Angélica de Alquézar was not, as far as I could see, among the maids of honor accompanying the queen, and so while Quevedo, overflowing with wit and compliments, was delighting the ladies with his humor, I went for a stroll about the garden, admiring the uniforms of the Burgundy guards who were on duty that day. Feeling as pleased as a king with his revenues, I got as far as the balustrade that looked out over the vineyards and the old Guadarrama road, and from there I enjoyed a view of the orchards and market gardens of Buitrera and Florida, which were extraordinarily green in that season of the year. The air was soft, and from the woods behind the little palace came the distant sound of dogs barking and shots being fired, proof that our monarch, with his proverbial marksmanship—described ad nauseam by all the court poets, including Lope and Quevedo—was slaughtering as many rabbit, partridge, quail, and pheasant as his beaters could provide him with. If, during his long life, the king had shot heretics, Turks, and Frenchmen, rather than those small innocent creatures, Spain would have been a very different place.
“Well, well, well. Here’s the man who abandoned a lady in the middle of the night to go off with his friends.”
I turned around, thoughts and breath stopped. Angélica de Alquézar was by my side. Needless to say, she was looking very beautiful. The light of the Madrid sky lent an added brilliance to her eyes, which were now fixed ironically on me, eyes that were both lovely and deadly.
“I would never have expected such behavior from a gentleman.”
Her hair was arranged in ringlets, and she was wearing a red silk taffeta basquine and a short bodice with a pretty little collar on which glittered a gold chain and an emerald-studded cross. A touch of rouge, after the fashion of the court, gave a faint blush to the perfect paleness of her face. She seemed older, I thought, more womanly.
“I’m sorry I abandoned you the other night,” I said, “but I couldn’t . . .”
She interrupted me impatiently, as if the matter were no longer important. She was gazing around her. Then she shot me a sideways glance and asked:
“Did it end well?”
Her tone was frivolous, as if she really didn’t care either way.
“More or less.”
I heard a trill of laughter from the ladies sitting around the queen and don Francisco, doubtless amused by some new witticism of his.
“This Captain Batiste, or Triste, or whatever his name is, doesn’t have much to recommend him, does he? He’s always getting you into trouble.”
I drew myself up, greatly offended that Angélica de Alquézar, of all people, should say such a thing.
“He’s my friend.”
She laughed softly, her hands resting on the balustrade. She smelled sweet, of roses and honey. It was a delicious smell, but I preferred the way she had smelled on the night when we kissed. My skin prickled to remember it. Fresh bread.
“You abandoned me in the middle of the street,” she said again.
“I did. How can I make it up to you?”
“By accompanying me again whenever I need you to.”
“At night?”
“Yes.”
“And with you dressed as a man?”
She stared at me as if I were an idiot.
“You can hardly expect me to go out dressed like this.”
“In answer to your question,” I said, “no, never again.”
“How very discourteous. Remember: you are in my debt.”
She was studying me again with the fixity of a dagger pointing at someone’s entrails. I should say that I, too, was very smartly turned out that day: all in black, my hair freshly washed, and a dagger tucked in my belt, at the back. Perhaps that gave me the necessary aplomb to hold her gaze.
“I’m not that much in your debt.”
“You’re a lout,” she said angrily, like a little girl who has failed to get her own way. “You obviously prefer the company of that Captain Sotatriste of yours.”
“As I said, he’s my friend.”
She pulled a scornful face.
“Of course. I know the refrain: Flanders and all that, swords, cursing, taverns, and whores. The gross behavior one expects of men.”
This sounded like a criticism, and yet I thought I heard a discordant note, as if, in some way, she regretted not being involved in that world herself.
“Anyway,” she added, “allow me to say that with friends like him, you don’t need enemies.”
“And which are you?”
She pursed her lips as if she really were considering her answer. Then, head on one side, not taking her eyes off me for a moment, she said:
“I’ve already told you that I love you.”
I trembled when she said this, and she noticed. She was smiling, as Lucifer might have smiled as he fell from heaven.
“That should be enough,” she added, “if you’re not a rogue, a fool, or a braggart.”
“I don’t know what I am, but I know that you’re more than enough to get me burned at the stake or garrotted.”
She laughed again, her hands folded almost modestly over the ample skirt and the mother-of-pearl fan that hung from her waist. I regarded the neat outline of her mouth. To hell with everything, I thought. Fresh bread, roses, and honey—and bare skin underneath. Had I not been where I was, I would have hurled myself upon those lips.
“You surely don’t think,” she said, “that you can have me for free.”
Before matters became dangerously complicated, there was time for an agreeable interlude, one that would have played well on the stage. The plot was hatched during a meal at El León, offered by Captain Alonso de Contreras, who was his usual talkative, congenial, and slightly boastful self. He presided over the occasion, leaning back against a barrel of wine on which we had deposited our capes, hats, and swords. The other guests were don Francisco de Quevedo, Lopito de Vega, my master, and myself, and we were all happily dispatching some good garlic soup and a thick beef and bacon stew. Our host Contreras was celebrating having finally been paid a sum of money that had, he claimed, been owed to him since the battle of Roncesvalles. We ended up discussing Moscatel’s steadfast opposition to Lopito and Laura’s love, a situation only made worse by the butcher’s discovery that Lopito and Diego Alatriste were now friends. The young man told us forlornly that he could only see his lady in secret—when she went out with her duenna to make some purchase, or else at mass in the church of Our Lady of the Miracles, where he, kneeling on his cloak, would observe her from afar. Sometimes, he even managed to approach and exchange a few tender words while he held, cupped in his hand—O supreme happiness—the holy water with which she made the sign of the cross. Given that Moscatel was determined to marry his niece to that vile pettifogger Saturnino Apolo, the poor girl had only two options: marriage to him or the nunnery, and so Lopito had about as much chance of marrying her as he would of finding a bride in the seraglio in Constantinople. Twenty men on horseback wouldn’t change her uncle’s mind. Besides, these were turbulent times, and what with the to-ings and fro-ings of both Turks and heretics, Lopito could, at any moment, be called on to resume his duties to the king, and that would mean losing Laura forever. This, as he admitted to us, had often led him to curse the similarly tangled situations described in his own father’s plays, because they were of no help whatsoever in resolving his problems.
This remark gave Captain Contreras a bold idea.
“It’s perfectly simple,” he said, crossing his legs. “Kidnap her and marry her—in good soldierly fashion.”
“That wouldn’t be easy,” replied Lopito glumly. “Moscatel is still paying several ruffians to guard the house.”
“How many?”
“The last time I tried to see her, there were four.”