“Surely,” she said mischievously, “you wouldn’t want me running around Madrid in skirt and farthingale.”
She completed this thought by placing her lips so close to my ear that they touched it, making the skin all over my body prickle; then she whispered these bold lines by Lope:
“How could he ever love me, he who saw me,
Bloodstained, beat down a wall of Turks?”
And, wretch that I was, the only thing that prevented me from kissing her, whether stained in blood or not, was the fact that she suddenly turned away and set off at a brisk pace. The journey, this time, was shorter. Following the walls of the Convento de María de Aragón, we walked through dark and near-deserted streets to the orchards and vegetable gardens of Leganitos, where I felt the cold and damp penetrate my serge cloak. In her mannish black clothes and with her dagger at her waist, she was only lightly dressed yet she did not appear to feel the cold. She strode resolutely into the night, determined and confident. When I paused to get my bearings, she carried on, without waiting, and I had no option but to go after her, casting cautious glances to right and left. She wore a page’s cap tucked into her belt so that she could cover her hair should this prove necessary, but meanwhile, she wore it loose, and the pale smudge of her fair hair guided me through the darkness toward the abyss.
There wasn’t a light to be seen anywhere. Alone in the dark, Diego Alatriste stopped and, with professional prudence, looked around him. Not a soul in sight. Again he touched the folded piece of paper he was carrying in his purse.
You deserve an explanation and a proper good-bye.
Meet me at eleven o’clock in Camino de las
Minillas. The first house.
María de Castro
He had hesitated right up until the last moment. Finally, when there was only just enough time, he had downed a quart of brandy to keep out the cold. Then, having equipped himself properly as regards weapons and clothing—including, this time, his buffcoat—he set off toward Plaza Mayor and from there to Santo Domingo before following Calle de Leganitos to the outskirts of the city. This was where he was now, standing by the bridge near the walls surrounding the orchards, watching the road that lay steeped in shadow. In common with all the other houses bordering the river, no lights were lit in the first house. These houses, each with its own orchard and fields, were often used as cool summer retreats. The one that interested Alatriste had been built against the wall of a ruined convent, whose cloister served as a small garden, its roofless pillars holding up the starry vault of the sky.
A dog barked in the distance and another answered. Then the barking stopped and silence was restored. Alatriste stroked his mustache as he again looked about him before proceeding. When he reached the house, he pushed back his cloak and folded it over his left shoulder so as to leave his sword free. He knew what might happen. He had thought about it all evening as he sat on his bed, staring at his weapons where they hung from a nail on the wall. Then he made his decision and set off. Oddly, this decision had nothing to do with desire. Or rather, if he was honest with himself, he did still desire María de Castro, but this wasn’t why he was standing now in the dark, listening intently, his hand hovering over the hilt of his sword, as he sniffed out possible perils like a boar scenting the presence of the huntsman and his pack of hounds. There was another reason, too. “The royal domain,” Guadalmedina and Martín Saldaña had said, but he had a perfect right to be there if he chose. He had spent his life defending the royal domain, as his scarred body bore witness. Like all good men, he had done his duty a hundred times, but king and pawn were equal when naked and in a woman’s bed.
The door stood ajar. He slowly pushed it open; beyond lay a dark hallway. “You might die here,” he said to himself. “Tonight.” He took out his dagger, smiled a crooked, dangerous, wolfish smile, then advanced into the darkness, the point of his blade foremost. With his free hand he groped his way along the bare walls of a corridor. An oil lamp was burning at the far end, lighting up the rectangle of a door that led to the cloister. A bad place for a fight, he thought—narrow and with no escape route. Nevertheless, placing one’s head in the lion’s mouth had its fascination, its own dark, distorted pleasure. In that unhappy Spain, which he had loved and which he now despised with a lucidity acquired through time and experience, one could buy honors and beauty as easily as one might buy plenary indulgences, but even in Spain, there were still some things that could not be bought. And he knew what those things were. There came a point when the gift of a gold chain, presented to him, in passing, in a palace in Seville, was not enough to bind Diego Alatriste y Tenorio, old soldier and paid swordsman. “After all,” he concluded, “if worst comes to worst, the only thing anyone can take from me is my life.”
“We’ve arrived,” said Angélica.
We had walked through the orchards along a narrow path that snaked between the trees, and before us lay a small garden that formed part of the ruined cloister of a convent. On the other side, among the stone pillars and fallen capitals, hung an oil lamp. I did not like the look of this at all; prudently, I stopped.
“Where have we arrived?” I asked.
Angélica did not reply. She was standing motionless at my side, looking in the direction of the light. She was breathing fast. After a moment of indecision, I made as if to go on, but she grabbed my arm to hold me back. I turned to look at her. Her face was a shadowy shape outlined by the tenuous light in the cloister.
“Wait,” she whispered.
She sounded less assured now. After a while, she moved forward, still gripping my arm and guiding me across the neglected garden; our feet swished through the grass and weeds.
“Don’t make so much noise,” she said.
When we reached the first of the cloister pillars, we stopped again and took shelter there. We were closer to the lamp now and I could see my companion more clearly; her face was utterly impassive, her eyes intent on what was going on around. She was obviously agitated, though, for her breast rose and fell beneath her doublet.
