Captain Alatriste Read online

  "Inigo," he said. "Boil this. It is crawling with bedbugs."

  The cape stunk, as did he. His clothing held enough bugs to chew the ear off a bull, but all that was resolved less than an hour later in Mendo el Toscano's bathhouse. A native of Tuscany, the barber had been a soldier in Naples when only a lad, and he admired Diego Alatriste greatly, and trusted him. When I arrived with a change of clothing—the only other full outfit the captain kept in the battered old cupboard that served us as a clothespress—I found him standing in a wood tub overflowing with dirty water, drying himself. El Toscano had trimmed his beard for him, and the short, wet chestnut hair combed back and parted in the middle revealed a broad forehead tanned by the sun of the prison courtyard but marred by a small scar that ran down to his left eyebrow. As he finished drying and putting on the clean breeches and shirt, I observed other scars I was already familiar with. One in the shape of a half-moon between his navel and his left nipple. A long one that zigzagged down a thigh. Both had been made by a cutting blade, a sword or dagger, unlike a fourth on his back, which had formed the telltale star left by a musket ball. The fifth was the most recent, still not completely healed, the one that kept him from sleeping well every night: a violet gash almost a hand's breadth wide on his left side, a souvenir of the battle of Fleurus. It was months old, and at times it opened and oozed pus, although that day as its owner stepped out of the tub it did not look too bad.

  I helped him as he dressed, slowly and carelessly: dark gray doublet and knee breeches of the same color, tight at the knees over the buskins that hid the ladders in his hose. Then he buckled on the leather belt that I had carefully oiled during his absence, and into it thrust the sword with the large quillons, whose blade and guard showed the nicks, knocks, and scratches of other days and other blades. It was a good sword, long, intimidating, and of the best Toledo steel, and as it was drawn or sheathed it gave off a long metallic sssssss that would give you gooseflesh. He studied his reflection in a dim half-length mirror for a moment, and smiled a weary smile.

  " 'Sblood," he muttered, "I feel thirsty."

  Without another word he preceded me down the stairs and along Calle Toledo toward the Tavern of the Turk. As he had no cloak, he walked along the sunny side, head high, with the frazzled red plume in the band of his hat dipping and waving. He touched his hand to the wide brim to greet some acquaintance, or swept the hat off as he passed a lady of a certain status. I followed, distracted, taking in everything: the urchins playing in the street, the vegetable vendors in the arcades, and the groups of gossiping idlers sitting in the sun beside the Jesuit church. Although I had never been overly innocent, and the months I had been living in the neighborhood had had the virtue of opening my eyes, I was still a young and curious pup who looked at the world with an astonished gaze, trying not to miss a single detail.

  As for the carriage, all I noticed at first were the hoof-beats of a team of mules and the sound of wheels approaching behind us. I scarcely paid attention; seeing coaches and carriages was a normal occurrence, because the street was the principal route to the Plaza Mayor and the castle, the Alcazar Real. But when I looked up for an instant as the carriage caught up to us, I saw a door without a shield and, in the small window, the face of a girl with blond hair combed into corkscrew curls, and the bluest, clearest, and most unsettling eyes I have ever seen. Those eyes met mine for an instant, and then the enchanting creature was borne off down the street.

  I shuddered, not knowing why. But my shudder would have been even stronger had I known that I had just been gazed upon by the Devil.

  "We have no choice but to fight," said Don Francisco de Quevedo.

  The table was littered with empty bottles, and every time that Don Francisco was a little too liberal with the wine of San Martin de Valdeiglesias—which happened frequently—he was ready to call out Christ himself.

  Quevedo was slightly lame, a poet, a fancier of whores, nearsighted, and a Caballero de Santiago. He was as quick with his wit and his tongue as with his sword, and he was famous at court for his good poems and bad temper. The latter was, all too often, the cause for his wandering from exile to exile and prison to prison. It is well known that though, like all of Madrid, our good lord and king, Philip the Fourth, and his favored Conde de Olivares appreciated the poet's satiric verses, the king liked much less being the subject of them. So from time to time, after the appearance of some sonnet or anonymous poem in which everyone recognized the poet's hand, the magistrate's bailiffs and constables would swarm into the tavern, or Quevedo's domicile, or a place where friends met to exchange gossip, to invite him, respectfully, to accompany them, taking him out of circulation for a few days or months. As he was stubborn and proud, and never learned his lesson, these occurrences were numerous, and served to embitter him.

