“Of course they do. They’re old acquaintances of yours. They were with me in Camino de las Minillas.”
“I assume they’ve been well paid.”
“What do
you
think?”
Alatriste tried to move, but to no avail. His hands and feet were bound fast, although at least now his hands were tied in front of him, a precaution his captors had taken before setting out, so that he could hold himself upright on the mule.
“How do you intend carrying out your orders?”
Malatesta had taken from his leather belt a pair of black gloves, which he was now carefully drawing on. Alatriste noticed that, as well as sword, dagger, and pistol, he also had a knife in the leg of his boot.
“As I’m sure you know, the man in question has a taste for going out hunting early with just two beaters as escort. There are plenty of deer and rabbit here, and he’s an experienced, intrepid hunter, a great marksman. All of Spain knows his liking for plunging into the undergrowth alone when he’s hot on the trail of something. It’s odd, isn’t it, that someone so self-possessed, a man who never even blinks in public or looks at anyone directly, should be so utterly transformed when in pursuit of his prey.”
He flexed his fingers to make sure his gloves fitted properly, then unsheathed his sword a few inches and put it back again.
“Hunting and women,” he added with a sigh.
He remained like this for a moment, apparently absorbed in thought. Finally, he beckoned to the two ruffians, who hoisted the captain—one holding him by the legs and the other under the armpits—and carried him over to an oak tree, where they leaned him against the trunk. He was hidden there by the bushes.
“It wasn’t easy, but we managed,” the Italian went on. “We were told that he would be here tonight, taking his ease with . . . well, you know with who. Certain people arranged for him to be accompanied this morning by two trusted beaters. Trusted by us, that is. They have just informed us, by sounding the hunting horn, that everything is going to plan and that the prey is near at hand.”
“A difficult task very delicately handled,” remarked the captain.
Malatesta thanked him for the compliment by touching the dripping brim of his hat.
“I hope that after such a wanton night, the illustrious personage made his confession before setting out,” said Malatesta, and his pockmarked face again twisted into a grimace. “Not that I care, but they do say he is a pious man. I doubt very much he would want to die in mortal sin.”
He seemed to find this thought vastly amusing. He gazed off into the distance, as if trying to spot his prey amongst the trees, then burst out laughing, his hand still resting on the hilt of his sword. In a tone that was at once jocular and sinister, he said:
“I like the idea that today we’ll be providing two new recruits for hell.”
He continued to smile, savoring the thought. Then he again looked at the captain.
“By the way,” he added courteously, “I think you were quite right last night to refuse the sacrament of penitence. If either you or I ever recounted our lives to a priest, he’d immediately hang up his habit, write a highly unexem plary novel, and make more money than Lope does each time he puts on a new play.”
Despite the situation, Alatriste could not help but agree.
“Fray Emilio Bocanegra,” he said, “isn’t much of an incentive to unburden one’s conscience.”
The Italian gave another brief laugh.
“Oh, I’m with you there. If I had to choose between two devils, I’d prefer the one with the tail and the horns to the one with the tonsure and the crucifix.”
“You haven’t yet told me what my part is in all this?”
“Your part?” Malatesta looked at him for a moment, uncertain how to reply, then he understood. “Oh, of course. The hunter and the prey. I thought you would have guessed what would happen next: a rabbit, say, or a deer rushes into the woods with the royal personage after him. The beaters hang back, and the spurned lover, namely you, appears out of nowhere and promptly runs him through. A simple case of jealousy avenged.”
“Will you run him through yourself?”
“Of course. Both him and you. A double pleasure. Then we’ll untie you, leaving your sword, dagger, and everything else nearby. Those faithful beaters, arriving at the tragic scene too late, will at least have the official honor of avenging the king.”
“I see.” Alatriste was studying his own bound hands and feet. “A shut mouth catches no flies.”
“You have a reputation, Captain, as a brave man. No one would be surprised to learn that you fought like a tiger to the death, and many would be disappointed if they thought you had surrendered your life without a struggle.”
“And what about you?”