“Do you still love me?” she asked suddenly.
I looked at her, bewildered, openmouthed.
“Of course I do,” I answered.
Angélica was looking at me with such intensity that I trembled. The light from the oil lamp was reflected in her blue eyes, and it was Beauty itself that kept me nailed to the spot, incapable of thought.
“Whatever happens, remember that I love you, too.”
And she kissed me, not a light kiss or a peck, but pressing her lips slowly and firmly to mine. Then, still looking into my eyes, she drew back and indicated the lamp at the far end of the cloister.
“May God go with you,” she said.
I looked at her, confused.
“God?”
“Or the devil, if you prefer.”
She stepped backward into the shadows. And then, in the lamplight, I saw another figure appear in the cloister—Captain Alatriste.
I confess that I felt afraid, more afraid than Sardanapalus himself. I didn’t know the purpose of this ambush, but whatever it was, I, and my master, too, were clearly up to our necks in it. I went anxiously over to him, with all these new events buzzing in my head. I shouted a warning to him, although without knowing quite what I was warning him against.
“Captain! It’s a trap!”
He was standing next to the lamp, dagger in hand, and staring at me in stupefaction. I reached his side, unsheathed my sword, and looked around for hidden enemies.
“What the devil . . .” the captain began.
At this point, as if at a prearranged signal and just as happens on stage, a door opened and a well-dressed young man, startled by our voices, appeared in the cloister. Beneath his hat we could see his fair hair; he wore his cape folded over his arm, his sword in its sheath, and a yellow doublet that seemed strangely familiar. The most remarkable thing, however, was that I knew his face, and so did my master. We had seen it at public ceremonies, in the streets of Call
e Mayor and El Prado, and at much closer quarters, too, only a short time before, in Seville. His Hapsburg profile appeared on gold and silver coins.
“The king!” I exclaimed.
Terrified, I took off my hat, about to kneel down, not knowing what to do with my unsheathed sword. At first, the king seemed as confused as us, but quickly became his usual erect, solemn self again and regarded us without saying a word. The captain had doffed his hat and sheathed his dagger, and the look on his face could only be described as thunderstruck.
I was about to put away my sword as well, then I heard someone in the shadows whistle a tune. Ti-ri-tu ta-ta. And my blood froze in my veins.
“How very pleasant!” said Gualterio Malatesta.
Dressed in black from head to toe, his eyes as hard and bright as jet, he had appeared out of the night as if he and it were one and the same. I noticed that his face had changed since the adventure aboard the Niklaasbergen. Now he bore an ugly scar above his right eyelid, which gave him a slight squint.
“Three pigeons,” he went on in the same smug tone, “caught in the same net.”
I heard a metallic hiss at my side. Captain Alatriste had taken out his sword and was pointing it at the Italian’s chest. Still bewildered, I raised my blade too. Malatesta had said three pigeons, not two. Philip IV had turned to look at him. He remained august and imperturbable, but I realized that this new arrival was not on his side.
“It’s the king,” my master said slowly.
“Of course it’s the king,” replied the Italian coolly. “And this is no hour for monarchs to be out sniffing around women.”
I must say that, to his credit, our young king was dealing with the situation with due majesty. He kept his sword in its sheath and a firm control on his emotions, whatever they might have been; he stood gazing at us as if from a distance, inexpressive, impassive, face averted from earthly things and from danger, as if none of what was happening had anything to do with him. Where the devil, I wondered, was the Count of Guadalmedina, his usual companion on these nighttime forays, and whose duty it was to help him out in such situations; instead, more shadows began to emerge from the darkness. They were advancing through the cloister and gradually surrounding us; by the light of the lamp, I could see that they were not exactly elegant figures and were, therefore, fitting companions for Gualterio Malatesta. I counted six men swathed in cloaks and with taffeta masks covering their faces; they wore broad-brimmed hats pulled down low over their eyes, had a bow-legged gait, and as they moved, there was a clank of metal. Hired killers, without a doubt. And their fee for such an exploit must have been exorbitant. In their hands I saw the glint of steel.
Captain Alatriste seemed, at last, to understand the situation. He took a few steps toward the king, who, seeing him approach, lost just a drop of his sangfroid and placed his hand on the hilt of his sword. Taking no notice of this royal gesture, my master turned toward Malatesta and the others, describing a semicircle with the blade of his sword, as if marking an impassable line in the air.
“Íñigo,” he said.
I joined him and made the same movement with my sword. For a moment, my eyes met those of the king of both worlds, old and new, and I thought I saw in them a flicker of gratitude. “Although,” I said to myself, “he might at least open his mouth to thank us.” The seven men were now tightening the circle around us. “This,” I thought, “is as far as we go, the captain and I. And if what I fear will happen happens, it’s as far as our king goes, too.”
“Let’s see what the boy has learned,” said Malatesta mockingly.
I took my dagger in my left hand and prepared myself. The Italian’s pockmarked face was a sarcastic mask, and the scar above his eye accentuated his sinister air.
“Old scores to settle,” he said in his harsh voice and gave a hoarse laugh.
