The King's Gold

by Arturo Perez-Riverte

  The accountant scratched his nose indifferently. He gave Alatriste a significant look, and the captain thought to himself that Olmedilla really was the very image of Hapsburg officialdom, always so meticulous and implacable with the unfortunate. He could as easily have been a judge, a scribe, a constable, a lawyer, or any of the other insect life that lived and prospered under the protection of the monarchy. Guadalmedina and Quevedo had told him that Olmedilla was honest, and Alatriste believed them. As to his other qualities and attitudes, he was, Alatriste concluded, no different from the rabble of ruthless, avaricious magpies that populated the courts and offices of lawyers and procurators, and where—not even in one’s dreams—would one find more arrogant Lucifers, more thievish Cacuses, or more honor-greedy Tantaluses; no blasphemy uttered by an infidel could ever equal their decrees, which, unfailingly, favored the powerful and damned the humble. They were, in short, loathsome bloodsuckers who lacked all charity and decorum, but who brimmed with intemperance, acquisitiveness, and the fanatical zeal of the hypocrite, so much so that the very people who should be protecting the poor and the destitute were precisely the ones voraciously tearing them apart with their greedy talons. However, the man in their grasp today did not quite fit that image. He was neither poor nor destitute, but he was certainly wretched.

  “I see,” concluded Olmedilla.

  He was tidying the papers on the desk, his eyes still trained on Alatriste, as if signaling that he had nothing more to say. A few seconds passed, during which Olmedilla and the captain continued to observe each other in silence. Then the latter uncrossed his arms, abandoned his position by the wall, and went over to Garaffa. When he reached Garaffa’s side, the expression of terror on the merchant’s face was indescribable. Alatriste stood in front of him, leaning slightly forward in order to fix his gaze more intensely. That man and what he represented did not stir his reserves of pity in the least. Beneath the snood, the dyed hair was leaving trails of dark sweat on Garaffa’s forehead and neck. Now, despite all the creams and pomades, he gave off a sour smell—of perspiration and fear.

  “Jerónimo,” whispered Alatriste.

  When he heard his name pronounced barely three inches from his face, Garaffa flinched as if he had been slapped. The captain did not draw back but remained for a few moments motionless and silent, regarding him from close up. His mustache was almost touching the prisoner’s nose.

  “I’ve seen a lot of men tortured,” he said at last, very slowly. “With their arms and legs dislocated by the pulley, I’ve seen them betray their own children. I’ve seen renegades flayed alive, screaming and begging to be killed. In Valencia, I saw poor Moorish converts having the soles of their feet burned to make them reveal where they’d hidden their gold, while, in the background, they could hear the cries of their twelve-year-old daughters as they were raped by soldiers.”

  He fell silent, as if he could go on listing such incidents indefinitely and as if there were, therefore, no point in continuing. Garaffa’s face was as pale as if the hand of death had just passed over it. He had suddenly stopped sweating, as though, beneath his skin, yellow with terror, not one drop of blood flowed.

  “Everyone talks sooner or later,” concluded the captain, “or nearly everyone. Sometimes, if the torturer proves clumsy, the person dies first, but that wouldn’t be the case with you.”

  He remained for a while longer staring at him, almost nose to nose, then went over to the desk. Standing there with his back to the prisoner, he rolled up the shirtsleeve on his left arm. While he was doing so, his eye caught that of Olmedilla, who was watching intently, slightly perplexed. Then he picked up the sealing-wax candle and went back over to Garaffa. When he showed it to him, lifting it up a little, the light from the flame picked out the gray-green of his eyes, once more fixed on Garaffa, like two slivers of ice.

  “Watch,” he said.

  He showed him his brown forearm and the long, slender scar visible amongst the hairs, running from wrist to elbow. And then, right under the nose of the horrified Genoese, Captain Alatriste held the flame to his own bare skin. The flame crackled and there arose a smell of burnt flesh, while the captain clenched his jaw and fist, and the tendons and muscles of his forearm grew as hard as vine shoots carved in stone. The captain’s eyes remained green and impassive, but Garaffa’s bulged in horror. This lasted for one long, seemingly interminable moment. Then, very calmly, Alatriste put the candlestick down on the desk, returned to the prisoner, and showed him his arm. A hideous burn, the size of a silver piece of eight, was reddening the scorched skin along the edges of the old wound.

