Purity of Blood

kidney, close to his sword, a counterweight to the pistol hidden by his cape. Again, ever cautious, he searched for the dark form of an enemy shadow. And he longed to find one.

Ever since he had learned that I was in the hands of the Inquisition, and had also learned the identity of the ones who had pulled the strings of the ambush, he had harbored a lucid, icy rage bordering on desperation, and he needed somehow to purge it. The fate of don Vicente de la Cruz and his sons, and that of the now-imprisoned novice, had become secondary. In the rules of the dangerous game in which he often pawned his own skin, that was part of the deal. In every combat there were losses and gains, and the game of life provided the same ups and downs. He assumed that from the beginning, with his usual impassivity: an acceptance that at times seemed to be indifference, but was in fact nothing other than the stoic resignation of an old soldier.

But with me it was different, if Your Mercies will allow me to find a way to say this. To Diego Alatriste y Tenorio, veteran of the tercios of Flanders and those rough and dangerous times, I represented the word “remorse.” It was not easy to coolly assign me to the list of “downs” resulting from a bad adventure or assault. I was his responsibility, whether he liked it or not. And just as one does not choose his friends or his women, but is instead chosen by them, life, my dead father, fate, had set me in his path. There was no way he could close his eyes to an unpleasant truth: I made him vulnerable. In the life he had chosen to live, Diego Alatriste was as much a whoreson as the next; but he was a whoreson who played according to certain rules. For that reason he was quiet, and kept to himself, which was as good a way as any other to be desperate.

And that was why he was peering into the dark shadows of the street, hoping to spot a constable lurking there, a spy, any enemy at all that he could use to calm the sensation that was griping his bowels and making him clench his teeth until his jaw hurt. He wanted to find someone and then slip toward him in the darkness, without a sound, press him against the wall, gag him with his cape, and without a single word drive his dagger into his throat until he stopped moving and the Devil took him.

Because if we are considering rules, those happened to be his.

VII. MEN OF ONE BOOK

God never deserts crows or rooks, not even notaries. And he did not completely desert me. For, believe it or not, I was not tortured unbearably. The Holy Office had its rules, too, and despite their cruelty and fanaticism, some of them were observed to the letter. I received my share of slapping and lashes, I cannot deny. And no few privations and rough interrogations. But once they confirmed my age, those not-yet-lived fourteen years kept at a safe distance the contraption of wood, rope, and wheels that at every questioning I could see in the far corner of the room. Even the beatings they gave me were limited in number, intensity, and duration.

Others, however, were not as lucky. I do not know whether the woman’s scream I had heard on my first day had come with or without the help of the rack. If the latter, unfortunately, she had been installed upon it, her limbs pulled with turn after turn of the wheel, until her bones were cracked from their sockets. I continued to hear screams frequently, until suddenly, they ceased. That was the same day I found myself again in the interrogation room and finally met the unfortunate Elvira de la Cruz.

She was small and plump, and in no way resembled the romanticized vision I had concocted in my mind. But no matter, not even the most perfect beauty could have offset that mercilessly shaved head, those red-rimmed eyes sunken in dark circles of insomnia and suffering, and, beneath the filthy serge of her habit, the bruises of cuffs around her wrists and ankles. She was sitting down—soon I learned that she was unable to stand without help— and her gaze was the most vacant and desolate I had ever seen: an absolute emptiness born of the pain and exhaustion and bitterness of one who knows the depths of the darkest pit ever imagined. She must have been about eighteen or nineteen years old, but she looked like a decrepit old woman. If she shifted slightly in her chair, it was slowly and painfully, as if her joints were all crippled. And sadly, that was exactly what had happened.

As for me, although it is not a sign of good breeding to boast, they had not torn from me a single one of the answers they wanted. Not even when one of the torturers, the redheaded one, took on the task of measuring every inch of my back with a bull’s pizzle. But although I was covered with welts and had to sleep on my stomach—if that agonizing and restless state somewhere between reality and the ghosts of imagination can be called sleep—they did not get one word from dry, cracked lips now crusted with blood that was mine, not poor de la Cruz’s. No words, that is, other than groans of pain or protests of innocence. That night I was returning home alone. My master, Captain Alatriste, was nowhere around. I have never heard anything about the de la Cruz family. I am an old Christian, and my father died for the king in Flanders…. And then I would start from the beginning again. That night I was returning home…

There was no mercy in them, not even those specks of humanity that can occasionally be glimpsed in the most heartless of souls. Priests, judge, scribe, and torturers acted with such rigorous coldness and distance that that was precisely what evoked the most horror. Even more bloodcurdling than the suffering they were capable of inflicting was the icy determination of those who know they are backed by divine and human laws and who at no moment doubt the righteousness of what they are doing.

Later, with time, I learned that although all men are capable of good and evil, the worst among them are those who, when they commit evil, do so by shielding themselves in the authority of others, in their subordination, or in the excuse of following orders. And even worse are those who believe they are justified by their God. Because in the secret dungeons of Toledo, nearly at the cost of my life, I learned that there is nothing more despicable or more dangerous than the malevolent individual who goes to sleep every night with a clear conscience. That is true evil. Especially when paired with ignorance, superstition, stupidity, or power, all of which often travel together.

And worst of all is the person who acts as exegete of The Word—whether it be from the Talmud, the Bible, the Koran, or any other book already written or yet to come. I am not fond of giving advice—no one can pound opinions into another’s head—but here is a piece that costs you nothing: Never trust a man who reads only one book.

I do not know what books those men had read, but as for consciences, I am sure they slept soundly. Though now that they are all in Hell, where it is to be hoped they burn throughout eternity, they will never sleep again. By that point in my Calvary, I had learned the name of the one who played the lead role, the somber and fleshless priest with the feverish eyes. He was Fray Emilio Bocanegra, president of the Council of Six Judges, the most feared tribunal of the Holy Office. Also, according to what I heard Captain Alatriste and his friends say, he was one of my master’s most relentless enemies. He had been the one setting the course of the interrogations, and now the other priests and the silent judge in the black robe acted as mere witnesses, while the scribe set down the Dominican’s questions and my laconic replies.

But this time was different, for when I came before them they did not ask me questions but addressed them to poor Elvira de la Cruz. And I sensed things were taking a disturbing turn when I saw Fray Emilio point to me.

“Do you know that young man?”

My apprehension turned to panic—unlike Elvira, I had not as yet reached my limits—when the novice nodded her shorn head without even looking my way. Alarmed, I saw the scribe waiting, quill poised, his eyes on Elvira de la Cruz and the inquisitor.

“Answer with words,” ordered Fray Emilio.

The unhappy girl breathed a scarcely audible “Yes.” The scribe dipped the quill into the inkwell and wrote, and more than ever in my life, I felt the ground yawning beneath my feet.