“Anyway,” Cagafuego was saying in his
potreño
accent, “I goes over to the chief rozzer, gets out my purse, takes out two nice gold ducats of eleven
reales
each, and I says to the man, winkin’ like, I says: ‘I swear on these twenty-two commandments that the man you’re lookin’ for ain’t me.’ ”
“And who was he, this rozzer?” asked the other man.
“One-eyed Berruguete.”
“A decent son of a bitch, he is. And accommodatin’ too.”
“You’re tellin’ me, my friend. Anyway, he pocketed the cash and that was that.”
“And the pigeon?”
“Oh, he was tearin’ his hair out, sayin’ as how it was me what stole his purse and that I had it on me still. But Berruguete, good as his word, just turned a deaf ear to him. That were a year ago now.”
They continued for a while in quiet and distinctly un-Góngoresque fashion. Then, after a while, Bartolo Cagafuego glanced across at me, put down his mug, stood up very casually, and stretched and yawned extravagantly, thus displaying the inside of his mouth with its half-dozen missing teeth. Then in buffcoat and breeches, his sword sheathed, he swaggered over to the door with all his usual bluff and bravado. I went to join him in the gallery of the courtyard, where our voices were muffled by the sound of the rain.
“No one at your heels, was there?” he asked.
“No one.”
“You sure?”
“As sure as there’s a God.”
He nodded approvingly, scratching his bushy eyebrows, which met in the middle on his scarred face. Then, without a word, he set off down the gallery, and I followed. We hadn’t seen each other since he’d had his sentence as a galley slave lifted after the attack on the
Niklaasbergen
and was granted a pardon, courtesy of Captain Alatriste. Cagafuego had pocketed a tidy portion of that Indies gold, which allowed him to return to Madrid and continue in his chosen criminal career as ruffian or pimp or protector of prostitutes. For all his solid build and fierce appearance, and although he had acquitted himself well in Barra de Sanlúcar and slit many a throat, exposing his own throat to danger wasn’t really his line. The fierce air he adopted was more for show than anything else, ideal for striking fear into the hearts of the unwary and for earning a living from women of the street, but not when it came to confronting any real toughs. So profound was his ignorance that only two or three of the five Spanish vowels had reached his notice, yet despite this—or perhaps precisely because of it—he now had a woman posted in Calle de la Comadre and had also come to an arrangement with the owner of a bawdy house, where he kept order by dint of a great deal of swearing and cursing. In fact, he was doing very well. With a record like his, though, it seemed to me even more remarkable that such a tavern-bound tough should risk his neck to help Captain Alatriste, for he had nothing to gain and a great deal to lose if anyone went bleating to the law. However, since their first meeting, years before in a Madrid dungeon, Bartolo Cagafuego had shown a strangely steadfast loyalty toward my master, the same loyalty I had observed often amongst people who had dealings with the captain, be they army comrades, people of quality, or heartless delinquents, or even, occasionally, enemies. Every now and then, certain rare men emerge who stand out from their contemporaries, not perhaps because they are different exactly, but because, in a way, they encapsulate, justify, and immortalize the age in which they live; and those who know such men realize or sense this, and take them as arbiters of how to behave. Diego Alatriste may well have been one of those unusual individuals, but even if he wasn’t, I would say that anyone who fought at his side or shared his silences or met with a look of approval in his green eyes, felt bound to him forever by strong ties. It was as if gaining his respect made you respect yourself more.
“There’s nothing to be done,” I said. “You’ll just have to wait until the air clears.”
The captain had listened intently, not saying a word. We were sitting next to a rickety table spattered with candle wax and on which stood a bowl containing some leftover tripe, a jug of wine, and a crust of stale bread. Bartolo Cagafuego was standing a little apart, arms folded. We could hear the rain on the roof.
“When is Quevedo going to see the count-duke?”
