"Oh unlucky the madman
Who unbuckles his sword..."
Alatriste began to recite to himself, to make the time pass. He murmured a few more fragments from Lope de Vega's The Sheep Well, one of his favorite dramas, before he again fell silent, his face hidden beneath the wide brim of his hat, which he had pulled down to his eyebrows.
Another shadow moved slightly, a few steps from where he was standing beneath the arch of the gate that led to the garden of the Carmelite priests. After a long half-hour of immobility, the Italian must have been as cold and stiff as the captain was. The Italian was a strange one. He had come to the rendezvous dressed in black, wrapped in his black cape and wearing a black hat, and his pockmarked face had brightened with a smile only when Alatriste suggested they set the lantern where it would light the bend of the lane they had chosen for the ambush.
"I like that," was all the Italian said, in that choked, harsh voice. "They will be in the light and we in the shadow. Seen and unseen."
Then he had whistled the little phrase he seemed so fond of, ti-ri-tu, ta-ta, while in an expeditious, professional tone they planned the assault. Alatriste would take on the older of the two men, the gray-suited Englishman riding the dapple-gray, while the Italian would dispatch the man in brown riding the bay. No pistol shots, if possible, for everything should happen with enough stealth that when the job was done they could search the luggage, find the documents, and, of course, relieve the cold meat of the money they were carrying. If there was an uproar that attracted witnesses, it would blow the whole plan to hell. In addition, the House of Seven Chimneys was not far away, and the servants of the English ambassador might come to the aid of their compatriots. What was needed, therefore, was a quick and deadly operation: cling, clang-, greetings and godspeed. And their English starlings would be halfway to Hell, or wherever Anglican heretics ended up. At least those two were not going to yell at the top of their lungs for confession, as good Catholics did, waking half of Madrid.
The captain settled his cape more comfortably and looked toward the bend of the lane lighted by the wan glow of the lantern. Beneath the warm cloak, his left hand rested on the pommel of his sword. For a while he entertained himself by trying to remember the number of men he had killed—not in war, where in the midst of battle it was impossible to know the result of a sword thrust or ball from a harquebus—but, rather, up close. Face to face. The matter of the face was important, or at least it was to Diego Alatriste; unlike other hired bravos, he had never knifed a man in the back. True, he did not always allow much time for his victim to assume an ideal stance, but it is also true that he never made a move toward anyone who was not facing him with his weapon unsheathed—except for one Hollandish sentinel whose neck he slit at night. But that was war, which was also the case of certain Germans who had mutinied in Maastricht, and all the other opponents killed during campaigns. None of this meant a great deal according to the standards of the time, but the captain was a man who needed something that would enable him to preserve at least a shred of self-respect. On the chessboard of life, every man makes what moves he can, and however feeble his alibi may be, it is a kind of justification. And though it might not be sufficient—as could be seen in his eyes when liquor floated up the devils that tied his soul in knots—it did, at least, give him something to cling to when the nausea was so intense that he caught himself staring down the round black barrel of a pistol.
Eleven, he concluded. Without counting the wars. Four in duels with Flemish and Italian soldiers, then another in Madrid, and another in Seville. All over gambling, angry words, or women. The rest had been for pay: five lives at
so much per death. All strong, sturdy men capable of defending themselves, and a few of them ruffians of ill repute. No remorse, except in two cases: one—a certain lady's lover whose cuckolded husband did not have the backbone to saw off his cuckold's horns himself—had drunk too much the night that Diego Alatriste stepped out before him in a badly lighted street. The captain never forgot his stunned look, his inability to comprehend what was happening, and by the time his victim had drawn a trembling sword from its sheath, he found himself with a handspan of steel in his chest. The other had been a pretty-boy at court, a conceited youth always beribboned and beflounced, whose very existence was a thorn in the side of the Conde de Guadalmedina because of certain lawsuits, wills, and inheritances. So the count had engaged Diego Alatriste to simplify the legal tangles. Everything was resolved during young Marques Alvaro de Soto's outing with some friends to the Acero fountain to flirt with the ladies who came to take the waters on the far side of the Segovia bridge. Some pretext: a push, a couple of exchanged insults, and the youth, barely twenty, cursing the whoreson who had bumped him, slapped a fatal hand to his sword. Everything happened in a flash, and before anyone could react, Captain Alatriste and the two men who covered his back had vanished, leaving young Alvaro de Soto flat on his back and bleeding to death before the horrified eyes of the ladies and their attendants. That matter caused a bit of a stir, but Guadalmedina's influence provided protection for his hired swordsman. Nonetheless uncomfortable, Alatriste took with him the memory of the anguish in the face of the young man, who hadn't the slightest desire to fight this stranger with the fierce mustache, pale, cold eyes, and threatening mien, but was forced to put hand to steel because his friends and the ladies were watching. Without preamble, the captain had pierced the youth's throat with a simple circular thrust while he was still struggling to strike an airy stance—en garde: torso erect and face composed—trying desperately to remember the elegant moves his fencing master had taught him.
