Sometimes God, or the devil, guides your feet in the right direction. I turned back and pressed my ear to the door. There were at least two men on the other side, and they were talking about a hunt: deer, rabbits, beaters. I wondered what the captain had to do with all that. Then they said another name: Philip. He’ll be there at such and such a hour, they were saying. In such and such a place. They only mentioned his name, but I had a sudden presentiment that sent a shudder through me. The nearness of Angélica’s room made it easy enough to make the logical connection. I must be standing outside the room of Luis de Alquézar, Angélica’s uncle, the royal secretary. Then a word and another name reached me through the door: “dawn” and “La Fresneda.” My knees almost buckled beneath me, whether this was because I was still weak from my wound or because I was so shaken by the idea that had suddenly installed itself inside my head, I don’t know. The memory of the cavalier in the yellow doublet resurfaced and threaded together all those disparate fragments. María de Castro had gone to spend the night at La Fresneda. The person she had gone to meet was planning to go hunting at dawn, with just two beaters as escort. The Philip they had mentioned was none other than Philip IV. They were talking about the king!
I leaned against the wall, trying to order my thoughts. Then I took a deep breath and gathered all my strength—for I was going to need it, just as long, that is, as the wound in my back didn’t open. My first thought was to go to see don Francisco de Quevedo. So I went down the stairs as quietly as I could. Don Francisco, however, was not in his room. I went in and lit a candle. The table was full of books and papers and the bed undisturbed. Then I remembered the Count of Guadalmedina and walked across the large courtyard to the rooms occupied by members of the royal entourage. As I feared, I was not allowed through. One of the guards, who knew me, said that they wouldn’t wake up His Excellency at that hour for all the wine in Spain. “No matter what,” he added. I did not tell them just how urgent this particular matter was. I knew what catchpoles, soldiers, and guards were like, and knew that telling my story to such lumps of flesh was tantamount to talking to a wall. They were typical big-bellied, mustachioed veterans who simply wanted a quiet life. Getting involved was-n’t part of the job, which was to make sure that no one got past them—and no one did. Talking to them about conspiracies and regicides would be like talking to them about the man in the moon, and I risked, in the process, getting thrown in a dungeon. I asked them if they had paper I could write on and they said no. I went back to don Francisco’s room, where, making use of his pen, inkwell, and sandbox, I composed, as best I could, a note for him and another for Álvaro de la Marca. I sealed both letters with wax, scrawled their respective names on them, left the poet’s note on his bed, and returned to the guards.
“This is for the count as soon as he wakes up. It’s a matter of life and death.”
They seemed unconvinced, but they kept the note. The guard who knew me promised that he would give it to the count’s servants if one of them happened to pass or, at the very latest, when he came off duty. I had to be content with that.
The Cañada Real was my last faint hope. Don Francisco might have gone back for more wine and might still be there, drinking and writing; or, having bent his elbow one too many times, he might have decided to sleep there rather than wend his unsteady way back to the palace. I went over to one of the servants’ doors and walked across the esplanade beneath a black, starless sky that was just beginning to grow light in the east. I was shivering in the cold wind blowing down from the mountains in brief rainy gusts. While this helped to clear my head, it gave me no new ideas. I walked quickly, anxiously. The image of Angélica came into my mind. I sniffed my hands, which still smelled of her. Then I shivered to remember the touch of her delicious skin and cursed my bad luck. The wound to my back hurt more than I can say.
The inn was closed, with only a dim lamp hanging above the lintel. I knocked several times at the door and then stood there, deliberating, uncertain what to do. All paths were blocked to me, and time was passing implacably.
“It’s too late to be drinking,” said a voice nearby, “or too early.”
Startled, I turned round. In my anxiety, I had failed to notice the man sitting on the stone bench beneath the chestnut tree. He had no hat on and was wrapped in his cloak, with his sword and a demijohn of wine beside him. I realized it was Rafael de Cózar.
“I’m looking for Señor de Quevedo.”
He shrugged and looked distractedly about him.
“He left with you. I don’t know where he is.”
His words were somewhat slurred. If he had been drinking all night, I thought, he must be as drunk as a lord.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Drinking and thinking.”
I went over to him and sat down beside him, pushing his sword out of the way. I must have looked the very picture of despair.
“In this cold?” I said. “It’s hardly the weather for sitting outside.”
“I carry my own heat inside me,” he said and gave a strange laugh. “It’s good, that, isn’t it? Heat inside and horns outside. How does that verse go?”
And, taking two more drafts from the demijohn, he recited mockingly:
“Yes, business is good, no need to skimp,
But tell me, please, where did you learn
To be your mistress’s husband
And your own wife’s pimp?”
I fidgeted uneasily on the bench, and not just because of the cold.
