The Cavalier in the Yellow Doublet (24 page)

“Damn your eyes, Diego!”

The last person Alatriste was expecting to see in that place and at that hour was Martín Saldaña. The lieutenant of constables—or rather the sturdy shadow to whom the voice belonged—had started back in fright, swiftly unsheathing his sword; there was a metallic whisper and a faint glint of steel as he moved the blade from side to side, covering his guard like a veteran. Alatriste checked that the ground beneath his feet was smooth and unimpeded by loose stones, then he leaned his left shoulder against the wall to protect that side of his body. His right hand, however, remained free to wield his sword, thus complicating matters for Saldaña, who, if he attacked, would find
his
right hand blocked by the wall.

“What the hell are
you
doing here?” asked Alatriste.

Saldaña did not respond at once. He was still standing alert and ready. He was doubtless aware that his former comrade might try a trick they had both often used before—attacking an opponent while he was speaking. Talking was a distraction, and between men like them, an instant was all it took to find yourself with a foot of steel through your chest.

“You wouldn’t want me to let you slip the net that easily, would you?” said Saldaña at last.

“Have you been watching me for long?”

“Since yesterday.”

Alatriste thought for a moment. If this were true, Saldaña would have had ample time to surround the inn and have a dozen or so catchpoles on hand to arrest him.

“Why are you alone?”

Saldaña paused a long time before answering. He was a man of few words and appeared to be searching hard for them now. Finally, he said:

“This isn’t official business. It’s private—between you and me.”

The captain carefully studied the solid shadow before him.

“Are you carrying pistols?”

“It’s all the same whether I or, indeed, you are. This is a matter for swords.”

His voice sounded oddly nasal. He must still be suffering from that headbutt the captain had dealt him. It was only logical, thought Alatriste, that Saldaña should take his escape and the deaths of those catchpoles as a personal affront, and it was only fitting that his comrade from Flanders should want to resolve it man to man.

“This isn’t the moment,” he said.

Saldaña replied in a slow, calm, reproachful voice:

“You seem to be forgetting who you’re talking to, Diego.”

The steel blade still glinted before him. The captain raised his sword a little, hesitated, then lowered it again.

“I don’t want to fight you. Your constable’s staff of office isn’t worth it.”

“I’m not carrying it with me tonight.”

Alatriste bit his lip, his fears confirmed. Saldaña was clearly not prepared to let him leave without a fight.

“Listen,” he said, making one last effort. “I’m very close to sorting everything out. There’s someone I have to meet . . .”

“I don’t care a fig who you have to meet. You and I never finished our last meeting.”

“Just forget about it for this one night. I promise I’ll come back and explain.”

“Who’s asking you to explain?”

Alatriste sighed and ran two fingers over his mustache. They knew each other too well. There was nothing to be done. He adopted the en garde position, and Saldaña took a step back, readying himself. There was very little light, but enough for them to be able to see the blades of their swords. It was, thought the captain sadly, almost as dark as it had been on that morning when Martín Saldaña, Sebastián Co-pons, Lope Balboa, himself, and another five hundred Spanish soldiers cried out “Forward, Spain!,” made the sign of the cross, and then swarmed out of the trenches to climb the embankment in their assault on the del Caballo redoubt, in Ostend, an assault from which only half returned.

“Come on,” he said.

There was an initial clash of steel, and Saldaña immediately made a circling movement with his sword and stepped away from the wall so as to have more freedom of movement. Alatriste knew who he was dealing with; they had been comrades-in-arms and had often practiced fencing together using buttoned fleurets. His opponent was a cool and skillful swordsman. The captain lunged forward, hoping to wound quickly and unceremoniously. Saldaña, however, drawing back to gain space, parried the thrust, then sprang forward. Alatriste had to move away from the wall—which had gone from being refuge to obstacle—and as he did so, momentarily lost sight of his opponent’s sword. He whirled around, lashing out violently, searching for the other blade in the darkness. Suddenly he saw it coming straight at him. He parried with a back-edged cut and retreated, cursing to himself. Although the darkness made them equal, leaving a great deal to luck, he was nevertheless the better swordsman, and it should simply be a matter of wearing Saldaña out. The only problem with that strategy was that there was no knowing how long it would be before, despite Saldaña’s intention to act alone, a patrol of catchpoles heard the sound of fighting and rushed to the aid of their leader.

