Carriages were leaving the palace, and when I saw the insignia on the coach and saw the cavalry escort, I realized that it was our queen, accompanied by her ladies-in-waiting and her mistress of the robes. And my heart, which, during the episode with the sergeant, had remained steady and firm, suddenly bolted as if it had been given its head. Everything around me was spinning. The carriages rolled past to the sound of cheering and hallooing from the crowd, which rushed forward to greet them, and one pale royal hand, lovely and bejeweled, waved elegantly at one of the windows, in genteel response to this tribute from the people. I, though, had other interests, and in each of the carriages that passed, I eagerly sought the source of my unease. As I did so, I took off my cap and drew myself up, standing hatless and motionless before the fleeting vision of lace, satin, and furbelows, of female heads with coiffed and ringleted hair, of faces covered by fans, and of hands waving. In the last coach I glimpsed a fair head and a pair of blue eyes that saw me as they passed, recognizing me with startled intensity, before the vision moved off, and I was left there, overwhelmed, watching the hunched back of the footman at the rear of the carriage and the dust covering the rumps of the guards’ horses.
Then behind me I heard a whistle, one that I would have recognized in Hell itself. Ti-ri-tu, ta-ta. And when I turned, I found myself face to face with a ghost.
“You’ve grown, boy.”
Gualterio Malatesta was looking straight into my eyes, and I was sure that he could read my every thought. He was, as ever, all dressed in black, and wearing a black hat with a very broad brim and, hanging from his leather baldric, the usual threatening sword with the long cross-guard. He was still very tall and thin, with that face of his devastated by pockmarks and scars, which gave him such a cadaverous, tortured appearance that even the smile he directed at me, far from softening that appearance, only emphasized it.
“You’ve grown,” he said again. He seemed about to add “since the last time,” but he did not. The “last time” had been on the road to Toledo, when he drove me in a closed carriage to the dungeons of the Inquisition. For very different reasons, the memory of that adventure was as unpalatable to him as it was to me.
“And how is Captain Alatriste?”
I didn’t answer, I merely held his gaze, which was as dark and fixed as that of a snake. When he spoke the name of my master, the smile beneath his fine, Italian-style mustache grew more dangerous.
“You remain a boy of few words, I see.”
He was resting his left hand, gloved in black, on the guard of his sword, and he kept turning this way and that, as if distracted. I heard him utter a soft sigh, almost of annoyance.
“So, in Seville too,” he said, and then he fell silent before I could fathom what it was he meant. After a while, with a glance and a lift of his chin, he indicated the sergeant of the Spanish guard, who was some way off, occupied with organizing his men by the palace gate.
“I saw what happened between you and him. I was watching from the crowd.” He was studying me thoughtfully, as if assessing the changes that had taken place in me since the last time we had met. “I see you are as punctilious as ever in matters of honor.”
“I’ve been in Flanders,” I blurted out. “With the captain.”
He nodded. I noticed that there were a few gray hairs now in his mustache and in the side-whiskers visible beneath the black brim of his hat, as well as a few new lines or scars on his face. The years pass for everyone, I thought. Even for hired swordsmen with no heart.
“I know,” he said, “but regardless of whether you’ve been in Flanders or not, you would do well to remember one thing: honor is a very complicated thing to acquire, difficult to preserve, and dangerous to sustain. Ask your friend Alatriste.”
I stood up to him with all the firmness I could muster. “Ask him yourself, if you’ve got the spunk.”
My sarcasm elicited not a flicker of response from his impassive face. “I know the answer already,” he replied, unmoved. “I have other less rhetorical matters pending with him.”
He was still looking pensively in the direction of the guards at the gate. Then he chuckled to himself, as if at a joke he preferred not to share with anyone else. “Some fools never learn,” he said suddenly. “Like that imbecile who raised his hand to you without a thought for what you might do with yours.” The hard black snake eyes fixed on me again. “If it had been me, I would never even have given you the chance to take that dagger out.”
I turned to observe the sergeant. He was strutting about, keeping an eye on his soldiers while they closed the palace gates. And it was true: he was completely unaware how close he had come to having a span of steel in his guts and how close I had come to being hanged for his sake.
“Remember that next time,” said the Italian.
When I turned back, Gualterio Malatesta was no longer there. He had disappeared into the crowd, and all I could see was a black hat moving off past the orange trees, beneath the bell tower of the Cathedral.
3. CONSTABLES AND CATCHPOLES
That night would prove to be a long and busy one, but first there was time for supper and some interesting talk. There was also the unexpected arrival of a friend. Don Francisco de Quevedo had not told Captain Alatriste that the person he would be sharing supper with was none other than Álvaro de la Marca, the Conde de Guadalmedina. To Alatriste’s surprise, and to mine, the count appeared at Becerra’s inn just after sunset, as cordial and self-assured as ever. He embraced the captain, patted me affectionately on the cheek, and called loudly for good wine, a decent meal, and a comfortable room in which he could converse with his companions.
“Now tell me all about Breda.”
Apart from the buff coat he was wearing, he was dressed very much in the style favored by our king. His clothes were otherwise expensive but discreet, with no embroidery and no gold; he wore military boots, pale amber gloves, a hat, and a long cloak; and tucked in his belt, as well as a sword and a dagger, were a pair of pistols. Don Álvaro’s night would doubtless last long beyond his conversation with us, and, toward dawn, some husband or abbess would have good reason to keep one eye open as he or she slept. I remembered what Quevedo had said about the count’s role as companion to the king on the latter’s nocturnal sorties.
“You look very well, Alatriste.”
“So do you, Count.”
“Oh, I take good care of myself, but make no mistake, my friend, at court not working is very hard work indeed.”
He was still the same: handsome, elegant, and with exquisite manners that were not in the least at odds with the easy, slightly rough, almost soldierly spontaneity with which he had always treated my master ever since the latter had saved his life during a disastrous Spanish attack on the Kerkennah Islands. He toasted Breda, Alatriste, and even me; he argued with don Francisco about the syllables in a sonnet, dispatched with an excellent appetite the lamb in honey sauce served up in good Triana earthenware, called for a clay pipe and tobacco, and sat back in his chair, wreathed in pipe smoke, with his buff coat unfastened and a contented look on his face.
“Now let’s get down to serious matters,” he said.
Then, in between drawing on his pipe and taking sips of Aracena wine, he studied me for a moment as if calculating whether or not I should be listening to what he was about to say, and then, at last, he laid the facts before us. He began by explaining that the system of fleets to transport the gold and silver, Seville’s commercial monopoly, the strict controls imposed on who could and could not travel to the Indies had all been devised to prevent foreign interference and smuggling and to ensure the smooth running of the vast machinery of taxes, duties, and tariffs on which the monarchy and its many parasites depended. That was the reason for the almojarifazgo: the customs cordon around Seville, Cádiz, and its bay, which was the only port from which ships could embark for the Indies and disembark on their return. The royal coffers drew a large income from this, although it should be noted that in a corrupt administration like Spain’s, it was in the crown’s interest to let agents and other people in authority pay a fixed rate for their positions and then surreptitiously line their own pockets, stealing money hand over fist. In lean times, however, there was nothing to prevent the king from occasionally imposing an exemplary fine or ordering the seizure of goods from private individuals who were traveling with the fleets.