Then they fell upon us. All of them. And as they did so, my courage rose. Our situation might be desperate, but we would not go like lambs to the slaughter. And I stood my ground and fought for my pride and my life. The years and the century I lived in had trained me for this, and dying here was as good as dying anywhere else—at my age, only a little earlier than expected. A matter of luck. And I only hope, I thought, fleetingly, as I fought, that the great Philip unsheathes his sword too and throws in his lot with us; it is, after all, his illustrious skin that’s at stake. I did not have time to find out whether he did or not. Thrusts and lunges were raining down upon my sword, my dagger, and my buffcoat, and out the corner of my eye I glimpsed Captain Alatriste withstanding the same deluge, without giving an inch. One of his opponents leapt back, cursing, dropping his sword and clutching his belly. At the same moment, I felt a steel blade cut into my buffcoat; without it, the blade would have sliced open my shoulder. I drew back, alarmed, avoiding as best I could the various sharp points and edges seeking my body. I stumbled as I did so and fell backward, striking my head on the fallen capital of a pillar, and my mind suddenly filled up with night.
The voice pronouncing my name gradually wormed its way into my consciousness. I lazily ignored it. It was good there, in that peaceful torpor, without past or future. Suddenly, the voice sounded much closer, almost in my ear, and a pain seared down my backbone from top to bottom.
“Íñigo,” said Captain Alatriste again.
I sat up, remembering the glinting swords, my fall backward, the darkness filling everything. I moaned as I did so—my neck felt stiff and my brain as if it were about to burst—and when I opened my eyes, I saw my master’s face only a few inches away. He looked very tired. The light from the oil lamp lit up his mustache, his aquiline nose, and the anxious look in his green eyes.
“Can you move?”
I gave a nod which only intensified the pain, and the captain helped me to remain in a sitting position. His hands left bloody stains on my buffcoat. In alarm, I started feeling my own body, but could find no wound. Then I saw the cut to his right thigh.
“Not all the blood is mine,” he said.
He gestured toward the motionless body of the king, lying at the foot of a pillar. His yellow doublet was badly slashed and, in the light from the lamp, I could see a dark stream spreading out over the flagstoned floor of the cloister.
“Is he . . . ?” I began, but stopped, incapable of uttering the terrifying word.
“He is.”
I felt too stunned to take in the magnitude of the tragedy. I looked to either side, but saw no one else, not even the man I had seen the captain run through with his sword. He had disappeared into the night, along with Gualterio Malatesta and the others.
“We must go,” said my master urgently.
I picked up my sword and my dagger. The king was lying face up, his eyes wide open, locks of his fair, bloodied hair sticking to his skin. He no longer looked very dignified, I thought. No dead man does.
“He fought well,” remarked the captain, ever objective.
He was pushing me toward the garden and the shadows. I still hesitated, confused.
“What about us? Why are we still alive?”
My master glanced about him. I saw that he still had his sword in his hand.
“They need us. He was the one they wanted dead. You and I are merely scapegoats.”
He paused for a moment, thinking.
“They could have killed us,” he added, “but that isn’t why they came.” He eyed the corpse gravely. “They fled as soon as they had killed him.”
“What was Malatesta doing here?”
“Hang me if I know.”
On the other side of the house, in the street, we heard voices. The hand resting on my shoulder tensed, digging steely fingers into me.
“They’re here,” said the captain.
“You mean they’ve come back?”
“No, these are different men . . . worse.”
He continued to propel me away from the light and out of the cloister.
“Run, Íñigo.”
I stopped. I was confused. We had almost rea
ched the shadows of the garden now and I couldn’t see his face.
“Run and keep running. And remember, whatever happens, you weren’t here tonight. Do you understand? You weren’t here.”
I resisted for a moment. “And what about you, captain?” I was about to ask, but there was no time. When I did not obey immediately, he gave me a shove, sending me several paces into the long grass.
“Go, damn it!” he said.
The entrance to the corridor leading to the cloister was lit up now with torches, and there was the sound of clanking weapons and people talking. “In the name of the king,” said a distant voice. “In the name of the law.” And that cry in the name of a dead king made my scalp creep.
“Run!”
And by my life, I did. Running because you want to run is not the same as having to run. I swear to God that if a precipice had opened up before me, I would have leapt unhesitatingly over it. Blind with panic, I ran through the undergrowth, past trees, across fields, jumping fences and walls, splashing through the stream and climbing out and up toward the city. And only when I was safe, far from that accursed cloister, did I drop to the ground, half mad with horror and fear, heart pounding, lungs burning, and a thousand pins and needles pricking neck and temples. Only then did I stop to wonder what may have happened to Captain Alatriste.
He limped over to the wall, looking for the best path to follow. Fighting with so many men at once had worn him down; the cut to his thigh was not that deep, but it was still bleeding. Besides, knowing the identity of the corpse lying in the cloister was enough to shake anyone’s composure and lower his spirits. Despite his wound, fear—had he felt any—might have lent wings to his feet, but he did not feel afraid, only a grim sense of desolation at the trick played on him by Fate. A black, despairing melancholy. The utter certainty that his luck had finally run out.