“Only some of this is my doing,” said Alatriste.
No one seemed to believe him. Martín Saldaña was grave-faced. He had his staff of office tucked in his belt, his sword in one hand and a pistol in the other.
“Give yourself up,” he warned again, “or I’ll kill you.”
The captain reflected for a moment. He knew the fate that awaited regicides: he would be tortured to death and his body quartered. Not a very pleasant prospect.
“It would be better if you killed me.”
He was looking at the bearded face of the man who, up until that night, had been his friend—he was losing friends at an alarming rate—and he saw him hesitate, just for a moment. They both knew that Alatriste had no wish to be taken prisoner. Saldaña exchanged a rapid glance with Guadalmedina, and the latter almost imperceptibly shook his head. We need him alive, the gesture said, so that we can try to get him to talk.
“Disarm him,” ordered Guadalmedina.
The two catchpoles carrying the torches stepped forward, and Alatriste raised his sword. Martín Saldaña’s pistol was pointing straight at his stomach. “I could force him to fire,” he thought. “I just need to meet the barrel full on and with a little luck . . . True, a bullet in the gut hurts more than one in the head, and you take longer to die, but there’s no alternative. Martín might not refuse me that.”
Saldaña himself seemed to be pondering the matter deeply.
“Diego,” he said suddenly.
Alatriste looked at him, surprised. It sounded like an introduction to a longer speech, and his comrade from Flanders was not the most verbose of men, certainly not in a situation like this.
“It isn’t worth it,” added Saldaña after a pause.
“What isn’t worth it?”
Saldaña was still thinking. He raised his sword hand and scratched his beard with the cross-guard, then said:
“Letting yourself get killed for no good reason.”
“Leave any explanations for later,” Guadalmedina said brusquely.
Alatriste leaned against the wall, confused. There was something that didn’t quite fit. Saldaña, his pistol still leveled at Alatriste, was looking at Guadalmedina now, frowning.
“Later might be too late,” Saldaña said sullenly.
Guadalmedina paused to think, head to one side. Then he stood studying them both for a while. Finally, he seemed convinced. His eyes fell on Saldaña’s pistol and he sighed.
“It wasn’t the king,” he said.
Through the left-hand window of the carriage, on the hills overlooking the orchards and the Manzanares River, he could just make out the dark shape of the Alcázar Real. Accompanied by half a dozen constables and catchpoles on foot, all bearing torches, they were on their way to Puente del Parque. Alongside the coachman sat another two guards, one of whom was carrying a harquebus with the match lit. Guadalmedina and Martín Saldaña were in the coach, sitting opposite Captain Alatriste. The latter could hardly believe the story they had just told him.
“We’ve been using him as a double for His Majesty for eight months now; the likeness was quite astonishing,” concluded Guadalmedina. “The same age, the same blue eyes, a similar mouth . . . His name was Ginés Garcia millán and he was a little-known actor from Puerto Lumbreras. He stood in for the king for a few days during the recent visit to Aragon. When we heard that something was being planned for tonight, we decided that he should play the role once more. He knew the risks, but agreed to take part anyway. He was a loyal and valiant subject.”
Alatriste pulled a face.
“A fine reward he got for his loyalty.”
Guadalmedina regarded him in silence, faintly irritated. The torches outside illuminated his aristocratic profile, his neat beard and curled mustache. Another world and another caste. He was supporting his splinted arm with his good hand to protect it from the jolting of the carriage.
“It was doubtless a personal decision,” he said lightly. After all, compared with a monarch, the late Ginés Garcia millán mattered little to him. “His orders were not to appear until we arrived to protect him, but he was determined to play his role to the hilt and he didn’t wait.” He shook his head disapprovingly. “Playing a king was probably the high point of his career.”
“He played the part well, too,” said the captain. “He remained dignified throughout and fought without once uttering a word. I doubt a king would have done the same.”
Martín Saldaña listened impassively, never taking his eyes off Alatriste, his pistol in his lap, cocked and ready. Guadalmedina had removed one glove and was using it to flick away the dust on his fine breeches.
“I don’t believe your story,” he said. “At least not entirely. It’s true, as you say, that there are signs of a fight and there must have been more than one assassin, but who’s to say that you weren’t in league with them?”
“My word.”
“And what else?”
“You know me well enough.”
Guadalmedina snorted, one glove hanging limp in his hand.
“Do I? You haven’t proved very trustworthy of late.”
Alatriste stared hard at the count. Up until that night, no one who said such a thing would have lived long enough to repeat it. Then he turned to Saldaña.
“Don’t you believe me either?”
Saldaña kept his mouth shut. It was clear that it was not his business to believe or disbelieve anything. He was simply doing his job. The actor was dead, the king was alive, and his orders were to guard the prisoner. He kept his thoughts to himself. Any debating he would leave to inquisitors, judges, and theologians.
“It will all become clear in the fullness of time,” said Guadalmedina, drawing on his glove again. “The fact is, you received orders to stay away.”
The captain looked out of the window. They had passed the Puente del Parque, and the carriage was taking them past the city wall, along the dirt road that led to the south side of the Alcázar.
“Where are you taking me?”
“To Caballerizas,” said Guadalmedina.
Alatriste studied Martín Saldaña’s inexpressive face and noticed that he was now gripping the pistol more firmly and pointing it at his chest. “The sly fox knows me well,” he thought. “He knows it was a mistake to give me that information.” Caballerizas, better known as the Slaughterhouse, was the small prison next to the Alcázar stables where prisoners guilty of lèse-majesté were sent to be tortured. It was a sinister place where neither justice nor hope was to be found. There were no judges or lawyers, only torturers, strappado, and a scribe to note down each scream. Two interrogations were enough to leave a man crippled for life.
“So this is as far as I go.”
“Yes,” agreed Guadalmedina. “This is as far as you go. Now you’ll have time to explain everything.”
“I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb,” thought Alatriste. And never better said. Taking advantage of another sudden jolt of the carriage, he flung himself on Saldaña just as the latter’s pistol was pointing slightly away from him. With the same impetus, he delivered a vicious headbutt to Saldaña’s face and felt the other man’s nose crunch beneath the impact. Cloc, it went. Thick, red blood flowed forth, pouring down Saldaña’s beard and chest. By then, Alatriste had snatched the pistol from him and was pointing it straight at Guadalmedina.
“Your weapon,” the captain said.
Taken completely by surprise, Guadalmedina was about to open his mouth to call for help from those outside, when Alatriste hit him hard in the face with the pistol, just a moment before relieving him of his sword. Killing them wouldn’t solve anything, he decided. He glanced at Saldaña, who was barely moving, like an ox felled by a blow to the back of the neck. He again struck Álvaro de la Marca hard, and the count, unable to defend himself, his arm in a sling, slid between the seats. “You’re damn well not taking me to the Slaughterhouse,” thought the captain. A blood-spattered Saldaña was gazing at him with dazed eyes.