The Marquis of Bolibar (8 page)

"And be quick about it!" Günther urged. "I don't care for priests who say Mass too slowly."

"I'll spend only half as long on him as a Mass takes from
introit
to
Agnus Dei,"
said the sergeant. He turned to the dragoons who had followed Kümmel downstairs in their eagerness to see what was afoot.

"Fall in!" he commanded. "Prisoner and escort, by the right, quick march!"

"Señor!" cried the muleteer, breaking away from the dragoons. "You're a Christian. Would you send me to my death unshriven?"

Eglofstein knit his brow. He wanted no delay. To allow the Spaniard to speak with another in private seemed dangerous and contrary to all common sense.

"If I must die, let me first confess!" the Spaniard cried, looking distraught. "You believe, like me, in God and the Holy Trinity. For my spiritual salvation's sake, summon the Se
ñ
or Cura or the Superior of the Convent of Santa Engracia. "

"What need of a priest? Make your confession to him," said Brockendorf, pointing to Lieutenant Donop. "He has a bald pate too, and Latin gushes from his mouth like water from a spring."

"Enough!" cried Günther, for whom matters were progressing too slowly. "Take him away, Sergeant!"

"No!" the Spaniard cried, holding fast to the table with both hands. "Let me speak with the Señor Cura. Only for a short while, a few minutes — only for as long as it takes to say a rosary."

That, however, was just what we had to prevent.

"Silence, you thief!" Günther thundered. "Do you think I don't know what accursed lies you plan to whisper in the priest's ear? Sergeant, take him away!"

The Spaniard looked at him, drew a deep breath, and began again.

"Listen to me, señores. I still have one thing left to do in this town. No one will attend to it when I am dead - not unless you let me speak with the Señor Cura. I cannot die before I know that the task has been entrusted to him."

He gazed at us in turn, wiping the sweat from his brow. All at once he was overcome with despair.

"Is there no one here to heed me?" he lamented loudly. "Is there no Spanish Christian here to heed me?"

"Whatever you've left undone, we shall do it for you," said Eglofstein, eager to settle matters. He tapped his riding boot impatiently with his crop. "Well, tell us what's to be done and then be off with you!"

"You
will do it for me?" cried the Spaniard. "
You
?"

"A soldier must be able to turn his hand to anything," said Eglofstein. "Quickly, say what's to be done. You wish some turnips planted, a roof repaired?"

Again the Spaniard looked from one to another of us, and a sudden thought seemed to strike him.

"You are Christians, señores," he said. "Swear to me by the Virgin and Child that you will keep your word."

"To hell with your formalities!" cried Günther. "We're officers. We shall do what we have promised to do, and there's an end on it."

"Whatever must be done, we shall do in your stead," Eglofstein repeated. "Have you a donkey to sell? Have you debts to collect? What is the task in question?"

Just then the bells of the nearby church began to ring for midnight Mass, proclaiming to the faithful that the mystery of the holy transubstantiation had been accomplished. The wind bore the sound to us through the chill winter air, and the muleteer did as all Spaniards do when they hear the Mass bell ring out: he went down on his knees, crossed himself, and said in a low, reverent voice, "
Dios viene,
God is coming."

"Well," Günther demanded, "what's to be done? Are we to tread a cabbage patch, stick a pig, slaughter an ox?"

"God will tell you," whispered the Spaniard, still deep in prayer.

"Is there flour to be sifted, bread to be baked, corn to be hauled to the mill? Answer, fellow!"

"God will show you," said the Spaniard.

"Don't be a fool," cried Eglofstein. "Answer! Leave God in peace — he knows nothing of you."

"God has come," the Spaniard said solemnly, rising to his feet. "You made a vow and God heard it."

His demeanour had suddenly changed beyond recognition. Gone was the fear he had shown hitherto. No longer a wretched muleteer accused of theft, he stepped up to the sergeant with a proud and dignified air.

"Here I am, Sergeant. Do your duty."

It escapes me how I could have failed at that moment to perceive who had fallen into our hands, or how I failed to discern the nature of the task bequeathed us by our doomed prisoner. We were all of us blind and had but one thought in mind: that the man who shared our secret must be silenced for ever.

