"I will be late, Inigo. Do not wait up."
We had dined on soup, with a few crumbs of bread, a small measure of wine, and two boiled eggs. Later, after washing his face and hands in a basin as I mended some ancient hose by the light of a tallow lamp, Diego Alatriste prepared to go out, taking all the necessary safeguards. It was not that he suspected a trick on the part of Martin Saldana, but high constables themselves may be the victims of deceit... or be bribed. Including constables who are old friends and comrades. And had that been the case, Alatriste would not have been too resentful. In that day, anything within the ambit of the young, pleasant, womanizing, pious, and lethal-for-poor-all-the-Spains Philip the Fourth could be bought; even consciences. Not that things have changed that much since then.
In any case, the captain took every precaution on his way to the rendezvous. He tucked the vizcaina that had served him so well in the town prison into the back of his belt, and I saw him slip his short slaughterer's knife into his boot. As he made these preparations, I sneaked glances at his grave, absorbed face. The light from the tallow lamp deepened the hollow of his cheeks and accentuated the fierce line of his mustache. He did not seem very proud of himself. For a moment, as he looked about for his sword, his eyes met mine, and then instantly he looked away, his eyes avoiding mine, as if fearful that I would read something in them he did not want to reveal. But only for an instant, and then he looked straight at me again, with a quick, open smile.
"A man has to earn his bread, lad."
That was all he said. He buckled on the belt with the sword—he always refused, except in war, to sling it over his shoulder, as the common swaggering, strutting good-for-nothings did—testing to be sure that he could easily draw it from the scabbard, and donned the cloak he had borrowed from Don Francisco that same afternoon. The cape, aside from the fact that we were in March and it was too cold at night to be without one, had another use: in that dangerous Madrid of narrow, badly lighted streets, the garment was very practical in a sword fight. Folded across the chest, or rolled around the left arm, it made a handy buckler for protecting oneself, and thrown over the adversary's sword, it hampered him long enough to get in a good blow. In the end, fighting a clean fight when risking one's hide might have contributed to the salvation of the soul in the life eternal, but insofar as life on this earth was concerned, it was doubtlessly the shortest path to giving up the ghost, and looking like a fool with a handspan of steel in one's liver. And Diego Alatriste was in no damned hurry to go.
The lamp shed an oily light on the postern gate. The captain knocked four times, as Saldana had told him to do. That done, he freed the hilt of his sword and kept his left hand behind him, near the vizcaina. From the other side of the door he could hear footsteps. The door opened silently, and the silhouette of a servant filled the opening.
"Your name?"
"Alatriste."
Without a word, the retainer started off, preceding the captain along a path that wound through the trees of a garden. The building the captain was led to seemed abandoned. Although he did not know the part of Madrid near the Hortaleza road well, he fitted some pieces together and thought he could recall the walls and roof of a decrepit old house he had once glimpsed as he passed by.
"Wait here, Your Mercy, until they call for you."
Alatriste and his guide had just entered a small room with bare walls and no furniture, where the flickering light from a candelabrum set on the floor played over the old paintings on the wall. In one corner of the room stood a man muffled in a black cape; a wide-brimmed hat of the same color covered his head. He had not moved when the captain entered, and when the servant—who in the candlelight was revealed to be of middle age, and wearing livery that the captain could not identify—retired, leaving the two of them alone, he still stood motionless, like a dark sculpture, observing Alatriste. The only signs of life visible between the cape and the hat were dark, gleaming eyes, which the candlelight picked out among the shadows, lending their owner a menacing and ghostly air. With one experienced glance, Diego Alatriste noted the leather boots and the sword tip that slightly lifted the back of the man's cape. His aplomb was that of a professional swordsman, or a soldier.
Neither spoke; they merely stood there, still and silent, on either side of the candelabrum lighting them from below, studying each other to ascertain whether they found themselves in the company of a comrade or an adversary. Although in Diego Alatriste's profession, it could be both at the same time.
"I want no deaths," said the tall masked man.
He was heavy-bodied, broad in the shoulders, and he was also the only one who had not removed his hat, which had no plume, band, or adornment. Visible beneath the mask covering his face was the tip of a thick black beard. He was dressed in dark, fine-quality clothing, with cuffs and collar of Flemish lace, and beneath the cloak draped across his shoulders glinted a gold chain and the gilded pommel of a sword. He spoke as one accustomed to commanding and being immediately obeyed, and that was confirmed in the deference shown him by his masked companion, who was clad in a loose garment that concealed his attire. He was a man of medium stature, with a round head and thin hair. These two had received Diego Alatriste and the black-cloaked man after having made them wait half an hour in the antechamber.
"No deaths, no blood," the tall, corpulent one insisted. "At least, not much."
