Purity of Blood

“Is there no way to help Inigo?”

Through blowing smoke, the captain could see the count’s friendly but pained smile.

“I fear not. You know as well as I that to fall into the hands of the Inquisition is to be caught in an efficient and implacable machine.” He frowned, pensively stroking his goatee. “The thing that amazes me is that they have not arrested you.”

“I am in hiding.”

“That is not what I mean. They have ways of finding out what they want to know…. Equally strange is that they have not come to your house. That means they do not as yet have evidence against you.”

“They could care less about evidence,” said don Francisco, taking possession of the jug of muscatel. “They fabricate it or they buy it. Money, after all,” and between sips, he recited,

“Can buy honor, and take it away,break any law, destroy any prey.”

Guadalmedina, who was lifting his pipe to his mouth, stopped in midair.

“No, with your pardon, Senor de Quevedo. The Holy Office is very punctilious, according to the circumstance. If there is no proof, no matter how fervently Bocanegra swears that the captain is in it up to his neck, the Council will not approve any action against him. And if they have nothing official, it is because the boy has not talked.”

“They always talk.” The poet took a long swallow, and then another. “And besides, he is still a boy.”

“Well, by my faith, I say he has not spoken, however young he may be. That is what I understand from the persons with whom I have consulted all day. I assure you, Alatriste, that with the gold I squandered today in your service, we could have peacefully settled that matter of the Kerkennahs. There are things that can be bought with gold.”

And Alvaro Luis Gonzaga de la Marca y Alvarez de Sidonia, Conde de Guadalmedina, grandee of Spain, confidant of our lord and king, admired of all the ladies at court and envied by no few caballeros of the finest breeding, gave the hired sword a look of sincere friendship.

“Did you bring what I asked of you?” asked Alatriste.

The count’s smile widened. “I did.” He set his pipe aside, and pulled from his waistcoat a small packet, which he handed to the captain. “Here you have it.”

Someone less knowledgeable than don Francisco de Quevedo would have been surprised at the familiarity between the aristocrat and the veteran. It was widely known that the count had more than once counted on Diego Alatriste’s blade to resolve matters that required a steady hand and few scruples, such as the death of the troublesome Marques de Soto, and another, similar, problem. But that did not mean that the one who pays owes anything to the one he has hired, much less that a grandee of Spain, who had considerable influence at court, would meddle in the affairs of the Inquisition on behalf of a don Nobody whose sword he could have bought by merely rattling his purse. But as Senor de Quevedo knew very well, there was more between Diego Alatriste and Alvaro de la Marca than their dark business dealings.

Nearly ten years before, Guadalmedina had been a naive young blood serving on the galleys of the viceroys of Naples and Sicily. He had found himself in difficulty on that disastrous day in the Kerkennah Islands when Moors attacked the troops of the Catholic king as they waded through the shallow bay. The Duque de Nocera, with whom don Alvaro was serving, had suffered five terrible wounds when they were beset on every side by the Arabs’ curved-blade saifs, pikes, and harquebuses. The Spanish were being killed man by man; they were no longer fighting for the king but in defense of their own lives, killing in order not to die, in a horrifying retreat through water up to their waists. It had become, as Guadalmedina told it, a question of dining that night either in Constantinople or with Christ. A Moor stood in his way, and he lost his sword as he ran him through, so the man behind him struck twice with his saif as de la Marca whirled around looking for his dagger in the water.

He was picturing himself dead, or a slave—more the former than the latter—when a few soldiers who were holding out in a group and firing themselves up by shouting “Spain! Spain! All for Spain!” heard his cries for help over the roar of harquebus fire. Two or three came to his aid, splashing through the mud and knifing Arabs right and left. One of the rescuers was a soldier with an enormous mustache and gray-green eyes, who, after slashing a Moor’s face with his pike, put one arm around young Guadalmedina’s shoulders and dragged him through mud red with blood toward the boats and galleys anchored near the beach. Once there, they still had to battle, with Guadalmedina bleeding on the sand amid flying shot and arrows and flashing blades, until the soldier with the light eyes could finally pull the injured man into the water, load him onto his back, and carry him to the skiff of the last galley. Behind them they could hear the yells of the poor wretches who had not escaped, but were murdered or captured for slaves on that fateful beach.

Guadalmedina was looking into those same eyes now, in Juan Vicuna’s little room. And—as sometimes happens, but always in generous souls—throughout the years that had passed since that bloody day, Alvaro de la Marca had not forgotten his debt. And the debt was even greater when he learned that the soldier to whom he owed his life—the one whose comrades called him captain out of respect, though he had not earned that rank—had fought in Flanders under the banners of his father, Conde Fernando de la Marca. It was a debt, however, that Diego Alatriste never called due except in extreme cases, such as the recent adventure of the two Englishmen. And now, when my life was at stake.

“Returning to our Inigo,” Guadalmedina continued, “if he does not testify against you, Alatriste, the matter stops there. But he is in custody, and seemingly they expect him to incriminate you. Which makes him a prize prisoner of the Inquisition.”

“What can they do to him?”

“They can do anything. They are going to burn the girl at the stake, as sure as Christ is God. As for him, it depends. He could be freed after a few years in prison, after two hundred lashes, or after being made to wear the cone hat of infidels…or who knows what? But the risk of the stake is real.”

“And what about Olivares?” don Francisco put in.

Guadalmedina made a vague gesture. He had recovered his pipe and was puffing on it, eyes half closed against the smoke.

“He has received the message and will consider the matter, although we must not expect too much from him. If he has something to say, he will let us know.”

“Pardiez! This is not a minor matter,” don Francisco grumbled.