Eleven, Alatriste remembered. And except for the young marquis and one of the Flemish duelers, a soldier named Carmelo Tejada, he could not remember their names. Or perhaps he had never known them. At any rate, there in the shadows of the archway, waiting for the victims of the ambush, with the pain of that still-recent wound that kept him anchored in the capital, Diego Alatriste longed for the fields of Flanders, the crack! of the harquebuses and the neighing of horses, the sweat of combat alongside his comrades, the beat of drums, and the tranquil pace of men marching onto the battlefield, old flags flying. Rather than Madrid, and that lane where he was prepared to kill two men he had never seen in his life, what he longed for was a clear, faraway night when the enemy was the man you found before you, and God—it was said—was always on your side.
The clock in the Carmelite tower struck eight. And only shortly after, as if the bells of the church had been a signal, the sound of horses' hooves echoed down the lane from around the corner formed by the convent wall. Diego Alatriste looked toward the other shadow huddled in the archway, and a whistled tune indicated that his companion, too, was alert. The captain untied the cord at the neck of his cape, slid out of it so it would not hinder his movements, then rolled it up and left it in the archway. His eyes never left the corner lighted by the lantern as the sound of shod horses slowly came nearer. From the Italian's hiding place, yellowish light glinted off bare steel.
The captain adjusted his buff coat and drew his sword from its scabbard. Now the sound of hooves came from the very bend in the lane, and a first, disproportionally large, shadow fell on the wall and moved along it. Alatriste took five or six deep breaths to empty the bad humors from his chest and, feeling lucid and in good form, stepped from the shelter of the archway, sword in his right hand as with his left he drew the vizcaina. As he emerged from the darkness of the entryway, another shadow moved forward, metal gleaming in both hands, and alongside the captain's, slipped down the lane toward the two human forms the lantern was throwing against the wall. One step, two, another. Everything was devilishly tight in the narrow alleyway, and as the shadows turned the corner they merged into a great jumble: burnished steel, startled eyes, the rough breathing of the Italian as he chose his victim and rushed toward him. The two travelers were walking their horses, reins in hand, and at first everything was very easy, except for the instant when Alatriste loo
ked from one to the other, trying to identify his target. His Italian companion was quicker, or was improvising, for the captain heard him rush like an exhalation toward the closer of the candidates, perhaps because he had recognized his prey, or perhaps because, ignoring their earlier agreement, he had simply chosen the one in the lead, who had less time to react. Alatriste could see a young blond man in a chestnut-brown suit holding the reins of a bay horse; the young man cried out with alarm as he jumped aside to avoid, miraculously, the knife the Italian had aimed at him. "Steenie! Steenie!"
It seemed more a shout to alert his companion than a call for help. Alatriste heard the Englishman yell twice as he ran past him. Skirting the horse—which, feeling itself free of the reins, was rearing and striking out with its forelegs—the captain raised his sword toward the other
Englishman, the one dressed in gray. By the light of the lantern, Alatriste could see that he was extraordinarily handsome, with very blond hair and a fine mustache. This second youth had just dropped the reins of his mount, and as he stepped back he drew his sword with the speed of lightning. Heretic or good Christian, that placed things in the proper perspective, so as the Englishman, some distance away, positioned his sword to defend himself, Alatriste planted one foot, stepped forward on the other, and engaged his opponent. As soon as he freed his sword, Alatriste made a lateral slash with the vizcaina to ward off the next thrust and rattle his opponent. An instant later, the younger man had been driven back four paces and was desperately defending himself, back against the wall, with no room to maneuver. The captain, methodically and confidently, prepared to thrust three-quarters of his blade through the first available opening and finish things off. Which was as good as done, for although the youth fought skillfully and valiantly, he was too fiery and too wild: he was defeating himself. Through his concentration, Alatriste heard the clash of the Italian's and the other Englishman's swords, their heavy breathing, and their curses. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of their shadows on the wall.
Then, along with the clatter of the swords, the captain
heard a moan, and saw the shadow of the younger Englishman slip down the wall. He seemed to be wounded, defending himself, on one knee, with greater and greater difficulty. That distracted Alatriste's adversary, and he abandoned his instinct for survival and the skill with which, up to that moment, he had defended himself.
Parrying a thrust, he shouted, "Mercy for my friend," in an elementary, strongly accented Spanish. And again, "Mercy for my friend!"
