.

“There’s the Virgen de Regla,” said Olmedilla.

He lowered his voice when he spoke, as if they might be able to hear us on the other side of the river, and he wiped the sweat from his face with an already sodden handkerchief. He seemed even paler than usual. He was not a man for long walks or for traipsing over sand dunes and through scrub, and the effort and the heat were beginning to take their toll. His ink-stained forefinger was pointing out a large galleon, anchored between Bonanza and Sanlúcar, and sheltering behind a sandbank just beginning to be revealed by the low tide. Its prow was facing into the southerly breeze rippling the surface of the water.

“And that,” he said, pointing to another ship moored closer to us, “is the Niklaasbergen.”

I followed Alatriste’s gaze. With the brim of his hat shading his eyes from the sun, the captain was scrutinizing the Dutch galleon. It was anchored separately, near our shore, toward San Jacinto Point and the watchtower that had been erected there to prevent incursions by Berber, Dutch, and English pirates. The Niklaasbergen was a tar-black, three-masted urca, or merchant ship, its sails furled. It was a short, ugly, rather clumsy-looking vessel, with a high prow above which hung a lantern painted in white, red, and yellow, a perfectly ordinary cargo ship that would not attract attention. It, too, had its prow facing south, and its gunports had been left open to air the lower decks. There appeared to be little movement on board.

“It was anchored next to the Virgen de Regla until day-break,” explained Olmedilla. “Then it went and dropped anchor over there.”

The captain was studying each detail of the landscape, like a bird of prey that will only be able to pounce on its victim in the dark.

“Is all the gold on board?” he asked.

“No, one part is missing. They chose not to remain moored next to the other ship because they were afraid it might look suspicious. The rest will be brought at nightfall by boat.”

“How much time do we have?”

“It doesn’t set sail until tomorrow, with the high tide.”

Olmedilla indicated the rubble of an old ruined netting shed on the shore. Beyond could be seen a sandy bank that the low tide had left uncovered.

“That’s the place,” he said. “Even at high tide, you can wade ashore.”

Alatriste screwed up his eyes more tightly. He was studying the black rocks barely covered by water, a little farther in to shore.

“I remember those shallows well,” he said. “The galleys always did their best to avoid them.”

“I don’t think they need worry us,” replied Olmedilla. “At that hour, the tide, the breeze, and the river current will all be working in our favor.”

“I certainly hope so. Because if instead of running into the sand, our keel collides with those rocks, we’ll go straight under . . . and the gold with us.”

We crawled back, keeping our heads down, to join the rest of the men. They were lying on cloaks and capes, waiting with the stolid patience of their profession; and without anyone having said a word, they had instinctively gathered together into the two groups they would form when it came to boarding the ship.

The sun was disappearing behind the pinewoods. Alatriste went and sat on his cloak, picked up the wineskin, and drank from it. I spread my blanket on the ground, beside Sebastián Copons; Copons was on his back, dozing, with a handkerchief covering his face to keep off the flies and his hands folded over the hilt of his dagger. Olmedilla came over to the captain. He had his fingers interlaced and was twiddling his thumbs.

“I’m going with you,” he said softly.

Alatriste, about to take another drink from the wineskin, stopped and regarded him intently. “That’s not a good idea,” he said after a moment.

With his pale skin, sparse mustache, and beard unkempt after the journey, the accountant cut a frail figure. However, he insisted, tight-lipped, “It’s my duty. I’m the king’s agent.”

The captain thought for a moment, wiping the wine from his mustache with the back of his hand. Then he placed the wineskin on the sand and lay down. “As you wish,” he said suddenly. “I never meddle in matters of duty.”

He remained thoughtful, though, and silent. Then, with a shrug of his shoulders, he announced, “You’ll board at the bow.”

“Why can’t I go with you?”

“We don’t want to put all our eggs in one basket, do we?”

Olmedilla shot me a glance, which I held unblinking. “And the boy?”

Alatriste looked at me, as if indifferent, then unbuckled the belt bearing his sword and dagger, and wrapped the belt around them. He placed this bundle beneath the folded blanket that served as a pillow, and unfastened his doublet.

“Íñigo goes with me.”

He lay down to rest with his hat over his face. Olmedilla again interlaced his fingers and resumed his thumb-twiddling. He seemed less impenetrably impassive than usual, as if an idea he could not quite bring himself to express was going around and around in his head.

“And what will happen,” he said at last, “if the group boarding at the bow is delayed and fails to reach the quarterdeck in time? I mean . . . what if something should happen to you?”

Beneath the hat hiding his face, Alatriste did not stir.

“In that case,” he said, “the Niklaasbergen will no longer be my problem.”

I fell asleep. I closed my eyes as I often had in Flanders before a march or a battle, and made the most of what time there was to gather my strength. At first, I fell into a superficial doze, opening eyes and ears from time to time to the fading daylight, the bodies lying around me, their breathing and their snores, the murmured conversations and the motionless shape of the captain with his hat over his face. Then I fell into a deeper sleep and allowed myself to float on the gentle black water, adrift on a vast sea filled, as far as the horizon, with innumerable sails. Then Angélica de Alquézar appeared, as she had so many times. And this time I plunged into her eyes and felt again the sweet pressure of her lips on mine. I looked around for someone to whom I could shout my joy, and there they were, lying very still amongst the dank mists of a Flemish canal: the shadows of my father and Captain Alatriste. I squelched through the mud to join them, ready to unsheathe my sword and fight the vast army of ghosts clambering out of tombs, dead soldiers in rusty breastplates and helmets, brandishing weapons in their bony hands, and staring at us from hollow sockets. And I opened my mouth to cry out in silence—old words that had lost their meanings, because time was plucking them from me, one by one.

I woke with Captain Alatriste’s hand on my shoulder. “It’s time,” he whispered, almost brushing my ear with his mustache. I opened my eyes to the darkness. No one had lit fires, and there were no lanterns. The slender, waning moon shed only enough light now to be able to make out the vague, black shapes moving around me. I heard swords being slipped out of sheaths, belts being buckled, hooks fastened, short muttered sentences. The men were preparing themselves, exchanging hats for kerchiefs tied around their heads, and wrapping their weapons in cloth so that there would be no telltale clank of metal. As the captain had ordered, all pistols were left on the beach, along with the other baggage. We were to board the Niklaasbergen armed only with swords and daggers.

I fumbled open our bundle of clothes and donned my new buff coat, still stiff and thick enough to protect my upper body from knife thrusts. Then I made sure my sandals were firmly tied on and that my dagger was securely attached to my belt with a length of cord wound around the hilt, and, finally, I placed the stolen constable’s sword in my leather baldric. All around me, men were speaking softly, taking one last swig from the wineskins, and relieving themselves before going into action. Alatriste and Copons had their heads close together as the latter received his final instructions. When I stepped back, I bumped into Olmedilla, who recognized me and gave me a little pat on the back, which, in a man of such sourness, might be considered an expression of affection. I saw that he, too, was wearing a sword at his waist.

“Let’s go,” said Alatriste.

We set off, our feet sinking into the sand. I could identify some of the shadows who passed me: the tall, slender figure of Saramago el Portugués, the heavy bulk of Bartolo Cagafuego, the slight silhouette of Sebastián Copons. Someone made some derisory remark, and I heard the muffled laughter of the mulatto Campuzano. The captain’s voice boomed out, demanding silence, and after that no one spoke.

As we passed the wood, I heard the braying of a mule and, curious, peered into the dark. There were mules and horses hidden amongst the trees and the indistinct shapes of people standing next to them. These were doubtless the people who, later on, when the galleon had foundered on the bar, would be in charge of unloading all the gold. As if to confirm my suspicions, three black silhouettes emerged from behind the pines, and Olmedilla and the captain paused to hold a whispered conversation with them. I thought I recognized the “hunters” we had seen earlier. Then they vanished, Alatriste gave an order, and we set off again. Now we were climbing the steep slope of a dune, plunging in up to our ankles, the outlines of our bodies standing out more clearly against the pale sand. At the top, the sound of the sea reached us and the breeze caressed our faces. As far as the horizon—as black as the sky itself—stretched a long dark stain filled with the tiny luminous dots of ship’s lanterns, so that it seemed as if the stars were reflected in the sea. Far off, on the other shore, we could see the lights of Sanlúcar.

We went down to the beach, the sand dulling the sound of our steps. Behind me, I heard the voice of Saramago el Portugués, reciting softly to himself: “But staying with the pilots on the sand,

And being eager to determine where I stand,

I pause and calculate the bright sun’s height

Then mark our spot, exactly, on the chart.”

Someone asked what the devil he was mumbling about, and Saramago responded calmly, in his soft, cultivated Portuguese voice, that he was reciting some lines from Camões, which made a change from those wretches Lope and Cervantes, and that before he went into battle, he always recited whatever came into his heart, and that if anyone was affronted to hear a few lines from The Lusiads, he would be more than happy to fight it out with him and his mother.

“That’s all we need,” muttered someone.

There were no further comments. Saramago el Portugués resumed his mumbled recitation, and we continued on. Next to the cane fence surrounding the tidal pool created by the fishermen for their fish stocks, we saw two boats waiting, with a man in each of them. We gathered expectantly on the shore.

“The men in my group, come with me,” said Alatriste.