At a nod from Captain Eglofstein I went outside to see that the execution proceeded in a swift and orderly manner. The snow, which lay half a foot deep, muffled the footsteps of the marching soldiers. The courtyard was faintly illumined by a full moon.

The soldiers formed up in line abreast and loaded their muskets. The Spaniard beckoned me over.

"Hold my dog, Lieutenant," he said. "Hold him fast till it's done."

From where we stood it was possible to see the dark vineyards and the hilly, moonlit fields that lay beyond the town wall. Mulberry and fig trees loomed above the snow with their naked branches outstretched. Far to the west, the horizon was fringed with a dark, menacing shadow: the distant oak forests in which lurked our foe, the Tanner's Tub, and his hordes.

"Grant me one last look at the countryside, Lieutenant," said the Spaniard. "This is my land, my native soil. It is for me that those fields turn green, for me that those vines bear fruit and those cattle bring forth young. Mine is the soil that the wind caresses, and mine are the fields that receive the snow and rain and dew from heaven. Mine is all that stirs between those furrows and all that breathes beneath these roofs — mine is all that this sky encompasses. You are a soldier, Lieutenant. You cannot truly understand what it means to say, 'My land,
my
native soil.' Stand aside and give the order!"

Six shots rang out. The dog howled and tugged madly at its collar. I let the beast go, took the torch from the sergeant's hand, and lit the dead man's face.

The Marquis of Bolibar had resumed his former appearance. Death had broken the mould he had enforced upon his features while playing the part of a muleteer for our deception's sake. His face, as he lay there now, was just as I had seen it that morning: proud, motionless and awe-inspiring, even in death.

The soldiers shovelled away the snow and set about burying him. I walked slowly back across the courtyard to the house. All at once I saw quite plainly what had happened, and what a strange and devious course the Marquis of Bolibar had taken. While leaving his house in secret that morning, he must have encountered Perico the waggoner, who was just making off through the woods with his stolen thalers. He had exchanged clothes with Perico, and his face, which was so mysteriously subject to his will, had taken on the waggoner's features. Thus disguised, he had entered the town incognito to put his plans into effect. And then, without warning, he had found himself as securely incarcerated in the role of a thief as he would have been in a prison cell. Unable to slough off that role without betraying his true identity, he was compelled to play it to the end and suffer a death intended for another.

It was while all these thoughts were passing through my mind that I came to a sudden halt in the snow and smote my brow, for I now grasped the significance of the curious oath he had made us swear. Unheeded by anyone, with death staring him in the face and enemies on every side, the Marquis of Bolibar had entrusted us with the fulfilment of his task: we ourselves were to give the signals that would spell our own destruction.

I felt disposed to laugh at the stupidity of this notion, but my laughter was still-born. The dead man's words still rang in my ears:
Dios viene.

God had come ... A shiver ran through me, together with a dread of something that could not be put into words - something that loomed before me as dark, menacing and fraught with danger as the gloomy shadows of those distant oak forests.

I re-entered the sweltering room, which was thick with wine fumes and tobacco smoke. Günther and Brockendorf, their quarrel forgotten, were peacefully sleeping on the floor side by side. Donop sat perched on the table with the Marquis's dagger in his hand, examining the fine workmanship of the carved hilt. Eglofstein was standing in the middle of the room with Captain de Salignac, who had a vociferous and wildly gesticulating figure by the collar and was pushing the fellow ahead of him.

"Eglofstein!" I called. "It was the Marquis of Bolibar you ordered to be shot."

I had expected my announcement to be greeted with surprise, delight and jubilation, but the only response was a bellow of laughter.

"Another
Marquis of Bolibar?" cried Eglofstein. "How many of them are roaming the streets tonight? My friend Salignac has caught one too."

He pointed to Salignac's prisoner. I could not discern his face, for it was hidden behind one of those black silk handkerchiefs with which married men in Spanish towns disguise themselves when pursuing their nocturnal amours.

"Comrade Salignac," he said mockingly, "you've bought yourself a donkey at a horse fair. I advise you not to hang the worshipful alcalde of this town on our very first day here. We may have need of him."

