“Right,” said Captain Contreras, almost licking his lips with delight, “to business.”
And we all emerged at once from the arcade, just as if we had turned the corner and happened on the scene by chance. Don Francisco de Quevedo, meanwhile, was murmuring philosophically to himself from beneath his cloak:
“Don’t make your life so miserable,
Don’t fret, stop taking pains,
For nothing’s more impossible
Than to keep a woman in chains.”
The musicians were now huddled against the wall, poor things, surrounded by the swords of the hired ruffians and with their instruments shattered. Gonzalo Moscatel had picked up their lantern from the ground and was holding it high, still with his sword in his right hand. He was furiously bawling questions at them: Who had sent them to disturb him at such an hour? How? Where? When? At this point, as we passed by, hats down over our eyes, our cloaks up to our noses, Captain Contreras said out loud something along the lines of: “A pox on these wretches troubling our streets, a pox on them and the devil who lights their way,” and he said this loudly enough for everyone to hear. Moscatel happened to be the person lighting the way of his four hired bully-boys—in the dim lantern glow we could see their sinister mugs, the lawyer Apolo’s porcine features, and the terrified expressions on the musicians’ faces—and he clearly felt that with the backing of his armed retinue, he could afford to strut and crow. He therefore addressed Captain Contreras in surly fashion—he had no idea who we were, of course—and told him to go to hell and not to stop en route. If we didn’t, he declared, by Saint Peter and by all the saints in the calendar, he would cut off our ears there and then. As you can imagine, these words suited our designs perfectly. Contreras laughed in Moscatel’s face and said with great aplomb that he had no idea what was going on there nor what the quarrel was about, but if it was a matter of cutting off anyone’s ears, really cutting off their ears, the fool who had just said that and the whore who bore him were very welcome to try. He laughed again and was still laughing, still without uncovering his face, as he took out his sword. Captain Alatriste, sword unsheathed, was already lunging at the nearest ruffian. Seemingly almost in the same movement, he slashed at Moscatel’s arm, causing him to drop the lantern and start back as if he had been stung by a scorpion. The light went out as it hit the ground, leaving us all in darkness. The terrified shadows of the three musicians scampered away like hares, and we fell with glee upon the remaining men—and it was like the Fall of Troy all over again.
Great God, but I enjoyed myself. The idea was that while doing our utmost not to kill anyone—we didn’t, after all, want to cast a pall on the marriage—amidst the general confusion and with the help of the duenna, whose palm had been greased with doubloons drawn from the same purse that had bribed the chaplain, we would allow time for Lopito de Vega to escape with Laura Moscatel by the back door and carry her off to the Convento de las Jerónimas in the carriage he had hired for the purpose. While all this was going on at the back door, blows were raining down in the pitch dark at the front door. Moscatel and his men fought like Turks, while Saturnino Apolo, from behind his shield, urged them on from a safe distance. Men as skilled as Alatriste, Quevedo, and Contreras had only to parry and thrust, which they did with a will, and I did not acquit myself badly either. I could hear the heavy breathing of the ruffian I took on above the clang of steel. This was no time for fancy flourishes because we were all fighting together and at close quarters, and so I resorted to a trick Captain Alatriste had taught me on board the Jesús Nazareno on the voyage home from Flanders. I made an upward thrust, drew back as if to cover my side, but instead spun round and, swift as a hawk, dealt my opponent a low slashing blow, which, given the sound it made and the position of my blade, must have sliced through the tendons at the back of his knee. My adversary fled, hopping and blaspheming against every saint in heaven, while I, feeling excited and very pleased with myself, looked around to see how I could best assist my comrades. The four of us had started to advance boldly on the six of them, muttering “Yepes, Yepes”—like the wine—which was the password we had decided upon so that we could recognize each other if we had to fight in the dark. Things were already tipping in our favor, however, because the lawyer Apolo had taken to his heels after taking a jab to the buttocks, and don Francisco de Quevedo—who made sure to keep his face covered by his cloak so that he would not be recognized—was repelling the particular ruffian it had fallen to him to fight.
“Yepes,” he said to me, as if he had done quite enough for one night.
For his part, Alonso de Contreras was still fighting—his man was putting up rather more resistance than his fellows—and they were still furiously battling it out, the other man retreating down the street, but not as yet running away. The fourth man was a motionless shape on the ground: he came off worst, for the thrust the captain had dealt him in the initial chaos was to prove deadly; as we learned afterward, three days later he was given the last rites and on the eighth day died. Having seen off one ruffian and wounded Moscatel in the arm, my master, making sure to keep his hat pulled well down and his face covered so that he would remain unrecognized by Moscatel, was now harrying the butcher with his sword, while that fool, who had long since ceased his strutting, was stumbling backward in search of the door to his house—something my master was doing his best to prevent—and calling for help to defend himself against these murderers. Moscatel finally fell to the ground, where Captain Alatriste spent some time kicking him in the ribs, until Contreras returned, having finally chased off his opponent.
“Yepes,” he said, when, at the sound of his footsteps, my master spun round, sword in hand.
Gonzalo Moscatel lay on the ground moaning, and his neighbors, woken by the clamor, were beginning to appear at their windows. At the far end of the street a light glimmered, and someone yelled something about calling out the constables.
“Can we please leave now?” grumbled don Francisco de Quevedo from behind his cloak.
The suggestion seemed a reasonable one, and so we made our exit as if we were carrying in our pocket the king’s patent. An ebullient Alonso de Contreras affectionately patted my cheek and called me “son,” and Captain Alatriste, after giving Moscatel one last kick in the ribs, followed after, sheathing his sword. Three or four streets farther on, when we made a halt in Calle de Tudescos to celebrate, Contreras was still laughing.
“Od’s my life,” he declared. “I haven’t enjoyed myself so much since the sack of Negroponte, when I had some Englishmen hanged.”
Lopito de Vega and Laura Moscatel were married four weeks later in the church of the Jerónimas, in the absence of her uncle, who was going about Madrid with fourteen stitches in his face and his arm in a sling, blaming both injuries on a certain “Yepes.” Lopito’s father was not present either. The marriage was a very discreet affair, with Captain Contreras, Quevedo, my master, and I as witnesses. The young couple moved into a modest rented house in Plaza de Antón Martín, where they intended to await Lopito’s promotion to ensign. As far as I know, they lived there happily for three months. Then, due to some infection of the air or a corruption of the water caused by the terrible heat ravaging Madrid that year, Laura Moscatel died of a malign fever, after being bled and purged by incompetent doctors; and her young widower, his heart broken, returned to Italy. And so ended the strange adventure of Calle de Madera, and I, too, learned something from that whole sad affair: Time carries everything away, and eternal happiness exists only in the imaginations of poets and on the stage.