VIII. A NOCTURNAL VISIT
The bells at San Jerónimo pealed twice as Diego Alatriste slowly turned the key. His initial apprehension turned to relief when the lock, oiled from inside that very evening, turned with a soft click.
He pushed the door, opening it in the darkness without the least squeak from its hinges. Auro clausa patent. With gold, doors open, Dómine Pérez would have said; and don Francisco de Quevedo had referred to don Dinero as a “powerful caballero.” In truth, that the gold was from the pouch of the Conde de Guadalmedina and not from the thin purse of Captain Alatriste mattered not at all. No one cared about name, origin, or smell. The gold had bought the keys and the plan of the house, and thanks to it, someone was going to receive a disagreeable surprise.
Alatriste had bid don Francisco good-bye a couple of hours earlier, when he accompanied the poet to Calle de las Postas and watched him gallop away on a good horse, carrying traveling clothes, sword, portmanteau, a pistol in his saddletree, and, tucked in the band of his hat, those four words the Conde de Olivares had confided to them.
Guadalmedina, who had approved the poet’s journey, had not shown the same enthusiasm for the adventure Alatriste was preparing to undertake that very night. Better to wait, he had said. But the captain could not wait. Quevedo’s assignment was a shot in the dark. He had to do something in the meantime.
He unsheathed his dagger and, holding it in his left hand, crossed the patio, trying not to bump into anything in the dark and wake the servants. At least one of them—the one who had provided the keys and the plan to Álvaro de la Marca’s agents—would sleep deaf, mute, and blind that night, but there were a half-dozen more who might take to heart his having disturbed their sleep at such hours. The captain had taken the appropriate precautions. He was wearing dark clothing, without a cape or hat to get in his way. In his belt was one of his flintlock pistols, well oiled and ready to fire, along with his sword and dagger. Finally he had added the old buffcoat that had offered such venerable service in a Madrid to which Alatriste himself had contributed, not a little, to making insalubrious. As for boots, they had been left in Juan Vicuña’s little hideaway. In their stead the captain was wearing a pair of leather sandals with woven grass soles, very useful for moving with the speed and silence of a shadow. The sandals were a lesson learned in times even more deadly than these, when a man had to slip between fascine battlements and trenches to slit the throats of Flemish heretics during cruel night raids in which no quarter was given or expected.
The house was still and dark. Alatriste bumped against the rim of a cistern, felt his way around it, and finally found the door he was seeking. The second key worked to his satisfaction, and the captain found himself in a broad, enclosed stairway. He went up the stairs, holding his breath, grateful that the steps were stone and not creaking wood. At the top, he paused in the shelter of a large armoire to orient himself. Then he took a few paces forward, hesitated in the shadowy corridor, counted two doors to the right, and went in, vizcaína in hand, holding his sword to prevent it from knocking against some piece of furniture. Next to the window, Luis de Alquézar was snoring like a pig, in deep shadow relieved by the soft glow of an oil lamp. Diego Alatriste could not contain a secret smile: his powerful enemy, the royal secretary, was afraid of the dark.
Alquézar, only half awake, was slow to understand that he was not having a nightmare. But when he started to turn onto his other side and the sharp gouge of a dagger beneath his chin prevented him, he realized this was not a bad dream. Frightened, he tried to sit up, blinked his eyes, and opened his mouth to scream, but Diego Alatriste’s hand quickly covered it.
“One word,” whispered the captain, “and you are a dead man.”
Between the nightcap and the iron hand that was gagging him, the eyes and mustache of the royal secretary were quivering with terror. A few inches from his face, the weak light of the lamp outlined Alatriste’s aquiline profile, the luxuriant mustache, the sharp blade of the dagger.
“Do you have armed guards?” asked the captain.
Alquézar shook his head no. His breath moistened the palm of the captain’s hand.
“Do you know who I am?”
The terrified eyes blinked, and after an instant the head nodded affirmatively. And when Alatriste took his hand away from Luis de Alquézar’s mouth, he did not try to shout. Mouth agape, frozen with stupor, he stared at the shadow bending over him as if seeing a ghost. The captain pressed the tip of the dagger a little harder against Alquézar’s throat.
