Purity of Blood

to repent—he broke down, ending his torment with atrocious howls. But, with the exception of Saint Lawrence, no one, as far as I know, attains perfection on the grill.

Don Francisco and Captain Alatriste had been talking about me. I was sleeping, exhausted and at last free, in our lodgings on Calle del Arcabuz, under the maternal care of Caridad la Lebrijana. I’d fallen into a deep sleep, as if I needed—which was in fact the case—to reduce my adventures of recent days to the confines of nightmare. And while the fires burned at the site of the stakes, the poet had been telling the captain the particulars of his hurried and dangerous journey to Aragon.

The course suggested by Olivares had mined pure gold. Those four words that don Gaspar de Guzman had written in the Prado meadows—Alquezar. Huesca. Green Book—had been enough to save my life and hobble the royal secretary. Alquezar was not only our enemy’s surname, it was also the name of the town in Aragon in which he had been born. And to that town don Francisco de Quevedo had hastened, changing post horses along the camino real—one dropped stone-dead in Medinaceli—in his desperate attempt to win the race against time. As for the green book, which was what the birth registry was called, it contained the catalogues, family genealogies, and listings kept by individuals or parish priests, and records that served as proof of ancestry.

As soon as don Francisco arrived there, he used his ingenuity, his famous name, and the money provided by the Conde de Guadalmedina to sniff through the local archives. And there, to his surprise, relief, and joy, he found confirmation of what the Conde de Olivares already knew through his private spies: Luis de Alquezar himself did not have pure blood.

In Alquezar’s genealogy—as in that of half of Spain—there was a Jewish branch, this one documented as having converted in 1534. Those ancestors of Hebrew origin disqualified the royal secretary’s claim of nobility. But in a time in which even purity of blood was bought at so much per grandfather, that history had been very conveniently forgotten when necessary proof and documents were created so that Luis de Alquezar could assume a high post at court. And as, in addition, he commanded the distinction of being a caballero of the order of Calatrava, which group did not admit any man who could not prove he was an old Christian and whose forebears had not defiled themselves in the practice of manual labors, the falsified documentation and the conspiracy to provide them were flagrantly illegal. Publication of that information—a simple sonnet by Quevedo would have sufficed—backed by the green book the poet had obtained in Alquezar’s parish in exchange for a weighty roll of silver escudos, would have destroyed the royal secretary’s reputation, resulting in the loss of his Calatrava habit, his post at court, and the greater part of his privileges as a caballero and man of substance.

Of course, the Inquisition and Fray Emilio Bocanegra, like Olivares himself, were already aware of all this, but in a venal world built upon hypocrisy and spurious manners, the powerful, the carrion-feeding buzzards, the envious, the cowards, and all swine in general, tended to look out for one another. God our Father created them, and in our unhappy Spain they had clung together forever, with great rewards.

“What a pity that you did not see his face, Captain, when I showed him the green book.” The poet’s quiet voice shouted his fatigue. He was still wearing the dust-covered clothing and bloodstained spurs of his journey. “Luis de Alquezar turned whiter than the papers I put in his hands, then he turned as red as fire, and I feared he was going to collapse of apoplexy. But I had to get Inigo out of there, so I pressed even closer and said, ‘Senor Secretario, there is no time for discussion. If you do not intervene on the lad’s behalf, you are lost.’ And he did not even try to argue. That great scoundrel recognized that one day every man among us must settle accounts with the All- Powerful.”

It was true. Before the scribe could speak my name, Alquezar shot out of his loge like a musket ball, with a dispatch that said a great deal for his qualifications for the post of royal secretary—and any other matter that concerned him. He stopped before a stupefied Fray Emilio Bocanegra, with whom he exchanged a few words in a very low voice. The Dominican’s face had shown, in quick succession, surprise, anger, and dismay. His vengeful eyes would have struck don Francisco de Quevedo dead on the spot, had the poet—exhausted from the journey, on pinpoints because of the danger still threatening me, and determined to carry through to the end even if that meant there on the spot—given a fig for all the murderous looks in the world. Wiping sweat from his brow with his handkerchief, again as pale as if the barber had bled him too liberally, Alquezar slowly returned to the loge where the poet was waiting. And finally, over the royal secretary’s shoulder, Quevedo watched as on the dais of the inquisitors, Fray Emilio Bocanegra, shaking with spite and rage, motioned to the scribe. After listening respectfully for a few instants, that same scribe took the sentence he was about to read and set it aside, pigeonholing it forever.

Another pyre collapsed with a great crash, and a rain of sparks flooded the darkness, heightening the radiance that illuminated the two men. Diego Alatriste stood unmoving beside the poet, never taking his eyes from the flames. Beneath the brim of his hat, his strong mustache and aquiline nose seemed to make even leaner a face already emaciated by the fatigue of the day, as well as the new wound to his hip. Though not serious, it was quite painful.

“A pity,” murmured don Francisco, “I did not arrive in time to save her as well.”

He nodded toward the nearest pyre, and seemed shamed by Elvira de la Cruz’s fate. Not in regard to himself, or the captain, but by everything that had led the poor girl to this point, destroying her family along with her. Shamed, perhaps, by the land in which he had been fated to live: vengeful, cruel, dazzling in its sterile grandeur but indolent and vicious in everyday life. Quevedo’s honesty and stoic, sincerely Christian, Seneca-inspired resignation were not enough to console him. It seemed that to be lucid and Spanish would forever be coupled with great bitterness and little hope.

“At any rate,” Quevedo concluded, “it was the will of God.”

Diego Alatriste did not immediately reply. God’s will or the Devil’s, he remained silent, eyes on the fires and the black outlines of the constables and masses of people silhouetted against the ominous backdrop of the flames. He had not yet come to see me on Calle del Arcabuz, though Quevedo, and then Martin Saldana, whom they had scouted out earlier in the day, had told him that there was nothing to fear. Everything seemed to have been resolved with such discretion that not even the death of the swordsman in the alley had come to light, nor did anyone have news of the injured Gualterio Malatesta. So, as soon as his wound had been bandaged in Tuerto Fadrique’s apothecary, Alatriste had gone with Quevedo to the burning at the Puerta de Alcala. And there he stayed, along with the poet, until Elvira was nothing but bone and ash in the coals of her pyre.

For one moment the captain thought he sighted Jeronimo de la Cruz among the throng, or at least the ghostly shade the elder brother seemed to have become, the one survivor of the slaughtered family. But darkness and the milling crowd had closed back over his muffled face—if it had in fact been him at all.

“No,” Alatriste said finally.

He had taken so long to speak that don Francisco was not expecting to hear anything, and he looked at him with surprise, trying to think what he was referring to. But the captain, expressionless, continued to observe the fires. Only later, after a second long pause, did he slowly turn toward Quevedo and say, “God had no part in this.”

Unlike the poet’s eyeglasses, Alatriste’s gray-green eyes did not reflect the light of the bonfires; they were more reminiscent of two pools of frozen water. The last of the flames shed dancing shadows and red hues on his