He was hatless, but had now donned his buff coat, and his sword and dagger hung at his belt. The men duly divided into their allotted groups. They exchanged farewells and wishes of good luck, even the odd joke and the inevitable boasts about how many men they intended to relieve of their souls. There were also cases of ill-disguised nerves, stumblings in the dark, and curses. Sebastián Copons walked past us, followed by his men.

“Give me a little time,” the captain said to him in a low voice. “But not too much.”

Copons gave his usual silent nod and waited while his men got into the boat. The last to embark was the accountant Olmedilla. His black clothes made him seem darker still. He splashed about heroically in the water, tangled up in his own sword, while they helped him in.

“And take care of him, too, if you can,” Alatriste said to Copons.

“God’s teeth, Diego,” replied Copons, who was tying his neckerchief around his head. “That’s too many orders for one night.”

Alatriste chuckled. “Who would have thought it, eh, Sebastián? Cutting Flemish throats in Sanlúcar.”

Copons grunted. “Well, when it comes to cutting throats, one place is as good as any other.”

The group assigned to the attack on the bow was also embarking. I went with them, waded into the water, scrambled over the edge of the boat, and sat down on a bench. A moment later, the captain joined us.

“Start rowing,” he said.

We tied the oars to the tholes and began rowing away from the shore, while the sailor took the tiller and guided us toward a nearby light that shimmered on the water ruffled by the breeze. The other boat remained a silent presence close by, the oars entering and leaving the water as quietly as possible.

“Slowly now,” said Alatriste, “slowly.”

Seated next to Bartolo Cagafuego, my feet resting on the bench in front of me, I bent forward with each stroke, then threw my body back, pulling hard on the oar. Thus the end of each movement left me staring up at the stars shining brightly in the vault of the sky. As I bent forward, I sometimes turned and looked back past the heads of my comrades. The lantern at the galleon’s stern was getting closer and closer.

“So,” muttered Cagafuego to himself, “I didn’t escape the galleys after all.”

The other boat began to move away from ours, with the small figure of Copons standing up in the prow. It soon vanished into the dark and all we could hear was the faint sound of its oars. Then, not even that. The breeze was fresher now and the boat rocked on the slight swell, forcing us to pay more attention to the rhythm of our rowing. At the halfway point, the captain told us to change places, so that we would not be too tired by the time it came to boarding the ship. Pencho Bullas took my place and Mascarúa took that occupied by Cagafuego.

“Quiet now, and be careful,” said Alatriste.

We were very close to the galleon. I could see in more detail its dark, solid bulk, the masts silhouetted against the night sky. The lantern lit on the quarterdeck indicated exactly where the stern was. There was another lantern illuminating the shrouds, the rigging, and the bottom of the mainmast, and light filtered out from two of the gunports that had been left open. There was no one to be seen.

“Stop rowing!” Alatriste whispered urgently.

The men stopped, and the boat bobbed about on the swell. We were less than twenty yards from the vast stern. The light from the lantern was reflected in the water, almost right under our noses. On the side nearest the stern, a small rowing boat was moored, and a rope ladder dangled down into it.

“Prepare the grappling irons.”

From beneath the benches, the men produced four grappling hooks with knotted ropes attached to them.

“Start rowing again, but very quietly and very slowly.”

We began to move, with the sailor steering us toward the rowing boat and the ladder. Thus we passed beneath the high, black stern, seeking out the shadows where the light from the lantern did not reach. We were all looking up, holding our breath, afraid that a face might appear at any moment and be followed swiftly by a warning shout and a hail of bullets or a cannonade. Finally, the oars were placed in the bottom of the boat, and we glided forward until we touched the side of the galleon, next to the rowing boat and immediately beneath the ladder. The noise of that collision was, I thought, enough to have woken the entire bay, but no one inside cried out; there was no word of alarm. A shiver of tension ran through the boat while the men unwrapped their weapons and got ready to climb the ladder. I fastened the hooks on my buff coat. For a moment, Captain Alatriste’s face came very close to mine. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I knew he was looking at me.

“It’s every man for himself now,” he said quietly.

I nodded, knowing that he could not see me nod. Then I felt his hand squeeze my shoulder, firmly, briefly. I looked up and swallowed hard. The deck was some five or six cubits above our heads.

“Up you go!” whispered the captain.

At last I could see his face lit by the distant light of the lantern, the hawklike nose above his mustache as he began to scale the ladder, looking upward, his sword and dagger clinking at his waist. I followed without thinking and heard the other men, making no attempt to be quiet now, throw the grappling irons over the edge of the ship where they clattered onto the deck and clunked into place as they attached to the gunwale. Now there was only the effort of climbing, the sense of haste, the almost painful tension that gripped muscles and stomach as I grasped the sides of the rope ladder and hauled myself up, step by step, feet slipping on the damp, slimy planks that formed the hull of the ship.

“Oh, shit!” someone said below me.

A cry of alarm rang out above our heads, and when I looked up, I saw a face peering down at us, half lit by the lantern. The expression on the man’s face was one of horror, as if unable to believe his eyes, as he watched us climbing toward him. He may have died still not quite believing, because Captain Alatriste, who had reached him by then, stuck his dagger in his throat, right up to the hilt, and the man disappeared from view. Now more voices could be heard above, and the sound of people running about belowdecks. A few heads peeped cautiously out from the gunports and immediately drew back, shouting in Flemish. The captain’s boots scuffed against my face when he reached the top and jumped onto the deck. At that moment, another face appeared over the edge, a little farther off, on the quarterdeck; we saw a lit fuse, then a flash, and a harquebus shot rang out; something very fast and hard ripped past us, ending in a squelch of pierced flesh and broken bones. Someone beside me, climbing up from the boat, fell backward into the sea with a splash, but without uttering a word.

“Go on! Keep going!” shouted the men behind me, driving one another onward.

Teeth gritted, head hunched right down between my shoulders, I climbed what remained of the ladder as quickly as possible, clambered over the edge, stepped onto the deck, and immediately slipped in a huge puddle of blood. I got to my feet, sticky and stunned, leaning on the motionless body of the slain sailor, and behind me the bearded face of Bartolo Cagafuego appeared over the edge, his eyes bulging with tension, his gap-toothed grimace made even fiercer by the enormous machete gripped between his few remaining teeth. We were standing at the foot of the mizzenmast, next to the ladder that led up to the quarterdeck. More of our group had now reached the deck via the ropes secured by grappling hooks, and it was a miracle that the whole galleon wasn’t awake to give us a warm welcome, what with that single harquebus shot and the racket made by sundry noises—the clatter of footsteps and the hiss of swords as they left their sheaths.

I took my sword in my right hand and my dagger in my left, looking wildly about in search of the enemy. And then I saw a whole horde of armed men swarming onto the deck from down below, and I saw that most were as blond and burly as the men I had known in Flanders, and that there were more of them to the stern and in the waist, between the quarterdeck and the forecastle, and I saw as well that there were far too many of them, and that Captain Alatriste was fighting like a madman to reach the quarterdeck. I rushed to help my master, without waiting to see if Cagafuego and the others were following or not. I did so muttering the name of Angélica as a final prayer, and my last lucid thought, as I hurled myself into the fight with a furious howl, was that if Sebastián Copons did not arrive in time, the Niklaasbergen adventure would be our last.

9. OLD FRIENDS AND OLD ENEMIES

The hand and the arm grow tired of killing too. Diego Alatriste would gladly have given what remained of his life—which was perhaps very little—to lay down his weapons and lie quietly in a corner, just for a while. At that stage, he was fighting out of a mixture of fatalism and habit, and his feeling of indifference as to the result may, paradoxically, have been what kept him alive in the midst of all the clash and confusion. He was fighting with his usual serenity, without thinking, trusting in his keen eye and swift reactions. For men like him and in situations like that, the most effective way of keeping fate at bay was to leave imagination aside and put one’s trust in pure instinct.

Using his foot for leverage, he wrenched his sword from the body of the man he had just skewered. All around him there were shouts, curses, moans, and from time to time the gloom was lit up by a shot from a pistol or from a Flemish harquebus, offering a glimpse of groups of men furiously knifing one another and of puddles of blood that slithered into the scuppers as the ship tilted.

In the grip of a singular clarity, he parried a thrust from a scimitar, dodged another, and responded by plunging his sword vainly into the void, yet he gave this error no thought. The other man drew back and turned his attention to someone else, who was attacking him from behind. Alatriste took advantage of that pause to lean against the bulkhead for a moment and rest. The steps to the quarterdeck stood before him, lit from above by a lantern; they appeared to be free. He had had to fight three men to get there; no one had warned him that there would be such a large company on board. The high poop deck, he thought, would provide a useful stronghold until Copons arrived with his men, but when Alatriste looked around him, he found that most of his party were engaged in fighting for their lives and had barely moved from the spot where they had boarded.

