I felt like weeping with rage and impotence. I was a Basque and an hidalgo, the son of the soldier Lope Balboa, who had died in Flanders for the king and for the true religion. My honor and the life of the man I respected most in the world hung in the balance, as did my life, but at that point in my existence—brought up, as I had been, from the age of twelve in the harsh worlds of criminality and of war—I had already too often staked my life on the throw of a die and possessed the fatalism of one who takes a breath knowing how very easy it is to stop breathing altogether. I had seen too many men die, some uttering curses or weeping, some praying or silent, some despairing, and others resigned, and dying did not seem to me anything very extraordinary or terrible. Besides, I believed that there was another life beyond, where God, my own good father, and all my old comrades would be waiting for me with open arms. And regardless of whether there was a life to come or not, I had learned that men like Captain Alatriste know that they can die at any moment, and death, in the end, always proves them right.
Such were my thoughts as I sat on the steps outside the Casa Lonja when, in the distance, I spotted the captain and the accountant Olmedilla. They were walking past the palace wall, toward the Casa de Contratación. My first impulse was to run to meet them, but I stopped myself in time and, instead, merely observed the slender, silent figure of my master, the broad brim of his hat shading his face, his sword bobbing at his side, and, next to him, the funereal presence of the accountant.
I watched them disappear around a corner, then remained sitting motionless where I was, my arms around my knees. After all, I concluded, it was a simple enough matter. That night I merely had to decide between getting killed alone or getting killed alongside Captain Alatriste.
It was Olmedilla who proposed calling in at a tavern, and Diego Alatriste agreed, although the suggestion took him by surprise. This was the first time Olmedilla had ever proved talkative or sociable. They went into the Seisdedos tavern, behind the building known as Las Atarazanas—the arsenal—and sat down at a table outside the door, underneath the porch and the awning that gave shelter from the sun. Alatriste removed his hat and placed it on a stool. A girl brought them a jug of Cazalla de la Sierra wine and a dish of purple olives, and Olmedilla drank with the captain. True, he barely tasted the wine, taking only a sip from his mug, but before doing so, he took a long look at the man beside him. His brow unfurrowed slightly.
“Well played,” he said.
The captain studied the accountant’s gaunt features, his sparse beard, his sallow, parchment-like skin, which seemed to have been contaminated by the candles used to light gloomy government offices. He said nothing, however, but simply raised the wine to his lips and, unlike Olmedilla, drained the mug to the lees. His companion continued to study him with interest.
“They weren’t exaggerating when they told me about you,” he said at last.
“That business with the Genoese fellow was easy,” replied Alatriste grimly, and said no more, but the ensuing silence said, “I’ve done other far more unsavory things.” That, at least, is how Olmedilla appeared to interpret it, because he nodded slowly, with the grave look of someone who understands and is too polite to ask further questions. As for Garaffa and his servant, they were, at that moment, sitting bound and gagged in a carriage driving them out of Seville to some destination unknown to the captain—he neither knew nor cared to know—with an escort of sinister-looking constables, whom Olmedilla had clearly alerted beforehand, for they appeared in Calle del Mesón del Moro as if by magic (the neighbors’ natural curiosity having been dampened by the fateful words “Holy Office of the Inquisition”), then vanished very discreetly with their prisoners in the direction of the Puerta de Carmona.
Olmedilla unbuttoned his doublet and took out a folded piece of paper bearing a seal. After holding it in his hand for a moment, as if overcoming a few final scruples, he placed it on the table before the captain.
“It’s an order of payment,” he said. “To the bearer it’s worth fifty old gold doubloons, double-headed. You can convert it into cash at the house of don Joseph Arenzana, in Plaza de San Salvador. No questions asked.”
Alatriste looked at the piece of paper but did not touch it. A double-headed doubloon was the most coveted coin of the day. They had been minted from fine gold over a century before, in the reign of the Catholic kings, and no one doubted their value when you slammed them down on the table. He knew men who would knife their own mother for a single one of those doubloons.
“There’ll be six times that amount,” added Olmedilla, “when it’s all over.”
“That’s good to know.”