He had dropped his guard slightly, and at his first careless instant, the captain, after a feint with the dagger, easily disarmed him. Pardiez, the heretic's balls are hung right, he thought. What the devil was this business of asking for mercy for the other man when he himself was about to give up the ghost? The foreigner's sword was still flying through the air when Alatriste pressed the tip of his own to the young man's throat, and drew back his elbow slightly, which he needed to do in order to obtain the best line for his thrust. Do away with him once and for all. Mercy for my friend, indeed. The man had to be a bit dim, or English, to shout something like that in a dark lane in Madrid, with swords flashing all around him.
Then the Englishman repeated his strange behavior. Instead of asking for mercy for himself—it was clear that he was brave—or trying to pull out the useless poniard still at his waist, he threw a desperate look toward his companion, who was weakly defending himself on one knee, and again cried to Diego Alatriste, "Mercy for my friend!"
The captain held up for a moment, bewildered. This blond youth with the carefully tended mustache, long hair—tousled, it was true, from travel—his elegant gray suit covered with dust, feared only for his friend, who was at the point of being dispatched by the Italian. Only at that moment, in the light of the lantern faithfully illuminating the scene of combat, did Alatriste allow himself to truly look at the Englishman: blue eyes; pale, finely modeled face contorted by anguish that was palpably not fear of losing his own life. Soft white hands. All marks of an aristocrat. Everything shouted breeding. And that, the captain told himself quickly, as he reviewed his conversation with the masked men—the wish of one not to have much blood, and the insistence of the other, backed by the Inquisitor Bocanegra, to murder the travelers—began to light too many dark corners for him to do away with this man and still live in peace.
So shit. A shithouse of shit. God damn him! And all the powers of night and devils of Hell! Still with his sword pressed to the Englishman's throat, Diego Alatriste hesitated, and his victim realized he was hesitating. Then, with a gesture of supreme nobility, incredible in his situation, he looked into Alatriste's eyes and slowly placed his hand on his breast, over his heart, as if he were making a solemn oath, not a plea. "Mercy."
He asked for the last time, almost confidentially, in a low voice. And Diego Alatriste, who was still calling on all the demons, knew that now he could not kill the accursed Englishman in cold blood, at least not that night, in that place. And he also knew, as he lowered his sword and turned toward the Italian and the other youth, that he was on the verge, complete imbecile that he was, of walking into yet one more trap in his eventful life.
It was clear that the Italian was doing very well. He could have killed the wounded man any number of times, but he was satisfied to harass him with false lunges and feints, as though he were enjoying delaying the thrust home. He resembled a thin black cat toying with a mouse before sinking its claws into it. At his feet, knee on the ground and back against the wall, one hand clutching the wound bleeding through his clothing, the younger Englishman was trying not to faint, and barely parrying his adversary's attacks. He did not ask for mercy; instead, his face, mortally pallid, showed dignified determination; his teeth were clenched, and he was resolved to die without crying out or moaning. "Leave off!" Alatriste shouted to the Italian. Between thrusts, the captain's cohort looked at him, surprised to see him beside the second Englishman, who was disarmed and still standing. The attacker hesitated an instant, looked back at his subjected opponent, made a half-hearted feint, and again looked toward the captain.
"Is that a jest?" he asked, stepping back to catch his breath, as he whipped his sword through the air, right and left.
"Leave off," Alatriste insisted.
The Italian stared at him open-mouthed, unable to believe what he had just heard. In the dying light of the lantern, his pockmarked face looked like the surface of the moon. His black mustache twisted into a sinister smile, revealing his gleaming white teeth.
"Don't fuck this up now," the Italian said finally.
Alatriste took one step toward him, and the Italian looked at the sword in his hand. On his knee, uncomprehending, the wounded youth shifted his eyes from one to the other.
"There is more to this than we thought," the captain stated. "So we will kill them another day."
The Italian stared even harder. His smile grew wider and more incredulous, and then disappeared. He shook his head.
"You are mad," he said. "This could cost us our necks." "I will take the responsibility."
"So?"
The Italian seemed to be thinking it over. Then, with the speed of a comet, he lunged at the Englishman with a thrust so forceful that had Alatriste not blocked his sword it would have pinned the youth to the wall. Stymied, the black-clad figure whirled toward the captain with an oath, and this time it was Alatriste who had to call on his instincts as a swordsman to fend off a second thrust, which came within a hair of the site of his heart. The Italian had attacked with the most vicious intentions in the world.
"We will meet again!" he cried. "Somewhere."
And kicking over the lantern as he ran, the Italian disappeared into the darkness of the street, again a shadow among shadows. From far away, his laugh echoed for an instant, like the worst of auguries.
V. THE TWO ENGLISHMEN
The younger man was not seriously wounded. His companion and Diego Alatriste had carried him closer to the lantern, which th
ey lighted again. There they propped him against the Carmelites' garden wall and examined the knife wound he had received. It was a superficial cut that bled freely but was of no great consequence, the much-favored kind that allowed young dandies to strut before the ladies with an arm in a sling, at very little cost.