He forgot about the quarterdeck and returned to the fray. He encountered someone’s back, possibly that of the man who had escaped him before, and plunged his dagger into his opponent’s kidneys, turning the blade so as to cause as much damage as possible, and then yanking it out as the fellow dropped to the floor, screaming like a man condemned. A shot nearby dazzled him, and knowing that none of his men was carrying a pistol, he slashed his way blindly toward the source of that flash. He collided with someone, made a grab for him, but skidded and fell on the blood-washed deck, meanwhile headbutting the other man in the face, again and again, until he could get a grip on his own dagger and slip it in between them. The Fleming screamed as he felt the knife go in and crawled away on all fours. Alatriste spun around, and a body fell on top of him, murmuring in Spanish, “Holy Mother of God, Holy Mother of God.” He had no idea who the man was and had no time to find out. He pushed the body away and, sword in his right hand and dagger in his left, scrambled to his feet, with a sense that the darkness around him was growing red. The screams and the shouting were truly horrendous, and it was impossible now to take more than three steps without slipping in the blood.

Cling, clang. Everything seemed to happen so slowly that he was surprised that in between each thrust he made his adversaries did not dish out ten or twelve in return. He felt a blow to his cheek, very hard, and his mouth filled with the familiar, metallic taste of blood. He raised his sword up high in order to slash a nearby face—a whitish blur that vanished with a yelp. In the come-and-go of battle, Alatriste found himself back at the steps leading to the quarterdeck, where there was more light. Then he realized that he was still clutching under his arm a sword he had taken off someone who knows how long ago. He dropped it and whirled around, dagger at the ready, sensing that there were enemies behind him, and at that moment, just as he was about to deal a counterblow with his sword, he recognized the fierce, bearded face of Bartolo Cagafuego, who was crazily hitting out at anyone in his path, his lips flecked with foam. Alatriste turned in the other direction, seeking someone to fight, just in time to see a boarding pike being propelled toward his face. He dodged, parried, thrust, and then drove his sword in, bruising his fingers when the point of his blade stopped with a crunch as it hit bone. He stepped back to free his weapon and, when he did so, stumbled over some coiled cordage and fell so heavily against the ladder that he thought for a moment he had broken his spine. Now someone was trying to batter him with the butt of a harquebus and so he crouched down to protect his head. He collided with yet another man, whether friend or foe he could not tell; he hesitated, then stuck his knife in and drew it out again. His back really hurt, and he longed to cry out to gain some relief—emitting a long, half-suppressed moan was always a good way to take the edge off pain—but not a sound did he utter. His head was buzzing, he could still taste blood in his mouth, and his fingers were numb from gripping sword and dagger. For a moment, he was filled by a desire to jump overboard. I’m too old for this, he thought desolately.

He paused long enough to catch his breath, then returned reluctantly to the fray. This is where you die, he said to himself. And at that precise moment, as he stood at the foot of the steps, encircled by the light from the lantern, someone shouted his name. Bewildered, Alatriste turned, sword at the ready. And he swallowed hard, scarcely able to believe his eyes. May they crucify me on Golgotha, he thought, if it isn’t Gualterio Malatesta.

Pencho Bullas died at my side. The Murcian was caught up in a knife fight with a Flemish sailor, when, suddenly, the latter shot him in the head, at such close range that his head was ripped off at the jaw, spattering me with blood and brain. However, even before the Fleming had lowered his pistol, I had slit his throat with my sword, very hard and fast, and the man fell on top of Bullas, gurgling something in his own strange tongue. I whirled my sword about my head to fend off anyone attempting to close on me. The steps up to the quarterdeck were too far away for me to reach, and so I did as everyone else was trying to do: tried to keep myself alive long enough for Sebastián Copons to get us out of there. I didn’t even have breath enough to utter the names of Angélica or Christ himself; I needed all the breath I had to save my own skin. For a while, I managed to dodge whatever thrusts and blows came my way, returning as many as I could. Sometimes, amid the confusion of the fight, I thought I could see Captain Alatriste in the distance, but my efforts to reach him were in vain. We were separated by too many men killing and being killed.

Our comrades were putting on a brave face like the practiced swordsmen they were, fighting with the professional resolve of someone who has bet all his money on the knave of spades, but there were far more men on board the galleon than we had expected, and they were gradually driving us back toward the gunwale over which we had boarded. At least I can swim, I thought. The deck was full of motionless bodies or moaning figures dragging themselves along, and causing us to stumble at every step. I started to feel afraid, not of death exactly—death is of no importance, Nicasio Ganzúa had said in the prison in Seville—but of shame, mutilation, defeat, and failure.

Someone else attacked. He wasn’t tall and blond like most Flemings but sallow-skinned and bearded. He struck out at me, grasping his sword with both hands, but had little luck. I kept my head and stood firm, and the third or fourth time that he drew back his arm, I stuck my sword into his breast swift as lightning, right up to the guard. My face almost touched his when I did so—I could feel his breath on mine—and we crashed to the floor together, with me still grasping the hilt, and I heard the blade of my sword snap as his back hit the deck. Then, for good measure, I stabbed him five or six times in the belly. At first, I was surprised to hear him cry out in Spanish and, for a moment, thought I must have made a mistake and killed one of my own. The light from a lantern near the quarterdeck, however, fell on an unfamiliar face. So there were Spaniards on board too, I thought. Given the fellow’s general appearance and the doublet he was wearing, he was clearly a professional swordsman.

I got to my feet, confused. This altered things, and not, by God, for the better. I tried to think what it could mean, but in the white heat of fighting there was no time to mull things over. I looked for some weapon other than my dagger, and found a cutlass; it had a short, broad blade and an enormous guard on the hilt. It felt satisfyingly heavy in my hand. Unlike an ordinary sword, with its more subtle blade and sharp point to inflict penetrating wounds, the cutlass was excellent for slashing one’s way through a throng. Which is what I did, chaf, chaf, impressed by the slick sound it made as I struck. I finished up next to a small group composed of the mulatto Campuzano, who continued to fight despite a great gash to his forehead, and El Caballero de Illescas, who was battling on exhausted, with little resolve, clearly seeking the first opportunity to hurl himself into the sea.

An enemy sword glittered before me. I raised the cutlass to deflect the blow and had barely completed that move when, with a sudden sense of panic, I realized my error. But it was too late, and at that moment, near the small of my back, something sharp and metallic pierced my buff coat, entering the flesh. I shuddered to feel the steel slide sleekly between my ribs.

A fleeting thought went through Diego Alatriste’s mind as he assumed the en garde position. It all made sense: the gold, Luis de Alquézar, the presence of Gualterio Malatesta in Seville and now here, on board the Flemish galleon. The Italian was acting as escort to the cargo, which is why they had encountered such unexpectedly stiff resistance: most of the men he had been fighting were Spanish mercenaries like them, not sailors. In fact, this was a fight to the death between dogs of the same pack.

He had no time to think anything more, because after the initial surprise—Malatesta seemed as taken aback as he—the Italian advanced on him, black and menacing, sword foremost. As if by magic, the captain’s weariness vanished. There is no greater tonic to the humors than an ancient hatred, and his burned as brightly as ever. The desire to kill proved stronger than mere survival instinct. Alatriste moved faster than his adversary, for when it came to the first thrust, he was already on guard, deflecting it with one short, sharp flick, sending Malatesta staggering backward as the point of his sword came within an inch of his face. When the captain bore down upon him again, he noticed that the bastard wasn’t even whistling his usual wretched little tune—ti-ri-tu, ta-ta—or anything else for that matter.

Before the Italian could recover, Alatriste moved in close, wielding his sword and jabbing with his knife, so that Malatesta had no alternative but to continue backing away, looking for an opportunity to get in his first proper strike. They clashed fiercely right beneath the steps leading to the quarterdeck, and then, still fighting, traveled as far as the shrouds on the other side of the ship, in hand-to-hand combat, wielding their daggers, the guards of their swords locked together. Then the Italian lost his balance when he collided with the cascabel on one of the bronze cannon positioned there; Alatriste savored the look of fear in his enemy’s eyes, then turned sideways on and gave a left thrust and then a right, point and reverse, but as luck would have it, he performed that last slashing attack with the flat of his sword not the edge. This was enough to provoke a ferocious yelp of glee from Malatesta, who, sly as a snake, drove his dagger forward with such vigor that if a startled Alatriste had not jumped out of the way, he would have surrendered his soul there and then.

“Well, well,” murmured Malatesta, out of breath, “what a small world.”

He still appeared surprised to find his old foe on board. For his part, the captain said nothing, but merely waited for the next onslaught. They paused, studying each other, swords and daggers in hand, crouched and ready to join battle again. All around them, the fighting continued, and Alatriste’s men were still getting the worst of it. Malatesta glanced across at them.

“This time, Captain, you lose. This time, you’ve bitten off more than you can chew.”

The Italian was smiling serenely, as black as the Fates themselves, the murky light from the lantern throwing into sharp relief the scars and pockmarks on his face.

“I hope,” he added, “you haven’t got the boy involved in this scrimmage.”

That was one of Malatesta’s weak points, thought Alatriste as he made a downward thrust: he talked too much and thus opened up gaps in his defense. The point of his sword caught the Italian’s left arm, forcing him to drop his dagger with an oath. The captain took immediate advantage of this “gap” and gave such a fearsomely fast, low thrust with his dagger that the blade broke when he missed and hit the cannon instead. For a moment, he and Malatesta stood very close, almost embracing, looking at each other. They both swiftly drew back their swords to gain some space and try to get their knife in before the other one did; then the captain, resting his free—badly bruised—hand on the cannon, gave the Italian a sly kick that sent him slamming into the gunwale and the shrouds. At that point, behind them, they heard loud shouts coming from the waist of the ship, and a renewed clatter of swords spread throughout the deck. Alatriste did not turn round, intent as he was on his enemy, but from the expression on the latter’s face, suddenly grim and desperate, he could tell that Sebastián Copons must finally have boarded at the prow. To confirm this, the Italian opened his mouth and let out a stream of blasphemies in his mother tongue, something about il cazzo di Cristo and la sporca Madonna.