  Quevedo was, nevertheless, an excellent table companion and a good friend to his friends, among whom he included Captain Alatriste. Both went often to the Tavern of the Turk, where they would gather their friends around one of the best tables, which Caridad la Lebrijana—who had been a whore and still was occasionally for the captain, though free of charge—usually reserved for them. That morning, along with Don Francisco and the captain, the group was completed by habitues: Licenciado Calzas, Juan Vicuna, Domine Perez, and El Tuerto Fadrique, the one-eyed apothecary at the Puerta Cerrada.

  "No choice but to fight," the poet insisted.

  He was, as I have said, visibly "illuminated" by a bottle or two of Valdeiglesias. He had jumped to his feet, overturning a taboret, and with his hand resting on the pommel of his sword, was sending blazing glances toward the occupants of a nearby table. There, two strangers, whose long swords and capes were hanging on the wall, had just congratulated the poet on a few verses. Unfortunately, those lines actually had been written by Luis de Gongora, Quevedo's most despised adversary in the Republic of Letters—a rival whom, among other insults, he accused of being a sodomite, a dog, and a Jew. The newcomers had spoken in good faith, or at least it seemed so, but Don Francisco was not disposed to overlook their words.

  "I shall grease my poems with the fat of the pig So that gnat Gongora cannot chew off a piece...."

  He began to improvise there on the spot, weaving a little, hand still clutching the hilt of his sword, while the strangers tried to apologize and the captain and his table companions held on to Don Francisco to keep him from drawing his sword and going for the offenders.

  "But by God, that is an insult," the poet cried, trying to loose the right hand his friends were gripping so tightly, while with his free hand he adjusted his twisted eyeglasses. "A bit of steel will make things, hic, right."

  "That is too much steel to squander so early in the day, Don Francisco," Diego Alatriste sensibly interceded.

  "It seems very little to me." Without taking his eyes off his perceived tormentors, the poet ferociously smoothed his mustache. "But we will be generous: one hand's breadth of steel for each of these hijosdalgo, who are sons of something, no doubt, but very certainly not sons of hidalgos."

  These were fighting words, so the strangers made as if to claim their swords and go outside. The captain and the other friends, helpless to prevent the confrontation, asked them please to make allowances for the poet's alcoholic state and simply quit the field, adding that there was no glory in fighting a drunk opponent, or shame in withdrawing prudently to prevent greater harm.

  "Bella gerant alii" suggested Domine Perez, trying to temporize.

  Domine Perez was a Jesuit priest who tended his flock in the nearby church of San Pedro y San Pablo. His kindly nature and his Latin phrases tended to have a soothing effect, for he spoke them in a tone of unquestionable good sense. The two strangers, however, knew no Latin, and the insult of being called sons of something or other was difficult to brush off. Besides, the cleric's mediation was undercut by the scoffing banter of Licenciado Calzas, a clever, cynical rascal who haunted the courts, a specialist in defending causes he could convert into endless trials that
bled his clients of their last maravedis. The licenciado loved to stir things up, and he was always goading every Juan, Jose, and Tomasillo.

  "You do not want to lose face, Don Francisco," he said in a low voice. "They will pay the court costs, defend your honor."

  So all those gathered round prepared to witness an event that would appear the next day in the sheets of Avisos y noticias, the city's purveyor of notices and news. And Captain Alatriste, failing in his efforts to calm his friend, but knowing he would not leave Don Francisco alone in the fray, began to accept as inevitable that he would be crossing swords with these strangers.

  "Aio te vincere posse," Domine Perez concluded with resignation, as Licenciado Calzas hid his laughter by snorting into his jug of wine. With a deep sigh, the captain started to get up from the table. Don Francisco, who already had drawn four fingers of his sword from its scabbard, shot him a comradely look of thanks, and even had the brass to direct a couplet to him.