The accountant gazed thoughtfully into his mug of wine. A fly was swimming about in it, making desperate attempts to clamber out.
“The fleet arrives in three days’ time,” he said, watching the dying fly.
“How many men will I need?”
Olmedilla pointed with an ink-stained finger at the order of payment. “That’s up to you. According to the Genoese fellow, the Niklaasbergen is carrying twenty or so sailors, a captain, and a pilot, all of them, apart from the pilot, Flemish or Dutch. In Sanlúcar, a few Spaniards might come on board with the cargo. And we only have one night.”
Alatriste made a rapid calculation. “Twelve or fifteen, then. With that amount of gold I can get all the men I need for the job.”
Olmedilla made a chary gesture with his hand, making it clear that Alatriste’s “job” was no business of his. He said, “You should have them ready the night before. The plan is to go down the river and reach Sanlúcar by evening.” He sank his chin in his ruff, as if thinking hard to make sure he had forgotten nothing. “I’ll be coming too.”
“All the way?”
“We’ll see.”
The captain made no attempt to conceal his surprise. “It won’t be a paper-and-ink affair.”
“That doesn’t matter. Once the ship is in our hands, I have a duty to check the cargo and organize its transfer.”
Alatriste had to suppress a smile. He couldn’t imagine the accountant mixing with the kind of people he was considering as recruits, but he could understand that one could never be too careful in such matters. So vast a quantity of gold was a temptation, and the odd ingot could easily get lost along the way.
“Needless to say,” added Olmedilla, “any theft will be punished by hanging.”
“Does that apply to you as well?”
“Perhaps, yes.”
Alatriste smoothed his mustache with one finger, then said drily, “I shouldn’t think they pay you enough for such alarming eventualities.”
“They pay me sufficient for me to do my duty.”
The fly had ceased struggling, but Olmedilla continued to stare at it. The captain poured more wine into his own mug. While he was drinking, he noticed that his companion had looked up again and was studying, with some interest, first the two scars on his forehead and then his left arm where his shirtsleeve concealed the burn beneath the bandage. The burn, by the way, stung like the very devil. Finally, Olmedilla frowned, as if he had been pondering a question he was afraid to ask out loud. “I was just wondering,” he said, “what you would have done if Garaffa had been less easily intimidated.”
Alatriste glanced up and down the street; the dazzle of sun on the opposite wall made him half close his eyes, so that he appeared even more inscrutable. Then he looked at the drowned fly in Olmedilla’s wine, took another sip from his own mug, and said nothing.
5. THE FIGHT
At the entrance to the Alameda, the pillars of Hercules stood in the moonlight like two halberds. The tops of elm trees stretched out behind them as far as the eye could see, making the night seem still darker beneath the arbor of their branches. At that hour, there were no carriages filled with elegant ladies and no Sevillian gentlemen on horse-back, capering and caracoling amongst the bushes, fountains, and pools. All I could hear was the sound of water and, sometimes, in the distance, a dog barking anxiously somewher
e over near the chapel of La Cruz del Rodeo.
I stopped beside one of the thick stone pillars and listened, holding my breath. My throat was as dry as if it had been dusted with sand, and my pulses were pounding so hard in my wrists and my temples that if, at that moment, someone had cut open my heart, they would have found not a drop of blood in it. As I fearfully scanned the Alameda, I pushed back my short cape to uncover the hilt of the sword I was wearing tucked in my leather belt. In such a deserted place, the weight of the sword, along with that of my dagger, was a great comfort to me. Then I checked the lacing on the buff coat protecting my torso. The coat belonged to Captain Alatriste, and I had “borrowed” it from him while he was downstairs with don Francisco de Quevedo and Sebastián Copons, eating and drinking and talking about Flanders. I had pretended to be feeling unwell and retired early in order to carry out the plan I had been mulling over all day. To this end, I gave my face and hair a thorough wash and then put on a clean shirt, in case, at the end of the night, a scrap of that shirt should end up buried in my flesh. The captain’s buff coat was rather too large for me, and so I had padded it out by wearing my old doublet underneath, stuffed with tow. I completed this outfit with a pair of much-patched chamois leather breeches that had survived the siege of Breda—and which would protect my thighs from any possible knife thrusts—a pair of buskins with esparto soles, some gaiters, and a cap. Not exactly the attire to go courting in, I thought, when I saw my reflection in the copper bottom of a saucepan, but better a live ruffian than a dead fop.