GERMAN SERENADE

We could not forbear to burst out laughing when we saw that our unhappy prisoner was none other than His Portliness the alcalde of La Bisbal. So uproarious did our laughter become that it roused Lieutenant Günther, who got to his feet, rubbed his eyes, and yawned. Brockendorf slumbered on, snoring fit to blow the door off its hinges.

"What is it?" asked Günther, sleepily smoothing down his hair.

The alcalde pursed his mouth into a sour smile at our boisterous hilarity. He twisted his cap in his hands, half incensed, half abashed, with the look of one who has swallowed mouse dirt instead of aniseed candy.

"Señores," he said, "there are nights when we, too, like to tear a bed-sheet other than our own."

One could see, as he looked at our laughing faces, what an effort it cost him to master his annoyance.

"There are women in our town far lovelier than the ladies who lean at night against the pillars of the colonnades in the Palais Royal," he proclaimed, clearly as proud of the fact that his town vaunted such beauties as he was of having travelled so far afield. He was almost as much at home in Paris, he implied, as he was in La Bisbal.

"I've yet to see many choice morsels in your streets," Eglofstein said scornfully.

"Coarse bran, coarse bran!" the alcalde exclaimed. "What you have hitherto seen, se
ñ
or, is fit only for the likes of us. For officers and gentlemen such as you, I know of some fine white flour." He shut his eyes and smacked his lips, chuckling.

"White flour indeed!" sneered Donop. "White lead, more like. The women smear their wrinkled cheeks with it, and underneath they look like unshaven ox-hide — I know that trick of old."

"Shame on you, señor!" said the alcalde, looking affronted. "If you once set eyes on the girl I have in mind, you would find neither white lead nor any other substance on her cheeks. Monjita is barely eighteen years old, but the menfolk are after her like meadow frogs after a red rag."

"Here with her, then!" yelled Brockendorf from his corner, wide awake in a trice on hearing all this talk of women. "Eighteen, eh? That fires my blood like water on unslaked lime."

"Who is this Monjita?" Eglofstein asked disdainfully. "A tailor's daughter? A wig-maker's trollop?"

"Her father, señor, is a nobleman - one of those that are respected by all as persons of quality, yet are so poor that they don't possess an undarned shirt to their name. Times are hard, and he cannot afford to pay his rent and taxes. He will esteem it a great honour if Your Excellencies find his daughter worthy of their attention."

"What trade does he follow?" Donop inquired. "If it puts no bread on his table, why doesn't he abandon it?"

"He paints pictures," the alcalde explained, "— pictures of emperors and kings, prophets and apostles, which he hawks at the church door by day and in taverns by night. He's exceedingly skilful — he can paint everything, man and beast alike. St Rochus he depicts with a dog, St Nicasius with a mouse, and Paul the Hermit with a raven."

"And his daughter?" asked Günther. "She may well be no older than seventeen, but the girls hereabouts are like our German bagpipes at that age: they squeal if you so much as touch them."

"His daughter," said the alcalde, "is well-disposed toward Your Excellencies."

"Then
allons,
forward! What are we waiting for?" Brockendorf cried eagerly. "I yearn to stew in her little cook-pot."

"But not tonight," the alcalde objected, with an uneasy glance at the tipsy Brockendorf. "Another time, señores — perhaps tomorrow after dinner. Señor Don Ramon de Alacho will already be asleep at this late hour. For now, I think it would be better if we all retired to bed."

"Have you done?" Eglofstein barked at him. "Yes? Then say no more until you're spoken to. Forward! Take the light and lead on!" He turned to the captain of the Horse Guards, who was pacing restlessly up and down the room. "Will you not come with us, Salignac?"

"I'm waiting for my servant, Baron. He's gone, though I ordered him to stay. Can you tell me where he went?"

"Comrade," said Eglofstein, putting on his cloak, "you were unfortunate in your choice of a travelling companion. Your servant was a thief — he stole a purse from one of my men this morning. He had it on his person, though the thalers had gone."

Salignac was not in the least surprised or taken aback.

"Did you hang him?" he inquired without looking round.

"Wrong, comrade! We shot him outside in the courtyard. The carpenter has promised us a gibbet next week, but not before."

The captain's reply was so strange that I often had cause to remember it in the days to come.

"I knew it," he said. "No man ever lives long who travels a part of the way with me."