“He doesn’t know yet,” I replied. “But
The Sword and the Dagger
is going to be performed in a few days’ time at El Escorial, and don Francisco has promised to take me with him.”
The captain ran a hand over his unshaven face. He seemed thinner, more haggard. He was wearing darned stockings, a collarless shirt beneath his doublet, and breeches made from cheap cloth. He did not look well, but his soldier’s boots were standing in one corner, newly polished, and his new sword-belt on the table had just been freshly treated with horse grease. Cagafuego had bought him a hat and cloak from an old-clothes shop, as well as a rusty dagger that now lay sharpened and gleaming next to the pillow on the unmade bed.
“Did they give you much trouble?” the captain asked.
“No, not much,” I said with a shrug. “Besides, no one can prove I was involved.”
“And what about La Lebrijana?”
“The same.”
“How is she?”
I gazed down at the puddle of water on the floor, beneath the soles of my boots.
“You know what she’s like: lots of tears and threats. She swears blind that she’ll be there in the front row when they hang you. But she’ll get over it.” I smiled. “She’s softer than molasses, really.”
Cagafuego nodded gravely, as if he knew exactly what I meant. He looked as if he were about to offer his views on women and their jealousies and affections, but restrained himself. He had too much respect for my master to butt into the conversation.
“And is there any news of Malatesta?” asked the captain.
The name made me fidget in my seat.
“No, not a word.”
The captain was thoughtfully stroking his mustache. Now and then he studied my face closely, as if hoping to read in it anything I might be keeping from him.
“I might know where to find him,” he said.
These words suggested to me some mad plan.
“You mustn’t run any unnecessary risks.”
“We’ll see.”
“As the blind man said,” I commented bluntly.
He looked at me again, and I rather regretted my impertinence. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Bartolo Cagafuego’s reproving glance, but it was true that this was no time for the captain to be prowling the streets or lurking in the shadows. Before he did anything that might compromise him further, he should wait and see what progress don Francisco de Quevedo could make. And I, for my part, urgently needed to talk to a certain maid of honor, for whom I had been watching out for days now, without success. As regards the information I was keeping from my master, any remorse I might feel was somewhat tempered by the thought that, while it was true that Angélica de Alquézar had led me into the trap, that trap would never have been possible without the captain’s stubborn or suicidal collaboration. I had sufficient judgment to make these distinctions, and when you are nearly seventeen years old, no one is entirely a hero, apart from yourself, of course.
“Is this place safe?” I asked Cagafuego, as a way of changing the subject.
Cagafuego gave a fierce, gap-toothed smile.
“Tight as a drum. The law wouldn’t come around here, not even if you paid them. And if some snitch was to peach on him, the captain can always climb out of the window and onto the roof. The captain’s not the only one in trouble around here. If any bluebottles was to turn up, there’s comrades aplenty to sound the alarm. And if that happens, he just has to scarper.”
My master had not ceased looking at me all this time.
“We have to talk,” he said.
Cagafuego raised one huge hand to his eyebrows by way of a farewell.
“While you’re talkin’ and if you don’t need anythin’ else, Captain, this here herdsman’s goin’ to take a turn around his pastures to see how Maripérez is gettin’ on with the little bit of business she’s got in hand. Like they say, the eye of the master fattens the mare.”
He opened the door and stood silhouetted for a moment against the gray light of the gallery.
“Besides,” he said, “and I mean no disrespect, you never can tell when you might run headfirst into the law and however plucky you might be and however hard you hold out when they plays you like a guitar, it’s always easier to keep quiet about what you don’t know than to keep quiet about what you do know.”
“An excellent philosophy, Bartolo,” the captain said with a smile. “Aristotle couldn’t have put it better.”
Cagafuego scratched the back of his neck.
“I don’t know how brave or not that don Aristotle was, nor how he would stand up to three turns on the rack and never say ‘Nones,’ as is set down by a scribe that yours truly here once did. But you and I know tormentors what could make a stone sing.”
