We were walking past the granite pillars to the main staircase. The queen’s courtyard, where a large number of courtiers were waiting for the king and queen to come down, was filled by the golden light of the rising sun that glinted on the capitals and on the two-headed eagles above the arches. Don Francisco politely doffed his hat to a few court acquaintances. He was dressed, as usual, entirely in black grosgrain, with a ribbon as hatband, a red cross on his breast, and a gold-hilted court sword at his waist. I was no less elegant in my light woolen costume and my cap, my dagger stuck crosswise in my belt at the back. A manservant had placed my traveling case, containing my day-to-day clothes and a pair of clean undergarments neatly folded by La Lebrijana, in the carriage occupied by the Marquis of Liche’s servants, with whom don Francisco had arranged transport for me. He had a seat in the marquis’s carriage, a privilege which, as usual, he justified in his own way:
I’ll not bend the knee to a noble house,
For as the ancient saying goes:
If the king’s of pure blood, then so’s his louse.
“The count knows that the captain is innocent,” I said once we were alone again.
“Of course,” replied the poet, “but the captain’s insolence and that cut to the arm are hard to forgive, even more so with the king involved. Now, though, the count has an opportunity to resolve the matter honorably.”
“He hasn’t gone that far,” I objected. “He’s merely promised to arrange for the captain to meet the count-duke.”
Don Francisco looked around him and lowered his voice.
“That’s no small thing,” he said. “Although it’s only natural, of course, that, as a courtier, he’ll try to turn things to his advantage. The affair has gone beyond a simple spat over a woman, so he’s quite right to place it all in the count-duke’s hands. Alatriste is an invaluable witness if the conspiracy is to be uncovered. They know he’ll never talk under torture, or can be reasonably sure that he won’t. To do so voluntarily would be a different matter.”
I felt a pang of remorse. I had not told Guadalmedina or don Francisco about Angélica de Alquézar, only the captain. Whether my master chose to give her away or not was a matter for him, but I would not be the one to tell others the name of the young woman with whom, despite everything, and to the damnation of my soul, I was still deeply in love.
“The problem,” the poet continued, “is that, after all the commotion created by his escape, Alatriste can’t just wander about as if nothing were amiss, at least not until he’s spoken to Olivares and Guadalmedina at El Escorial. But that’s seven leagues away.”
I nodded anxiously. I myself, with don Francisco’s help, had hired a good horse so that the captain could set off the following morning for El Escorial, where he was due to present himself that night. The horse, which I had left in Bartolo Cagafuego’s care, would be waiting, saddled and ready, next to the Ermita del Ángel on the other side of the Segovia bridge.
“Perhaps you should speak to the count, just in case anything unexpected should happen.”
Don Francisco placed one hand on the cross of Santiago he bore on his chest.
“Me? Absolutely not. I have so far managed to keep out of the affair without betraying my friendship with the captain. Why spoil things at the last moment? You’re doing a fine job.”
He gave another nod of greeting to passing acquaintances, then smoothed his mustache and rested the palm of his left hand on the hilt of his sword.
“You have, I must say, behaved like a proper man,” he concluded fondly. “Approaching Guadalmedina really was tantamount to stepping into the lion’s den. You showed real courage.”
I did not respond. I was looking around me, for I had made a rendezvous of my own before traveling to El Escorial. We were near the broad staircase that stood between the respective courtyards of the queen and the king, beneath the large allegorical tapestry that presided over the main landing where four German guards, armed with halberds, stood motionless. The most noble members of the court, with the count-duke and his wife at their head, were waiting for the king and queen to descend in order to greet them. They provided a spectacular display of fine fabrics and jewels, of perfumed ladies and gentlemen with waxed mustaches and curled hair. I heard don Francisco murmur:
“See them all decked out in purple,
Hands beringed with glittering gems?
Inside, they’re naught but putrefaction,
Made of mud and earth and worms.”
I turned to him. I knew something of the world and of the court. I remembered what he had said about the king and the louse, too.