“I think you’ve had too much to drink.”
“And how much is ‘too much’?”
I didn’t know what to say, and so we sat for a while in silence. Cózar’s hair and face were spattered with drops of rain that glittered like frost in the light of the lamp. He was studying me hard.
“You seem to have your own problems,” he said at last.
When I did not reply, he offered me some wine.
“No,” I said glumly, “that isn’t the kind of help I need.”
He nodded gravely, almost philosophically, stroking his long side whiskers. Then he raised the demijohn, and the wine gurgled down his throat.
“Any news of your wife?”
He gave me a vague, sullen, sideways look, the demijohn still held high. Then he put it slowly down on the bench.
“My wife leads her own life,” he said, wiping his mustache with the back of his hand. “And that has its advantages and its disadvantages.”
He opened his mouth and raised one finger, ready to recite something else. But I was in no mood for more poetry.
“They’re going to use her against the king,” I said.
He was staring at me hard, mouth open and finger raised.
“I don’t understand.”
This sounded almost like a plea to be allowed to continue in that state of incomprehension. I, however, had had enough of him and his bottle of wine, of the cold and the pain in my back.
“There’s a plot against the king,” I finally said in exasperation. “That’s why I’m looking for don Francisco.”
He blinked. His eyes were no longer vague, there was a frightened look in them.
“And what has that got to do with María?”
I pulled a scornful face. I couldn’t help it.
“She’s the bait. The trap is set for dawn. The king is going hunting with only two men as escort. Someone wants to kill him.”
There was the sound of broken glass at our feet. The demijohn had just fallen to the ground, shattering inside its wicker covering.
“Od’s blood,” he murmured. “I thought I was the one who was drunk.”
“It’s the truth.”
Cózar was staring thoughtfully at the mess on the ground.
“Even if it is,” he said, “what do I care whether it’s the king or his knave?”
“As I said, they’re trying to implicate your wife—and Captain Alatriste.”
When he heard my master’s name, he gave a quiet, incr
edulous chuckle. I seized his hand and made him place it on my back.
“Touch it.”
I felt his fingers on the bandage and saw the look on his face change.
“You’re bleeding!”
“Of course I’m bleeding. Less than three hours ago, someone stuck a knife in me.”
He jumped to his feet as if he’d felt a snake brush past him. I stayed where I was, watching him pace up and down, taking short strides.
“Come the Day of Judgment,” he said as if to himself, “all will be revealed.”
Then he stopped. The gusts of rain-filled wind were growing stronger, snatching at his cloak.
“They want to kill young Philip, you say?”
I nodded.
“To kill a king . . .” he went on, getting used to the idea now. “It has its comic side, you know. Yes, it’s like a scene from a comedy.”
“A tragicomedy,” I said.
“That, my boy, depends on your point of view.”
Suddenly my brain woke up.
“Have you still got your carriage?”
He seemed confused. He stood, looking at me, swaying slightly.
“Of course I have,” he said at last. “It’s in the square. The driver’s asleep inside; that’s what I pay him for. Mind you, he’s had his fair share of wine too. I had them take him over a few bottles.”
“Your wife has gone to La Fresneda.”
His confusion changed to distrust.
“So?” he asked warily.
“That’s almost a league away, and I can’t make it on foot. In a carriage, I could be there in an instant.”
“To do what?”
“To save the king’s life and possibly hers as well.”
He started laughing mirthlessly, but stopped almost at once. Then he stood thoughtfully shaking his head. Finally, he wrapped his cloak about him and intoned theatrically:
“In leaving Fate to go its own sweet way,
I’ve been unfortunately fortunate,
For my revenge comes early in the day
Before offense has even had its say.
“My wife can take care of herself,” he said, grave-faced. “You should know that.”
And with the same grave expression, he struck a fencing pose, albeit without his sword, which still lay on the bench beside me. En garde, attack, and parry. “What a strange man this Cózar fellow is,” I thought. Then he suddenly looked at me again and smiled, and neither smile nor look were those of a cuckolded man about whom everyone gossips behind his back. But there was no time to ponder such things.
“Think of the king, then,” I said.
“Young Philip?” He made the gesture of elegantly sheathing his imaginary blade. “By my grandfather’s beard, I wouldn’t mind someone showing him that only in plays do kings have blue blood.”
“He’s the king of Spain, our king.”
The actor seemed unaffected by that “our.” He arranged his cloak about his shoulders, shaking off the drops of rain.
“Look, my boy, I deal with kings every day on stage, be they emperors or the Great Turk or Tamburlaine. Sometimes I even play them myself. On stage, I’ve done the most extraordinary things. Kings, be they alive or dead, don’t impress me very much.”
“But your wife . . .”
“Enough! Forget about my wife.”