  “Jerónimo,” he said.

  He again brought his face very close to Garaffa’s, and spoke to him in that same soft, almost confiding tone:

  “If I can do this to myself, imagine what I would be capable of doing to you.”

  A yellowish liquid, emanating from the prisoner, began to form a puddle around the legs of the chair. Garaffa started to moan and shake and did so for some time. When he finally recovered the power of speech, he let out a prodigious, torrential stream of words, while Olmedilla diligently dipped his pen in the inkwell and made what notes he deemed necessary. Alatriste went into the kitchen in search of some lard or grease or oil to apply to the burn. When he returned, bandaging his forearm with a clean piece of cloth, Olmedilla gave him a look that, in a man of a different humor, would have been one of enormous respect. As for Garaffa, oblivious to everything but his own feelings of terror, he continued to gabble on and on, giving names, places, dates, details of Portuguese banks and gold bars.

  At this same hour, I was walking under the long vaulted passageway that leads from the Patio de Banderas into Callejón de la Aljama, in what had once been the Jewish quarter. And, albeit for very different reasons from those of Jerónimo Garaffa, I, too, felt as if I had not one drop of blood in my veins. I stopped at the designated place and, fearing that my legs might give way beneath me, placed one hand on the wall to support myself. My instinct for self-preservation, however, had developed over the previous few years and so, despite everything, I remained clearheaded enough to study the situation carefully—the two exits and those troubling little doors set in the walls. I touched the handle of my dagger, which I wore, as always, tucked into my belt at my back, and then I touched the pouch containing the note that had brought me there. It was worthy of a scene in a play by Tirso de Molina or by Lope de Vega:

  If you still care for me, now is the moment to prove it. I would like to meet you at eleven o’clock in the passageway leading into the Jewish quarter.

  I had received this note at nine o’clock, from a boy who came to the inn in Calle de Tintores, where I was awaiting the captain’s return, seated on the little ledge by the door, watching the people go by. There was no signature, but the name of the sender was as clear to me as the deep wounds in my heart and in my memory. You can imagine the conflicting feelings that troubled me following the receipt of that note, and the delicious anxiety that guided my steps. I will not describe in detail all the anxieties of the lover, which would shame me and bore you, the reader. I will say only that I was then sixteen years old and had never loved a girl, or a woman—nor did I ever love anyone afterward—as I loved Angélica de Alquézar.

  It really was most odd. I knew that the note could only be another episode in the dangerous game that Angélica had been playing with me ever since we first met outside the Tavern of the Turk in Madrid. A game that had almost cost me my honor and my life and which, many times more over the years, would cause me to walk along the very brink of the abyss, along the deadly edge of the most delicious blade a woman was capable of creating for the man who, throughout her life, and even at the very moment of her early death, would be both lover and enemy. That moment, however, was still far off, and there I was, on that mild winter morning in Seville, striding along with all the vigor and audacity of my youth, to keep an appointment with the girl—perhaps not so much of a girl now, I thought—who, once, almost three ye
ars before, at the Fuente del Acero, had responded to my heartfelt “I would die for you” with a sweet, enigmatic smile and the words “Perhaps you will.”

  The Arco de la Aljama was deserted. Leaving behind me the Cathedral tower, which was silhouetted against the sky above the tops of the orange trees, I walked farther along, until I turned the corner and emerged on the other side, where the water in a fountain was singing softly to itself and where the thick, twining branches of creepers hung down from the battlements of the Alcázares, the Royal Palace. There was no one there either. Perhaps it was all a joke, I thought, retracing my steps and plunging back into the shadows of the passageway. That was when I heard a noise behind me, and as I turned, I put my hand on my dagger. One of the doors stood open, and a burly blond soldier in the German guard was observing me in silence. He gestured to me and I approached very cautiously, fearing some trick, but the German appeared to be friendly. He was examining me with professional curiosity, and when I reached his side, he gestured again, this time indicating that I should surrender my dagger. Beneath the enormous fair side-whiskers and mustache he wore a good-natured smile. Then he said something like Komensi herein, which I—having seen more than enough Germans, alive and dead, in Flanders—knew to mean “Come along” or “Come in” or something of the sort. I had no choice, and so I handed him my dagger and went in through the door. “Good morning, soldier.”

