We met the Count of Guadalmedina beneath one of the archways on the stairs. He had just emerged from Philip IV’s apartments, where he came and went much as he pleased, and to which the king had just retired after a morning spent hunting in the woods around Casa del Campo. Hunting was one of the king’s greatest pleasures, and it was known that he liked to hunt boar without the aid of dogs and could happily spend all day riding the hills in pursuit of his prey. Álvaro de la Marca was wearing a chamois leather doublet, mud-spattered gaiters, and a neat little hat adorned with emeralds. He was dabbing at his face with a handkerchief drenched in scented water as he made his way to the front of the palace, where his carriage awaited him. He looked even more handsome than usual in his hunting costume, which gave a spuriously rustic touch to his otherwise courtly appearance. It was hardly surprising, I thought, that the ladies of the court always fanned themselves more furiously and more ostentatiously whenever the count looked at them; and that even the queen had at first shown a certain fondness for him, without, of course, acting in any way that went against her high rank and person. And I say “at first” because, by this time, Isabel de Borbón was aware of her august husband’s escapades and of the role that Guadalmedina played in these—as companion, escort, and procurer. She despised him for that, and although protocol obliged her to be polite—for as well as being her husband’s servant, he was also a grandee of Spain—she always went out of her way to treat him with particular coldness. There was only one other person at court whom the queen hated quite as much, and that was the Count-Duke of Olivares, whose position as royal favorite never met with the approval of that princess brought up in the arrogant court of Marie de’ Medici and Henry IV of France. Although loved and respected until her death, Isabel de Borbón would eventually lead the courtly palace faction which, a decade and a half later, would call a halt to the count-duke’s absolute power, pushing him off the pedestal to which he had been elevated by his intelligence, ambition, and pride. The people had listened to, admired, and feared great Philip II, then quietly complained about Philip III, but, under Philip IV, they had become so broken and exhausted, so weary of financial ruin and disaster, that their feelings had begun to shift from respect to despair. To assuage those feelings, they had to be served up a political head:
You who think you’ll never fall,
You who dare to swagger tall,
Remember this, be not deceived:
Troy finally fell, its power o’erheaved,
As did the Princesse de Bretagne.
That morning at the palace, when the Count of Guadalmedina spotted don Francisco and me, he came running down the last few stairs, elegantly sidestepping a small knot of petitioners—a retired captain, a cleric, a mayor, and three provincial hidalgos hoping for someone to breathe life into their pretensions. Then, having greeted the poet affectionately and clapped me cordially on the back, he took us to one side and came straight to the point.
“We have a problem,” he said gravely.
He looked at me out of the corner of his eye, as if wondering whether he should say anything further in my presence. I had, however, already lived through many adventures with Captain Alatriste and don Francisco, such that my loyalty and discretion were proven beyond doubt. Glancing around him to make sure that no palace ears were listening, he touched his cap to a member of the Council of the Exchequer who was walking past beneath the arches—and after whom the group of petitioners scuttled like pigs to a maize field—then, lowering his voice to a whisper, said:
“Tell Alatriste to change mounts.”
It took me a while to understand what he meant. Not so the ever-sharp don Francisco, who adjusted his glasses in order to study the count more closely.
“Are you serious?”
“I certainly am. Do I look as if I were in the mood for jokes?”
A silence. I was beginning to understand. Quevedo cursed quietly:
“Where women are concerned, I am, in every sense and tense, finished. You should give him the message yourself. If you have the balls for it, that is.”
“You jest,” Guadalmedina replied, shaking his head, unaffected by Quevedo’s free manner of speaking. “I can’t get involved in this.”
“And yet you happily meddle in other affairs.”
The count was stroking his mustache and beard, avoiding having to answer.
“That’s enough, Quevedo. We all have our obligations, and I’m doing more than my part by warning him.”
“What should I tell him, then?”
“I don’t know. Tell him to aim less high. Tell him that Austria is besieging the same citadel as he.”
A long and eloquent silence ensued, during which the two men regarded each other. One was wrestling with feelings of loyalty and prudence, the other with feelings of friendship and self-interest. Well placed as both men were at the time, and enjoying as they did the favor of the court, it would have been far safer, far more sensible, and more comfortable for the latter to say nothing and for the former not to listen. And yet there they were at the foot of the palace steps, exchanging anxious whispers about their friend. I was mature enough to appreciate their dilemma.
