“I don’t honestly know where to start, Diego.”
“Just get straight to the point.”
Saldaña, as slow as ever, took off his hat and ran one hand over his bald pate.
“I’ve been told to give you a warning.”
“Who by?”
“It doesn’t matter who. What matters is that it comes from high enough up for you to pay due attention. If you don’t, you could lose life or liberty.”
“You’re scaring me.”
“This is no joke, damn it. I’m serious.”
“And where do you fit in?”
Saldaña put his hat back on, waved distractedly to some catchpoles chatting by the Portal de la Carne, and again shrugged.
“Look, Diego. Possibly, despite yourself, you have friends without whom you should by rights be lying in an alleyway with your throat slit, or in prison somewhere with your legs in irons. The matter was discussed in some detail very early this morning, until someone recalled a service you had rendered in Cádiz or somewhere. I’ve no idea what it was, nor do I care, but I swear that if that someone hadn’t spoken up in your favor, I wouldn’t be here on my own, but accompanied by a lot of other men armed to the teeth. Do you follow?”
“I follow.”
“Are you going to see that woman again?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, please, for the love of all that’s holy, don’t be so stupid.”
They walked a little way in silence. Finally, outside Gaspar Sánchez’s cake shop, next to the arch, Saldaña stopped and took a sealed letter from his purse.
“Enough talking. Let this letter speak for itself.”
Alatriste took the note and studied it, turning it around in his fingers. There was nothing written on the outside, not a name or a word. He broke the seal, unfolded the piece of paper, and, when he recognized the handwriting, looked mockingly at his old friend.
“Since when have you acted as go-between, Martín?”
Saldaña frowned, stung.
“Christ’s blood,” he said. “Just shut up and read it, will you?”
And this is what Alatriste read:
I would be very grateful if, from now on, you refrained from visiting me. Respectfully, M. de C.
“I imagine,” commented Saldaña, “that this will come as no surprise to you after what happened last night.”
Alatriste thoughtfully folded up the note.
“And what do you know about last night?”
“Enough. I know, for example, that you were caught trespassing on the royal domain, and that you crossed swords with a friend.”
“News travels faster than the post, I see.”
“In certain circles, yes.”
A mendicant friar from San Blas, with his bell and his little collecting box, came over to them and offered them the image of the saint to kiss. “Praised be the purity of Our Lady the Virgin Mary,” he said meekly, shaking the box, then gave Saldaña such a fierce look that Saldaña thought better of it and walked on. Alatriste was thinking.
“I suppose this letter resolves everything,” he concluded.
Saldaña was picking his teeth with a fingernail. He seemed relieved.
“I certainly hope so. If not, you’re a dead man.”
“In order for me to be a dead man, they’ll have to kill me first.”
“Just remember Villamediana. Not four paces from here they ripped his guts out. And he wasn’t the only one, either.”
Having said that, he stood vacantly watching some ladies who, escorted by duennas and maids carrying baskets, were eating sweet conserves, seated at the barrels of wine that served as tables outside the cake shop.
“So what it comes down to,” he said suddenly, “is that you’re just another sad soldier.”
Alatriste laughed mirthlessly.
“As you once were,” he retorted.
Saldaña gave a deep sigh and turned to the captain.
“You said it—as I once was. I was lucky. Besides, I don’t ride other men’s mares.”
He looked away, embarrassed. Rather the opposite was true of him. Rumor had it that he had gained his staff of office thanks to certain friendships cultivated by his wife. And he had, it seemed, killed at least one man for making jokes on the subject.
“Give me the letter.”
Alatriste, who was about to put it away, appeared surprised.
“It’s mine.”
“Not anymore. ‘Let him read it, then take it straight back’—those were my orders. It was just so that you could see it with your own eyes—her hand and her signature.”
“And what are you going to do with it?”
“Burn it—now.”
He took it from the captain, who put up no resistance. Then, looking around, he decided to take advantage of the oil lamp positioned below the pious image a herbalist had placed outside his door, alongside a stuffed bat and a lizard. He held the paper to the flame.
“She knows what’s for the best, and so does her husband,” he said, returning to the captain’s side holding the now burning letter between his fingers. “I expect someone dictated it to them.”
They watched the flames consume the letter, then Saldaña dropped it and stamped on the ashes.
“The king’s a young man,” he said, as if this justified many things. Alatriste stared at him hard.
“And he is the king,” he added in a neutral voice.
Saldaña was frowning now, one hand resting on the butt of one of his pistols. With the other hand, he was scratching his grizzled beard.
“Do you know something, Diego? Sometimes, like you, I really miss the mud and shit of Flanders.”
Guadalmedina Palace stood on the corner of Calle del Barquillo and Calle de Alcalá, next to the Monastery of San Hermenegildo. The large door stood open, and so Diego Alatriste walked through into the ample hallway, where a liveried porter came to meet him. He was an old servant whom the captain knew well.
“I would like to see the count.”
“Were you asked to come, sir?” asked the porter politely.
“No.”
“I will see if His Excellency can receive you.”
The porter withdrew, and the captain paced up and down before the wrought-iron gate that gave onto the immaculate garden with its lush fruit trees and ornamental shrubs, its stone cupids and classical statuary standing amongst the ivy and the clumps of flowers. He used the time to tidy himself up, straighten his collar, and fasten his doublet. He did not know what Álvaro de la Marca’s reaction would be when they met face-to-face, although he assumed the count would be expecting the words of apology he had already prepared. The captain—as the count knew very well—was not a man to retract words or swords, and both had been bandied about the night before. However, he himself, when he analyzed his conduct, was not sure that he had acted fairly toward the count, who was, after all, fulfilling his duties with the same thoroughness he had applied to his own duties on the battlefield. “The king is the king,” he reminded himself, “although there are kings and kings.” And each man decides out of conscience or self-interest how he will serve his king. Guadalmedina received his pay in the form of royal favors, whereas Diego Alatriste y Tenorio—albeit little, late, and badly—had earned his in the army, as a soldier of that same king, and of his father and grandfather. Besides, Guadalmedina, despite his elevated social position, his noble blood, his courtly manners, and the complicated circumstances in which they found themselves, was a wise and loyal man. They had occasionally taken up arms together against a common enemy, but the captain had also saved the count’s life in the Kerkennah Islands, and subsequently turned to him for help when there was that problem with the two Englishmen. During the incident involving the Inquisition, the count’s goodwill had again been proven, not to mention the matter of the Cádiz gold and the warnings given to don Francisco de Quevedo about María de Castro once she had piqued the royal fancy. Such things forged strong bonds—or so at least he hoped as he waited by the gate that led into the garden—bonds that might salvage the affection they both felt for each other. Then again, it might be that Álvaro de la Marca’s pride would not allow for any reconciliation at alclass="underline" the nobility does not care to be ill-treated, and that wound to the count’s arm did not help matters. Alatriste was prepared to place himself entirely at the count’s disposition, even if this involved letting him stick a few inches of steel through him at a time and place of his choosing.