The King's Gold Read online

“Perhaps,” replied the captain, again looking around him.

  The two fellows exchanged a glance. A third man who had been watching came over, curious to know what was going on. I shot a sideways look at the captain and saw that he was entirely unruffled. After all, this was his world too, and he knew it like the back of his hand.

  “You probably want—” began one.

  Alatriste ignored him and walked on. I went behind, keeping my eye on the two cutthroats, who were discussing in low voices whether the captain’s behavior constituted an affront and, if so, whether or not they should knife him in the back. They were clearly unable to reach an agreement, for nothing happened. The captain was now studying a group sitting in the shade by the wall, three men and two women apparently engaged in animated conversation as they swigged from a capacious leather wineskin. Then I saw that he was smiling.

  He went over to the group, and I followed. When they saw us approaching, the conversation gradually petered out, and the various members of the group eyed us warily. One of the men had very dark skin and hair and huge side-whiskers that reached right down to his jaw. He had a couple of marks on his face, which had clearly not been there since birth, and large, blunt-nailed hands. He was dressed almost entirely in leather and had a short, broad Toledo sword—the blade of which bore its maker’s unusual mark: the engraving of a puppy—and his coarse canvas breeches were adorned with strange green and yellow bows. He sat staring at my master as the latter came toward him, and his words died on his lips.

  “Well, I’ll be hanged,” he said at last, openmouthed, “if it isn’t Captain Alatriste.”

  “The only thing that surprises me, Señor don Juan Jaqueta, is that they haven’t hanged you already.”

  The man uttered a couple of oaths and a loud guffaw and then stood up, brushing off his breeches.

  “So where have you sprung from?” he asked, shaking the captain’s proffered hand.

  “Here and there.”

  “Are you in hiding too?”

  “No, just visiting.”

  “By my faith, I’m pleased to see you!”

  Jaqueta cheerily demanded the wineskin from his companions, and this was duly passed around, and even I drank my share. After exchanging memories of mutual friends and of the odd shared experience—which is how I learned that Jaqueta had also been in Naples as a soldier, and one of the best too, and that, years before, Alatriste had himself taken refuge in that very place—Jaqueta, my master, and I moved away from the group. The captain came straight to the point and told Jaqueta that he had some work for him, his kind of work, and with a promise of gold paid in advance.

  “Here?”

  “In Sanlúcar.”

  Jaqueta made a despairing gesture.

  “If it was something easy and at night,” he explained, “that would be fine. But I can’t stray very far at the moment. A week ago, I knifed a merchant, the brother-in-law of a Cathedral canon, and the law are after me.”

  “That can be sorted out.”

  Jaqueta gave my master a keen look.

  “Blind me, have you got a letter from the archbishop or something?”

  “Better than that,” said the captain, patting his doublet. “I have a document authorizing me to recruit whatever friends I can and to place them beyond the reach of the law.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I certainly am.”

  “Things are obviously going well for you.” Jaqueta spoke more respectfully now. “I imagine the job will involve some, shall we say, hand work.”

  “You imagine correctly.”

  “Just you and me?”

  “Plus a few others.”

  Jaqueta was scratching his side-whiskers. He glanced over at his companions and lowered his voice.

  “And there’s pelf aplenty to be had, is there?”

  “There is.”

  “And part payment in advance?”

  “Three double-headed doubloons.”

  Jaqueta let out an admiring whistle. “Well, I could certainly do with them, because the wages for our kind of work have gone right down, Captain. Only yesterday, someone came to see me about doing away with his good lady’s lover and all he was offering was twenty ducados. What do you think to that?”

  “Shameful.”

  “Too true,” agreed Jaqueta, his fist on his hip, every inch the ruffian now. “So I told him that all he could get for that price was a cut to the face that would require ten stitches, or, at most, twelve. We argued, got nowhere, and I very nearly knifed him there and then, and I’d have done it for free too.”

  Alatriste was once more looking around him. “I need men I can trust, good swordsmen, not playhouse villains. And I want no talebearers either.”

  Jaqueta nodded authoritatively. “How many?”

  “A good dozen.”

  “It’s a big job, then.”

  “You don’t think I’d be looking for such a rabble of rogues just to knife an old lady, do you?”

  “No, of course not. Is it dangerous work?”

  “Fairly.”

  Jaqueta frowned thoughtfully. “Most of the men here are pure dross,” he said, “no good for anything but cutting the ears off cripples or giving their whores a good belting when they bring back four reales less than they should after a day’s work.” He discreetly indicated one man in his group. “He might be all right. His name’s Sangonera and he’s been a soldier too. He’s a nasty piece of work, but good with his hands and fast on his feet. And I know a mulatto who’s in hiding at San Salvador church at the moment. His name’s Campuzano. He’s as strong as an ox and knows how to hold his tongue. Why, only six months ago, they tried to pin a murder on him, which him and another lad had, in fact, done, but he survived four bouts of strappado like a pure-bred hidalgo, because he knows that you pay for any slip of the tongue with your throat.”

  “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 mea
nt 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.