Pressing my hands to my wound, I managed to drag myself over to the gunwale, where I could lean against some coiled ropes. I unfastened my clothes so that I could find out what damage had been done to my right side, but I could see nothing in the darkness. It hardly hurt at all, apart from the ribs bruised by the steel blade. I could feel the blood running gently over my fingers, down my waist to my thighs, and onto the already gore-soaked deck. I had to do something, I thought, or else bleed to death like a stuck pig. This idea made me feel faint, and I took deep breaths of air, struggling to remain conscious; fainting was the surest way to bleed to death. All around, the struggle continued, and everyone was far too occupied for me to ask for help, plus, of course, it might be an enemy who came to my aid, and an enemy would blithely slit my throat. And so I decided to keep quiet and manage on my own. Sliding slowly down onto my good side, I poked a finger into the wound to find out how deep it was—only about two inches, I reckoned. My new buff coat had more than repaid the twenty escudos I had given for it. I could still breathe easily, which meant that my lung was presumably unharmed, but the blood continued to flow, and I was growing weaker by the minute. I’ve got to stop the flow, I said to myself, or else order a mass for my soul right now. Anywhere else, a handful of earth would have been enough to clot the blood, but here there was nothing, not even a clean handkerchief. Somehow or other, I had kept my dagger with me, because it was there gripped between my legs. I cut off a section of my shirttail and pushed it into the wound. This stung most violently—indeed, it hurt so much that I had to bite my lip in order not to cry out.

I was beginning to lose consciousness. I’ve done all I could, I thought, trying to console myself before falling into the black hole opening up at my feet. I wasn’t thinking about Angélica or about anything else. As I grew steadily weaker, I rested my head against the gunwale, and then it seemed to me that everything around me was moving. It must be my head spinning, I decided. But then I noticed that the noise of battle had abated and all the shouting and the ruckus were happening farther off, toward the waist of the ship and toward the prow. A few men ran past, jumping over me, almost kicking me in their haste to escape and plunge into the water. I heard splashes and cries of panic. I looked up, bewildered. Someone had apparently climbed the mainmast and was cutting the gaskets, because the mainsail suddenly unfurled and dropped down, half filled by the breeze. Then my mouth twisted into a foolish, happy grimace intended as a smile, for I knew then that we had won, that the group boarding at the prow had managed to cut the anchor cable, and the galleon was now drifting in the night toward the sandbanks of San Jacinto.

I hope I have what it takes and that I don’t give in, thought Diego Alatriste, steadying himself again and grasping his sword. I hope this Sicilian dog has the decency not to ask for mercy, because I’m going to kill him anyway, and I don’t want to do it when he’s disarmed. With that thought, and spurred on by the urgent need to finish the business there and then and make no last-minute errors, he gathered together what strength he had and unleashed a series of furious thrusts, so fast and brutal that even the best fencer in the world would have been unable to riposte. Malatesta retreated, defending himself with difficulty, but he still had sufficient sangfroid, when the captain was delivering his final thrust, to make a high, oblique slashing movement with his knife that missed the captain’s face by a hair’s breadth. This pause was enough for Malatesta to cast a rapid glance around him, to see how things stood on the deck, and to realize that the galleon was drifting toward the shore.

“I was wrong, Alatriste. This time you win.”

He had barely finished speaking when the captain made a jab at his eye with the point of his sword, and the Italian ground his teeth and let out a scream, raising the back of his free hand to his cut face, now streaming with blood. Even then he showed great aplomb and managed to strike out furiously and blindly, almost piercing Alatriste’s buff coat and forcing him to retreat a little.

“Oh, go to hell,” muttered Malatesta. “You and the gold.”

Then he hurled his sword at the captain, hoping to hit his face, scrambled onto the shrouds, and leapt like a shadow into the darkness. Alatriste ran to the gunwale, lashing the air with his blade, but all he could hear was a dull splash in the black waters. And he stood there, stock-still and exhausted, staring stupidly into the dark sea.

“Sorry I’m late, Diego,” said a voice behind him.

Sebastián Copons was at his side, breathing hard, his scarf still tied around his head and his sword in his hand, his face covered in blood as if by a mask. Alatriste nodded, his thoughts still absent.

“Many losses?” asked the captain.

“About half.”

“And Íñigo?”

“Not too bad. A small wound to the chest but no damage to the lung.”

Alatriste nodded again, and continued staring at the sinister black stain of the sea. Behind him, he heard the triumphant shouts of his men, and the screams of the last defenders of the Niklaasbergen having their throats cut as they surrendered.

I felt better once I had stanched the flow of blood and the strength returned to my legs. Sebastián Copons had put a makeshift bandage on my wound, and with the help of Bartolo Cagafuego I went to join the others at the foot of the quarterdeck steps. Various men were clearing the deck by throwing corpses overboard, first plundering them for any objects of value they might find. The bodies dropped into the sea with a macabre splash, and I never found out exactly how many of the ship’s crew, Flemish and Spanish, died that night. Fifteen or twenty, possibly more. The others had jumped overboard during the fighting and were swimming or drowning in the wake left by the galleon, which was now heading for the sandbanks, nudged along by a breeze from the northeast.

On the deck, still slippery with blood, lay our own dead. Those of us who had boarded at the stern had borne the brunt. There they lay, motionless, hair disheveled, eyes open or closed, in the precise pose in which the Fates had struck: Sangonera, Mascarúa, El Caballero de Illescas, and the Murcian, Pencho Bullas. Guzmán Ramírez had been lost to the sea, and Andresito el de los Cincuenta was moaning softly as he lay huddled and dying next to a gun carriage, a doublet thrown over him to cover his spilled guts. Less badly wounded were Enríquez el Zurdo, the mulatto Campuzano, and Saramago el Portugués. There was another corpse stretched out on deck, and I stared at it for a while in surprise at the unexpectedness of the sight: the accountant Olmedilla’s eyes remained half open, as if, right up until the last moment, he had kept watch to ensure that his duty to those who paid his salary was duly carried out. He was rather paler than usual, his customary ill-tempered sneer fixed forever beneath the mousy mustache, as if he regretted not having had time to set everything down in ink and in a neat hand on the standard official document. The mask of death made him look more than usually insignificant, very still and very alone. They told me he had boarded along with the group at the prow, clambering over ropes with touching ineptitude, lashing out blindly with a sword he barely knew how to use, and that he had died at once, without a murmur of complaint, and all for some gold that was not his own, for a king whom he had glimpsed only occasionally from afar, who did not know his name, and who would not even have spoken to him had he walked past him in a room.

When Alatriste saw me, he came over and gently touched the wound, then placed one hand on my shoulder. By the light of the lantern I could see that his eyes retained the same absorbed expression as during the fighting, indifferent to everything around us.

“Pleased to see you, lad.”

But I knew this wasn’t true. He might well feel pleased later on, when his pulse had returned to normal and order was restored, but at that moment, his words were mere words. His thoughts were still fixed on Gualterio Malatesta and on the galleon now drifting toward the sandbanks of San Jacinto. He scarcely looked at our dead comrades and gave Olmedilla’s body only the most cursory of glances. Nothing seemed to surprise him, or alter the fact that he was still alive and still had things to do. He dispatched Juan Eslava to the leeward side to report on whether we had yet reached the sandbank or the shallows; he ordered Juan Jaqueta to make sure that no enemies remained hidden on board; and repeated the order that no one, for any reason, should go belowdecks. On pain of death, he said somberly, and Jaqueta, after looking at him hard, nodded. Then, accompanied by Sebastián Copons, Alatriste went down into the bowels of the ship. I would not have missed this for the world, and so I took advantage of my position as my master’s page and followed behind, despite the pain from my wound, and doing my best to make no sudden movements that might make it bleed still more.

Copons was carrying a lantern and a pistol he’d picked up from the deck, and Alatriste had his sword unsheathed. We scoured every berth and hold, but found no one—we saw a table set, with the food untouched on the dozen or so plates—and finally we reached some steps that led down into the darkness. At the bottom was a door closed with a great iron bar and two padlocks. Copons handed me the lantern and went in search of a boarding ax, and it took only a few blows to break down the door. I held the lantern up to light the interior.

“God’s teeth!” murmured Copons.

There were the gold and silver for which we had fought and killed. Stored away like ballast in the hold, the treasure was piled up in various barrels and boxes, all roped securely together. The ingots and bars lining the hold glowed like some extraordinary golden dream. In the distant mines of Peru and Mexico, far from the light of the sun, thousands of Indian slaves, under the lash of the overseer, had ruined their health and lost their lives in order that this precious metal should reach these shores, and all to repay the Empire’s debts, to finance the armies and wars in which Spain was enbroiled with half of Europe, to swell the fortunes of bankers, officials, and unscrupulous aristocrats, and, in this case, to line the pockets of the king himself. The gold bars glinted in Captain Alatriste’s dark pupils and in Copons’s wide eyes. And I watched, fascinated.