  Anyone familiar with the portrait of Angélica de Alquézar painted by Diego Velázquez can easily imagine her just a few years younger. The royal secretary’s niece, our queen’s maid of honor, was fifteen years old, and her beauty was much more now than a mere promise. She had matured a great deal since the last time I saw her: the laced bodice of her dress with its silver and coral edgings, matching the full brocade skirt held out stiffly around her hips by a farthingale, suggested curves that had not been there before. Ringlets, of a purer gold than any Araucanian could have found in his mines, still framed those blue eyes, complemented by her smooth, white skin, which I imagined—and would one day find to be so—would have the same texture as silk.

  “It’s been a long time,” she said.

  She was so beautiful it was painful to look at her. The room, with its Moorish columns, gave onto a small garden in the palace, and the sun behind her created a white halo about her hair. Her smile was the same: mysterious and provocative, with a hint of irony and mischief on her perfect lips.

  “Yes, a long time,” I said at last.

  The German had withdrawn to the garden, where I glimpsed the wimpled head of a duenna. Angélica sat down on a carved wooden chair and indicated that I should sit on the footstool in front of her. I did as she asked, not fully aware of what I was doing. She was studying me very intently, her hands folded on her lap; from beneath the skirt of her dress emerged one slender satin slipper, and suddenly I was very conscious of my rough sleeveless doublet and darned shirt, my coarse trousers and military gaiters. “Oh, dear God,” I murmured. I imagined the court peacocks and fops of good blood and even better purses, dressed in all their finery, paying amorous compliments to Angélica at galas and gatherings. A jealous shiver pierced my soul.

  “I hope,” she said very softly, “that you bear me no malice.”

  I remembered—and it took little effort—the humiliation, the prisons of the Inquisition in Toledo, the auto-da-fé in the Plaza Mayor, and the role that Luis de Alquézar’s niece had played in my misfortune. This thought had the virtue of restoring to me the coldness I so needed.

  “What do you want from me?” I asked.

  She took just a second longer than necessary to reply. She was examining me closely, with the same smile on her lips. She seemed pleased by what she saw.

  “I don’t want anything,” she said. “I was simply curious to see you again. I recognized you in the square.”

  She fell silent for a moment. She looked at my hands and then, again, at my face.

  “You’ve grown, sir.”

  “So have you.”

  She bit her lip slightly and nodded very slowly. The ringlets gently brushed the pale skin of her cheeks, and I adored her.

  “You’ve been fighting in Flanders.”

  This was neither a statement nor a question. She appeared to be thinking out loud.

  “I believe I love you,” she said suddenly.

  I sprang to my feet. Angélica was no longer smiling. She was watching me from her chair, gazing up at me with eyes as blue as the sky, as the sea, as life itself. I swear she was lovely enough to drive a man insane.

  “Great God,” I murmured.

  I was trembling like the leaves on a tree. She remained motionless and silent for a long time. Finally, she gave a slight shrug.

  “I want you to know,” she said, “that you have some very unfortunate friends. Such as that Captain Batiste or Triste or whatever his name is. Friends who are the enemies of my friends. And I want you to know that this could perhaps cost you your life.”

  “It already nearly did,” I retorted.

  “And it will again soon.”

  Her smile had returned; it was the same smile as before, thoughtful and enigmatic.

  “This evening,” she went on, “the Duque and Duquesa de Medina Sidonia are giving a party for the king and queen. On the way back, my carriage will stop for a while in the Alameda. With its beautiful fountains and gardens, it’s a delightful place to walk in.”

  I frowned. This was all far too good and far too easy.

  “Isn’t that a little late for a walk?”

