The Cavalier in the Yellow Doublet ca-5

by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

  “Good God,” he said, sheathing his sword. “What’s he doing here?”

  I explained as briefly as I could, but before I had even finished, the captain had turned and set off, as if he had suddenly lost all interest in my answer.

  “Have you given the alarm?” he asked.

  “I think so,” I replied, remembering uneasily the coachman’s drunken, bloated face.

  “You think so?”

  He was striding away into the bushes, and I was following. Behind me I could hear Cózar muttering unintelligibly; sometimes he seemed to be reciting poetry and at others mumbling curses. “Have at ’em,” he would say now and then. “Snip ’em off like a bunch of grapes. Have at ’em! Give them no quarter! Forward for Santiago and Spain!” When we occasionally stopped for the captain to get his bearings, my master would look around, shooting the actor an ill-humored glance before continuing on his way.

  From somewhere nearby came the sound of a hunting horn—I thought I had heard it in the distance before we found the captain—and we stood quite still in the rain. The captain raised one finger to his lips, looking first at Cózar and then at me. Then he held out one hand to me, palm down—the silent gesture we used in Flanders to indicate that we should wait while someone else went forward as a scout—and he moved cautiously off into the bushes. I positioned myself very close to the trunk of a tree and made Cózar join me; we stayed there, waiting. Clearly surprised by all these gestures and by the almost military understanding that existed between my master and myself, the actor was about to say something, but I covered his mouth. He nodded sagely, regarding me with a new respect, and I was sure that he would never call me “boy” again. I smiled at him, and he returned my smile. His eyes were bright with excitement. I studied this small, grubby man, dripping water, with his extravagant mustache and his hand ready on his sword. He looked alarmingly fierce, like one of those short, apparently peace-loving men who might suddenly jump up and bite your ear off. Maybe it was just the wine, but Cózar seemed to feel no fear at all. This, I realized, was his finest role. The adventure of a lifetime.

  At last the captain returned, as silently as he had left. He looked at me and raised his hand, this time with the palm turned toward me and with his five fingers extended. Five men, I translated mentally. He turned his thumb down: enemies. He then made another gesture, moving his hand from his shoulder to his opposite hip, as if describing a sash, and immediately raised his forefinger. An official, I translated. One. Thumb turned up. A friend. Then I understood who he meant. The red sash was a sign of rank in the army. In that wood, there could be only one high-ranking official.

  From the safety of a tree trunk, Diego Alatriste again peered out into the clearing. Twenty paces away, at the foot of a huge oak, was a rock surrounded by a thicket of broom, and next to it stood a young man carrying a gun. He was tall and fair and was wearing a tabard, green breeches, and a peaked hat. His high gaiters were spattered with mud, and he wore no sword at his belt, only a folded pair of gloves and a hunting knife. He was standing very erect and still, with his back to the rock, his head high and one foot slightly in front of the other, as if hoping that such a pose would keep at bay the five men forming a tight semicircle around him.

  Alatriste could not hear what the men were saying, only the occasional isolated word, their voices drowned out by the sound of the rain. The man dressed as a huntsman said nothing, and it was Gualterio Malatesta, his black cloak and hat wet and shiny, who did most of the talking. He was the only one who had not yet unsheathed his sword; the others, two of whom were dressed as royal beaters, were standing, swords in hand, on either side of him.

  Alatriste removed his cape. Then, ignoring the pistol he had at his waist because he could not be sure that it would fire in all that rain, he rested one hand on his sword and the other on his knife, while he studied the terrain with an expert eye, calculating the distance and how long it would take to cross it. The fair-haired man, he thought grimly, did not look as if he would be much help. He stood there, motionless and aloof, his gun in his hand, regarding the murderers surrounding him as indifferently as if the whole affair had nothing whatever to do with him. Alatriste noticed that, like any wise hunter, the young man kept one tail of his tabard over the hammer of his gun to protect it from the rain. Were it not for the rain, the mud, and the five threatening men, he might have been posing for a court portrait by Diego Velázquez. A smile appeared on the captain’s face, half admiring, half scornful. Was it courage, he wondered, or was it, above all, stupidity and an absurd example of the Burgundian sangfroid that Charles V had introduced into the Hapsburg court a century before? At least he had one bitter consolation: the king for whom he was risking his life would not lose his composure even when under threat of death. And that was good. Although perhaps that palace peacock simply could not comprehend what was happening, or was about to happen.