His companion raised both hands. Diego Alatriste observed that he had dirty fingernails and ink-stained fingers, like those of a scribe; however, a heavy gold seal ring encircled the little linger of his left hand.
"Perhaps just a pink," they heard him suggest in a prudent voice. "Something to justify the encounter."
"But only for the blonder of the two," the finely dressed man amplified.
"Of course, Excellency."
Alatriste and the man in the voluminous cape exchanged a professional glance, as if considering the bounds of the word "pink" and the possibilities—rather remote— of distinguishing one blond from another in the midst of a scuffle, and at night. Picture the scene: Would you be kind enough to come to the light and doff your hat? Thank you, caballero. I see that you are blonder than your friend. Please allow me to pierce your liver. . . . I'll use no more than a quarter of my blade.
In a pig's eye.
As for the man wrapped in the cloak, he had removed his hat when they entered the room, and now Alatriste could see his face in the light of the table lamp illuminating the four men and the walls of an old library thick with dust and nibbled by mice. He was tall, slender, silent, and around thirty years old. His face bore the old marks of smallpox, and the thin line of his mustache gave him the look of a stranger, a foreigner. His eyes and his hair, which fell to his shoulders, were as black as his clothing, and in his sash was a sword with an uncommonly large, round steel guard with exaggerated quillons. No one but a consummate swordsman would have dared expose such a weapon to the inevitable gibes and jeers unless he had the daring and dexterity to defend its oddity with deeds. And this man did not look like someone who would be a target for poking fun. If you looked up the words "swordsman" and "assassin," it was his portrait you would find.
"Your quarries, caballeros, are two foreign gentlemen," the round-headed man said. "They are traveling incognito, so that their real names and circumstances will exert no influence. The elder is called Thomas Smith, and he is no more than thirty. The other, John Smith, is nearly twenty-three. They will arrive in Madrid on horseback, alone, at night. Weary, I imagine, for they have been traveling for days. We do not know which gate they will enter by, so the best plan would seem to be to wait for them near their destination, which is the House of Seven Chimneys. Do you know it, Your Mercies?"
Diego Alatriste and his companion nodded. Everyone in Madrid knew the residence of the Count of Bristol, England's ambassador.
"This is the way the affair must go," the masked man continued. "It must look as if the two travelers were victims of an assault by common highwaymen. That means t
hat you must take everything they are carrying with them. It would be helpful if the blonder and more arrogant, who is the elder, were slightly injured. A knife wound in a leg or arm, but nothing too serious. As for the younger, you can let him go with just a good fright." At this point, the man who was talking turned slightly toward the corpulent man, as if awaiting his approval. "It is important that you make off with any letters and documents they have, and deliver them punctually."
"To whom?" asked Alatriste.
"To someone who will be waiting on the other side of the Discalced Carmelite monastery. The countersign is 'Monteros y suizos.'"
As he was speaking, the man with the round head put his hand inside the dark robes covering his clothing and removed a small purse. For an instant, Alatriste thought he glimpsed on his chest the bright red embroidery of the cross of the Order of Calatrava, but his attention was quickly diverted by the money the masked man put on the table. The lamplight reflected off five four-doubloon pieces for Alatriste's companion, and five for him. Clean, burnished coins. A powerful caballero, that money. Yes, this is what Don Francisco de Quevedo would have said, had he been party to their conversation . . . powerful indeed.
Blessed coins, newly minted with the coat of arms of our lord and king. Bliss with which to buy bed, food, clothing, and the warmth of a woman.
"Ten pieces are missing," said the captain, "for each of us."
The other man's tone was instantly unpleasant. "The person who will be waiting for you tomorrow night will give you the rest, in exchange for the travelers' documents."
"And if something turns out badly?"
From the holes in his mask, the eyes of the heavyset man whom his companion had addressed as "Excellency" seemed to pierce the captain. "It would be best, for the well-being of all concerned, that nothing turn out badly," he said.
Menace reverberated in his voice, and it was evident that menace was something this individual dispensed daily. It was also clear that he need threaten but once, and in most instances, not even that. Even so, Alatriste twisted the tip of his mustache while he held his antagonist's gaze, frowning, and with his feet firmly planted, resolved not to be impressed by either an Excellency or a sursum corda. He did not like partial payments, and he liked even less to be lectured to at midnight by two strangers who hid their identity behind masks. But his less exacting companion with the pockmarked face seemed interested in other questions.
"What happens to their purses?" Alatriste heard him ask. "Must we deliver them as well?"
