The happy-go-lucky youth in me took in everything that day, as youths will do. Along with Jaime Correas, I saw every sight from Micah to Mecca, and although I was not much of a drinker, I downed the precious grape along with everyone else, among other reasons because drinking and gambling were what soldiers did, and there was no shortage of acquaintances who offered me a quaff free of charge. As for gaming, I did none of that because we mochileros had no pay to collect, past or current, so I had naught to play with. But I stood around watching the circles of soldiers gathered round the drumheads they used for throwing dice and playing cards. For if most of the miles gloriosus among our men were strangers to the Ten Commandments and scarcely knew how to read or write, had writing been based on the markings of a pack of cards, everyone would have been as familiar with the book of prayer as they were with their deck of forty-eight.
Fair dice and loaded dice rolled across drumheads, and cards were as handily shuffled as if the action were taking place in the Potro square in Córdoba or the Patio de los Naranjos in Seville. There were numerous card games where players could throw in their money, among them rentoy, manilla, quínolas, and pintas. The center of the camp was one enormous gaming house, with “I’m in” and “I’m out,” and more swearing than artillery fire, with a “Damn that whore of gold” here and an “It’s your play” there, and not least a “’Fore God and your blessed mother.” Those who talk loudest in such moments are the ones who in battle show more fear than iron in their spine but who make a great show of courage in the rear guard and who who wield the swords on cards faster than they unsheathe their own. One soldier gambled away the six months of pay that had been his reason to mutiny, losing it through blows of fate as mortal as any dagger. In fact, such blows were not always metaphorical; from time to time cheating would be revealed—a shaved card, a pin-pricked king, a die weighted with quicksilver—and then the air thickened with “’Pon my life” and “’Pon your life,” “You lie through your teeth,” and worse, followed by a downpour of blows as daggers cut, swords slashed, and blood was spilled that had nothing to do with the barber or with the art of Hippocrates.
What rabble is this? What men, what breeds?Soldiers, Spaniards, plumes, and finery,words, wit, lies, and gallantry,Arrogance, bravura, and foul deeds.
I have already told Your Mercies that it was during this time that my virtue, like many other things, was carried off on the winds of Flanders. And in that regard I ended that day visiting, with Jaime Correas, a wheeled conveyance sheltered beneath a canvas and some boards where a certain pater brothelia, a pious enough calling where there is want, offered three or four of his parishioners to assuage manly woes.
There are six or seven varietiesof women, Otón, who sin,all of them strolling along these shores,shall we gather one in?
One of those “varieties” was a flamboyantly robed girl, fair of mien and limb and of a reasonable age, and my comrade and I had invested a good part of the booty we had harvested during the sacking of Oudkerk in her company. We had no jingling purse that day, but the girl, half Spanish, half Italian, a wench who called herself Clara de Mendoza—I never met a trollop who did not boast of being a de Mendoza or de Guzmán though she came from a line of swineherds—had looked on us with favorable eyes for some reason that escapes me, unless it was the insolence of our years and perhaps her belief that she who takes a young and grateful youth as a client will keep him all her life. At the end of the day we went down to her neck of the woods, more to look than with coins to spend. The vivacious Mendoza, though she was occupied in activities proper to her office, nonetheless sent a friendly word our way, along with a dazzling, if somewhat snaggletoothed, smile. A certain loudmouthed soldier who was consorting with her at that moment did not take kindly to this. He was a fellow from Valencia, with a chestnut mustache and villainous beard, a burly, pugnacious type, and with his “Be off with you, forsooth!” he added a kick for my comrade and a slap for me, apportioning us equal shares. The punch to my cheek was more painful to my honor than to my face, and my youthful spirit, which a quasi-military life had not made more tolerant when confronted with such nonsense, duly responded. My right hand, of its own accord, went to the belt where my good Toledo dagger was snugged against my kidneys.
“Appreciate, Your Mercy,” I said, “the disparity between our persons.”
I did not actually pull my weapon, but the move was natural to someone born in Oñate, as I had been. As for the “disparity,” I was referring to my being a young mochilero and he a lordly soldier, but this contentious fellow took my words for an insult, thinking that I was questioning his worth. The truth is, the presence of witnesses rubbed this blusterer up the wrong way, and he was also loaded to the gills, for sloshing around in his innards was a great quantity of wine, as his breath betrayed. But without further preamble, the words were scarcely out of my mouth before he came at me like a madman, putting hand to his storied weapon, Durendal. People jumped aside, and not one soul intervened, apparently believing that I was lad enough to back my words with action. May God send down his thunderbolts on those who left me in that pickle. How cruel is the human condition when there is a spectacle to be witnessed, for not one of those bystanders aspired to make redemption his vocation, and I, who at that point in the proceedings could not put my tongue back into its scabbard, had no recourse but to pull out my dagger, hoping to make the game a little more even-handed, or at least to avoid ending my soldierly career like a chicken on a spit.
Life in the service of Captain Alatriste and the army in Flanders had taught me a certain cunning, and I was a vigorous lad of fairly good size. And besides, La Mendoza was watching. So I stepped back from the sword tip, squarely facing the Valencian, who, completely at ease, began to make passes at me with the sharp edges of his sword, the kind of moves that do not kill but that make you happy to leave the scene. I could not run away, however—there was my reputation to consider—and I could not stand fast because of the discrepancy between our blades. I was tempted to throw my dagger at him, but I kept a cool head, despite my foreboding; I was aware that the final curtain would come down if I missed. My opponent kept coming at me with all the tricks of a Turk, and I kept moving back, well aware that I was inferior in weapons, body, strength, and expertise: He had his Toledo blade, was strong as an ox when sober, and skilled, whereas I was a wet-behind-the-ears youth with a dagger and bravado that would not serve me as shield. I envisioned that at least a split head—mine—would be the booty from this campaign.
“Com’ere, then, young capon,” the fellow said.
As he spoke, the wine in his belly caused him to stumble, so without his having to ask twice, I did as he requested. And as with the agility of my young years I was able to dodge his steel, covering my face with my left arm in case he should cut me off midway, I slashed with my dagger: right to left, above and below. Had it been a little longer, that blade would have left the king without a soldier and Valencia without a favorite son. To my good fortune, I jumped clear without major injury, but having only scratched my adversary’s groin—which is where I had aimed my thrust—severing his trouser latchet and drawing a “God’s blood!” that brought laughter from the witnesses and also some applause that, though little consolation, indicated that the crowd was on my side.