“Don’t worry,” he lied. “I just want to talk to him.”
Alatriste had used the time to confirm to himself that he was in the right place. Besides observing the short black cape, the shirts, collars, and other clothes in the house, all of which might have belonged to anyone, he had opened a chest and found a pair of good pistols, a flask of gunpowder, a small bag of bullets, a knife as sharp as a razor, a coat of mail, and a few letters and documents evidently giving coded place names and itineraries. There were also two books which he was now leafing curiously through, having first loaded the two pistols and placed them in his belt, leaving Cagafuego’s on the table. One of the books was, surprisingly enough, an Italian translation of Pliny’s Natural History, printed in Venice, which, for a moment, made the captain doubt that the owner of the book and the man he was waiting for could be the same person. The other book was in Spanish and the title made him smile: God’s Politics, Christ’s Governance, by don Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas.
There was a noise outside. Fear flickered in the woman’s eyes. Diego Alatriste picked up the pistol from the table and, trying not to make the floorboards creak, positioned himself to one side of the door. Everything happened with extraordinary simplicity: the door opened and in walked Gualterio Malatesta, shaking his sodden cloak and hat. Then, ever so gently, the captain pressed the barrel of the pistol to Malatesta’s head.
8. OF MURDERERS AND BOOKS
“She has nothing to do with any of this,” said Malatesta.
He put his sword and dagger down on the floor, kicking them away from him as Alatriste ordered. He was looking at the woman who was still sitting, bound and gagged, on the chair.
“It doesn’t matter,” said the captain, keeping the pistol pressed to Malatesta’s head. “She’s my trump card.”
“Well played, I must say. Do you kill women, too?”
“If necessary. As do you, I imagine.”
Malatesta nodded thoughtfully. His pockmarked face remained impassive, although the scar above his right eye gave him a slight squint. Finally, he turned to look at the captain. In the dim light from the candle, Alatriste could see his black clothes, sinister air, and cruel, dark eyes. A smile appeared beneath Malatesta’s mustache.
“This is your second visit here.”
“And it will be my last.”
Malatesta paused before replying:
“You had a pistol in your hand on that occasion, too.”
Alatriste remembered it welclass="underline" the same bed, the same miserable room, the wounded man’s eyes like those of a dangerous snake. The Italian had commented then: “With luck I’ll arrive in hell in time for supper.”
“I’ve often regretted not using it,” retorted Alatriste.
The cruel smile grew wider. “We’re in agreement there,” the smile seemed to say, “pistol-shots are full stops and doubts are dangerous ellipses.” He noticed and recognized the two pistols the captain had found in the chest and which he was now wearing in his belt.
“You shouldn’t go wandering about on your own in Madrid, you know,” he remarked with grim solicitude. “They say your skin isn’t worth a Ceuta penny.”
“Who says?”
“I don’t know. It’s just a rumor.”
“Worry about your own skin.”
Malatesta gave that same pensive nod, as if he appreciated the advice. Then he looked at the woman, whose terrified eyes kept shifting from him to Alatriste.
“There’s just one thing in all this that I find rather insulting, Captain. The fact that you didn’t simply shoot me as soon as I came through the door means that you think I’m going to blab.”
Alatriste did not reply. Some things one took for granted.
“I can understand you feeling curious, though,” added the Italian after a moment. “But perhaps I can tell you something without detriment to myself.”
“Why me?” Alatriste asked.
Malatesta made a gesture with his hands as if to say “Why not?” and then indicated the pitcher of water on the table and asked for a little to slake his parched throat. The captain shook his head.
“For various reasons,” Malatesta went on, resigned to going thirsty. “You have unfinished business with a number of people, not just me. Besides, your affair with the Castro woman was like a gift from the gods.” His malicious smile grew wider. “How could we miss the opportunity of putting it all down to jealousy, especially with a man like you involved, always so ready to reach for his sword? It’s just a shame they played that trick on us, replacing the king with an actor.”
“Did you know who the man was?”
Malatesta tutted glumly, like a professional disgusted at his own ineptitude.
“I thought I did,” he said, “although, afterward, it turned out that I didn’t.”
“You certainly had your sights set very high.”
Malatesta regarded Alatriste almost with surprise, almost ironically.
“High or low, crown or bishop, it’s all the same to me,” he said. “The only king I value is the one in a pack of cards, and the only God I know is the one I use to blaspheme with. It’s a great relief when life and the passing years strip away certain things. Everything is so much simpler, so much more practical. Don’t you feel that? Ah, no, of course, I am forgetting. You’re a soldier. Or, rather, you pay lip service to such things; because people like you need words like “king,” “true religion,” “my country,” and all that, just to get by and to feel you’re doing the decent thing. I find it hard to believe, really, in a man of your experience, and given the times we’re living through.”
Having said this, he stopped and looked at the captain, as if expecting him to reply.
“Then again,” he added, “your exemplary loyalty as a subject didn’t prevent you from getting into a squabble with His Catholic Majesty over a woman. But then a hair from a quim has done in far more men than the noose ever has. Puttana Eva!”
He sneered mockingly and fell silent, before whistling his usual little tune through his teeth. Ignoring the pistol pointing at him, he gazed distractedly about the room. He was, of course, only pretending to be distracted. Alatriste knew that the Italian’s wary eyes would miss nothing. “If I drop my guard for a moment,” he thought, “the bastard will be on me.”
“Who’s paying you?”
Malatesta’s hoarse, discordant laugh filled the room.
“Fie on you, Captain. Such a question is hardly appropriate between men like us.”
“Is Luis de Alquézar involved?”
Malatesta remained silent, his face expressionless. He was looking at the books Alatriste had been leafing through.
“I see you’ve taken an interest in my reading matter,” he said at last.
“Yes, I was surprised,” agreed the captain. “I didn’t know you were such an educated son of a whore.”
“I see no contradiction.”
Malatesta glanced at the woman who was still sitting motionless in the chair. Then he touched the scar over his right eye.
“Books help you to understand life, don’t you think? You can even find in them a justification for lying and betraying . . . for killing.”
He had placed one hand on the table as he spoke. Alatriste drew back prudently, and with a movement of the pistol indicated that the Italian do the same.