“What are you going to do with the boy?” demanded Alatriste.
Alquézar’s bulging eyes saw nothing but the dagger. His nightcap had fallen onto the pillow, and the lamp illuminated sparse, tangled, greasy hair that accentuated his ignoble round face, heavy nose, and short, scraggly beard.
“I do not know whom you mean.”
The royal secretary’s voice was weak and hoarse, but even the threat of the steel could not mask his indignation. Alatriste pressed the dagger until he evoked a moan.
“Then I will kill you right now, sure as there is a God.”
Alquézar moaned again. He was petrified, not daring to blink. The sheets and his nightshirt stank of bitter sweat, fear, and hatred.
“It is not in my hands,” he babbled finally. “The Inquisition…”
“Don’t fuck with me. Not the Inquisition. Fray Emilio Bocanegra and you, just you two.”
Very slowly Alquézar lifted a conciliatory hand, never taking his eyes from the dagger pressing against his throat. “Perhaps something…” he murmured. “We could perhaps try…”
He was frightened, but it was also true that in the light of day, when that dagger was not at his throat, the royal secretary’s attitude could change. No doubt it would, but Alatriste had nothing to lose by trying.
“If anything happens to the boy,” he said, his face only inches away from Alquézar’s, “I will come back here as I have come tonight. I will come to kill you like a dog, slit your throat while you sleep.”
“I tell you again that the Inquisition…”
The oil in the lamp sputtered, and for a moment its light reflected in the captain’s eyes was a spark from the flames of Hell. “While you sleep,” he repeated, and beneath the hand resting on Alquézar’s chest, he could feel that the man was shaking. “I swear it.”
No one would have doubted this for an instant, and the royal secretary’s gaze reflected that certainty. But the captain also saw his relief at knowing he was not going to be killed that night. In the world of this loathsome creature, night was night and day was day, and like a new chess game, everything could begin again in the morning. And suddenly, like a revelation, Alatriste realized that the royal secretary would be back in command the moment the dagger was removed. The knowledge that despite anything he could do, I was already sentenced to death, filled Alatriste with an icy, hopeless rage. He hesitated, and Alquézar immediately perceived that hesitation with alarm. In one terrible flash, as if the steel of the vizcaína transmitted a glimpse of Alquézar’s sinister thoughts, the captain saw everything clearly.
“If you kill me now,” Alquézar said slowly, “nothing will save the boy.”
It was true. But neither would the boy be saved if he left this man alive. With that, the captain stepped back a little, just enough to allow a brief reflection upon whether it was a good idea to slit the royal secretary’s throat here and now, and at least leave one fewer serpent in that nest of vipers. But my fate stayed his arm. He turned to take a look around him, as if needing space for his thoughts, and as he turned, his elbow struck a water jug on the night table, something he had not seen in the darkness. The jug exploded on the floor with a sound like a harquebus shot. Alatriste, still indecisive, bent to put his dagger back to his enemy’s throat, just as a light appeared in the doorway. The captain looked up to see Angélica de Alquézar in her nightdress, a candle in her hand, surprised and sleepy-eyed, taking in the scene.
From that instan
t on, everything happened in rapid succession. The girl screamed, a piercing, bloodcurdling scream that was not fear but malice. It was long and drawn out, like the cry of a female falcon when a predator steals her chicks. It rang through the night, raising every hair on Alatriste’s head. Befuddled, he tried to move away from the bed, with the dagger still in his hand and not knowing what the devil to do with the girl; Angélica was already across the room, fleet as a shot.
Dropping the candle to the floor, she threw herself on the captain like a tiny Fury, all blond curls and white silk nightdress floating in the darkness like the shroud of a ghost—beautiful, he supposed, although feminine charms were the last thing on his mind. She fastened onto the arm with the dagger and bit into him like a small blond bulldog. And there she hung, teeth clamped onto his arm, tenaciously clinging to the frightened Alatriste, who in his attempt to shake her off lifted her right off the floor. But she did not budge. Occupied with her, the captain watched the girl’s uncle, liberated from the vizcaína that had been threatening him, leap from the bed with unexpected vigor, and rush, barelegged and in his nightshirt, to an armoire where he seized a short sword, yelling, “Murderers! Intruders! To arms!” and other such cries. Upon which Alatriste heard the house stirring: thudding footsteps and voices torn from sleep—in all, the tumult of a thousand demons.
