Purity of Blood

take, nor whether one day the full reach of a good blade will not be more beneficial than all the papers and all the notaries and all the royal seals in the world. If you help the orphan of one of your soldiers, I give you my word that on such a day you can count on me.”

Neither Quevedo nor Guadalmedina—no one—had ever heard Diego Alatriste utter so many words at one time. And the king’s favorite listened, inscrutable, motionless, with only an attentive gleam in his astute dark eyes. The captain had spoken with melancholy respect, but with a firmness that might have seemed brusque had it not been made amenable by his serene gaze and calm tone, totally devoid of arrogance. He seemed merely to have enunciated objective fact.

“I do not know whether it will be five, six, even ten days, months, or years hence,” the captain persisted. “But you can count on me.”

There was a long silence. Olivares, who had begun to close the coach door, concluding the interview, paused. Beneath his terrible mustache, Alatriste and his companions glimpsed something resembling a smile.

“’Sblood!” he said.

The favorite stared for what seemed an eternity. And then, very slowly, after removing a sheet of paper from a portfolio lined with Moroccan leather, he took a lead pencil and wrote four words: Alquezar. Huesca. Green Book. Pensively, he reread several times what he’d written. Finally, slowly, as if doubting what he was about to do until the last moment, he handed it to Diego Alatriste.

“You are absolutely right, Captain,” he murmured, still thoughtful, before glancing toward the sword Alatriste wore on his left side. “In truth, one never knows.”

VIII. A NOCTURNAL VISIT

The bells at San Jeronimo pealed twice as Diego Alatriste slowly turned the key. His initial apprehension turned to relief when the lock, oiled from inside that very evening, turned with a soft click.

He pushed the door, opening it in the darkness without the least squeak from its hinges. Auro clausa patent. With gold, doors open, Domine Perez would have said; and don Francisco de Quevedo had referred to don Dinero as a “powerful caballero.” In truth, that the gold was from the pouch of the Conde de Guadalmedina and not from the thin purse of Captain Alatriste mattered not at all. No one cared about name, origin, or smell. The gold had bought the keys and the plan of the house, and thanks to it, someone was going to receive a disagreeable surprise.

Alatriste had bid don Francisco good-bye a couple of hours earlier, when he accompanied the poet to Calle de las Postas and watched him gallop away on a good horse, carrying traveling clothes, sword, portmanteau, a pistol in his saddletree, and, tucked in the band of his hat, those four words the Conde de Olivares had confided to them.

Guadalmedina, who had approved the poet’s journey, had not shown the same enthusiasm for the adventure Alatriste was preparing to undertake that very night. Better to wait, he had said. But the captain could not wait. Quevedo’s assignment was a shot in the dark. He had to do something in the meantime.

He unsheathed his dagger and, holding it in his left hand, crossed the patio, trying not to bump into anything in the dark and wake the servants. At least one of them—the one who had provided the keys and the plan to Alvaro de la Marca’s agents—would sleep deaf, mute, and blind that night, but there were a half-dozen more who might take to heart his having disturbed their sleep at such hours. The captain had taken the appropriate precautions. He was wearing dark clothing, without a cape or hat to get in his way. In his belt was one of his flintlock pistols, well oiled and ready to fire, along with his sword and dagger. Finally he had added the old buffcoat that had offered such venerable service in a Madrid to which Alatriste himself had contributed, not a little, to making insalubrious. As for boots, they had been left in Juan Vicuna’s little hideaway. In their stead the captain was wearing a pair of leather sandals with woven grass soles, very useful for moving with the speed and silence of a shadow. The sandals were a lesson learned in times even more deadly than these, when a man had to slip between fascine battlements and trenches to slit the throats of Flemish heretics during cruel night raids in which no quarter was given or expected.

The house was still and dark. Alatriste bumped against the rim of a cistern, felt his way around it, and finally found the door he was seeking. The second key worked to his satisfaction, and the captain found himself in a broad, enclosed stairway. He went up the stairs, holding his breath, grateful that the steps were stone and not creaking wood. At the top, he paused in the shelter of a large armoire to orient himself. Then he took a few paces forward, hesitated in the shadowy corridor, counted two doors to the right, and went in, vizcaina in hand, holding his sword to prevent it from knocking against some piece of furniture. Next to the window, Luis de Alquezar was snoring like a pig, in deep shadow relieved by the soft glow of an oil lamp. Diego Alatriste could not contain a secret smile: his powerful enemy, the royal secretary, was afraid of the dark.

Alquezar, only half awake, was slow to understand that he was not having a nightmare. But when he started to turn onto his other side and the sharp gouge of a dagger beneath his chin prevented him, he realized this was not a bad dream. Frightened, he tried to sit up, blinked his eyes, and opened his mouth to scream, but Diego Alatriste’s hand quickly covered it.

“One word,” whispered the captain, “and you are a dead man.”

Between the nightcap and the iron hand that was gagging him, the eyes and mustache of the royal secretary were quivering with terror. A few inches from his face, the weak light of the lamp outlined Alatriste’s aquiline profile, the luxuriant mustache, the sharp blade of the dagger.

“Do you have armed guards?” asked the captain.

Alquezar shook his head no. His breath moistened the palm of the captain’s hand.

“Do you know who I am?”

The terrified eyes blinked, and after an instant the head nodded affirmatively. And when Alatriste took his hand away from Luis de Alquezar’s mouth, he did not try to shout. Mouth agape, frozen with stupor, he stared at the shadow bending over him as if seeing a ghost. The captain pressed the tip of the dagger a little harder against Alquezar’s throat.

“What are you going to do with the boy?” demanded Alatriste.

Alquezar’s bulging eyes saw nothing but the dagger. His nightcap had fallen onto the pillow, and the lamp illuminated sparse, tangled, greasy hair that accentuated his ignoble round face, heavy nose, and short, scraggly beard.

“I do not know whom you mean.”

The royal secretary’s voice was weak and hoarse, but even the threat of the steel could not mask his indignation. Alatriste pressed the dagger until he evoked a moan.