He was buttoning up his breeches when he heard a noise behind him. This was, after all, Calle de los Peligros—the Street of Dangers—and there he was in the dark with his breeches unbuttoned. He really didn’t want to end his days like this. He rapidly adjusted his clothing, all the time glancing over his shoulder, then he folded back his cloak so that his sword was unencumbered. Moving around at night in Madrid meant living in a state of permanent anxiety; anyone who could afford it hired an armed escort to light their way. If, on the other hand, your name was Diego Alatriste, you had the consolation of knowing that you could be just as dangerous, if not more, than whoever you might bump into. It was all a matter of temperament, and his had never been, shall we say, Franciscan.
For the moment, he could see nothing. It was pitch-black night, and the eaves of the houses left the façades and the doorways in deep shadow. Here and there, a domestic candle lit up a blind from within or a half-open shutter door. He stood motionless for a while, watching the corner of Calle de Alcalá like someone studying the slope of a fortification being swept by the fire of enemy harquebuses, then he walked warily on, taking care not to step in the horse dung or other filth that lay stinking in the gutter. He could hear only his own footsteps. Suddenly, where Calle de los Peligros narrowed and the convent wall ended, that sound seemed to find an echo. Still walking, he kept looking to either side, until he noticed a shape to his right that was keeping close to the walls of some tall houses. It might be some perfectly innocent passerby, or someone following him with evil intent; and so he continued on his way, never losing sight of that shape. He walked some twenty or thirty paces, remaining always in the middle of the street, and when the shape passed a lighted window, he saw a man wrapped in a cloak and wearing a broad-brimmed hat. The captain walked on, every sense alert now, and shortly afterward spotted a second shape on the other side of the street. Too many shapes and too little light, he thought. These were either hired killers or robbers. He unclasped his cloak and unsheathed his sword.
Divide and conquer, he was thinking—if, that is, luck was with him. Besides, the early bird catches the worm. And so, wrapping his cloak around his free arm, he made straight for the shape on the right and dealt a blow with his sword before his adversary even had time to make a move. The man slumped to one side with a groan, his cloak and what lay behind it pierced through; then, with his cloak still wrapped about him, his sword unused in its sheath, he withdrew into the shadows of a doorway, moaning and breathing hard. Trusting that the second man would not be carrying a pistol, Alatriste spun round to face him, for he could hear footsteps running toward him down the street. A black cloakless silhouette was approaching, wearing, like his companion, a broad-brimmed ruffian’s hat, and brandishing a sword. Alatriste whirled his cloak around in the air so that it wrapped about that sword, and while the other man was cursing and trying desperately to disentangle his weapon, the captain got in half a dozen short thrusts, dealt almost wildly, blindly. The last one hit home, causing his assailant to fall to the ground. The captain glanced behind him, in case he was in danger of attack from the rear, but the man in the cloak had had enough. Alatriste could see him disappearing down the street. He then picked up his own cloak, which stank from having been trampled in the gutter, put his sword back in its sheath, took out his dagger with his left hand, and, going over to his fallen opponent, held the point to his throat.
“Talk,” he said, “or, by Christ, I’ll kill you.”
The man was breathing hard. He was in a bad way, but still capable of assessing the situation. He smelled of wine recently drunk, and of blood.
“Go to hell,” he muttered feebly.
Alatriste scrutinized his face as best he could. A thick beard. A single earring glinting in the darkness. The voice of a ruffian. He was clearly a professional killer and, to judge by his words, a cool customer.
“Tell me the name of the person paying you,” Alatriste said, pressing the dagger harder against the man’s throat.
“I’m not saying,” answered the man, “so slit my throat and be done with it.”
“That’s what I was thinking of doing.”
“Fine by me.”
Alatriste smiled beneath his mustache, aware that the other man could not see his face. The wily bastard had guts, and he clearly wasn’t going to get anything out of him. He quickly searched the man’s pockets, but found only a purse, which he kept, and a knife with a good blade, which he discarded.
“So you’re not going to sing, then?” he asked.
“No.”
The captain gave an understanding nod of the head and stood up. Amongst professionals like them, those were the rules of the criminal world. Trying to force the man to talk would be a waste of time, and if a patrol of catchpoles were to appear, he would be hard pushed to come up with an explanation, at that hour of the night and with a dead man lying at his feet. So he had better cut and run. He was just about to put away his dagger and leave, when he thought better of it, and instead, leaning forward again, he slashed the man across the mouth. It made a sound like meat being chopped on a butcher’s board, and this time the man really did fall silent, either because he lost consciousness or because the blade had sliced through his tongue. Just in case. Not that the man had really made much use of it, thought Alatriste, as he moved away. At any rate, if someone did manage to sew the man up and he survived, it would help Alatriste to identify him should they ever meet again in daylight. And even if they didn’t, at least the man—or what remained of him after the wound to his body and that signum crucis—would certainly never forget Calle de los Peligros.
The moon rose late, forming halos on the glass panes of the window. Diego Alatriste had his back to the window and stood framed in the rectangle of silvery light that extended as far as the bed on which María de Castro lay sleeping. The captain was studying the shape of that woman and listening to her quiet breathing and the little moans she gave as she made herself more comfortable among the sheets that barely covered her. He sniffed his own hands and forearms: he had the smell of her on him, the perfume from her body that lay resting now, exhausted, after their long interchange of kisses and caresses. He moved, and his shadow seemed to slide like the shadow of a ghost over her pale naked body. By Christ, she was beautiful.
He went over to the table and poured himself a little wine. As he did so, he went from the mat to the flagstoned floor, and the cold sent a shiver over his weather-beaten soldier’s skin. He drank, still keeping his eyes on the woman. Hundreds of men of all classes and stations, men of quality and with nice full purses, would have given anything to enjoy her for a few minutes; and yet there he was, sated with her flesh and her mouth. His only fortune was his sword and his only future, oblivion. How odd they are, he thought again, the mechanisms that move the minds of women. Or, at least, the minds of women like her. The killer’s purse, which he had placed on the table without saying a word—doubtless the price of his own life—contained only enough for her to buy herself some fashionable new clogs, a fan, and some ribbons. And yet there he was. And there she was.