Italian, Alatriste decided when he heard the accent. The man spoke quietly and gravely, almost confidentially, but in a muffled, hoarse voice that was both disquieting and annoying. It was as if someone had poured raw alcohol over his vocal cords. His words were respectful, but a false note sounded through them—a kind of insolence that was no less disturbing for being veiled. He looked at the masked men with a smile that was at once friendly and sinister, a smile that was a flash of white beneath his trimly cut mustache. It was not difficult to imagine him with the same expression, as his knife—rrriss, rrriss—slit the clothing of a client, along with the flesh beneath it. It was a smile so oddly charming that it gave one cold chills.
"That will not be necessary," the round-headed man replied, after silently consulting his masked partner, who nodded. "You may keep the purses, if you wish. As a bonus."
The Italian quietly whistled an air, something like a chaconne, ti-ri-tu, ta-ta, repeated a couple of times, as he glanced at the captain out of the corner of his eye.
"I believe I am going to enjoy this job."
The smile disappeared from his lips, only to reappear in the black eyes, which glinted dangerously. That was the first time Alatriste saw Gualterio Malatesta smile, and the prelude to a long and troubled series of encounters. The captain would later tell me that at that very instant his thought was that if someone should smile at him like that in a lonely alleyway, he would not wait to see it twice, he would unsheathe his blade like lightning. To cross swords with that individual was to feel the urgent need to strike first, before he dealt a blow that was the last you would know. Picture, Your Mercies, a person by your side who is like a dangerous serpent, someone you can never be sure of, never certain which side he will take, until it is abundantly clear that he does not give a damn about either side, but only himself. One of those slippery, duplicitous, whichever-way-the-wind-blows types, with a bag of dirty tricks. A man with whom you could never lower your guard, and whom it behooves you to take out of the picture before he stabs you in the back.
Their portly soon-to-be-employer was a man of few words. Again he waited without speaking, listening attentively as the round-headed one explained to Diego Alatriste and the Italian the final details of their assignment. Twice the portly man nodded, signaling his approval of what he heard. Then he turned and walked toward the door.
"I do not want much blood," they heard him insist for the last time from the doorway.
From everything he had seen—the man's bearing, and especially the profound respect the second masked man showed him—the captain deduced that the person who had just left was of very high station. Alatriste was still thinking about that when the round-headed fellow rested one hand on the table and stared intently at him and the Italian. There was a new and disquieting gleam in his eyes, as if he still had not told them everything. An uncomfortable silence fell over the shadow-filled room, and Alatriste and the Italian kept glancing at each other, wordlessly wondering what was yet to come. Facing them, motionless, the masked man seemed to be waiting for something, or someone.
The answer came after a moment, when a tapestry, inconspicuous in the shadows between the bookshelves, moved to reveal a hidden door; in the opening they could see a dark and sinister silhouette, which someone less level-headed than Diego Alatriste might have taken for an apparition. The newcomer stepped forward and the table lamp illuminated his face, exaggerating hollows in his shaved sunken cheeks and the feverish light in a pair of eyes shadowed by thick eyebrows. He was wearing the black and white robes of the Dominicans, and he was not masked. His shining eyes lent an expression of fanaticism to the thin, ascetic face. He must have been close to fifty years old. His gray, tonsured hair was cut short like a helmet around his temples, and his hands, which he had taken from the sleeves of his robes when he entered, were dry and bony, like those of a cadaver. They looked as if they would be as icy as death.
The round-headed man turned toward the priest with extreme deference. "You heard everything, Reverend Father?"
The Dominican nodded briefly, never taking his eyes from Alatriste and the Italian, as though appraising them. Then he turned to the masked man and, as if that movement were a signal or an order, the latter again addressed the two hired swords.
"The caballero who just left us," he said, "is worthy of every respect and consideration. But it is not he alone who decides this affair, and it is best that we elaborate on a few details."
When he reached this point, the masked man exchanged a brief look with the priest, awaiting his approval before continuing. But the other remained impassive.
"For reasons originating at the highest level of government," the masked man then continued, "and despite what the caballero who has just left said, the two Englishmen must be removed from contention in a more . . ." He paused, as if seeking the appropriate words. "... in a more, hmm, effective manner." Again he glanced at the priest. "That is, more definitive."
"Do you, senor, wish to say ..." began Diego Alatriste, who preferred to have things clear.
The Dominican, who had listened in silence and seemed to be growing impatient, interrupted, raising one of his bony hands.
"He 'wishes to say' that the two heretics must die."
"Both?"
"Both."
Beside Alatriste, the Italian again quietly whistled his little tune. Ti-ri-tu, ta-ta. His expression registered an emotion somewhere between interested and amused. The captain, slightly hesitant, looked at t
he money lying on the table. He thought a moment, then shrugged.
"No matter to me," he said. "And my companion seems not to object to the change in plans."
"I like it," the Italian said quickly, still smiling.
"It even makes things easier," Alatriste continued serenely. "At night it is more complicated to wound men than to dispatch them."