“I wonder who your widow will hand the constable’s staff of office to next?”

He asked this as he was taking two steps back to recover his advantage and his breath. He knew that Saldaña was as placid as an ox in all matters but those concerning his wife. Then passion blinded him. Any jokes about how she had got him the post in exchange for favors granted to third parties—as malicious tongues would have it—quickened his pulse and clouded his reason. “With any luck,” thought Alatriste, “this will help me resolve the matter quickly.” He adjusted his grip, parried a thrust, withdrew a little to draw his opponent in, and, when their blades clashed again, he noticed that Saldaña already seemed less confident. He decided to return to the attack.

“I imagine she’ll be inconsolable,” he said, striking again, every sense alert. “She’ll doubtless wear deepest mourning.”

Saldaña did not reply, but he was breathing hard and muttered a curse when the furious barrage he had just unleashed slashed only thin air, sliding off the captain’s blade.

“Cuckold,” said Alatriste calmly, then waited.

Now he had him. He sensed him coming toward him in the dark, or rather he knew it from the gleam of steel from his sword, the sound of frantic footsteps, and the rancorous roar Saldaña let out as he attacked blindly. Alatriste parried the blow, allowed Saldaña to attempt a furious reverse cut, then, halfway through that maneuver—when he judged that the constable would still have his weight on the wrong foot—turned his wrist, and with a forward thrust, cleanly skewered his opponent’s chest.

He withdrew the blade and, while he was cleaning it on his cloak, stood looking down at Saldaña’s body—a vague shape on the ground. Then he sheathed his sword and knelt beside the man who had been his friend. For some strange reason, he felt neither remorse nor sorrow, only a profound weariness and a desire to blaspheme loudly. He moved closer, listening. He could hear the other man’s weak, irregular breathing, as well as another far more worrying sound: a bubbling of blood and the whistle of air entering and leaving the wounded man’s lung. He was in a bad way, that foolish, stubborn man.

“Damn you,” Alatriste said and, tearing a clean piece of cloth from the sleeve of his doublet, he felt for the wound in Saldaña’s chest. It was about two fingers wide. He stuffed as much as he could of the handkerchief into the wound to staunch the bleeding. Then he rolled Saldaña onto his side and, ignoring his groans, felt his back; he found no exit wound, however, nor any blood other than that flowing from his chest.

“Can you hear me, Martín?”

Martín replied in a feeble voice that he could.

“Try not to cough or to move.”

He lifted Saldaña’s head and placed beneath it the wounded man’s own cloak, folded up by way of a pillow, to prevent the blood rising up from his lungs to his throat and choking him. “How am I?” he heard Martín say. The last word was drowned in a thick, liquid cough.

“Not too good. If you cough, you’ll bleed to death.”

Saldaña nodded weakly and lay still, his face in shadow, his pierced lung making an ominous noise each time he breathed. He nodded again a moment later, when Alatriste glanced impatiently from side to side and announced that he had to go.

“I’ll see if I can find someone to help you,” he said. “Do you want a priest as well?”

“Don’t talk such . . . nonsense.”

Alatriste stood up.

“You might pull through.”

“I might.”

The captain moved off, but heard the wounded man calling him. He went back and knelt down again.

“What is it, Martín?”

“You didn’t mean . . . what you said . . . did you?”

Alatriste found it hard to open his mouth to speak. His lips felt dry, as if stuck together, and when he spoke, his lips hurt him, as if the skin on them were tearing.

“No, of course I didn’t.”

“Bastard.”

“You know me. I took the easy path.”

Saldaña was gripping his arm now, as if all the strength of his battered body were concentrated in his fingers.

“You just wanted to make me angry, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“It was just . . . just a trick.”

“Of course. A trick.”

“Swear that it was.”

“I swear.”

Saldaña’s wounded chest was racked by a painful cough, or perhaps laughter.

“I knew it . . . you bastard . . . I knew it.”

