As for the bawdy house, a popular expression of the day, más puta que la Méndez—more of a whore than La Méndez herself—referred to a real woman called Méndez, whose name was used by don Francisco de Quevedo in his famous ballads about a celebrated figure from the criminal classes called Escarramán, as well as by other men of letters. She had worked as a prostitute in the bawdy house, which offered to the travelers and merchants staying in nearby Calle de Tintores and in other city inns—as well as to locals—gaming, music, and women of the kind described by the great Lope de Vega thus:How foolish, how mad of a silly young man
To chase, helter-skelter (how he pants and drools),
After one of those women who’ve already been
Bait to a thousand other young fools.
And which the no less great don Francisco finished off in his own inimitable style:Stupid the man who trusts in whores
And stupid the man who wants them;
Stupid the money handed over
To pay for whorish flotsam.
Stupid the desire, stupid the delight
The whorish moment imparts,
And stupid the man who doesn’t believe—
Madam—you’ re the queen of tarts!
The bawdy house was run by one Garciposadas, from a family notorious in Seville for two of its brothers: one was a poet at court—a friend of Góngora’s, as it happens—who had been burned that very year for sodomizing a mulatto, Pepillo Infante, also a poet and a servant of the Admiral of Castile, and the other had been burnt three years before in Málaga as a Judaizer; and since misfortunes always come in threes, these antecedents had earned Garciposadas the nickname of El Tostao, or Garciposadas the Scorched. This worthy fellow performed the duties of pimp or father of the bawdy house with great aplomb: he kept the authorities suitably lubricated to ensure that his business ran smoothly; and so as not to contravene the regulations laid down by the city’s corregidor, or governor, he always ensured that weapons of any kind were deposited in the hallway and he forbade entry to any customers under the age of fourteen. The said Garciposadas was also on good terms with the constables and catchpoles, who quite blatantly protected him and his business, a situation that can be aptly summed up in these words: I am both innocent and devious,
Naïve and promiscuous;
Rile me, yet my wrath is soothed
With a small reward, however lewd.
The reward in question was, of course, a nice fat purse. The place was always packed with petty criminals—rogues who swore upon the soul of Escamilla; scoundrels and rascals from La Heria; dealers in lives and purveyors of stab wounds. It was a picturesque pot, spiced with ruined aristocrats, idle New World nabobs, bourgeois gentlemen with plenty of cash, clerics in disguise, gamblers, pimps, common informers, swindlers, and individuals of every kind, some who had noses so keen they could smell a stranger a harquebus shot away and who were often perfectly safe from a justice of which don Francisco de Quevedo himself wrote:Sevillean justice can prove scarce,
For the length of sentence handed out
Depends on the size of your purse.
Thus each night, under the protection of the authorities, El Compás was a constant flow of people, a secular feast, where only the finest wines were served, and those who went in as sober friends came out as wine-soaked sots. There they danced the lascivious zarabanda, guitar strings were plucked and so were clients, and everyone did as he pleased. The bawdy house was home to thirty sirens whose singing emptied men’s purses. Each of these sirens had her own room, and every Saturday morning—for the people of quality visited El Compás on Saturday night—a constable would visit to make sure that none of the girls was infected with the French disease and would not, therefore, give their clients cause to curse and swear, and leave them wondering why God didn’t give to the Turk and the Lutheran what He had given to them. They say the archbishop was in despair, for as one can read in a memoir of the time, “What one finds most in Seville are men and women living in sin, false witnesses, rogues, murderers, and opportunists. There are more than three hundred gaming dens and three thousand prostitutes.”
But to return to our story—which does not involve a very long journey—the fact is that, as ill luck would have it, just as Guadalmedina was about to bid farewell to us underneath the archway of El Golpe, almost at the entrance to the bawdy house, a patrol of catchpoles led by a constable with his staff of office passed by. You will recall that the incident of the hanged soldier days before had caused hostilities to break out between the law and the soldiers from the galleys, and both parties were looking for ways to have their revenge, which is why, during the day, there wasn’t a law officer to be seen on the streets and why, at night, the soldiers took care to stay outside the city, in Triana.
“Well, well, well,” said the constable when he saw us.
Guadalmedina, Quevedo, the captain, and I exchanged bewildered glances. It was equally ill luck that, of all the riffraff coming and going in the shadow of the bawdy house, that particular brooch and all his pins should have alighted on us as a pin cushion in which to stick themselves.
“Out taking the cool, are we, gentlemen?” added the constable scornfully.
His scornful bravado was backed up by his four men, who were armed with swords, shields, and black looks that the dim light made blacker still. Then I understood. By the light of the lantern of the Virgin of Atocha, the clothes worn by Captain Alatriste and Guadalmedina, and even by me, made us look like soldiers. Guadalmedina’s buff coat was forbidden in time of peace—ironically enough, he had probably worn it that night in his role as the king’s escort—and Captain Alatriste, of course, was the very image of the military man. Quevedo, as quick-thinking as ever, saw the problem coming and tried to put things right.
“Forgive me, sir,” he said very courteously to the constable, “but I can assure you that we are all honorable men.”
A few curious onlookers gathered around to see what was happening: a couple of whores, a rogue or two, and a drunk who was already several sheets to the wind. Even Garciposadas himself peered out from beneath the arch. This small crowd emboldened the constable.
“And who asked you to tell us something we can find out for ourselves?”
I heard Guadalmedina tut-tutting impatiently.
“Don’t back down now,” said an encouraging voice from among the shadows and the throng of inquisitive onlookers. There was laughter too. More people were gathering underneath the arch. Some took the side of the law and others, the majority, urged us to catch as many catchpoles as we could.