He looked again at the broken demijohn and stood for a moment, motionless and frowning. Then he made a tutting noise with his tongue and regarded me with some curiosity.
“Are you going to La Fresneda on your own? And what about the royal guard, and the army, and the galleons from the Indies, and all the other sons of whores?”
“At La Fresneda there must be guards and people from the king’s household. If I get there, I’ll give the alarm.”
“Why go so far? The palace is right here. Why not tell someone there.”
“That’s not so easy. At this hour, no one will listen to me.”
“And what if you’re met with knife-thrusts? The conspirators might be there already.”
This caused me to hesitate. Cózar was pensively scratching his side whiskers.
“I played Beltrán Ramírez in The Weaver of Segovia,” he said suddenly. “I saved the king’s life.
“Follow them and find out who they are,
These men who dare to place a filthy hand
Upon the sovereign’s pure and sacred breast
And to wield that impious, treach’rous, steely wand.”
He again stood looking at me, awaiting my reaction to his artistry. I gave a short nod. It was hardly the moment for applause.
“Is that by Lope?” I asked, just to say something and to humor him.
“No. It’s by the Mexican, Alarcón. It’s a famous play, you know. It was a great success. María played Doña Ana and was applauded to the echo. And I, well, what can I say?”
He fell silent for a moment, thinking about the applause, and about his wife.
“Yes,” he went on, “in the play, the king owed his life to me. Act one, scene one. I fought off two Moors. I’m quite good at that, you know, at least with stage swords, pretend swords. As an actor, you have to know how to do everything, even fencing.”
He shook his head, amused, absorbed in his own thoughts. Then he winked at me.
“It would be amusing, wouldn’t it, if young Philip were to owe his life to Spain’s finest actor, and if María . . .”
He stopped. His gaze grew distant, fixed on scenes only he could see.
“The sovereign’s pure and sacred breast,” he murmured, almost to himself.
He continued shaking his head and muttering words I could not hear now. More lines from a play perhaps. Then his face lit up with a splendid, heroic smile. He gave me a friendly pat on the shoulder.
“After all,” he said, “it’s simply another role to play.”
11. THE HUNTING PARTY
When the rain-soaked blindfold was finally removed, Alatriste found the dawn shrouded in a grim, gray light and low dark clouds. He raised his hands—which were bound in front now—to rub his eyes; his left eye still bothered him, but he found at least that he had no problem now in opening it. He looked about him. They had brought him there mounted on a mule at first—and he had been aware of the sound of horses’ hooves beside him—then on foot across some rough ground. That short walk had warmed him up a little, although with no cloak or hat on he still had to clench his teeth to keep them from chattering. He was in a wood of oaks and elms. The shadows of night still clung to the horizon in the west, which he could just glimpse through the trees; and the drizzle drenching him and the other men—a fine rain of the kind that lingers—only accentuated the melancholy of the landscape.
Ti-ri-tu ta-ta. The sound of that whistle made him turn his head. Gualterio Malatesta, swathed in his black cape and with his hat down over his eyes, stopped whistling and made a face that could as easily have been a sneer as a greeting.
“Are you cold, Captain?”
“A little.”
“And hungry?”
“More hungry than cold.”
“Well, console yourself with the thought that your life ends here. We, on the other hand, have to go back.”
He made a gesture indicating the men around him, the same men—less the one who had been killed—who had ambushed the captain at the stream. They were still dressed as beaters, and, even more alarming than their rough-and-ready appearance and their bristling mustaches and beards was the array of weapons they had about their persons: hunting knives, daggers, swords, pistols.
“Only the very best,” said the Italian, sensing what Alatriste must be thinking.
A hunting horn sounded in the distance, and Malatesta and the three hired killers looked up and exchanged meaningful glances.
“You’re going to stay here for a while,” said Malatesta, turning to the prisoner.
One of the other men was heading off into the bushes where the sound of the horn had come from. The other two stoo
d at either side of Alatriste, forcing him to sit on the damp ground, and one of them started tying a piece of rope around his ankles.
“An elementary precaution,” explained the Italian. “A compliment to your courage.”
The eye with the scar above it seemed to water a little whenever it fixed on anything for any length of time, as it was at that moment.
“I always thought our final meeting would be face-to-face,” said the captain, “and alone.”
“When we met in my house, you didn’t seem prepared to show me such mercy.”
“At least I left your hands free.”
“That’s true, but I can’t, I’m afraid, do the same for you today. There’s too much at stake.”
Alatriste nodded, indicating that he understood. The man tying his ankles made a couple of very tight knots.
“Do these animals know what they’re involved in?”
The dull-witted animals did not even blink. The one tying the knots was standing up and brushing the mud from his breeches. The other was making sure the rain did not soak the gunpowder in the pistol he was carrying at his waist.
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