“What fools we are, Diego,” said Copons.

And there was no doubt about it, we were fools. I saw the captain slowly nod agreement. We were fools not to hoist the sails—had we known how to do it—and to keep sailing, not toward the sandbanks but out toward the open sea, into waters that bathed shores inhabited by free men, with no master, no god, and no king.

“Holy Mother!” said a voice behind us.

We turned around. El Bravo de los Galeones and the sailor Suárez were standing on the steps, staring at the treasure, slack-jawed with amazement. They were carrying their weapons in their hands and, over their shoulders, sacks into which they had been stashing anything of value they came across.

“What are you doing here?” asked Alatriste.

Anyone who knew him would have taken great care how he answered. El Bravo de los Galeones, however, did not.

“Just having a bit of a walkabout,” he replied brazenly.

The captain smoothed his mustache, his eyes as hard and fixed as glass beads. “I said no one was to come down here.”

“Yeah, well,” said El Bravo dismissively. He was smiling greedily, a fierce look on his scarred, marked face. “And now we know why.”

He was gazing wildly at the glittering treasure. Then he exchanged a glance with Suárez, who had put his sack down on the steps and was scratching his head incredulously, stunned by what lay before him.

“It seems to me, comrade,” said El Bravo de los Galeones, “that we should tell the others about this. That would be a fine trick—”

The word became a mere gurgle in his throat as Alatriste, without warning, stuck his sword through El Bravo’s breast, so quickly that by the time the ruffian had a chance to stare down in stupefaction at the wound inflicted, the blade had already been removed. Mouth agape and uttering an agonized sigh, El Bravo fell forward onto the captain, who pushed him away, leaving him to roll down the steps and land at the very foot of a barrel of silver. When he saw this, Suárez let out a horrified “Dear God!” and instinctively raised the scimitar he was carrying; then he seemed to think better of it, for he turned on his heel and started climbing back up the steps as fast as he could, stifling a scream of terror. And he continued to scream that muffled scream until Sebastián Copons, who had unsheathed his dagger, caught up with him, grabbed his foot, and knocked him down; then, straddling his body, he yanked Suárez’s head up by the hair and deftly cut his throat. I watched this scene, frozen in horror. Not daring to move a muscle, I saw Alatriste wiping the gore from his sword on the prone body of El Bravo, whose blood was now soiling the gold ingots piled up on the floor. Then he did something strange: he spat, as if he had something dirty in his mouth. He spat into the air as if he were making some comment to himself, or like someone uttering a silent oath, and when his eyes met mine, I shuddered, because he was looking at me as if he didn’t know me, and for an instant I was afraid he might kill me as well.

“Watch the stairs,” he said to Copons.

From where he was kneeling beside the inert corpse on which he was cleaning his dagger, Copons nodded. Then Alatriste walked past him, without so much as a glance at the sailor’s dead body, and went back up on deck. I followed him, glad to leave behind me the awful scene in the hold, and once up aloft, I noticed that Alatriste had paused to take a deep breath, as if desperate for the air that had been lacking down below. Then Juan Eslava shouted to us from the gunwale and, almost simultaneously, we felt the keel of the ship grind into the sand. All movement ceased, and the deck listed slightly to one side. The men were pointing at the lights moving on the shore, coming to meet us. The Niklaasbergen had run aground in the shallows of San Jacinto.

We went over to the gunwale. There were boats rowing toward us in the dark, and a line of lights was approaching slowly from the end of the spit of sand, where the water beneath the galleon looked bright and clear in the lantern light.

Alatriste glanced at the deck.

“Right, let’s go,” he said to Juan Jaqueta.

The latter hesitated for a moment.

“Where are Suárez and El Bravo?” he asked uneasily. “I’m sorry, Captain, but I couldn’t help it.” He suddenly paused, studying my master’s face in the light near the quarterdeck. “I’m sorry, but to stop them, I’d have had to kill them.”

He fell silent.

“Kill them,” he repeated in soft, bewildered tones.

This sounded more like a question than a statement. But there was no reply. Alatriste was still looking around him.

“It’s time we left the ship,” he said, addressing the men on deck. “Help the wounded off.”

Jaqueta was still watching him. He seemed to be waiting for an answer.

“What happened?” he asked grimly.

“They’re not coming.”

He had turned at last to face Jaqueta, very coldly and calmly. Jaqueta opened his mouth, but said nothing. He stood like that for a moment, then turned to the other men, urging them to obey the captain’s orders. The boats and the lights were coming nearer, and our men began to climb down the rope ladder to the tongue of sand, uncovered by the low tide, on which the galleon had run aground. Bartolo Cagafuego and the mulatto Campuzano, whose head was swathed in a huge bandage like a turban, were carefully helping Enríquez el Zurdo off the ship; El Zurdo was bleeding profusely from a broken nose and had a couple of nasty cuts to his arms. Ginesillo el Lindo, in turn, went to the aid of Saramago, who was limping painfully from a long gash in his thigh.

“Any closer, and they’d have had my balls,” Saramago said mournfully.

The last to leave were Jaqueta—once he had closed the eyes of his comrade Sangonera—and Juan Eslava. No one had to bother with Andresito el de los Cincuenta, because by then he had been dead for some time. Copons appeared at the top of the steps to the hold and went straight over to the side of the ship. At that moment, a man climbed on board, and I recognized the fellow with the ginger mustache who had spoken to Olmedilla earlier. He was still dressed as a hunter and was armed to the teeth; behind him came several more men. Despite their disguise, they were all clearly soldiers. They eyed with professional curiosity the bodies of our dead comrades and the blood-stained deck, and the man with the ginger mustache stood for a while studying Olmedilla’s corpse. Then he came over to the captain.

“How did it happen?” he asked, pointing to the accountant.

“As these things do,” said Alatriste laconically.

The other man looked at him intently, then said very equably, “Good work.”

Alatriste did not respond. Heavily armed men continued to clamber on board. Some were carrying harquebuses with the fuses lit.

“In the name of the king,” said the man with the ginger mustache, “I take charge of this ship.”

I saw my master nod, and then I followed him over to the gunwale, where Sebastián Copons was already climbing down the rope ladder. Alatriste turned to me with that same distracted air, and put a helping arm around me. I leaned against him, and breathed in from his clothes the smell of leather and steel mixed with the smell of blood from the men he had killed that night. He went down the ladder, all the while supporting me, until we reached the sand. The water came up to our ankles. We got wetter as we waded toward the beach, plunging in up to our waists, and my wound stung fiercely. Shortly afterward, with me still leaning on the captain for support, we reached land, where our men were gathered in the darkness. Around them were the shadows of more armed men, as well as the blurred shapes of many mules and carts ready to carry off what lay in the ship’s holds.

“Ye gods,” said one man, “we certainly earned our keep tonight.”

These words, spoken in a cheery tone of voice, broke the silence and the tension. As always after combat—and I had seen this over and over in Flanders—the men gradually began to talk and open up, with just a comment here and there at first, brief remarks, complaints, and sighs. Then they launched into oaths and boasts and laughter: I did this, someone else did that. Some described in detail how they had boarded the ship or else asked how such and such a comrade had died. I heard no one regret the passing of the accountant Olmedilla: they had never taken to that scrawny individual dressed all in black, and it was as clear as day that he was ill-equipped for such work. As far as everyone there was concerned, his life wasn’t worth a candle.

“What happened to El Bravo de los Galeones?” asked someone. “I didn’t see him peg it.”

“No, he was alive at the end,” said another.

“Suárez didn’t get off the ship either,” added a third.

No one had an explanation, and those who did kept quiet. There were a few muttered comments, but Suárez had no friends amongst that crew, most of whom also loathed El Bravo. No one really felt their absence.

“All the more for us, I suppose,” remarked one man.

Someone gave a coarse guffaw, and the subject was dropped. And I wondered—and had few illusions about the answer—if I were lying on deck, stiff and cold as a piece of salt tuna, would I merit the same epitaph? I saw the silent shadow of Juan Jaqueta, and although I couldn’t see his face, I knew he was looking at Captain Alatriste.

We walked to a nearby inn, which was all prepared to receive us for the night. The innkeeper—a scurvy knave if ever there was one—had only to see our faces, our bandages, and our ironware to treat us as diligently and obsequiously as if we were grandees of Spain. And so there was wine from Jerez and Sanlúcar for everyone, a fire to dry our clothes by, and abundant food, of which we ate every crumb, for the recent violent fracas had left us all with empty bellies. Mugs of wine and plates of roast kid were quickly dispatched, and we drank to our dead comrades and to the gleaming gold coins piled up on the table before us; they had been delivered before dawn by the man with the ginger mustache, who came accompanied by a surgeon to attend to our injuries; he cleaned the wound in my side, sewed it up, and applied some ointment and a fresh, clean bandage. Gradually, amid the vinous vapors, the men all fell asleep. Occasionally, El Zurdo or Saramago would moan out loud or there would be raucous snores from Copons, who was sleeping stretched out on a rug, as oblivious to his surroundings as he had been in the mud of the Flanders trenches.