“Oh, I know that isn’t how it was. You can depart this life with an easy mind. After all, you killed one of my men yesterday and another in Camino de las Minillas.”
“No, I meant what will you do afterward?”
Malatesta smugly stroked his mustache.
“Ah, that’s the best part. I will disappear for a while. I’d like to go back to Italy with some ballast in my purse. I left there with far too little.”
“It’s a shame they don’t ballast your balls with an ounce of lead.”
“Patience, Captain,” said the Italian, smiling encour agingly. “All in good time.”
Alatriste leaned his head against the tree trunk. The rain was running down his back, soaking the shirt underneath his buffcoat. His breeches were already sodden with mud.
“I’d like to ask you a favor,” he said.
“Ye gods,” said Malatesta, eyeing him with genuine surprise. “
You
asking a favor, Captain? I hope the prospect of meeting the Grim Reaper isn’t turning you soft. I would prefer to remember you as you were.”
“Is there some way in which Íñigo could be left out of this?”
Malatesta continued to study him impassively. Then a flicker of understanding seemed to cross his face.
“As far as I know, he’s not involved,” he said. “But that doesn’t depend on me, so I can’t promise you anything.”
The man who had made off into the bushes returned and gestured to Malatesta, pointing in a particular direction. Malatesta gave the two men some orders in a low voice. One stationed himself next to the captain, his sword and pistol at his belt, and one hand resting on the hilt of his knife. The other went over to join the third man, who was waiting farther off.
“He’s a very brave lad, Captain. You should be proud of him, and I can assure you that I, too, hope he gets out of this all right.”
“So do I. Then, one day, he can kill you.”
Malatesta was about to go over and join his men, leaving one to guard Alatriste.
“Yes, perhaps,” he said. Then he turned around and once more fixed Alatriste with his dark eyes. “As with you, someone will have to kill me sometime.”
It was drizzling harder now, drenching our faces. With the two mules almost at a gallop, the carriage was clattering along toward La Fresneda beneath the gray sky and past the dark poplars flanking the road. We had found the driver lying on one of the seats inside the carriage, sleeping off the effects of the wine he had drunk, which was why Rafael de Cózar, his sword tucked in his belt, was the one now holding the reins and urging on the mules. Cózar was not entirely sober himself, but the activity, the cooling rain, and a kind of obscure determination that seemed lately to have taken hold of him, were all helping to dissipate the vinous vapors. He was racing along in the carriage, urging the mules on with shouts and lashes of the whip, and I could not help but ask myself uneasily if this speed was a tribute to his skill as a driver or merely the irresponsible behavior of a drunkard. Whatever the truth of the matter, the carriage seemed positively to fly. I was sitting beside Cózar, wrapped in the coachman’s cloak, hanging on as best I could, ready to throw myself off if we overturned. I closed my eyes each time the actor took a bend in the road, or when the mules or the lurchings of the carriage spattered us with mud.
I was just pondering what I was going to say or do in La Fresneda, when we left behind us the lead-gray smudge of the lake—glimpsed through the branches of the trees—and I saw, still far off, the stepped Flemish roof of the royal hunting lodge. At that point, the road forked, and the left fork led into the leafy wood; when I looked down that path, I saw a mule and four horses half hidden round a bend. I pointed this out to Cózar, who pulled so violently on the reins that one of the mules almost bolted and the carriage nearly overturned. I jumped down from the seat, cautiously looking all around. The dawn was far advanced now, although, beneath the rain-laden sky, the countryside still looked dark. Perhaps, I thought fearfully, there was nothing to be done and going to the hunting lodge itself would be a waste of time. I was still hesitating when Cózar took the decision for us both: he, too, jumped from the driver’s seat, but fell face first into an enormous puddle, got up, shook himself, then, tripping over his own sword, fell in again. He got to his feet, cursing angrily. His face was covered in mud, filthy water was dripping from his side whiskers and mustache, and yet his eyes were shining. For some strange reason, for all his cursing, he seemed to be enjoying himself hugely.
“Have at ’em,” he said, “whoever they are.”
