"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 they 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.
The man in the gray suit placed a clean handkerchief over the wound, which was beneath the left armpit, and then buttoned his friend's shirt and doublet, all the while speaking softly in their own tongue. During this procedure, which the Englishman performed with his back turned to Alatriste, as if he no longer feared anything from him, the captain had the opportunity to mull over certain
interesting details. For example: Belying the apparent calm of the youth in gray, his hands were trembling as he opened his companion's clothing to ascertain the gravity of the wound. Also, although the captain knew only a few words of English, those shouted from one ship to another or from parapet to parapet in battle—a veteran soldier's vocabulary, limited to Fockyou, sunsa beechez, and We gon eslice off yu balls—the captain could hear that the gray-clad man addressed his companion with a kind of affectionate respect. Further, though the injured man had called him Steenie, which was undoubtedly a friendly and familiar name or nickname, the latter used the formal "Milord" when speaking to the younger man. There was a cat in the creamery, here, but not exactly an alley cat: a purebred Angora.
All these things piqued Alatriste's curiosity, enough that instead of making himself scarce, as his common sense was screaming at him to do, he stood there quietly beside the two Englishmen whom he had been on the verge of sending to a far different neighborhood, reflecting bitterly on one sure reality: cemeteries are filled with curious people. But he was no less sure that after the incident with the Italian, and with the two masked men and Fray Emilio Bocanegra awaiting results, the possibility of the cemetery was not a "perhaps." So staying, leaving, or dancing a chaconne was all one and the same. Sticking his head in the
sand, like that rare bird from Africa, would not solve anything, and furthermore, it was not Diego Alatriste's nature. He was aware that in blocking the Italian's sword he had taken a definitive step, and there was no turning back. Thus the only remedy was to play the hand with the cards dealt by that old joker Destiny, even though they were terrible.
He looked at the two young Englishmen. By this time, according to the agreement—the one he was carrying gold in his purse for executing—they should be cold cuts on a platter. He felt drops of sweat trickle down the back of his neck. What a whore luck was, he cursed silently. A fine moment he'd chosen to play at being a gentleman and suffer a crisis of conscience in some alleyway in Madrid—an old girl on her way down. And he with her.
The Englishman dressed in gray was on his feet and looking at the captain. Now it was his turn to be studied by Alatriste in the light of the lantern: blond, curling mustache, elegant air, circles of fatigue beneath his blue eyes. Barely thirty, and obviously well-bred. And like his friend, pale as wax. There had been no color in their faces since Alatriste and the Italian fell upon them.
"We are in your debt," said the man in gray, and after a brief pause he added, "In spite of everything."
His Spanish was riddled with imperfections, with the strong accent of "those up there," that is, the English. His tone seemed sincere. It was evident that he and his companion had seen death face to face, with no soft lights or heroic drumrolls, but in the dark, and nearly in the back, like rats in an alleyway and several leagues from anything remotely resembling glory. An encounter that few members of the upper classes had experienced, accustomed as they were to departing this mortal coil amid fifes and drums, serene as the elegant profile on a coin. The fact is that from time to time he blinked without taking his gaze from the captain's, as if surprised to find himself alive. And the truth was that now he was going to live, heretic or no.
"In spite of everything," the heretic repeated.
The captain did not know what to say. After all, despite the denouement of the ambush, he and his soldier-of-fortune companion had intended to murder the two Misters Smith, or whoever these bastards were. To fill the embarrassing pause, the captain glanced away, and the glint of the Englishman's sword caught his eye. He walked over, picked it up, and returned it to him. The so-called Thomas Smith, or Steenie—and what the devil kind of name was that?—weighed it pensively before putting it back in its scabbard. He kept looking at Alatriste with those frank blue eyes that made the captain feel so uneasy.
"At the beginning we thought . . the Englishman said, then waited as though expecting Alatriste to complete his sentence. The captain merely shrugged. At that moment the wounded youth made a move to get up, and "Steenie" turned to help. Both men's swords were now sheathed, and in what little light remained they observed the captain speculatively.
"You are not a common thief," said Steenie, who slowly was recovering his color.
Alatriste glanced toward the young man whom his companion had several times addressed as "Milord." Thin blond mustache, fine hands, aristocratic-looking despite the clothing stiff with the dust and filth of the road. If that individual was not from a good family, the captain would pledge himself to the faith of the Turks. By his life he would.
"Your name?" the man in gray asked.