Discomfort prevented me from sleeping. It was my first wound, and I would be lying if I denied that the pain from it filled me with a new and inexpressible pride. Now, with the passing of time, I bear other marks on both flesh and memory: that first wound is now only a near-imperceptible line on my skin, tiny compared with the wound I suffered at Rocroi or the one inflicted on me by Angélica de Alquézar’s dagger. But sometimes I run my fingers over it and remember, as if it were yesterday, that night at Barra de Sanlúcar, the fighting on board the Niklaasbergen, and El Bravo’s blood staining the king’s gold red.

Nor can I forget Captain Alatriste as I saw him in the early hours of that morning when pain kept me from sleep. He was sitting on a stool, apart from everyone else, his back against the wall, watching the gray dawn creep in through the window, while he drank his wine slowly and methodically, as I had so often seen him do before, until his eyes became like opaque glass and his head sank slowly onto his chest, and sleep—a lethargy not unlike death—overwhelmed both body and mind. And I had shared his life for long enough to know that, even in his dreams, Diego Alatriste would continue to move through the personal wilderness that was his life, silent, solitary, and selfish, oblivious of everything except the clear-sighted indifference of one who knows the narrow line that separates being alive from being dead, of one who kills in order to preserve his life’s breath and to keep himself, too, in hot meals. One who is reluctant to obey the rules of that strange game: the old ritual in which men like him have been immersed since the world began. Such things as hatred, passionate beliefs, and flags had nothing to do with it. It would doubtless have been more bearable if, instead of the bitter clarity that filled his every act and thought, Captain Alatriste had enjoyed the magnificent gifts of stupidity, fanaticism, or malice, because only the stupid, the fanatical, and the malicious live lives free from ghosts or from remorse.

EPILOGUE

The sergeant of the Spanish guard cut an imposing figure in his red-and-yellow uniform, and he eyed me with some irritation as I walked through the palace gates with don Francisco de Quevedo and Captain Alatriste. He was the same burly, mustachioed fellow with whom I had had words days before outside those very walls, and he was doubtless surprised to see me there in my new doublet, with my hair combed, and looking handsomer than Narcissus himself, while don Francisco showed him the document authorizing us to attend the royal reception being held in honor of the municipal council and commercial tribunal of Seville to celebrate the arrival of the treasure fleet.

Other guests were arriving too: wealthy merchants accompanied by spouses decked out in jewels, mantillas, and fans; minor aristocrats who had probably pawned their few remaining valuables in order to buy new clothes especially for the occasion; clerics in cassock and cloak; and representatives of the local guilds. Almost everyone was staring openmouthed this way and that, overwhelmed and impressed by the splendid appearance of the Spanish, Burgundian, and German guards, and as if half afraid that, at any moment, someone would demand to know what they were doing there and throw them out in the street. All the guests knew that they would see the king and queen only for an instant and from a distance, that their contribution would consist of little more than doffing their hats and bowing low to Their August Majesties as they passed; however, the mere fact of being present at such an event and being able to stroll like grandees in all their finery in the gardens of that former Moorish palace and talk about it afterward, this was the very acme of the ambitions cultivated by even the most plebeian of Spaniards. And when, the following day, this fourth Philip proposed, perhaps, that the municipal council should approve the imposition of a new charge or an extraordinary tax on the newly arrived treasure, he did so in the knowledge that Seville would still have enough of a taste of syrup in its mouth to sweeten that bitter pill—for the deadliest thrusts are always those that pierce the purse—and would, therefore, loosen their purse strings without too much complaint.

“There’s Guadalmedina,” said don Francisco.

The count, who was chatting to some ladies, saw us from afar, excused himself with a gracious bow, and came to meet us, oozing politeness and wearing his very best smile.

“By God, Alatriste, you’ve no idea how pleased I am to see you.”

He greeted Quevedo with his usual bonhomie, complimented me on my new doublet, and gave the captain a gentle, friendly pat on the arm.

“There’s someone else who’s very pleased to see you too,” he added.

He was dressed as elegantly as ever, in pale blue with silver braiding and with a magnificent pheasant feather in his hat. His courtly appearance was in marked contrast to that of Quevedo, who was dressed all in black, with the cross of St. James on his breast, and of my master, dressed entirely in browns and blacks, in an old but clean and scrupulously brushed doublet, canvas breeches, and boots, and with a gleaming sword hanging from his newly polished belt. His only new items of clothing were his hat—a broad-brimmed felt affair with a red feather in it—the starched white Walloon collar, which he wore open, as befitted a soldier, and the dagger bought for ten escudos to replace the one he had broken during his encounter with Gualterio Malatesta: a magnificent blade nearly two spans long and bearing the marks of the swordsmith Juan de Orta.

“He didn’t want to come,” said don Francisco, indicating the captain.

“I imagined he wouldn’t,” replied Guadalmedina. “However, there are some orders that must be obeyed.” He winked familiarly. “Certainly by a veteran like you, Alatriste. And that is an order.”

The captain said nothing. He was looking awkwardly about him, occasionally tugging at his clothes as if he didn’t know quite what to do with his hands. Beside him, Guadalmedina stood smiling to this person or that, waving to an acquaintance, sometimes nodding to the wife of a merchant or pettifogging lawyer, who then furiously fanned away her blushes.

“I should tell you, captain, that the parcel reached its addressee, and that everyone took great pleasure in it,” he said, with a smile. Then he lowered his voice. “Well, to be honest, some took rather less pleasure in it than others. The Duque de Medina Sidonia very nearly died of grief. And when Olivares returns to Madrid, your friend the royal secretary Luis de Alquézar will certainly have some explaining to do.”

Guadalmedina continued chuckling to himself, vastly amused, all the while waving and nodding and generally flaunting his impeccably courtly appearance.

“The count-duke is in the seventh heaven of delight,” he went on, “happier than if Christ himself had struck Richelieu down with a thunderbolt. That is why he wanted you to be here today, to greet you, albeit from a distance, when he passes by with the king and queen. You can’t deny that it’s quite an honor to receive a personal invitation from the king’s favorite.”

“Our captain,” said Quevedo, “feels that the greatest honor the count-duke could have bestowed on him would have been simply to forget the whole affair.”

“He may be right,” commented the count. “The favor of the great is often both more dangerous and more paltry than their disfavor. I can only say that it’s very fortunate that you’re a soldier, Alatriste, because you would make a disastrous courtier. I wonder sometimes if my profession isn’t harder than yours.”

“To each his own,” replied the captain.

“Quite. But returning to the matter at hand, I’ll have you know that yesterday the king himself asked Olivares to tell him the story. I was there, and the count-duke painted a very vivid picture. As you know, Our Catholic Majesty is not one to show his feelings, but I’ll be hanged if I didn’t see him blink several times while he listened to the account, and for him, that’s the very height of emotion.”

“Will this translate into anything tangible?” asked Quevedo, ever practical.

“If you’re referring to something that jingles and has a head and a tail, I doubt it. When it comes to cheese paring, if Olivares pares it fine, then His Majesty pares it finer still. They consider that the work was paid for at the time, and very generously too.”

“True enough,” said Alatriste.

“Well, you would know,” said the count with a shrug. “Today is, shall we say, by way of an honorific coda. The king’s curiosity was aroused when he was reminded of your involvement in that incident two years ago with the Prince of Wales at the Corral del Príncipe. And so he has a fancy to see you in the flesh.” The count paused significantly. “The other night, at Triana, it was far too dark.”

He fell silent again, studying Alatriste’s impassive face.

“Did you hear what I said?”

My master held his gaze, but did not respond, as if the count had spoken of something that he felt neither a need nor a desire to remember, something in which he preferred not to be implicated. After a moment, the count looked away, slowly shaking his head and smiling to himself, in an amused, understanding manner. Then his eye fell on me.

“They say the boy acquitted himself well,” he said, changing the subject. “And that he even brought away with him a nice little souvenir.”

“Yes, he acquitted himself very well indeed,” agreed Alatriste, making me blush with pride.

“Regarding this afternoon, you know the protocol,” Guadalmedina said, indicating the large doors that opened out onto the garden. “Their Majesties will enter through there, the yokels will bow, and then the king and queen will leave through that door over there. It’ll be over in a flash. As for you, Alatriste, all you have to do is doff your hat and, for once in your wretched life, bow that stubborn soldier’s head of yours. The king—who will, as usual, be gazing somewhere at the horizon—will merely glance at you for a moment. Olivares will do the same. You nod, and that’s that.”

“What an honor,” said Quevedo sarcastically. And then, so softly that we had to lean closer to hear, he recited these lines:“See them all decked out in purple,

Hands beringed with glittering gems?

Inside, they’re naught but putrefaction,

Made of mud and earth and worms.”

Guadalmedina—very much the courtier that afternoon—started back. He looked around, gesturing to Quevedo to restrain himself.

“Really, don Francisco, a little decorum, please. This is hardly the time or the place. Besides, there are people who would cut off their right hand for one glance from the king.” He turned to the captain and, adopting a persuasive tone, said, “Anyway, it’s no bad thing that Olivares should remember you and invite you here. You have a number of enemies in Madrid, and it’s quite a coup to be able to count the king’s favorite among your friends. It’s high time you shook off the poverty that’s been dogging you like a shadow. And as you yourself once said to don Gaspar—and in my presence too—one never knows.”

“It’s true,” replied Alatriste. “One never knows.”