“And yet you, Señor Poet,” I said smiling, “will be traveling in the Marquis of Liche’s carriage.”
Don Francisco imperturbably returned my gaze, looked to left and right, then gave me a discreet nudge.
“Hush, you insolent boy. To everything its season. I had hoped you might give the lie to that magnificent line—penned by myself—which says: “Young ears are no fit recipient for the truth.” And in the same quiet voice, he continued:
“Evil and evil doers? Leave them well alone.
Let us live as witnesses not accomplices,
So the Old World to the New makes moan.”
However, the New World, namely me, had ceased listening to the Old World. The jester Gastoncillo had just appeared amongst the throng and was gesturing toward the servants’ stairs behind me. When I looked up, I caught a glimpse, above the carved granite balustrade, of Angélica de Alquézar’s fair ringlets. A letter I had written the previous afternoon had clearly reached the person to whom it was addressed.
“I believe you have some explaining to do,” I said.
“Not at all. And I have very little time. The queen is about to go down to the courtyard.”
She was resting her hands on the balustrade, watching the comings and goings below. That morning, her eyes were as cold as her words. She was no longer the affectionate young woman, dressed as a man, whom I had held in my arms.
“This time you’ve gone too far,” I said. “You, your uncle, and whoever else is mixed up in all this.”
She was playing distractedly with the ribbons adorning the bodice of her silk-embroidered dress.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir. Nor what my uncle has to do with your ravings.”
“I’m talking about the ambush in Camino de las Minillas,” I replied angrily. “About the man in the yellow doublet. About the attempt to kill the—”
She placed a hand on my lips, just as she had placed a kiss on them a few nights before. I shivered, and again she noticed. She smiled.
“Don’t talk nonsense.”
“If all is revealed,” I said, “you’ll be in great danger.”
She regarded me with interest, almost as if she found my disquiet intriguing.
“I can’t imagine you ever taking a lady’s name in vain.”
I felt as if she had guessed what I was thinking. I drew myself up, embarrassed.
“No,
I
might not, but there are other people involved.”
She looked at me as if she could not believe the implication behind my words.
“Have you told your friend Batatriste?”
I said nothing and averted my gaze. She read my reply on my face.
“I thought you were a gentleman,” she said disdainfully.
“I am,” I protested.
“I also thought that you loved me.”
“I do love you.”
She bit her lower lip as she pondered my words. Her eyes were like very hard blue polished stone. Finally, she asked bitterly:
“Have you betrayed me to anyone else?”
There was such scorn in that word “betrayed” that I could not speak for shame. Eventually, I composed myself and opened my mouth to utter a new protest. “You surely don’t think I could keep all this secret from the captain,” I began to say, but the sound of trumpets echoing through the courtyard drowned out my words. Their Majesties had appeared on the other side of the balustrade, at the top of the main staircase. Angélica glanced around, catching up her skirt.
“I have to go.” She seemed to be thinking as fast as she could. “I will see you again perhaps.”
“Where?”
She hesitated, then gave me a strange look, so penetrating that I felt quite naked before it.
“Are you going to El Escorial with don Francisco de Quevedo?”
“I am.”
“I’ll see you there.”
“How will I find you?”
“Don’t be silly. I’ll find you.”
This sounded more threat than promise, or both things at once. I watched as she walked away and as she turned once to smile at me. I thought again, “By God, she’s beautiful. And frightening, too.” Then she disappeared behind the columns and went down to join the king and queen, who were already at the foot of the stairs, where they were greeted by the Count-Duke of Olivares and the other courtiers. Then they all went out into the street. I followed behind, plunged in dark thoughts. I recalled with some unease the lines of poetry that Master Pérez had once made me copy out:
Averting one’s gaze from evident deceit,
When poison foul gives off a honey’d smell
And pain is loved and pleasures all retreat,
Then, one believes that heaven’s found in hell
And body and soul are at illusion’s behest,
Such is love—as he who tastes it can attest.