  More to the point, thought Alatriste, what was he doing involved in all this? Why was he risking his life for a man who could not even be bothered to lift a finger in his own defense, as if he were expecting the angels to descend from the heavens, or for his own archers to emerge from the undergrowth, invoking God and Spain? A palace upbringing created bad habits. Absurdly, the only “palace guards” here were himself, Íñigo, and Cózar—with the shade of María de Castro hanging in the rain. There was always some idiot willing to get himself killed. The memory of what had happened in Camino de las Minillas made him tremble with rage. By Christ and his father, it would serve that fair-haired fool right—accustomed as he was to risk-free adventures with the wives of other men—if just this once he saw the boar’s tusks close-up. There was no Guadalmedina to get him out of trouble. Damn it, let him pay the price that all men pay sooner or later; and with Gualterio Malatesta on hand, he would have to pay it in cash.

  “Hand over the gun, Your Majesty.”

  Alatriste heard the Italian’s words quite clearly from his position behind the tree, where he was watching the scene with a kind of morbid curiosity. The king had little opportunity to defend himself: the hunting knife did not count, and he had no sword; at best, he might manage one shot with his gun, assuming it was loaded and the powder dry.

  “Hand it over,” said one of the ruffians impatiently, walking up to the king, sword at the ready.

  Philip IV did something very strange then. His face remained utterly impassive, but he inclined his head a little to look at his gun, as if, up until then, he had quite forgotten about it. He did this with the indifference of a man observing an object of no importance to him. After that brief moment of immobility, he cocked the hammer and raised the gun to eye level. Then, coolly taking aim at the ruffian, he felled him with a shot to the head.

  That explosion was like a signal. I was with Cózar on the opposite side of the clearing, in accordance with the captain’s latest instructions to position ourselves so that we could attack Malatesta and his men from there. When I saw my master leave his hiding place and run toward them, sword in one hand and knife in the other, I immediately unsheathed my sword and went ahead too, not bothering to see whether Cózar would follow me.

  “God save the king!” I heard Cózar bawl out behind me. “Stop at once, I order you.”

  Holy Mother of God, I thought, that’s all we need. When the Italian and the ruffians heard these shouts and the sound of our footsteps splashing through the mud and puddles, they spun round, surprised. That is my last clear memory: Malatesta wheeling about to face us, then furiously barking out orders, meanwhile whipping out his sword with lightning speed, while, in the pouring rain, his men stood, with raised swords, ready to fight us. And, behind them, motionless, his gun still smoking, stood the king, watching us.

  “God save the king!” Cózar kept shouting, fierce as a tiger now.

  There were two of us against four, for I assumed the actor would be of little, or negligible, help. We had to be quick and careful. As soon as I found myself face-to-face with one of the beaters, I delivered s
uch a hard thrust that I made him drop his sword. Then, slipping past, nimble as a squirrel, I confronted the man behind him. He attacked, blade foremost. I steadied myself as best I could and took my dagger in my left hand, praying to God that I did not slip in the mud. I parried well with my dagger, changed position, and then, crouching down, drove my sword upward, sticking at least three spans of steel into the soft part of his belly. When I drew back my elbow to remove the blade, he fell forward, a look of astonishment on his face, as if to say, “How could such a thing happen to this mother’s son?” However, I was no longer concerned with him, but with the first man, who now had no sword, only a dagger. I whirled around, expecting to find him already on top of me, but then I saw that he was embroiled with Cózar, defending himself as best he could, with one arm injured and his dagger in his left hand, from the fearsome, double-handed blows the actor was dealing out.