There was a roll of drums on the far side of the courtyard, followed by a short blast on a trumpet, whereat all conversation stopped and fans ceased fluttering; a few hats were rapidly doffed, and everyone turned expectantly in the direction of the fountains, the neat hedges, and the pleasant rose gardens. On the far side of the courtyard, the king and queen and their cortège had just emerged from a room full of lavish hangings and tapestries.

“I must go and join them,” said Guadalmedina. “I’ll see you later, Alatriste, and if you can manage it, try to smile a little when the count-duke looks at you. No, on second thought, don’t. A smile from you usually heralds an attack!”

He left, and we stayed where we were, on the very edge of the white path bisecting the garden, while people to either side of us moved away, eyes fixed on the slowly advancing procession. Ahead came two officers and four archers from the royal guard, and behind them the cream of the royal entourage, gentlemen and ladies-in-waiting—the former dressed in fine costumes adorned with diamonds and gold chains, and wearing court swords with gilded hilts; the latter wearing shawls, plumed hats, jewels, lace, and lavish dresses.

“There she is,” whispered Quevedo.

There was no need for him to say any more, because I, struck dumb and rooted to the spot, had already seen her. Amongst the queen’s maids of honor was Angélica de Alquézar, her golden ringlets brushing the delicate, near-transparent shawl drawn tight about her shoulders. She was as lovely as ever, with, at her waist, the interesting addition of a small jewel-encrusted silver pistol, which looked as if it could fire real bullets, and which she wore like an ornament on the scarlet watered satin of her skirt. A Neapolitan fan hung from her wrist, but her head was unadorned, apart from a delicate mother-of-pearl comb.

Then she saw me. Her blue eyes, which had, until then, been staring blankly ahead, suddenly focused on me as if she had sensed my presence or as if, by dint of some strange witchcraft, she had been expecting to find me on that precise spot. She gave me a lingering look, without glancing away or appearing in the least discomfited. And just as she was about to walk past me, which would mean, of course, that she could only maintain eye contact by turning her head, she smiled. And what a glorious smile it was, as bright as the sun gilding the battlements of the Reales Alcázares. Then she was gone, moving off along the path, and I was left standing there like a gaping fool, having entirely surrendered my three faculties—memory, understanding, and will—to her love, and thinking that I would gladly have returned again and again to the Alameda de Hércules or to the Niklaasbergen, ready to offer up my life, if only she would smile at me like that one more time. And so fast were my heart and pulse beating that I felt a sudden pang, a sudden warm dampness under the bandage, where my wound had just reopened.

“Ah, my boy,” murmured don Francisco de Quevedo, placing an affectionate hand on my shoulder. “So it is and so it will always be: you will die a thousand times and yet your griefs will never kill you.”

I sighed, incapable of saying a word. And I heard the poet softly reciting:“The beautiful creature from behind her bars

Promises that she’s mine, only mine.”

The king and queen, in their slow, stiff progress, had, by then, almost drawn level with us. The young, blond Philip, strongly built and very erect, his gaze fixed, as ever, on some point in the middle distance, was dressed in blue velvet trimmed with black and silver, and around his neck, on a black ribbon and gold chain, he wore the badge of the Order of the Golden Fleece. The queen, doña Isabel de Borbón, was wearing a silver-gray dress with orange taffeta cuffs, and a bejeweled and feathered hat that set off her sweet, youthful face. Unlike her husband, she smiled charmingly at everyone, and it was a delight to see that beautiful French-born Spanish queen, the daughter, sister, and wife of kings, whose cheerful nature brightened the sober Spanish court for two decades and aroused certain sighs and passions about which I will perhaps tell you on another occasion. She also refused outright to live in El Escorial—that dark, somber, austere palace built by her husband’s grandfather—although in one of life’s little ironies, from which no one is exempt, the poor thing was finally obliged to take up permanent residence there, when she was buried alongside the other queens of Spain.

But on that festive afternoon in Seville, such things were all a long way off. The king and queen looked so young and elegant, and as they passed, all present removed their hats and bowed before Their Royal Majesties. Accompanying them was the imposing, burly figure of the Conde-Duque de Olivares, the very image of power in his black clothes, with that mighty back of his which, like Atlas, bore the awful weight of the vast monarchy of Old and New Spain, an impossible duty that, years later, don Francisco de Quevedo summed up in three lines:How much easier it is, O Spain,

For everyone to steal from you alone

what you alone stole from everyone.

Don Gaspar de Guzmán, Conde-Duque de Olivares and minister to our king, wore a broad Walloon collar and, embroidered on his breast, the cross of Calatrava; the fierce points of his vast mustache rose up almost as far as his wary, penetrating eyes, which shifted constantly, restlessly, back and forth—identifying, recording, recognizing. The king and queen stopped only rarely and always at the count-duke’s suggestion; and when this happened, the king or the queen, or both at once, would gaze upon some fortunate person who for whatever reason—because of services performed or through influential contacts—was deemed deserving of that honor. In such cases, the women curtsied low to the floor, and the men bowed from the waist, their hats having already been doffed, of course; and then, after the gift of this moment of contemplation and silence, the king and queen would continue their solemn march. Behind them came certain select Spanish nobles and grandees, amongst them the Conde de Guadalmedina; as he approached us, Alatriste and Quevedo, along with everyone else, removed their hats, and the count dropped a few words into the ear of the count-duke, who bestowed on our group one of his fierce looks, as merciless as an indictment. The count-duke, in turn, whispered into the ear of the king, who stopped walking, brought his gaze down from the heights, and fixed it on us. While the count-duke was still murmuring into his ear, the king, his prognathous bottom lip protruding, rested his faded blue eyes on Captain Alatriste.

“They’re talking about you,” muttered Quevedo.

I glanced at the captain. He remained very upright, his hat in one hand and his other hand resting on the hilt of his sword, with his stern, mustachioed profile and serene, soldierly head looking straight at the king, at the monarch whose name he had shouted out on battlefields and for whose gold he had risked life and limb only three nights before. I saw that the captain seemed unimpressed and unabashed. All his awkwardness over the formal nature of the event had vanished, and there remained only his frank, dignified gaze, which held that of the king with the equanimity of one who owes nothing and expects nothing. I remembered the moment when the old Cartagena regiment mutinied at Breda and I was tempted to join the rebels, and how, when the ensigns were leaving the ranks in order not to be tainted by the revolt, Alatriste had grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and forced me to leave with them, uttering the words “Your king is your king.”

And it was there, in the courtyard of the Reales Alcázares in Seville, that I finally began to understand the meaning of that singular dogma, which I had failed to understand at the time: the loyalty professed by Captain Alatriste was not to the fair-haired young man standing before him, not to His Catholic Majesty, not to the one true religion, or to the idea that either one of them represented on Earth, but to that one personal rule, chosen for want of anything better, and which was all that remained from the shipwreck of more generalized, more enthusiastic ideas that had dissolved with the loss of innocence and youth. Regardless of what the rule was—right or wrong, logical or illogical, just or unjust, justifiable or not—it was the rule that mattered to men like Diego Alatriste as a way of imposing some kind of order, or structure, on the apparent chaos of life. And thus, paradoxically, my master respectfully doffed his hat before his king not out of resignation or discipline but out of despair. After all, since there were no old gods in whom one could trust, no great words that could be bandied about during combat, it was a salve to everyone’s honor—or, at least, better than nothing at all—to have a king for whom one could fight and before whom one could doff one’s hat, even if one did not believe in him. And so Captain Alatriste held firmly to that principle, just as, had he given his loyalty to someone else, he might have pushed his way through that very same throng and knifed the king to death, without a thought for the consequences.

At that point, something unusual happened to interrupt my thoughts. The Conde-Duque de Olivares concluded his short report, and the monarch’s usually impassive eyes now took on an expression of curiosity and remained fixed on the captain. Then our fourth Philip gave the very slightest of approving nods and, slowly raising his hand to his august breast, removed the gold chain he was wearing and handed it to the count-duke. The latter, smiling thoughtfully, weighed it in his hand for a moment and then, to the general amazement of all those present, came toward us.

“His Majesty would like you to accept this chain,” he said.

He said this in the stern, arrogant tone so typical of him, piercing the captain with the two hard, black points of his eyes, a smile still visible beneath his fierce mustache.

“Gold from the Indies,” he added with evident irony.

Alatriste turned pale. He stood stock-still and stared at the count-duke uncomprehendingly. Olivares was still proffering him the chain in his outstretched palm.

“Well, don’t keep me waiting all day,” Olivares snapped.

The captain seemed finally to come to. And once he had recovered his composure, he at last took the chain, and, stammering out a few words of gratitude, looked again at the king. The latter continued to observe the captain with some curiosity, and meanwhile Olivares returned to his monarch’s side; Guadalmedina stood, beaming, amongst the other astonished courtiers; and the cortège prepared to move on. Then Captain Alatriste bowed his head respectfully; the king again, almost imperceptibly, nodded, and the procession set off.

Proud of my master, I looked defiantly around me at all those inquisitive faces, staring in astonishment at the captain, wondering who the devil this fortunate man was, to whom the count-duke himself had presented a gift from the king. Don Francisco de Quevedo was chuckling delightedly to himself and clicking his fingers, muttering about a need to wet both his whistle and his words at Becerra’s inn, where he had to set down some lines that had just occurred to him:“If what I have I do not fear to lose,

Nor yet desire to have what I do not,

I’m safe from Fortune’s wheel whate’er I choose,

Let plaintiff or defendant be my lot.”