I crept out, with my buff coat and my sword concealed beneath my cape. Only don Francisco spotted me briefly from afar, but he merely smiled and went on talking to the captain and to Copons, who, fortunately, both had their backs to the door. Once in the street, I adjusted my clothing as best I could as I walked toward the Plaza de San Francisco, and from there, avoiding the busier thoroughfares, I kept as close as I could to Calle de las Sierpes and Calle del Puerco until I emerged into the deserted Alameda.
It was not, as it turned out, entirely deserted. A mule whinnied from beneath the elms. Frightened, I took a closer look, and when my eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom of that small wood, I could just make out the shape of a carriage standing next to one of the stone fountains. I moved forward very cautiously, my hand resting on the hilt of my sword, until I could see the interior of the carriage, dimly lit by a covered lantern. And step by step, ever more slowly, I reached the running board.
“Good evening, soldier.”
That voice stole mine away and made the hand resting on my sword hilt tremble. Perhaps it wasn’t a trap after all. Perhaps it was true that she loved me and was there, just as she had promised, waiting for me. I saw a male figure up aloft on the driver’s seat, and another at the rear: two silent servants watching over the queen’s maid of honor.
“I’m pleased to know you’re not a coward,” whispered Angélica.
I took off my cap. In the dim lantern glow I could make out only vague shapes in the shadows, but it was enough to light the upholstered interior, the golden glint of her hair, and the satin of her dress when she shifted in her seat. I threw caution to the wind. The door was open, and I stepped up onto the running board. A delicious perfume wrapped about me like a caress. This, I thought, is the very perfume of her skin, and it’s worth risking one’s life for the mere bliss of being able to breathe it in.
“Have you come alone?”
“Yes.”
There was a long silence. When she spoke again, she sounded surprised. “You’re very stupid,” she said, “and very noble.”
I did not respond. I was too happy to spoil the moment with words. In the half-dark I could see her eyes shining. She was looking at me without saying a word. I touched the satin of her skirt and finally managed to murmur, “You said you loved me.”
There was an even longer silence, interrupted by the impatient whinnying of the mules. I heard the driver up above quiet them with a flick of the reins. The servant at the back was still only a dark, motionless smudge.
“Did I?”
She paused, as if struggling to remember what it was we had talked about that morning at the Palace. “Perhaps I do,” she concluded.
“I love you,” I declared.
“Is that why you’re here?”
“Yes.”
She bent her face toward mine. I swear I felt her hair brush my cheek.
“In that case,” she whispered, “you deserve a reward.”
She placed one hand on my face with infinite tenderness, and suddenly I felt her lips pressed to mine. For a moment they remained there, soft and cool. Then she withdrew into the carriage.
“That is just an advance payment on my debt to you,” she said. “If you survive, you can claim the rest.”
She gave an order to the coachman, and he cracked his whip. The carriage moved off. I stood there, dumb-struck, clutching my cap in one hand and with the fingers of my other hand incredulously touching the mouth that Angélica de Alquézar had just kissed. The universe was spinning crazily, and it took me a while to recover my sanity.
Then I looked about me and saw the shadows.
They were emerging out of the darkness, from amongst the trees. Seven dark shapes, men with faces obscured by cloaks and hats. They approached as slowly as if they had all the time in the world, and I felt the skin beneath my buff coat prickle.
“Damnation!” said a voice. “It’s the boy, and he’s come alone!”
This time there was no ti-ri-tu, ta-ta, but I immediately recognized the harsh, hoarse, cracked tone. It came from the shadow nearest to me, which seemed very tall and very black. They were standing around me, not moving, as if uncertain what to do with me.
“Such a very big net,” added the voice, “to catch one sardine.”