Finally the captain succeeded in shaking the girl loose, with a cuff from his free hand that sent her rolling across the floor. Just in time he dodged a thrust from Luis de Alquézar, who, had he not been so undone by his fright, would then and there have put an end to Alatriste’s adventurous career. The harried intruder, continuing to avoid Alquézar’s blade in a chase that encompassed the entire room, put that same hand to his sword, turned, and drove Alquézar back with a two-handed swing. He then headed toward the door to make his escape, but again ran into the girl, who renewed her assault with a bellicose screech that would have turned an ordinary man’s blood to ice in his veins.
Again Angélica charged, ignoring the sword Alatriste held uselessly in front of him, and which he had to raise at the last instant to keep from skewering the girl like a chicken on a spit. In the blink of an eye, the angelic-looking Angélica again clamped tooth and nail into his arm as he danced from one corner of the room to the other, unable to rid himself of her, so encumbered that he could do nothing but parry the sword that Alquézar, without a thought for his niece, was swinging with murderous intent. This chase might have lasted through eternity, but Alatriste somehow pushed the girl aside and made a thrust at Alquézar that drove the royal secretary staggering back amid a great clatter of basins, urinals, and assorted pottery.
At last the captain was in the corridor, but only in time to spy three or four servants running up the steps brandishing their weapons. It was a bad scenario. So bad that he pulled out his pistol and fired point-blank at the men on the stairway, a confused tangle of legs, arms, swords, bucklers, and clubs. Before they had time to regroup, he ran back into the room, shot the bolt of the door, and sped like an exhalation toward the window, but not before dodging two thrusts of Alquézar’s sword and, for the third, unholy time, finding the girl clinging like a leech to his arm, biting and clawing with a ferocity unsuspected in a girl of twelve. Somehow the captain reached the window, kicked open the shutter, and slit the nightshirt of Alquézar, who was staggering clumsily toward the bed, covering himself. As Alatriste threw one leg over the iron balcony he was still shaking his arm and trying to loose Angélica’s hold. The blue eyes and tiny white teeth, which don Luis de Góngora—begging Señor de Quevedo’s pardon—had described as aljófares, minute pearls set between lips like rose petals, were flashing with exceptional ferocity, until Alatriste, now fed to his teeth with the whole matter, grabbed her by her curly locks and pulled her off his martyred arm, tossing her through the air like a furious, screaming rag doll. She landed upon her uncle and both of them crashed onto the bed, which spread its legs and collapsed noisily to the floor.
At that point, the captain dropped from the window, ran across the patio and out to the street. He did not stop running until he had left that nightmare far behind.
Alatriste stayed in the shelter of the shadows, seeking the darkest streets by which to return to Juan Vicuña’s gaming house. He went down Cava Alta and Cava Baja, along Posada de la Villa and past the shuttered shop of the apothecary Fadrique, before crossing Puerta Cerrada, where at that early hour not a soul was stirring.
He did not want to think, but it was inevitable that he would. He was certain of having committed a stupid act that only made a bad situation worse. A cold rage pounded in his pulse and blood hammered at his temples, and he would gladly have beat himself in the face to give vent to his desperation and his anger. It was the impulse to do something, not to keep waiting for others to act for him—he told himself once he had recovered a little calm—that had brought him out of his den like a desperate wolf, on the hunt for he knew not what.
It was not like him. Life, however long it lasted, was much simpler when there was no one to look out for but oneself. It was a difficult world in which every day a throat was slit, and nobody had any responsibility but to keep one’s own skin and life intact. Diego Alatriste y Tenorio, veteran of the tercios of Flanders and galleys of Naples, had spent long years ridding himself of any sentiment he could not resolve with a sword. But now look where he was. A boy whose name he had not even known a short while ago was turning everything upside down, making him aware that every man, however able-bodied he may be, has chinks in his armor.