He recited these lines to us for our pleasure, as gleefully as he always did when he found a good rhyme, a good fight, or a good mug of wine.“So to the last, dear Alatriste, keep

Alone, alone, until the final sleep.”

As for the captain, he remained standing amongst the other guests, not budging, his hat still grasped in his hand, watching the royal cortège process through the Alcázar gardens. And to my surprise, I saw a cloud pass over his face, as if what had just happened had, suddenly and symbolically, bound him far more tightly than he wished to be bound. The less a man owes, the freer he is, and according to the worldview of my master—capable of killing for a doubloon or a word—there were things never written or spoken that he considered to be as binding as a friendship, a discipline, or an oath. And while, beside me, don Francisco de Quevedo continued improvising lines from his new sonnet, I knew, or sensed, that the king’s gift of a gold chain weighed on Captain Alatriste as heavily as if it were made of iron.

EXTRACTS FROM

SOME FINE POETRY

WRITTEN BY VARIOUS WITS OF

THIS CITY OF SEVILLE

Printed in the seventeenth century, without a printer’s mark,

and preserved in the “Conde de Guadalmedina”

section of the Archive and Library of

the Duques de Nuevo Extremo (Seville).

ATTRIBUTED TO DON FRANCISCO DE QUEVEDO

The last evening and end of the ruffian Nicasio Ganzúa,

who died in Seville from a very bad sore throat

brought on by the rope.

FIRST BALLAD

In old Seville town, in its dark, lofty prison

The cream of the thieves are now gathered together.

They have come to this place for a grand celebration,

A banquet in aid of Nicasio Ganzúa,

For, at dawn, he’ll be issued his very last passport.

And it’s thus only right, in His Majesty’s prison

For a solemn event to be given due weight;

But because it’s the king who is giving the orders

No time must be lost—tempus fugit, my friends.

Here they come, brothers all of the criminal class,

Yes, those who are paid by the sum of their sword thrusts

And all of them dressed in the deepest of mourning,

Though armed to the teeth with glistening steel

(the jailer meanwhile has his itchy palm greased

with the silvery glitter of pieces of eight).

How they praise to the skies the condemnèd man,

Though their praises are not of a sacred kind,

See them sit round a table—the flower of ruffians—

For no honest rogue would ever dare miss

This wake for a man, for a hero illustrious.

How peacock-proud are these would-be nobles

(To be sure, in this gathering, no women are found)

With their hats pulled down low o’er their faces, like grandees,

As they drink down whole mugs of the reddest of wines

And toast, with huzzahs, the health of Saint Glug,

For to men of the world he’s their patron saint.

All drink to the fame of the bravest of comrades

Who, to judge by the barrel of wine they imbibe,

Must indeed be a man most worthy of honor.

At the fore, is the handsome young Ginés el Lindo

Who, they say, is a practicing doctor of fencing,

Even though he’s a queer and strums the guitar.

Nearby, Saramago, that fine Portuguese,

Who’s always prepared to spout some philosophy;

For sure, he’s a doctor in utriusque

And wields with a flourish both a pen and a sword.

Another fine rogue can be seen paying court—

from the town of Chipiona and sharp as a tack—

by name, El Bravo de los Galeones.

Then, Guzmán Ramírez, a man of few words,

Grabs a new deck of cards and is ready to play

With Rojo Carmona, his companion at table,

Who’s known as a notable trickster to boot.

Many others there are in the thievery line,

Who love to distraction the pockets of others;

A newcomer there is, Diego Alatriste,

Who has come like a brother to be with Ganzúa.

And sitting beside him there’s Íñigo Balboa,

A young man who showed at the great Siege of Breda

His courage in fighting—no coward was he.

While they’re singing their songs and playing at cards,

While they carry on drinking the wine red as blood,

They are keeping a courteous eye on Ganzúa,

For that is the least decent people can do—

Come when they’re needed, give care without stint,

For this kind of misfortune may one day be theirs.

SECOND BALLAD

They were deep in their game and their serious drinking

When in came the law so to read out the sentence

And all for the card-playing prisoner’s sake.

But no interest he showed in these sonorous words,

Though his precious life’s blood depended on them;

More concerned was he then with the scoring of points.

When the scribe and the guard were about to depart,

A monk Augustinian offered confession,

Which was straightway declined by Nicasio Ganzúa.

Thus he turned down the chance to sing out at vespers

The tune that he never had warbled at prime.

When the monk and the officers finally left,

And Ganzúa was carefully playing his hand,

He found at the end that he held a trump card

And so won the game and collected his winnings.

Then, dealing again, he smoothed his mustache,

And in tones low and grave he addressed his confreres:

“I am helpless, my friends, I am stuck in this prison,

Till my neck is caressed by the rope in the morning

With a love so intense it will certainly kill me,

For I’ll never escape its tight’ning embrace.

So allow me, my friends, a list of farewells,

My last will and testament, mark every word!

Were it not for the stool pigeon who sang out too loudly

I’d be free, and not stupidly facing my death.

I ask you, friends all, give that slimiest of squealers

A good length of steel through the throat—make him bleed—

For to leave him the freedom to wag his long tongue

Is a curse and a plague and as deadly as sin.

Item Two: If you please, give a fistful of wishes

To the one who betrayed me—that traitorous jeweler—

Hit him hard in the chops when you give him my greetings,

For he certainly played me the vilest of tricks—

Thus make sure he will always remember my name.

Item Three: Stick your knives several times in that catchpole,

That turd, Mojarrilla, who handled me roughly

When I was arrested. And as for the judge

With his hand-me-down robe and his high noble ways,

Just give him the same, make him bleed for his pains.

And lastly, my whore, Maripizca,

Of clean blood and habits; my friends, look to her,

For though she’s no child, proper “ladies” like her

Should not be alone when they walk down the street.

I close on this hour, on this date, in this place,

This the very last will of the ruffian Ganzúa.”

Every heart there was moved and everyone stood

And did swear and did promise, as trusty friends should,

To execute, faithfully, all of his wishes.

THIRD BALLAD

Ganzúa, awaiting his execution,

Was dressed in the finest of clothes,

He had never before looked so handsome as then

On the night all his friends watched with him.

He was wearing a doublet of fine purple cloth

Whose full sleeves were slashed à la mode,

And green canvas breeches that were held up in style

By a belt that was four inches wide,

And shoes for a light Sunday promenade,

Adorned with two bright scarlet bows,

Each shoe with a silvery buckle that glittered

Against the deep black of the leather.

Early next morning, to enter the square,

He changed to a simple serge gown

As befitting a man who was soon to be led

To the scaffold’s bare, high wooden hill—

Quite unlike the brave judges who put on their gowns

But stay safe and sound in their court.

He rode from the prison upon a gray mule,

Town crier stepping before

And carrying a cross and municipal rod

While he listed the prisoner’s crimes.

Handsome Ganzúa rode on without falter—

No trace of last night’s carousing—

And greeted with courtly politeness and grace

All those he had known, great and small.

He looked quite serene, like a priest in procession,

So that one almost envied his fate.

No stumble he made as he climbed up the steps,

Though one step was broken and gaping.

And when he was standing at last on the boards

He turned to the crowd and spoke thus:

“Death is of little importance, my friends,

But since by the king it arrives,

Let no one deny the evident truth

That mine is an honorable one.”

All nodded and gravely accepted his words,

His whore and executors too.

And they thought it was equally proper and right

That his dear Maripizca had hired

A chorus of blind men to sing for his soul.

A sermon then followed their prayers,

And he recited the Creed with no hint of a tremor,

For it’s always a dreadful and shameful dishonor

When infamous ruffians break down and blubber.

The fell executioner stepped up behind

And placing the noose ’round the prisoner’s neck,

Said these words: “O, my brother, I ask your forgiveness,”

Then quickly he tightened the noose until death.

Our brave Ganzúa did not flinch or grimace,

For death, to him, was as naught,

But with quiet indifference he bore himself

As though he were sunk in thought.

FROM THE SAME

Advice Addressed to Captain Diego Alatriste

SONNET

If what I have I do not fear to lose,

Nor yet desire to have what I do not,

I’m safe from Fortune’s wheel whate’er I choose,

Let plaintiff or defendant be my lot.

For if I joy not in another’s pain

And worldly wealth brings me no hint of pleasure,

Grim death may come and take me without strain;

I’ll not resist or ask for lesser measure.

And you, who even now know not the chains

With which this age imprisons a heart,

Diego—free from pleasures and from pains—

Keep, thus, far hence the prick of passion’s dart;

So to the last, dear Alatriste, keep

Alone, alone, until the final sleep.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Arturo Pérez-Reverte lives near Madrid. Originally a war journalist, he now writes fiction full-time. His novels The Flanders Panel, The Club Dumas, The Fencing Master, The Seville Communion, The Nautical Chart, and The Queen of the South have been translated into twenty-nine languages and published in more than fifty countries. In 2003, Pérez-Reverte was elected to the Spanish Royal Academy. Visit his website at www.perez-reverte.com.