  "You, Diego, whose sword so nobly defends The name and honor of your family..."

  "Do not fuck with me, Don Francisco," the captain replied ill-humoredly. "We will have our fight with whom we must, but do not fuck with me."

  "That is how a true, hic, man talks," said the poet, visibly grateful for the friend who had just sworn his support. The rest of the gatherers unanimously urged him on, like Domine Perez, abandoning any conciliatory efforts and in truth delightedly anticipating the spectacle. For if Don Francisco de Quevedo, particularly in his cups, turned out to be a terrible swordsman, the intervention of Diego Alatriste as his partner at the ball left no shred of doubt regarding the results. Bets flew about the number of thrusts the strangers would pay for.

  So. The captain gulped a swallow of wine and, already on his feet, looked over toward the strangers as if to apologize that things had gone so far. He motioned with his head for them to step outside, in order not to destroy the tavern of Caridad la Lebrijana, who was always fretting about the furniture.

  "Whenever Your Mercies please."

  The men buckled on their weapons and started outside amid high expectation, taking care not to leave their backs unguarded—just in case—for Jesus may have said something about brothers, but he made no mention of cousins. That was the situation, with all swords still sheathed, when, to the disappointment of the onlookers and relief of Diego Alatriste, the unmistakable silhouette of the high constable, Martin Saldana, appeared in the doorway.

  "That throws the blanket over our fiesta," said Don Francisco de Quevedo.

  And shrugging, he adjusted his eyeglasses, glanced out of the corner of his eye, went back to his table, and uncorked another bottle, with no further ado.

  "I have a mission for you."

  The high constable, Martin Saldana, was hard and tan as a brick. Over his doublet, he wore an old-fashioned buff-coat, quilted inside, that was very practical in warding off knives. With his sword, dagger, poniard, and pistols, he carried more iron than was to be found in all Biscay. He had been a soldier in the Flemish wars, like Diego Alatriste and my deceased father, and in close camaraderie with them had spent long years of pain and worry, although in the end with better fortune. While my progenitor pushed up daisies in a land of heretics, and the captain earned his living as a hired swordsman, Saldana made his way in Madrid upon his discharge in Flanders—after our deceased king, Philip the Third, signed a treaty with the Dutch— with the help of a brother-in-law who was a majordomo in the palace, and a mature but still-beautiful wife. I cannot prove the story of the wife—I was too young to know the details—but there were rumors that a certain magistrate was free to have his way with the aforementioned senora, and that that was the reason for her husband's being appointed high constable, a position equal to that of the night watchmen who made their rounds in the barrios of Madrid, which at that time were still called cuarteles.

  In any case, no one ever dared make the least insinuation in Martin Saldana's presence. Cuckolded or not, there was no doubt was that he was brave, albeit very thin-skinned. He had been a good soldier; his many wounds had been stitched up like a crazy quilt, and he knew how to command respect with his fists or with a Toledo sword. He was, in fact, as honorable as could be expected in a high constable of the time. He, too, admired Diego Alatriste, and he tried to favor him whenever possible. Theirs was an old professional friendship—rough, as befitting men of their nature—but real and sincere.

  "A mission," the captain repeated. They had gone outside and were leaning against a wall in the sun, each with his jug in his hand, watching people and carriages pass by on Calle Toledo. Saldana looked at him a moment, stroking the thick beard sprinkled with the gray of an old soldier, grown to hide a slash that went from his mouth to his left ear.

  "You have been out of prison only a few hours and you haven't a coin in your purse," he said. "Before two days pass, you will have accepted some paltry employ, escorting some conceited young peacock to prevent his beloved's brother from running him through on a street corner or slicing off a man's ears on behalf of a creditor. Or you will start hanging around in bawdy and gaming houses to see what you can extract from strangers or a priest who's come to wager San Eufrasio's knucklebone. Before you know it, you will be in trouble: a bad wound, a quarrel, a charge against you. And then it will start all over again." He took a small sip from his jar and half closed his eyes, though he never took them off the captain. "Do you call that living?"