  “We’re in Seville. The nights here are warm.”

  The irony of her words did not escape me. I glanced across at the courtyard, at the duenna still pacing up and down. Angélica understood my glance.

  “She’s not the same one who was with me at the Fuente del Acero. This one turns dumb and blind whenever I want her to. And I thought you might like to be at the Alameda tonight at ten, Íñigo Balboa.”

  I stood there, perplexed, analyzing everything she had said.

  “It’s a trap,” I concluded, “another ambush.”

  “Possibly.” She held my gaze, her face inscrutable. “It’s up to you whether you’re brave enough to fall into it or not.”

  “The captain . . .” I began, but stopped at once. Angélica stared at me with terrible perspicuity. It was as if she had read my thoughts.

  “This captain fellow is your friend. You will doubtless have to tell him this little secret, and no friend would allow you to walk alone into an ambush.”

  She paused to allow the idea to penetrate.

  “They say,” she added at last, “that he, too, is a brave man.”

  “Who says so?”

  She did not reply, merely smiling more broadly. And I understood then what she had just said to me. This certainty came with such astonishing clarity that I shuddered at the calculated way in which she was throwing this challenge in my face. The black shape of Gualterio Malatesta, like a dark ghost, interposed itself between us. It was all so obvious and so terrible: the old quarrel involved not only Alatriste now. I was of an age to answer for the consequences of my own actions; I knew too much, and as far as our enemies were concerned, I was as troublesome an adversary as the captain. Since I was the pretext for the rendezvous, and since I had, perversely, been warned of the certain danger involved, I couldn’t possibly go where Angélica was asking me to go, and yet neither could I not go. The words “You’ve been fighting in Flanders,” spoken only a moment before, now took on a cruelly ironic tone. Ultimately, though, the message was intended for the captain. And I should not, in that case, keep it from him. However, if I told him, he either would forbid me to go to the Alameda or would forbid me to go alone. The letter of challenge was, inevitably, being issued to us both. It came down to a choice between my shame and certain danger. My conscience thrashed around like a fish caught in a net. Suddenly, Gualterio Malatesta’s words surfaced in my memory with a sinister new meaning. Honor, he had said, is a dangerous thi
ng to sustain.

  “I wish to know,” said Angélica, “if you are still prepared to die for me.”

  I stared at her in bewilderment, incapable of saying a word. It was as if her gaze were free to walk around inside my mind.

  “If you don’t come,” she added, “I will know that, despite your time spent in Flanders, you are a coward. If you do come, whatever happens, I want you to remember what I said before.”

  The silk brocade of her dress rustled as she stood up. She was standing close to me now. Very close.

  “And that I may well always love you.”

  She looked across at the garden, where the duenna was walking up and down. Then she came still closer.

  “Always remember that—to the very end. Whenever that should come.”

  “You’re lying,” I said.

  The blood seemed suddenly to have drained from my heart and my veins. Angélica continued studying me intently for what seemed an eternity. And then she did something unexpected, by which I mean that she raised one small, white, perfect hand and placed her fingers on my lips as softly as a kiss.

  “Go,” she said.

  She turned and went out into the garden. I was so shaken that I took a few steps after her, as if intending to follow her up to the royal apartments and into the queen’s private chambers. The German with the bushy side-whiskers stopped me and smilingly showed me the door, at the same time returning my dagger to me.

  I went and sat on the steps of the Casa Lonja, next to the Cathedral, and stayed there for a long time, sunk in gloomy thoughts. I was filled by conflicting feelings, and my love for Angélica, revived by that disquieting interview, was locked in battle with the certain knowledge of the sinister trap closing around us. At first, I considered saying nothing and making some excuse to slip away that night and go alone to the rendezvous and thus confront my destiny, with, as my only companions, my dagger and the constable’s sword, a good blade made by the swordsmith Juanes—I kept it wrapped in old rags, hidden in our room at the inn. But even if I did that, the venture was doomed. The shadowy figure of Malatesta took shape in my imagination like a dark omen. I would have no chance against him. And that, of course, was in the unlikely event that the Italian would come to the rendezvous alone.