The scorn with which this was spoken had the virtue of heating my blood and restoring my composure. The panic that had begun to fill me vanished. Those faceless men might not know what to do with the sardine, but the sardine had spent all day deliberating and preparing himself for precisely this situation. Every outcome, even the very worst, had been weighed and pondered and considered a hundred times in my imagination, and I was ready. My only regret was that I had no time to perform a proper Act of Contrition, but there was nothing to be done about it. And so I undid my cape, took a deep breath, made the sign of the cross, and unsheathed my sword. What a shame, I thought, that Captain Alatriste cannot see me now. He would have been pleased to know that the son of his friend Lope Balboa also knew how to die.
“Well, well . . .” said Malatesta.
Sheer surprise meant that his comment remained unfinished as I adopted a proper fencing stance and made a lunge that went straight through his cloak, missing his body by an inch. He stepped back to avoid me, and I still had time to deliver a back-edged cut before he had even put hand to sword. That sword, however, now left its sheath with a sinister whisper, and I saw the blade glitter as the Italian moved away to take off his cape and assume the en garde position. Feeling that my one opportunity was slipping away, I steadied myself and closed on him again, and despite my fear, I remained in control, abruptly raised my arm to make a feint to his head, changed sides, and with the same back-edged cut, lunged forward as I had before, with such verve that, if my enemy had not been wearing a hat, his soul would have been sent straight down to Hell.
Gualterio Malatesta stumbled backward, blaspheming loudly in Italian. And then, convinced that any initial advantage I might have had ended there, I swung around, describing a circle with the point of my sword, to confront the others who, taken by surprise at first, had finally unsheathed their weapons and surrounded me, with no consideration for my solitary state. The sentence was clear, as clear as the light of day that I would never see again. The rapid thought crossed my mind that for a boy from Oñate, this wasn’t such a bad way to end, and taking my dagger in my left hand, I prepared to defend myself. One against seven.
“Leave him to me,” M
alatesta said to his companions.
He had recovered from his initial shock and came toward me confidently, sword at the ready, and I knew that I had only a few more seconds of life left. And so instead of waiting for him in the en garde stance, as prescribed in the true art of swordplay, I half crouched down, then sprang up like a hare and aimed straight at his chest. My blade, however, pierced only air. Inexplicably, Malatesta was behind me, and I could feel his knife pressing into one shoulder, in the gap between buff coat and shirt from which protruded the tow from the doublet I was wearing underneath.
“You’re going to die like a man, boy,” said Malatesta.
There was both anger and admiration in his voice, but I had passed that point of no return where words are of no interest, and I didn’t give a fig for his admiration, his anger, or his scorn. And so, without a word, I turned, as I had so often seen Captain Alatriste do: knees bent, dagger in one hand and sword in the other, reserving my breath for the final attack. I had once heard the captain say that the thing that helps a man to die well is knowing that he has done all he can to avoid death.
Then, from the encircling gloom came a pistol shot, and my enemies were briefly lit up by the glare. One of them had not yet hit the ground when the Alameda was lit by another flash, and in that burst of light I saw Captain Alatriste, Copons, and don Francisco de Quevedo rushing toward us, swords in hand, as if they had sprung from the bowels of the earth.
Thank God they came when they did. The night became a storm of knives, clanging steel, sparks, and shouts. There were two bodies on the ground and eight men fighting—a confusion of shadows who could only occasionally be recognized by their voices—all furiously fencing, shoving, and stumbling. I took my sword in my hand and went straight over to the man nearest to me and, in the melee, with an ease that surprised me, I stuck a good quarter of my blade into his back. I drove it in and pulled it out, and, with a howl, the wounded man spun around—which is how I knew it was not Malatesta—and made a ferocious lunge at me, which I managed to parry with my dagger, although he broke its guard, bruising the fingers of my left hand. I hurled myself at him, drawing back my arm, sword point foremost; I felt his knife graze my buff coat, but I did not jump back; instead, I trapped the blade between my elbow and my side and meanwhile ran him through again, plunging my sword right in this time, so that we both fell to the ground. I raised my dagger to finish him off right there and then, but he was no longer moving and from his throat came the hoarse, stertorous rattle of someone drowning in his own blood. I placed my knee on his chest so as to remove my sword and then returned to the fray.