The round-headed man again paused in his writing. "Did they, by any chance, reveal their identity to you?"
"No, although they could have, and perhaps saved themselves. I was a soldier for nearly thirty years. I have killed, and I have done things for which my soul will be damned through eternity. But I know how to appreciate the gesture of a courageous man. And heretics or not, those men were courageous."
"You give that much importance to courage?"
"There are times when courage is all that is left," the captain said with utter simplicity. "Especially in times like these, when even flags and the name of God are used to strike deals."
If he had expected a reply, there was none. The masked man did nothing but continue to stare at him. "By now, of course, you have learned who those two Englishmen are."
Alatriste said nothing, but finally allowed a weak sigh to escape. "Would you believe me if I denied it? Since yesterday, all of Madrid has known." He looked at the Dominican and then the masked man with an expression that was easy to read. "And I am happy not to have that on my conscience."
The scribe made a brusque movement, as if attempting to shake off the thing Diego Alatriste had not wanted to be responsible for. "You bore us with your inopportune conscience, Captain."
This was the first time he had used that form of address. It was consciously ironic, and Alatriste frowned, not pleased.
"It matters little whether I bore you or not," he replied. "I do not like to murder princes without knowing who they are." Irritated, he twisted his mustache. "Or to be deceived and manipulated."
"And you feel no curiosity," intervened the priest, who had been listening closely, "as to why just men had determined to procure those deaths? Or prevent evil men from usurping the good faith of our lord and king, and from taking an infanta of Spain to the land of heretics as a hostage?"
Alatriste slowly shook his head. "No, I am not curious. Please consider, Your Mercies, that I have not even attempted to find out who this gentleman is who covers his face with a mask." Alatriste looked at his questioners with mocking, insolent seriousness. "Nor the identity of the one who, before he left the other night, insisted that I should merely frighten Masters John and Thomas Smith, take their letters and documents, but spare their lives."
For a moment the Dominican and his companion said nothing. They seemed to be thinking. It was the latter who finally spoke, staring at his ink-stained fingernails.
"Perhaps you suspect who that other caballero might be?"
"'Sblood! I suspect nothing. I find myself involved in something that is too rich for my fancy, and I regret it. Now all I hope to do is to leave with my head attached to my body."
"Too late," said the priest, in a tone so low and menacing that it reminded the captain of the hissing of a snake.
"Returning to our two Englishmen," the masked man put in. "You will recall that after the other caballero left, you received different instructions from the holy father and from me."
"I remember. But I also remember that you yourself seemed to show special deference to that 'other caballero,' and that you did not reveal your orders until he was gone and the ... holy father"—Alatriste looked out of the corner of his eye at the Inquisitor: remote, impassive, as if all this had nothing to do with him—"had stepped from behind the tapestry. That too may have influenced my decision regarding the lives of the Englishmen."
"You accepted good money not to respect them."
"True." The captain put his hand to his belt. "And here it is."
The gold coins rolled across the table and lay gleaming in the light of the candles. Fray Emilio Bocanegra did not even look at them, as though they were cursed. But the masked man reached for them and counted them one by one, stacking them into two small piles beside the inkwell.
"You are four doubloons short," he said.
"Yes. That is payment for my trouble. And for having been taken for an imbecile."
The Dominican exploded with a flash of choler. "You are a traitor, and totally untrustworthy," he said, contempt vibrating in his voice. "With your untimely attack of scruples, you have favored the enemies of God and of Spain. All this will be purged from you, I promise, in the cauldrons of Hell, but before that you will pay dearly here on earth. With your mortal flesh." The word "mortal" sounded even more terrifying coming from those icy, clenched lips. "You have seen too much, you have heard too much, you have made too many errors. Your life, Captain Alatriste, is worth nothing. You are a cadaver that—through some strange chance—is still walking and talking."
As the Dominican made that fearsome threat, the masked man was sprinkling powder on the sheet before him, to dry the ink. Then he folded it and put it into a pocket, and as he did, Alatriste again glimpsed the tip of the red cross of Calatrava beneath his black cloak. He also observed that the hands with the blackened nails collected the coins, apparently forgetting that part of them had come from the purse of the Dominican.
"You may go," the priest said to Alatriste, looking at him as if he had just remembered he was there.
The captain looked back at him with surprise. "I am free?"
"In a manner of speaking," added Fray Emilio Bocanegra, with a smile equivalent to excommunication. "You go with the weight of your treachery and our curses around your neck."
"That will not be heavy." Alatriste turned from one to the other, incredulous. "Is it true that I may leave? Now?"
"That is what we said. The wrath of God will know where to find you."
"The wrath of God does not worry me tonight. But Your Mercies ..."
The Dominican and the scribe were on their feet. "We have concluded," said the former.