Alatriste stood up and wrapped his own cloak around him. Now that his blood had cooled and after the physical exertion of the fight, he was conscious of the chill night air, or perhaps it wasn’t just the night air.

“Good luck, Martín.”

“The same to you. . . Captain . . . Alatriste.”

 

 

 

 

Dogs were barking in the distance, along the San Isidro road. The rest of the nighttime landscape lay in silence, and not even a breath of wind stirred the leaves on the trees. Diego Alatriste crossed the last stretch of the Segovia bridge and stopped for a moment by the washerwomen’s sheds. The waters of the Manzanares, swollen by the recent rains, lapped against the shore. Madrid was just a dark shape behind him. On the heights above the river, the dark outline of its belfries and the tower of the Alcázar Real stood silhouetted between sky and earth, and everywhere else was utter blackness apart from a few stars above and a few faint lights below, behind the city walls.

Having checked that all was well, he set off toward the Ermita del Ángel just as the damp was starting to penetrate his cloak. He encountered no further problems, although, making sure to keep his face covered, he did first call at a house near the Rastro, hold out four doubloons, and ask them to find a surgeon to tend to a man lying wounded near the abattoir. He was very close to the hermitage now and determined to take no more risks. He therefore took out one of his pistols, cocked it, and pointed it at the shadow of the man waiting there. The horse neighed anxiously at the noise, and Bartolo Cagafuego’s voice asked: “Is that you, Captain?”

“It is,” he said.

With a sigh of relief, Cagafuego sheathed his sword. He was glad, he said, that everything had gone well, and that the captain had arrived safe and sound. He handed him the reins of the horse: it was a bay, he added, good-tempered and soft-mouthed, albeit with a slight tendency to pull to the right. Otherwise, he was fit for a marquis or a Chinese emperor or any other lofty personage.

“He can keep going for miles, this one. He’s got no scabs on his flanks and no spur marks, either. I’ve checked his shoes, and there’s not a nail missing. I had a look at the saddle, and the girth, too . . . I think you’ll find him very much to your likin’, sir.”

Alatriste was patting the horse’s neck: warm, firm, and strong. He felt the horse toss its head contentedly at the touch of his hand. The warm breath of the horse’s nostrils dampened his palm.

“He can travel eight or even ten leagues, no problem, as long as you don’t push him too hard. I spent some time with the gypsies in Andalusia, so I knows a bit about horses and the like. Men can sometimes spring nasty surprises on you, but not these poor beasts. If you’re in a hurry, though, you can always change horses at the relay in Galapagar and get yourself a fresh mount to climb the hill.”

“Any food?”

“I took that liberty, yes, sir. One saddlebag containing bread, cheese, and cured meat and a skin containing a liter or so of red wine to wash it down with.”

“It’s good wine, I hope,” joked Alatriste.

“I bought it in Lepre’s tavern. Need I say more? Suleiman himself couldn’t ask for better.”

Alatriste checked headstall, bridle, saddle, girth, and stirrups. The saddlebag with the food and wine in it was hooked over the saddle-tree. He put his hand in his purse and handed Cagafuego two gold coins.

“You’ve behaved as the man you are, my friend: the cream of the ruffian classes.”

Cagafuego’s harsh laugh rang out in the darkness.

“On my grandfather’s soul, Captain, I didn’t do nothing, it wasn’t no bother at all. I didn’t even have to use my sword to kill anyone, like I did in Sanlúcar. And I’m sorry for it, too. A tiger of a man like me doesn’t want his sword to go rusty. Life can’t just be about pocketing the money your whore brings in for you.”

“Give her my best regards. And I hope she doesn’t catch the French disease like poor Blasa Pizorra, may she rest in peace.”

Alatriste saw Cagafuego silently cross himself.

“God forbid, sir.”

“And as for that brave blade of yours,” added Alatriste, “I’m sure you’ll have some occasion to use it. Life is short and art is long.”

“I don’t know much about art, Captain, but life, now, that’s a different matter. Anyway, what’s family for if not for times like these, eh? I’ll always be there when you need me: as dutiful as a pure-blood Spaniard and more reliable than quartan fever. And I can’t say fairer than that.”