And speaking of chinks. Alatriste felt his left forearm, still aching from Angélica’s bites, and could not prevent a grimace of admiration. At times, tragedies have all the earmarks of burlesque, he told himself. That tiny blond cat, of whom he had heard only vague references—though I myself had never mentioned her name, and the captain knew nothing of my relationship with her—had showed uncommon promise of ferociousness, displaying bloodlines worthy of her uncle.
Finally, remembering once again Luis de Alquézar’s terrified eyes, the moist breath on the hand that had silenced him, his stench of sweat and fear, Alatriste shrugged. At last his soldier’s stoicism was taking hold. After all, he concluded, we can never foresee the consequences of our acts. At the least, following the nocturnal surprise he had just experienced, Luis de Alquézar now knew he was vulnerable. His neck was just as much at the mercy of a dagger as anyone else’s, and having seen that clearly could be as bad ultimately as it was good.
With that, the captain at last reached the small Conde de Barajas plaza, a step or two from the Plaza Mayor, and as he was about to turn the corner he saw light and a number of people. It was definitely not the hour of the paseo, so he hid in a doorway. Perhaps it was some of Juan Vicuña’s clients leaving after a nightlong skirmish with the cards, or early-morning adventurers…or the Law. Whoever it was, this was no time to meet anyone unexpectedly and risk a confrontation.
By the light of a lantern they had set on the ground, he watched as men pasted up a handbill near the Cuchilleros arch, and then moved down the street. There were five of them, armed, and they carried a roll of broadsheets and a bucket of paste. Alatriste would have gone along without paying any attention to what they were doing, had he not noticed that one of them was carrying the black baton of the Inquisition’s familiares. As soon as they were out of sight, he went to the poster and tried to read it, but there was no light. The paste was fresh, however, and he tore the paper from the wall, folded it twice, and took it with him up the steps beneath the arch. He went straight to the pillars in the plaza, opened Juan Vicuña’s secret door, and once in the passageway struck a spark with flint, lit tinder, and then a candle stub. He did all this while forcing himself to be patient, the way one dawdles before breaking the seals on a letter that might bear bad news. And bad news there was. The poster was an announcement from the Holy Office.
Be it known to all citizens and dwellers of this Town, and the Court of His Majesty, that the Hol
y Office of the Inquisition will celebrate a public Auto-da-Fé in the Plaza Mayor of this City on Sunday next, the fourth day…
In spite of the grim way that Captain Alatriste earned a living, he was not a man who often took God’s name in vain, but this time he let loose with a blasphemous soldier’s oath that made the candle flame tremble. It was less than a week till the fourth day of the new month, and there was not a blessed thing he could do until then except wait, damning all his Devils. Add to that the possibility that following his nocturnal visit to the royal secretary, they would on the morning paste up another broadside, this time from the corregidor, announcing a price for his head. He wadded up the paper and stood leaning against the wall, staring into empty space.
He had burned all his powder with the exception of one last shot. Now his only hope was don Francisco de Quevedo.
Your Mercies must forgive me if I again turn to my own story, there in the dungeon of the secret prisons of Toledo, where I had lost nearly any notion of time, or of day and night. After several more sessions, with corresponding beatings by the redheaded guard—they say that Judas had red hair, and my torturer fulfilled his days as Christ’s betrayer concluded his—and without having revealed anything worthy of mention, they left me more or less in peace. Elvira de la Cruz’s accusation, and Angélica’s amulet, seemed to be all they needed, and the last truly difficult session had consisted of a tedious interrogation based on many “That is not true,” “Tell the truth,” and “Confess that,” in which they repeatedly asked me the names of my supposed accomplices, thrashing me with that pizzle in response to every silence, which was every time. I shall say only that I stood firm and did not speak any name. I was so weak that the fainting I had at first feigned, and that had had such conclusive results, now happened naturally, saving me from a true Calvary. I’ll wager that if my torturers did not go further it was out of fear of depriving themselves of the starring role they were preparing for me during the festival in the Plaza Mayor.