  Diego Alatriste shrugged. "Can you think of something better?" He stared directly into the eyes of his old comrade from Flanders. The look said, We do not all have the good fortune to be a high constable.

  Saldana picked his teeth with a fingernail and nodded a couple of times. They both knew that were it not for the twists and turns of fate, Saldana could easily be in the same situation as the captain. Madrid was filled with former soldiers scraping a living in the streets and plazas, their belts stuffed with tin tubes in which they carried their wrinkled recommendations and petitions, and the useless service records that no one gave a Fig about. Waiting for a stroke of luck that never came.

  "That is why I have come, Diego. There is someone who needs you."

  "Me? Or my sword?" He twisted his mustache with that grimace that passed as a smile.

  Saldana burst out laughing. "What an idiotic question," he said. "There are women who are interesting for their charms, priests for their absolutions, old men for their money. ... As for men like you and me, it is only our swords." He paused to look in both directions, took another swallow of wine, and spoke more quietly. "These are people of quality. An easy evening's work, with no risks but the usual ones. And for doing it, there is a handsome purse."

  The captain observed his friend with interest. At that moment, the word "purse" would have roused him from the deepest sleep or the most excruciating hangover.

  "How 'handsome'?"

  "Some sixty escudos. In good four-doubloon coins." "Not bad." The pupils narrowed in Diego Alatriste's light eyes. "Is killing involved?"

  Saldana made an evasive gesture, looking furtively toward the door of the tavern.

  "Perhaps, but I do not know the details. And I do not want to know, if you get my meaning. All I know is that it is to be an ambush. Something discreet, at night, with your face covered and all that. 'Greetings and godspeed, senores"

  "Alone, or will I have company?"

  "Company, I surmise. There are two to be dispatched. Or perhaps only given a good fright. Or maybe you can use your blade to leave the sign of the cross on their faces, or something of the kind. You will know what to do."

  "Who are they?"

  Now Saldana shook his head, as if he had said more than he wanted. "Everything in its time. Besides, my only role is to act as messenger."

  The captain drained his jug, thinking hard. In those days, fifteen four-doubloon pieces, in gold, came to more than seven hundred reales. Enough to get him out of difficulty, buy new linens and a suit of clothes, pay off his debts ... set his life in order a lit
tle. Spruce up the two rented rooms where he and I lived on the upper floor of a courtyard behind the tavern, facing the Calle del Arcabuz. Eat hot food without depending on the generous thighs of Caridad la Lebrijana.

  "And also," Saldana added, seeming to follow the thread of the captain's thoughts, "this job will put you in contact with important people. Good for the future."

  "My future," the captain echoed, absorbed in his thoughts.

  II. THE MASKED MEN

  The street was dark and there was not a soul to be seen. Swathed in an old cloak that Don Francisco de Quevedo had lent him, Diego Alatriste stopped beside an adobe wall and took a cautious look around. A lamppost, Saldana had said. In fact, a small lamp stood on a pole in the hollow of a postern gate; beyond it, through the branches of the trees, could be seen the dark roof tiles of a house.

  It was the winding-down hour, near midnight, when the neighbors call out a warning, then empty their chamber pots out the windows, or hired cutthroats stalk their victims through the unlighted streets. But here there were no neighbors, nor did there seem ever to have been any; everything lay in silence. As for possible thieves and assassins, Diego Alatriste was prepared. At a very early age he had learned a basic principle of life and survival: If you are

  stout of heart, you can be as dangerous as anyone who crosses your path. Or more.

  As for the appointment that night, the instructions said to take the first street to the right after the old Santa Barbara gate, and walk on until coming to a brick wall and a light. So far, everything was going well. The captain stood quietly for a moment to look the place over, careful not to look directly at the lamp on the pole, so that it would not blind him and keep him from seeing into the darkest corners. Finally, after running his hands over the buffalo-hide buffcoat he had put on beneath his doublet in case of an untimely encounter with a knife, he pulled his hat lower and slowly walked toward the gate.

  I had watched him dress with great care an hour earlier in our rooms.