  Things were not turning out so badly after all. As for me, the wound Angélica had inflicted on me hurt abominably, and I just prayed that with all this activity it did not open up again, leaving me to bleed to death like a stuck pig. I turned to help the captain, and at that instant, as my master was withdrawing his sword from the entrails of a ruffian—who was bent double, blood gushing from his mouth like a bull in a bullring—I noticed that Gualterio Malatesta, a large black figure in the rain, had shifted his sword to his left hand, taken his pistol from his belt, and, after looking first at my master and then at the king, was now pointing it at the latter from a distance of only a few paces. I was too far away to do anything and had to watch, helpless, as the captain, having recovered his sword, rushed to interpose himself between the bullet and its target. Malatesta straightened his arm and took careful aim. I saw how the king, looking his killer in the face, threw down his own gun, stood very erect, and folded his arms, determined that the pistol shot would find him suitably composed.

  “Turn your fire on me!” cried the captain.

  The Italian took no notice. He held his aim on the king. He squeezed the trigger and flint struck steel.

  Nothing happened.

  The powder was wet.

  Sword in hand, Diego Alatriste placed himself between Malatesta and the king. I had never seen such an expression on Malatesta’s face. He was almost beside himself. He kept shaking his head incredulously and staring at the pistol that lay useless in his hand.

  “So close,” he said.

  Then he seemed to recover himself. He looked at the captain as if seeing him for the first time, or as if he had forgotten he was there, and then, from beneath the dripping brim of his hat, he gave a faint, sinister smile.

  “I was so close,” he repeated bitterly.

  Then he shrugged and threw down the weapon, taking his sword in his right hand.

  “You’ve ruined everything.”

  He took off his cloak, which was hampering his movements. He indicated the king with a lift of his chin, but continued staring at Alatriste.

  “Do you really think such a master is worth it?”

  “Come on,” said the captain coldly, meaning, “We have business of our own to settle.” He used his sword to point to the one Malatesta was holding. The Italian looked first at the two blades and then at the king, wondering if there was some way he might still finish the job. Then he shrugged again while carefully folding up his rain-sodden cloak as if to wrap it around his left arm.

  From Rafael de Cózar, still embattled with his opponent, there came repeated cries of: “God save the king!”

  Malatesta glanced over at him with a look that was part amused and part resigned. Then came that smile. The captain noticed the dangerous white slit in that pockmarked face, the cruel glint in those dark eyes. And he said to himself: “The snake isn’t beaten yet.” This certainty came to him suddenly, forcing him to react and put himself on guard just moments before the Italian threw his cloak over the captain’s sword, rendering it useless. Alatriste lost valuable seconds disentangling his blade from the wet cloth, and while he was doing so, Malatesta’s blade glittered before him as if seeking somewhere to bury itself, then shifted from him to the king.

  This time, the Monarch of Two Worlds stepped back. Alatriste caught the startled look in his blue eyes, and this time, the august, prominent Hapsburg lower lip quivered in expectation of what would follow. That deadly thrust came far too close for him to remain entirely unmoved, thought the captain, given that he was obliged to gaze into Malatesta’s dark eyes, which was like gazing into the eyes of Death itself. However, the brief moment gained in divining his enemy’s intention proved long enough for the captain to act. His sword clashed with Malatesta’s, averting what, it had seemed, would be an inevitable blow. Malatesta’s blade slid along his, missing the royal throat by inches.

  “Porca miseria!” cursed the Italian.

  And that was that. He turned tail and ran like a deer into the woods.

  I had watched the scene from a distance, unable to help in any way, for it all happened in less time than it would take to say “Ave Maria.” When I saw Malatesta fleeing, and while the captain was making sure that the king had not been wounded, I, without thinking, raced after Malatesta, through the puddles, sword in hand. I ran with my arm held high to protect me from the branches showering me with raindrops. Malatesta had little advantage over me; I was young and had strong legs, and so I soon caught up with him. He suddenly turned, saw that I was alone, and stopped to recover his breath. It was raining so hard now that the mud beneath my feet seemed to be seething.

  “Stay where you are,” he said, pointing his sword at me.

  I stopped where I was, uncertain what to do. The captain was perhaps not far behind, but for the moment Malatesta and I were alone.