I took my borrowed cloak and picked up the coachman’s sword, for the coachman had, during that rackety journey, slid to the floor of the carriage and lay there, snoring like a baby. The sword was of very poor quality, but that and my dagger were better than nothing, and there was no time to lose. Utter confidence, Captain Bragado used to say in Flanders, was dangerous when discussing any preliminary plan of attack, but vital at the moment of execution. And that moment had arrived. I indicated the horses tethered to the trees.
“I’m going to take a look. You go to the lodge and ask for help.”
“Certainly not, my boy. I wouldn’t miss this for anything in the world. We’re in it together.”
Cózar seemed a different man, and he probably was. Even his tone of voice was not the same. I wondered what role he was playing. He suddenly went over to the coachman, who was still asleep in the carriage, and started slapping him so hard that the noise startled the mules.
“Wake up, you fool!” he demanded with all the authority of a duke. “Spain needs you.”
A moment later, the coachman—still dazed and, I imagine, suspecting that his master was not quite right in the head—was cracking the whip and driving on to La Fresneda to give the alarm. He seemed a rather dim-witted fellow, and so Cózar, in order not to complicate matters further, had given him some very elementary instructions: “Go to the hunting lodge, kick up a fuss, and bring as many people back here with you as you can. Explanations will follow.
“If, of course, we live to provide them,” he added dramatically, for my benefit.
Then he solemnly folded back his cloak, adjusted his sword, and set off into the woods, a small, determined figure. A few paces later, he tripped over his sword again and fell face forward into the mud.
“God save me,” he said from where he lay on the ground, “I’ll pickle the next man who pushes me.”
I helped him up, and he once again brushed down his clothes. “I just hope the coachman can convince the people at La Fresneda,” I thought despairingly. “Or that the captain, wherever he is, can sort things out alone. Because if everything depends on Cózar and me, Spain will be left without a king just as sure as I was left without a father.”
The hunting horn sounded again. Still sitting with his back to the tree trunk, Diego Alatriste noticed the man guarding him turn in the direction from which the sound had come. He was the same short, bearded, broad-shouldered fellow he had seen at the staging post at Galapagar before the ambush. He was also, it seemed, a man of few words and had not moved since Malatesta left, standing motionless beneath the increasingly heavy rain, with only a short waxed cape as protection. As Alatriste could appreciate better than anyone, the fellow was clearly accustomed to this life, the kind of man to whom you say: stay there, kill, die, and who will carry out those orders without a murmur; the kind of man who could be a hero when it came to attacking a Flemish bastion or a Turkish galley, or a murderer when it came to private matters. There was no easy way of drawing a line between the two. It all depended on how the dice fell—the dice of life—or on whether you were dealt the seven of clubs or the whore of hearts.
When the sound of the horn had died away, the ruffian rubbed the back of his neck and glanced at his prisoner. Then he came over to him and looked at him dully for a moment before unsheathing his knife. With his bound hands in his lap, Alatriste rested his head back against the trunk of the tree, keeping his eyes fixed on the blade. He felt an unpleasant tingling in his groin. Perhaps, he thought, Malatesta had changed his mind and was delegating the task to his subordinate. What a grubby way to die, sitting in the mud, tied hand and foot, his throat slit like a pig’s, and with a long future ahead of him in the history books as an exemplary regicide. Shit.
“If you try to escape,” warned the man dispassionately, “I’ll pin you to that tree.”
Alatriste blinked away the rain running down his face. Apparently the fellow had other plans. Instead of slitting his throat, the man was cutting the ropes binding his ankles.
“Get up,” the man said, giving him a shove.
The captain got to his feet, the other man never once taking his eyes off him and keeping the blade only an inch from his throat. He gave the captain another shove.
“Come on.”
Alatriste finally understood. They were not going to kill him now only to have to drag his corpse over to the king’s body, leaving tracks in the mud and the scrub. He would simply have to walk to the site of that double execution, measuring out, step by step, what was left of his time and his life. It occurred to him, on the other hand, that this was also an opportunity, his very last. After all, as things stood, he might as well consider himself dead and buried, so anything else was a bonus.