Alatriste studied their faces. The candlelight from below cast ominous shadows.
"I find that difficult to believe," Alatriste concluded. "After you had me brought here."
"That," said the masked man as a last word, "no longer has anything to do with us."
They walked out, taking the candelabrum with them, and the last thing Diego Alatriste saw was the terrible gaze the Dominican threw his way before crossing his arms and thrusting his hands into the sleeves of his habit. The two men faded away like shadows. Instinctively, the captain reached for the grip of the sword that was not at his waist.
"A pox on them! Where is the trap in all this?"
His question was pointless, echoing through the empty room. There was no answer. As he strode toward the door, he remembered the slaughterer's knife he carried in his bootleg. He bent down and pulled it out, gripping it firmly, awaiting the attack of the executioners who, he was sure, were waiting for him.
But none came. He was inexplicably alone in the room dimly illuminated by the rectangle of moonlight falling through the window.
I do not know how long I waited outside, blending into the darkness, motionless behind the carriage guard on the corner post. I clutched the captain's cape and weapons closer, to borrow a little warmth from them—I was wearing only my doublet and hose when I ran after the coach of Martin Saldana and his catchpoles—and stood there a long while, clenching my teeth to keep them from chattering. Finally, when neither the captain nor anyone else came out of the house, I began to be concerned. I could not believe that Saldana had murdered my master, but in that city at that time, anything was possible. The idea truly alarmed me. When I looked closely I thought I could see a sliver of light escaping through one of the windows, as if someone were inside with a lamp, but from where I stood it was impossible to verify. I decided, despite the danger, to try to get near enough to peek inside.
I was about to step into the open, when, in one of those strokes of fortune to which we sometimes owe our lives, I caught a glimpse of movement some distance away, in the entry to a neighboring house. It was only a flicker, but a shadow had moved as the shadows of motionless objects do when they become animate. Surprised, I swallowed my impatience and stood there, undecided, keeping my eyes glued to the spot. After a while, it moved again, and at that same moment, f
rom across the small plaza I heard a soft whistle that sounded like a signal: a little tune, something like ti-ri-tu, ta-ta. When I heard that, the blood froze in my veins.
There must be at least two, I decided, after scrutinizing the shadows that covered the Gate of Lost Souls. One of them was hiding in the nearest entryway; that was the first shadow that had moved. The second, the one that had whistled, was farther away, covering the angle of the plaza that led to the wall of the slaughterhouse. There were three ways out, so for a while I concentrated on the third. Finally, when the clouds parted to reveal a crescent moon, I was rewarded: I made out a third dark shape, silhouetted against the moonlight.
The plan was clear, and boded ill for the captain, but I had no way to run the thirty steps to the house without being seen. I pondered these developments, and sat down and unrolled the cape, then placed one of the pistols on my knees. Its use was forbidden by edict of our lord and king, and I was well aware that if the law found me with them, my young bones would end up in a galley, and my youth would not excuse me. But, upon my word as a Basque, at that moment I did not give a fig. So, as I had watched the captain do so many times, I felt to see that the flint stone was in place, and trying to muffle the click with the cape, I pulled back the hammer to cock the pistol for firing. That one I stuck between my doublet and my shirt. I primed the second pistol, and waited with it in one hand and the captain's sword in the other. I put the now empty cape around my shoulders, and thus equipped, I continued my vigil.
I did not have long to wait. A light shone briefly in the enormous entry to the house, then was extinguished. I heard a carriage and turned to see it approaching from one of the exits of the small plaza. Along with it, I made out a black silhouette that entered the courtyard and for a brief instant consulted with two dark figures that had emerged from the house. The first shadow returned to its corner, and the other figures climbed into the carriage. As it started off, with its black mules and funereal coachman, it passed so close that it nearly brushed against me, then it rolled off into the darkness.
I did not have long to reflect upon the mysterious carriage. The sound of the mules' hooves was still echoing across the plaza when from the spot where the black silhouette was posted came another whistle, again that ti-ri-tu, ta-ta, and from the nearest corner the unmistakable sound of a sword being slowly drawn from its scabbard. Desperately, I prayed to God to part the clouds once more, and allow me to see. But it is a long way from thinking about the horse to saddling it. Our Supreme Maker must have been busy with other duties, because the clouds stayed where they were. I began to feel light-headed; everything around me was whirling. So I shed the cape and stood, meaning to run more quickly to the place where things were going to happen. That was when I saw Captain Alatriste come out into the courtyard.
Then everything happened with extraordinary speed. The shadow closest to me moved from its hiding place, starting toward Diego Alatriste at almost the same time I did. I held my breath as I followed it: one, two, three steps. At just that moment, God chose to shed his light on me, and parted the clouds. In the pale glow of the crescent moon I could clearly make out the back of a heavyset man moving forward with naked steel in his hand. I also saw the other two starting from their corners of the plaza. And as I held the captain's sword in my left hand and raised my right, armed with the pistol, I saw Diego Alatriste stop in the middle of the plaza, and caught the glint from his useless knife.