Outside, the sun was shining, and the scene it lit up was splendid indeed. The king was bowing to the queen and offering her his arm, and both were wearing sumptuous traveling clothes. The king had on a riding outfit sewn with silver thread, a crimson silk taffeta sash, as well as sword and spurs, a sign that, being the bold, young rider he was, he would make part of the journey on horseback, escort ing the queen’s carriage, which was drawn by six magnificent white horses and followed by another four coaches carrying the queen’s twenty-four handmaids and maids of honor. In the square, among the courtiers and other people crowding the area, the monarchs were greeted by Cardinal Barberini, the papal legate, who would be traveling in the company of the Dukes of Sessa and Maqueda, and so the greetings and salutations continued. With the royal party was the Infanta María Eugenia—only a few months old and in the arms of her nurse—the king’s brothers, the Infante Don Carlos, and the Prince of Wales’s impossible love, the Infanta Doña María, as well as the Cardinal-Infante Don Fernando, who had been Archbishop of Toledo since he was a boy and would eventually become general and governor of Flanders. Under his command, a few years later, Captain Alatriste and I would find ourselves battling hordes of Swedes and Protestants at Nördlingen. Amongst the courtiers closest to the king, I spotted the Count of Guadalmedina, wearing an elegant cape and French boots and breeches. Farther off, don Francisco de Quevedo was standing next to the count-duke’s son-in-law, the Marquis of Liche, reputed to be the ugliest man in Spain and married to one of the most beautiful women at court. And as the king and queen, the cardinal, and the nobles took their seats in their respective carriages, and the drivers cracked their whips and the cortège set off toward Santa María la Mayor and Puerta de la Vega, the people, delighted with the spectacle, applauded constantly. They even cheered the carriage in which I was sitting with the Marquis of Liche’s servants, but then, in this unhappy land of ours, we Spaniards have always been prepared to cheer almost anything.
The bell of the Hospital de los Aragoneses was ringing for matins. Diego Alatriste, who was awake and lying in his bed at the Fencer’s Arms, got up, lit a candle, and started pulling on his boots. He had more than enough time to get to the Ermita del Ángel before daybreak, but crossing Madrid and the Manzanares River in the current circumstances was a very complicated enterprise indeed. Better to be there an hour before than a minute late, he thought. And so, once he had pulled on his boots, he poured some water into a bowl, washed his face, ate a morsel of bread to settle his stomach, and finished dressing, donning his buffcoat, buckling on dagger and sword, and wrapping the dagger in a piece of cloth so that it would not bang against his sword guard; and for that same reason, he put his metal spurs in his purse. Stuck in his belt behind and concealed by his cloak, he had the booty from his eventful visit to Calle de la Primavera—Gualterio Malatesta’s two pistols, which he had loaded and primed the previous evening. Then he put on his hat, glanced around in case he had forgotten anything, doused the light, and made his way out into the street.
He drew his cloak about him against the cold. Then, orienting himself in the dark, he left behind him Calle de la Comadre and reached the corner of Calle del Mesón de Paredes and the Cabrestreros fountain. He stood there for a moment, motionless, thinking that he could hear something moving in the shadows, then he continued on, taking a shortcut along Embajadores to San Pedro. Finally, once past the tanneries, which were, of course, closed at that hour, he emerged onto the little hill of the Rastro, where, beyond the cross and the fountain, rose the somber bulk of the new abattoir, which stood out clearly in the light of a lantern in Plaza de la Cebada. The stench of rotten meat made it easy to recognize even in the dark. He was about to walk on when—and he had no doubts this time—he heard footsteps behind him. This could either be someone who simply happened to be there at the same time or someone who was following him. In case the latter proved to be the case, he sought refuge by the wall, folded back his cloak, shifted one of his pistols around to the front of his belt, and got out his sword. He stood for a while, utterly still, holding his breath to listen, until he could be sure that the footsteps were coming in his direction. Taking off his hat so as to be less noticeable, he leaned cautiously out and saw a shape approaching slowly. It could still be mere coincidence, he thought, but this was not the moment to leave anything to chance. He put on his hat again, and when the figure drew alongside him, stepped out, sword foremost.