He left, closing the door behind him. I took out the purse that don Francisco de Quevedo had given me and placed it on the table. With an absent air, my master piled up the gold coins.
“Tell me what happened,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Tell me what you were doing the other night in Camino de las Minillas.”
I swallowed hard and again stared down at the puddle of rainwater forming around my feet, then back at the captain. I felt as stunned as a wife in a play does when she discovers her husband in the dark with his mistress.
“You know what I was doing, Captain. I was following you.”
“Why?”
“I was worried about . . . ”
I stopped. The expression on my master’s face had grown so somber that the words died on my lips. His pupils, which had been very dark in the dim light from the window, grew suddenly so small and steely that they seemed to pierce me like knives. I had seen that look on other occasions, occasions that often ended with a man bleeding to death on the ground. I felt afraid.
Then I gave a deep sigh and told him everything, from start to finish.
“I love her,” I said when I had done.
And I said this as if it entirely justified my actions. The captain had got up and was standing at the window, watching the rain.
“Very much?” he asked pensively.
“Too much to put into words.”
“Her uncle is the royal secretary.”
I understood the implications of these words, which were more warning than reproach. However, they showed on what slippery ground we stood. Apart from the matter of whether or not Luis de Alquézar did or didn’t know—Malatesta had, after all, worked for him before—the question was whether or not Angélica was part of the conspiracy, or whether her uncle or others, without being directly involved themselves, were trying to take advantage of the situation and climbing aboard a wagon that was already in motion.
“She is also,” added the captain, “one of the queen’s maids of honor.”
This, it was true, was no small thing either. Then I suddenly caught what he meant by these last words and froze. The idea that our queen could have anything to do with the intrigue was not so very ridiculous. Even a queen is a woman, I thought. She can feel jealousy just as keenly as a kitchen maid.
“But then why involve you?” the captain wondered out loud. “I was more than enough.”
I thought for a while.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It would provide the executioner with another head to chop off, I suppose. But you’re right, if the queen were involved, it would make sense if one of her maids of honor was too.”
“Or perhaps someone simply wants to make it seem that way.”
I looked at him, startled. He had gone over to the table and was studying the little pile of gold coins.
“Hasn’t it occurred to you that someone might want to lay the blame for the incident on the queen?”
I stared at him, openmouthed, aghast at the sinister implications of such an idea.
“After all,” the captain went on, “as well as being a deceived wife, she’s also French. Imagine the situation: the king dies, Angélica disappears, you’re arrested along with me, and on the rack you reveal that it was one of the queen’s maids of honor who lured you into the trap . . .”
I pressed my hand to my heart, offended.
“I would never betray Angélica.”
He looked at me and smiled the weary smile of a veteran.
“Just imagine that you did.”
“Impossible. I didn’t give you away to the Inquisition, did I?”
“True.”
He was still looking at me, but he said no more. I knew what he was thinking, though. Dominican friars were one thing, but royal justice another. As Cagafuego had said, there were torturers capable of loosening the tongue of even the bravest man. I considered this new variant to the plot, and could see that it was not unreasonable. Thanks to our strolls through Madrid’s
mentideros
, or gossip-shops, and to conversations with the captain’s friends, I was up to date on all the latest news: the struggle between Richelieu, the minister of France, and our Count-Duke of Olivares was already sounding the drum of future wars in Europe. No one doubted that once our froggy neighbors resolved the problem with the Huguenots in La Rochelle, the Spanish and the French would go back to killing each other on the battlefield. Implying that the queen was involved, regardless of whether this was true or false, was therefore not so very outlandish and could prove very useful to certain people. There were those who loathed Isabel de Borbón—Olivares, his wife, and followers among them—and there were those inside and outside Spain—England, for example, as well as Venice, the Turk, and even the pope in Rome—who wanted us to go to war with France. An anti-Spanish plot implicating the sister of the French king was all too credible. On the other hand, it might be an explanation that concealed others.