That “for tonight” spoke volumes. I realized, sadly, that, for Guadalmedina, the house in Calle de los Peligros and the reason for the dispute were of little importance now. He and Diego Alatriste had exchanged sword thrusts, and that brought with it certain obligations. It broke certain rules and implied certain duties. The fight was postponed for the moment, but not forgotten. Despite their long friendship, Álvaro de la Marca was who he was, and his opponent was a mere soldier who possessed only his sword and not even a patch of ground to call his grave. After what had happened, anyone else in the count’s position would have had the captain clapped in irons and thrown in a dungeon, or else consigned to the galleys, if, that is, he managed to resist the impulse to have him murdered. Álvaro de la Marca, however, was made of sterner stuff. Perhaps, like Captain Alatriste, he thought that once words or blades have been unsheathed it was impossible simply to return them to the scabbard. It could all be sorted out later on, calmly and in the appropriate place, where they would have only themselves to consider.
The captain was looking at me, and his eyes still shone in the darkness. Finally, and very slowly, as if mulling something over, he put away both sword and dagger. He exchanged a silent look with Guadalmedina, then placed one hand on my shoulder.
“Don’t do that again,” he said sullenly.
His iron fingers were gripping my shoulder so tightly they hurt. He brought his face close to mine and looked at me hard, his aquiline nose prominent above his mustache. He smelled as he always did, of leather and wine and metal. I tried to free myself, but he did not loosen his grip.
“Don’t ever follow me again,” he said. “Ever.”
And inside, I writhed in shame and remorse.
5. WINE FROM ESQUIVIAS
I felt even worse the following day as I watched Captain Alatriste where he sat at the door of the Tavern of the Turk. He was perched on a stool beside a table laid with a jug of wine, a plate of sausages, and a book—it was, I seem to remember, The Life of Squire Marcos de Obregón— which he had not opened all morning. He wore his doublet unfastened and his shirt open and was sitting with his back against the wall; his sea-green eyes, paler still in the morning light, were fixed on some indeterminate spot in Calle de Toledo. I was trying to keep my distance, for I still felt bitterly ashamed of having so disloyally lied to him, something that would never have happened had it not been for that woman, or girl, or whatever you wish to call her, who could so addle my brains that I no longer knew what I was doing. With my teacher Pérez—to whom the captain continued to entrust my education—I was, appropriately enough, currently engaged on translating the passage from Homer in which Ulysses is tempted by the Sirens. In short, I spent the morning avoiding my master and running various errands: buying candles, flint, and tinder for Caridad la Lebrijana, some sweet almond oil from Tuerto Fadrique’s pharmacy, and visiting the nearby Jesuit college to take my teacher a basket of clean linen. Now, with nothing to do, I was loitering on the corner of Calle del Arcabuz and Calle de Toledo, watching the passing carriages and the carts carrying merchandise to the Plaza Mayor, the heavy-laden mules and the water-sellers’ donkeys tethered to the railings at windows—both mules and donkeys, of course, depositing their excrement on the roughly paved street that was already running with filthy water from the sewers. I occasionally glanced over at the captain, but found him always in the same pose—motionless and thoughtful. Twice I saw La Lebrijana—bare-armed and in her apron—peer out at him, then go back inside again without saying a word.
As you know, these were not happy times for her. The captain responded to her complaints with only monosyllables or silence, and if the good woman ever raised her voice to him, my master would simply take hat, cloak, and sword and go for a walk. Once, he returned from such a walk to find the trunk containing his few possessions at the foot of the stairs. He stood looking at it for a while, then went upstairs, closed the door behind him, and, after much talk, La Lebrijana finally stopped shouting. Shortly afterward, the captain, in his shirt, appeared on the gallery that gave onto the courtyard and told me to bring the trunk up to him. I did as he asked, and things appeared to return to normal, for from my room that night, I heard La Lebrijana moan like a bitch in heat. After a couple of days, though, her eyes were once again red and tear-filled, and the whole business started again and continued thus until the day I am describing now, the day after my master’s fight with Álvaro de la Marca in Calle de los Peligros. The captain and I both suspected that a storm was brewing, but neither of us could have imagined how seriously things were about to go wrong. Compared with what awaited us, the captain’s rows with La Lebrijana were like one of those frothy interludes penned by Quiñones de Benavente.
A burly, broad-shouldered shadow in hat and cape loomed over the table just as Captain Alatriste was reaching for the jug of wine.
“Good morning, Diego.”
As usual, and despite the early hour, Martín Saldaña, lieutenant of constables, was armed with sword and dagger. Both his profession and his own nature had taught him not to trust even the shadow he himself had just cast over the table of his old comrade from Flanders, and so he had about him, as well as sword, dagger, and poniard, a couple of Milan pistols, too. This panoply of arms was completed by a thick buffcoat and the staff of office he wore stuck in his belt.
“Can we talk?”
Alatriste looked first at him, then at his own belt, which was lying on the ground, by the wall, wrapped around his sword and dagger.
“In your role as lieutenant of constables or as a friend?” he asked coolly.
“Christ’s blood, Diego, be serious, man!”
The captain regarded his friend’s bearded face, and the scars, which all had the same origin as his own. The beard, he remembered vividly, half concealed the mark left by a blow delivered twenty years before, during an attack on the city walls of Ostend. The scar on Saldaña’s cheek and the one on Alatriste’s forehead, above his left eyebrow, dated from that same day.
“All right,” he said, “we can talk.”
They walked up toward Plaza Mayor, under the arcade that occupies the latter part of Calle de Toledo. They were as silent as if they had both been hauled up before a notary, with Saldaña putting off saying what he had to say and Alatriste in no hurry to find out. The captain had fastened his doublet and put on his hat with its faded red feather; he wore the lower half of his cloak caught up and draped over his arm, and on his left side, his sword clanked against his dagger.
“It’s a delicate matter,” said Saldaña at last.
“I imagined it was from the look on your face.”
They eyed each other intently for a moment, then continued on past some gypsy women who were dancing in the shade of the arcade. The Plaza Mayor—with its tall houses, lozenge-shaped roof tiles, and the gilded ironwork on the Casa de la Panadería glittering in the sunlight—was packed with whores and errand boys and ordinary passersby, who strolled amongst carts and crates of fruit and vegetables, past bread stalls with nets placed over the loaves to protect them from thieves, past barrels of wine—“No water added—guaranteed,” cried the vendors. Shop-keepers stood at the doors of the shops and in front of the stalls that filled the areas under the arches. Rotten vegetables were piled up on the ground along with horse droppings, and the buzzing of swarms of flies mingled with the cries of those selling their various wares: “Eggs and milk—fresh today!” “Juicy cantaloupe melons!” “Asparagus—soft as butter!” “Buy some tender green beans and get a bunch of parsley free!” They headed over to the right-hand side of the square, avoiding the sellers of hemp and esparto, whose stalls filled the square as far as Calle Imperial.