Finally, Guadalmedina shrugged and said:
“What do you expect? When the king wants something, there’s nothing more to be said. He can say black is white.”
I thought about this. How strange life is, I concluded. There was that lovely queen in the palace, an extremely beautiful woman who would, one would have thought, be enough to make any man happy, and yet, instead, the king chased after other women, and after mere riffraff, too: maids, actresses, serving wenches. I had no idea then that the king, despite his essentially kindly nature and his famed composure, or perhaps because of the same, was already succumbing to the two great vices which, in a few short years, would put paid to the prestige of the monarchy built up by his grandfather and great-grandfather: namely, an unbridled appetite for women and a complete indifference to affairs of state, both of which—appetite and affairs of state—he habitually left to panders and favorites to deal with.
“Is it an accomplished fact?”
“It will be in a day or so, I fear. Or before. The business with your play is helping greatly. The lady had already caught the king’s eye at the theater, but then he watched the rehearsal of the first act—incognito, of course—and he was lost.”
“What about the husband?”
“Oh, he knows all about it, naturally.” Guadalmedina made a gesture as if patting his purse. “As keen as a knife he is, and with no scruples. This is the chance of a lifetime for him.”
Quevedo shook his head sadly. He kept shooting me occasional worried glances.
“Dear God,” he said.
His tone was somber, in keeping with the circumstances. I was thinking about my master, too. When it came to certain matters—and María de Castro might well be such a one—men like Captain Alatriste didn’t care whether they were dealt a king or a knave.
The afternoon was drawing gently to a close, and the yellow sun’s horizontal rays were casting long shadows along Carrera de San Jerónimo. At that hour, the cauldron of the Prado was seething with carriages: one caught glimpses of bejeweled hair and white hands fluttering fans, and many of the carriages were accompanied by gallant young horsemen. Opposite the garden of Juan Fernández, where the upper and lower Prado met, throngs of people were strolling about, enjoying the late sun: ladies—covered or half covered by their cloaks—clattered along in their clogs, although some were not ladies at all and never would be, whatever pretensions they might have. Likewise, many of the supposed hidalgos passing by—despite swords, capes, and the grand air they affected—had come straight from a cobbler’s or a grocer’s or a tailor’s where they earned their daily bread with their hands. These were all perfectly honorable professions, but were, as I said, rejected as such by most Spaniards. There were, of course, genuine people of quality as well, but they were to be found near the little groves of fruit trees, the flower beds, the box maze, the waterwheel, and the garden’s celebrated rustic arbor where, that afternoon, inspired by the success of Tirso’s play, which was still being performed at the Corral de la Cruz, the Countesses of Olivares, Lemos, and Salvatierra and other ladies of the court had arranged to hold an informal picnic, with puff pastry cakes, made by the nuns from the Convento de las Descalzas Reales, and hot chocolate from the Augustinian monastery of Recoletos in honor of Cardinal Barberini, papal legate—and nephew—of His Holiness Urban VIII, who was visiting Madrid amidst much diplomatic salaaming from both parties and especially from him. After all, the Spanish troops were Catholicism’s best defense, and, as in the days of the great Charles V, our monarchs, rather than be governed by heretics, were still prepared to lose everything—as, ultimately, they and we did. It does, nonetheless, seem paradoxical that while Spain was pouring blood and money into defending the one true religion, His Holiness was secretly undermining our power in Italy and in the rest of Europe, his agents and diplomats making pacts with our enemies. It would perhaps have concentrated minds had we sacked Rome again as the emperor’s troops had done ninety-nine years before, in 1527, when we were still what we were and the mere word “Spaniard” could make the world hold its breath. Alas, these were very different times; Philip IV was certainly no match for his great-grandfather Charles; appearances tended to be preserved now through politics and diplomacy; and given the lean times ahead, it was hardly the moment for pontiffs to be hitching up their vestments and scurrying off to take refuge in Castel Sant’Angelo with the halberds of our Landsknecht soldiers tickling their arses. And that was a shame, because in the restless Europe I am describing—which contained young nations just coming into being, and older nations, like ours, with its century and a half of history—being loved would have brought us only a tenth of the advantages of being feared. Given the way things were, had we Spaniards opted to be loved, all those nations trying to cut the ground from beneath our feet—the English, the French, the Dutch, the Venetians, the Turks, et cetera—would long ago have destroyed us, and would have done so gratis. At least, by fighting for every foot of land, every league of sea, and every ounce of gold, we made the bastards pay dearly for it.