  “That’s enough for today,” he added.

  He started walking again, backward this time, without taking his eyes off me. Then I noticed that he was limping. Each time he put his weight on his right foot, he grimaced with pain. He had probably been wounded in the skirmish or hurt himself running. In the rain, drenched and dirty, he looked very tired. His hat had fallen off as he ran, and his long, wet hair clung to his face. Injury and fatigue, I thought, might make us more equal and give me a chance.

  “It’s not worth it,” he said, guessing what was in my mind.

  I kept walking. The wound in my back was intensely painful, but I was still full of energy. I advanced farther. Malatesta shook his head as if in disbelief at my folly. Then he gave a faint smile, retreated another step, repressing a grimace of pain, and readied himself. Very cautiously I tested him out, the ends of our blades touching, while I sought some way of getting under his guard. He, the more experienced, merely waited. He may have been injured, but, as we both knew, he was by far the more skillful swordsman. I, however, felt almost intoxicated, enclosed in a kind of gray bubble that fogged my judgment. Here he was, and I had my sword in my hand.

  He dropped his guard for a moment, as if carelessly, but I could see it was a trick, and so remained where I was, not attacking, elbow bent and the hilt of my sword on a level with my eyes, watching for a genuine opening. The rain continued to fall, and I was taking care not to slip in the mud, for I would not survive long if I did.

  “You’ve grown prudent, boy.”

  He was smiling, and I knew his intent was to draw me in. I resisted. Now and then, I wiped the rain from my eyes with the back of my knife hand, but always kept my eyes trained on him.

  Behind me, amongst the trees and the scrub, I could hear someone calling my name. The captain was looking for us. I called out to him so that he could find us. Meanwhile, from beneath the hair clinging to his face in the rain, the Italian’s eyes darted to and fro, looking for some way out. In a flash, I lunged forward.

  The whoreson was good, though, very good, and very skilled. He effortlessly parried a thrust that would have run a lesser man through, and when he counterattacked, he dealt me a back-edged cut so close to my eyes that had his injured leg not held him back, I would have taken a five-in
ch wound to my face. He managed to disarm me, however, sending my sword flying several feet. I didn’t even think to cover myself with my dagger, but stood there frozen like a startled hare, waiting for the coup de grâce. Then I saw Malatesta’s face contract in pain; he suppressed a howl of rage, involuntarily retreated two steps, only to have his bad leg fail him again.

  He fell backward and sat down in the mud, his sword in his hand and a curse on his lips. For a moment, we looked at each other, me stunned and him shaken. It was an absurd situation. Finally, I managed to get a grip on myself and ran over to fetch my sword, which lay at the foot of a tree. When I stood up, Malatesta, still sitting on the ground, made a rapid movement; something whisked past me like a metallic flash of lightning, and a dagger fixed itself, quivering, in the trunk, only a few inches from my face.

  “Something to remember me by, boy.”

  I went over to him, determined now to run him through, and he saw this in my eyes. Then he threw his sword into the bushes and leaned back a little, resting on his elbows.

  “I’m having a very bad day today,” he said.

  I approached cautiously, and with the point of my sword checked his clothes, looking for concealed weapons. Then I placed the point on his chest, just above his heart. His wet hair, the rain dripping down his face, and the dark rings under his eyes made him look suddenly very weary and much older.

  “Don’t do it,” he murmured softly. “Best leave it to him.”

  He was looking at the bushes behind me. I heard footsteps splashing through the mud, and Captain Alatriste appeared at my side, breathing hard. Fast as a bullet and without a word, he hurled himself on the Italian. He grabbed him by the hair, set aside his sword, took out his huge hunting knife, and held it to Malatesta’s throat.

  A rapid thought went through my mind—or, rather, I saw the captain and me in the woods, and remembered the count-duke’s stern countenance, the Count of Guadalmedina’s hostility toward us, and the august personage we had left behind us with only Rafael de Cózar as escort. Without Malatesta as witness, there would be a lot of explaining to do, and we might not have answers to all the questions. This realization filled me with sudden panic. I grabbed my master’s arm.