The captain was studying the document. “I’ll do what I can.”
“Please do. For all our sakes.”
The captain tucked the piece of paper into the leather band inside his hat. While he remained as cool and collected as ever, I kept fidgeting about on my stool. There were too many kings and count-dukes involved in this affair for a simple lad like me to be expected to sit still.
“There will, of course, be protests from the ship’s owners,” said the count. “Medina Sidonia will be furious, but no one involved in the plot itself will breathe a word. With the Flemish, though, it will be different. We’re sure to get protests from that quarter, exchanges of letters, and storms in the chanceries. That’s why we need to make it look like a private affair—an attack by bandits or pirates.” He raised his mug of wine to his lips, smiling mischievously. “Although no one can demand the return of gold that doesn’t officially exist.”
“Remember,” said Quevedo to the captain, “if anything goes wrong, everyone will deny all knowledge of the matter.”
“Even don Francisco and myself,” added Guadalmedina bluntly.
“Precisely. Ignoramus atque ignorabimus.”
The poet and the aristocrat sat looking at Alatriste, but the captain, who was still staring across at the Triana shore, merely gave a brief nod and said nothing.
“If things do go wrong,” Guadalmedina went on, “be very careful, because there will be hell to pay. And you will have to cover the cost of any broken pots.”
“If, that is, they catch you,” said Quevedo.
“In short,” concluded the count, “under no circumstances must anyone be captured”—he shot me a quick glance—“no one.”
“Which means,” explained Quevedo with his usual pithiness, “that there are only two options: you either succeed, or you die with your mouth closed.”
And he said this so clearly and frankly that his words barely weighed on me.
After saying goodbye to our friends, the captain and I walked through El Arenal to the pontoon, where the accountant Olmedilla was waiting for us, as punctual and proper as ever. He walked beside us, a thin, austere, silent figure, all in black. Beneath the slanting rays of the setting sun we crossed the river, heading for the sinister walls of the castle of the Inquisition, a sight that stirred my worst memories. We were all equipped for the journey: Olmedilla was wearing a long black cape, and the captain his cloak, hat, sword, and dagger, and I was carrying an enormous bundle containing, more discreetly, a few provisions, two cotton blankets, a full wineskin, a pair of pistols, my dagger—its hilt having been repaired in Calle de Vizcaínos—gunpowder, bullets, Constable Sánchez’s sword, my master’s buff coat, and a newer, much lighter one for myself, made of good, stout buffalo skin, which we had bought for twenty escudos in a shop in Calle Francos. The meeting point was the Corral del Negro, near the Cruz del Altozano. Leaving behind us the bridge and the collection of long-boats, galleys, and skiffs moored along the shore as far up as the harbor used by the local shrimpers, we reached the Corral just as night was falling. Triana was full of cheap inns, taverns, gaming rooms, and places where soldiers congregated, and so there was nothing unusual about the sight of men bearing swords. The Corral del Negro was, it transpired, a vile inn with an open-air courtyard that served as a drinking den, which on rainy days was covered over with an old awning. People sat out there with their hats down over their eyes and their cloaks wrapped about them, and given that it was a cool night and given the nature of the customers who frequented the inn, it seemed perfectly normal for everyone to have his face covered so that only his eyes were visible, and to wear a dagger in his belt and a sword beneath his cloak. The captain, Olmedilla, and I took a seat in one corner, ordered some wine and some food, and cast a cool eye around us. Some of our men were already there. At one table, I recognized Ginesillo el Lindo—without his guitar this time but with an enormous sword at his belt—and Guzmán Ramírez, both of them with hats pulled down low and cloaks muffling their faces, and a moment later I saw Saramago el Portugués enter alone and take a seat, where, by the light of a candle, he immediately took a book out of his pouch and started reading. Then in came Sebastián Copons, as small, compact, and silent as ever. He sat himself down with a pitcher of wine without so much as a glance at anyone, not even his own shadow. Not one of them betrayed by the merest flicker that they knew one another, and gradually, alone and in pairs, the others arrived too, swaggering and shifty-eyed, swords clanking, finding a place to sit wherever they could, but never saying a word. The largest group to arrive was a threesome: Juan Jaqueta of the long side-whiskers, his friend Sangonera, and the mulatto Campuzano, who had all been allowed to leave their ecclesiastical seclusion thanks to the opportune intervention of the captain, courtesy of Guadalmedina.
Although accustomed to a fairly rough clientele, the innkeeper observed such an influx of ruffians with a suspicion that the captain soon dissipated by placing a few silver coins in his hand, the perfect way to render even the most curious of innkeepers blind, deaf, and dumb, as well as acting as a warning that if he talked too much, he might easily end up with his throat neatly slit. Within half an hour, the whole crew was there. To my surprise, for Alatriste had made no mention of him, the last to arrive was Bartolo Cagafuego. With his cap worn low over his bushy brows and wearing a broad smile that revealed his dark, toothless mouth, he paced up and down beneath the arcade near our table, winking at the captain and generally behaving about as discreetly as a bear at a requiem mass. My master never passed any comment on the matter, but I suspect that, although Cagafuego was more braggart than blade, and although the captain could doubtless have recruited another man made of sterner stuff, he had arranged for Cagafuego to be set free more for reasons of sentiment—if such reasons are attributable to the captain. Anyway, there he was, and he could barely conceal his gratitude. And well might he be grateful, for the captain had saved him from six long years chained to an oar in the galleys with a galleymaster yelling at him to row ever harder and faster.
This completed the group, and no one failed to make the rendezvous. I watched Olmedilla’s face to see his reaction to the fruits of the captain’s recruitment campaign, and although the accountant maintained his usual cold, inexpressive, mute façade, I thought I saw a glimmer of approval. Apart from those already mentioned—and as I learned shortly afterward when told their real or assumed names—there was Pencho Bullas, the man from Murcia, the old soldiers Enríquez el Zurdo and Andresito el de los Cincuenta, the grimy and much-scarred Bravo de los Galeones, a sailor from Triana called Suárez, another called Mascarúa, a very pale, hollow-eyed man looking every inch the down-at-heel hidalgo known as El Caballero de Illescas, and a rubicund, bearded smiling fellow from Jaén, with a shaved head and strong arms, Juan Eslava by name, who was notorious in Seville as a pimp (he lived off the earnings of four or five women and cared for them, almost, as if they were his daughters), a fact that justified his sobriquet, earned fair and square, namely the Lothario of the Alameda.
Imagine, then, the scene, dear reader, with all these brave fellows in the Corral del Negro, their faces muffled by cloaks and who, with every movement, gave off a menacing clank of daggers, pistols, and swords. If you hadn’t known they were on your side—at least temporarily—you would have been hard put to find your own pulse, because your heart would have stopped beating out of sheer dread. Once this fearsome retinue was all assembled, Diego Alatriste put a few coins on the table, and, to the great relief of the innkeeper, we set off with Olmedilla to the river, through the pitch-black narrow streets. There was no need to look around. From the sound of footsteps echoing at our backs, we knew that the recruits were slipping one by one out of the inn door and following behind us.