Captain Alatriste

tongue, speaking very low, and the wounded youth nodded. At last the one in gray spoke to Alatriste.

'You were going to kill me, but you relented,' he said. 'You also saved my friend's life. Why?'

'Old age. I am turning soft.'

The Englishman shook his head. 'This was not a chance encounter.' He looked toward his companion and then at the captain, with sharpened attention. 'Someone hired you, is that not true?'

The captain was beginning to lose patience answering so many questions, and even more when he saw that his questioner's hand was moving toward the purse at his waist, suggesting that any helpful word would be generously remunerated. At that Alatriste frowned, twisted his mustache, and placed his hand on the pommel of his sword.

'Look at me carefully, Your Mercy,' he said. 'Do I look like someone who tells his life story to anyone who happens along?'

The Englishman stared at him, hard, and slowly removed his hand from his purse. 'No,' he conceded. In truth you do not.'

Alatriste nodded approvingly. 'I am very happy that you agree with me. Now fetch your horses and get out of here. My companion may return.'

'And you, sir?'

'That is my affair.'

Again the two young men exchanged words in English. The one in gray seemed to be considering something, elbow cupped in one hand, chin on fist. An unusual stance, notably affected, more suitable to the elegant palaces of

London than to a dark lane in Madrid. In him, however, it seemed natural, as if he were accustomed to striking a pose. So white and so blond, he had the air of a popinjay, or a courtier, but it was also true that he had fought with skill and courage, just as his companion had. Their patterns of behavior, the captain observed, were cut from the same cloth. A pair of well-bred youths, he concluded. In over their heads with women, religion, or politics. Or perhaps all three.

'No one must know about this,' the Englishman said at last.

A quiet laugh escaped Diego Alatriste. 'I am not the most eager among us to have it known.'

The youth seemed surprised by the captain's laugh, or perhaps he did not fully understand what he said; but after a moment he, too, smiled. A faint, courteous smile. A bit superior.

'There is much at stake,' he added.

The captain was in complete agreement. 'My head,' he murmured. 'For example.'

If the Englishman captured the irony, he paid scant attention. Again he struck his thoughtful pose.

'My friend needs to rest a little. And the man who wounded him could be waiting for us farther down the lane.' Again he made a point of studying the man before him, attempting to measure from his attitude how sincere or how deceitful he was. In the end, he raised his eyebrows, suggesting that neither he nor his companion had many choices.

'Do you, sir, know our final destination?' Alatriste met his gaze without blinking. 'I may.' 'Do you know the House of Seven Chimneys?' 'Perhaps.'

'Will you take us there?' 'No.'

'Would you take a message for us?' 'Not a chance.'

This man must take me for an imbecile, he thought. That was exactly what he needed: Walk right into the wolf's mouth and alert the English ambassador and his servants. Curiosity killed the cat, he reminded himself as he glanced around uneasily. Now was the moment to be thinking of saving his skin, which more than one person was eager to perforate. Yes, it was time to look after himself, time to put an end to the conversation. But the Englishman stopped him.

'Do you know of any place nearby where we might find help? Or rest awhile?'

Alatriste was going to say no for the last time, before fading into the shadows, when an idea flooded his mind like sunlight bursting from the clouds. He himself had nowhere to hide, for the Italian and others sent by the masked men and Padre Bocanegra would come to look for him at his lodgings on Calle del Arcabuz, where at that hour I was sleeping like a dormouse. But no one would harm me; his gullet, on the other hand, would be slit before he had time to pick up his sword. This might be an opportunity to secure protection for the night and help for what lay ahead. At the same time he would be aiding the Englishmen, finding out more about them and about the men who were so eager to see them leave this earth.

The card up his sleeve, one Diego Alatriste tried not to play too often, was named Alvaro de la Marca, Conde de Guadalmedina. And his palatial home was only a hundred steps away.

'This is a fine fix you have got yourself into.'

Alvaro Luis Gonzaga de la Marca y Alvarez de Sidonia, Conde de Guadalmedina, was handsome, elegant, and so rich that he could lose ten thousand ducats at cards in one night, or squander it on one of his lady friends, without lifting an eyebrow. At the time of the adventure of the two Englishmen, he must have been about thirty-three or thirty-four, in the prime of his life. Son of the now deceased Conde de Guadalmedina—Don Fernando Gonzaga de la Marca, hero of the Flemish campaigns in the time of the great Philip the Second and his heir Philip the Third—

Alvaro de la Marca had inherited from his progenitor the title of grandee of Spain, along with the right to wear his hat in the presence of the young monarch, the fourth Philip, whose friendship he enjoyed, and whom, it was said, he accompanied on nocturnal amorous escapades with the actresses and beauties of low estate favored by both king and count.

Bachelor, womanizer, courtier, sophisticate, a bit of a poet, a gallant, and a seducer, Guadalmedina had bought from the king the sinecure of Master of the Post upon the recent and scandalous death of the previous beneficiary, the Conde de Villamediana (a point of caution here: he himself murdered over a matter of skirts, or jealousy). In that corrupt Spain in which everything could be bought, from ecclesiastical dignity to the most lucrative state positions, the title and the income of Master of the Post swelled Guadalmedina's fortune and influence at court. In