I took two steps more, and now the barrel of the pistol was nearly prodding the back of the man in front of me ... but he heard my footsteps and whirled about. I had time to see his face before I pulled the trigger and the pistol went off. The flash of the shot lighted features distorted with surprise. The roar of the gunpowder thundered through the Gate of Lost Souls.
The rest happened even more rapidly. I yelled, or thought I did, partly to alert the captain, and partly because of the terrible pain from the recoil of the weapon; it felt as if my arm had been torn from its socket. But the captain had more warning than he needed from the shot, and when I threw him his sword, over the shoulder of the man in front of me—or over the place where the man in front of me had been—he was already running toward it. He danced aside to avoid being hit, and picked it up the moment it touched the ground. Then, once again, the moon hid behind the clouds. I dropped the discharged pistol, pulled the other from my doublet, and turned toward the two shadows closing in on the captain.
I aimed, holding the pistol with both hands. But I was trembling so hard that the second shot went wild, and this time the recoil knocked me backward to the ground. As I fell, my eyes dazzled by the flash, I had a second's glimpse of two men with swords and daggers, and of Captain Alatriste, sword flashing, battling like a demon.
Diego Alatriste had seen them coming toward him before the first pistol shot. The moment he stepped outside he was watching for something of the sort, and he knew how futile it would be to try to save his hide with his ridiculous knife. The blast of the pistol had shocked him as much as it had the others, and for an instant he had thought he was the target. Then he heard my yell, and still not understanding what the devil I was doing there at such a late hour, he saw his sword flying toward him as if it had fallen from the skies. In the blink of an eye he had it in his hand, just in time to confront two furious, deadly blades.
It was the flash from the second shot that allowed him, once the ball went whizzing by between his attackers and himself, to size up the situation and prepare. Now he knew that one was on his left and the other straight ahead of him, forming an angle of approximately ninety degrees.
The role of the one was to keep him engaged as the other plunged a knife into his ribs or belly from the side.
Alatriste had found himself in similar situations before; it was not an easy task to combat one while protecting himself from another with only a short knife. His defense was to slash a wide swath from right to left, to cut into their space, although to protect his vulnerable left side he was forced to swing more to the left than to the right. The two attackers met move with move, so that after a dozen feints and thrusts they had traced a complete circle around him. Two oblique stabs had glanced off his buffcoat. The cling, clang of the Toledo blades sounded the length and breadth of the plaza, and I have no doubt that had the place been more inhabited, between that noise and my pistol shots the windows would have been filled with observers.
Then Fate, which like the winds of war, favors those who keep a clear head, came to the aid of Diego Alatriste. It was God's will that one of his thrusts went through the quillons of the sword guard and cut either the fingers or the wrist of the adversary at his left, who when he felt the wound, stepped back two paces with a "For the love of ..." By the time his opponent regrouped, Alatriste had already delivered three two-handed slashes, like three lightning bolts, against the other opponent, who had lost his balance and been forced by the violence of the attack to retreat.
That was all the captain needed to get his feet firmly set, and when the one who had been wounded on the hand advanced, the captain dropped the knife in his left hand, protected his face with his open palm, and lunging forward, thrust a good fourth of his blade into his opponent's chest. His victim's momentum did the rest: the sword drove through to the guard. The man cried out, "Jesus!" and dropped his sword, which clanged to the ground behind the captain.
The second swordsman, already on the attack, pulled up short. Alatriste leaped backward to pull his sword free of the first man—who had dropped to the ground like a sack of meal—and turned to face his remaining enemy, panting to catch his breath. The clouds had parted just enough to see, in the moonlight. . . the Italian.
"We are even now," said the captain, gasping for air.
"Delighted to hear that," the Italian replied, white teeth flashing in his dark face. The words were not yet out of his mouth when he made a quick, low thrust, as visible, and invisible, as the strike of an asp. The captain, who had studied the Italian carefully on the night of t
he attack on the two Englishmen, was waiting. He shifted to one side, and put out his left hand to parry the thrust, and the enemy sword plunged into thin air—although, as the captain stepped back, he became aware that he had a dagger cut across the back of his hand. Confident that the Italian had not severed a tendon, he reached to the left with his right arm, hand high and sword tip pointing down, parrying with a sharp ting! a second thrust, as surprising and skillful as the first. The Italian retreated one step, and again the two men stood facing each other, breathing noisily. Fatigue was beginning to affect both. The captain moved the fingers of his wounded hand, finding, to his relief, that they responded: the tendons were not cut. He felt blood, dripping warm and slow down his fingers.