Captain Alatriste was a fatalist. Perhaps his status as a former soldier—having fought in Flanders and the Mediterranean after running away from school to enlist as a page and drummer at the age of thirteen—was the reason he faced risk, misfortune, uncertainty, and the vagaries of a harsh and difficult life with the stoicism of one accustomed to expect nothing more. His nature was well defined in a description the French Marechal de Grammont would later write of the Spanish:
God knows that all this is true, and I, who knew such times, and some even worse that came later, give good witness to its truth. As for Diego Alatriste, he carried his hauteur and pride inside, and exhibited them only in his bullheaded silences. I have said already that unlike many braggarts who twirl their mustaches and talk loudly on street corners and at court, the captain was never heard to preen on the subject of his long military career. But sometimes, over a jug of wine, old comrades-in-arms dusted off stories about him, and I listened avidly. For to me in my young life, Diego Alatriste was the closest copy I had of the father who had fallen honorably in the wars of our lord and king. The captain was one of those small, tough, adamant men with whom Spain was always so well supplied, in good times and in bad, and to whom Calderon referred—and may my master Alatriste, be he in glory, or elsewhere, forgive me that I so often quote Don Pedro Calderon instead of his beloved Lope—when he wrote:
I remember one episode that especially impressed me, more than anything because of how clearly it showed the nature of Captain Alatriste's character. Juan Vicuna, the one who had been a sergeant in the horse guard of our regiments during the disaster among the dunes at Nieuwpoort—heavy-hearted the mother who had a son there— several times described the defeat suffered by the Spanish by laying out the battle lines on the table in the Tavern of the Turk, using hunks of bread and jugs of wine to demonstrate. He, my father, and Diego Alatriste had been among the fortunate who saw the sun set on that ill-fated day, something that cannot be said of five thousand of his compatriots, including a hundred and fifty officers and captains whose hides were tanned by the Dutch, English, and French. Although those countries often fought among themselves, they were quick enough to join together when it came to shoving it up our asses.
In Nieuwpoort, everything went their way: our field commander, Don Gaspar Zapena, was dead, and Admiral de Aragon and other principal commanders captured. Our troops were in disarray, and Juan Vicuna, who had lost all his officers, and was himself wounded in one arm, which he would lose to gangrene several weeks later, retired with his decimated companies, along with the remaining foreign allied troops. And Vicuna recounted that when he looked back for the.last time, before putting on all speed to retreat, he saw the veteran Tercio Vie jo de Cartagena— which was the company of my father and Alatriste— attempting to quit a corpse-strewn battlefield through an impenetrable wall of enemies, who with harquebuses and muskets and artillery were making lace of the Spanish soldiers. There were dead, dying, and fleeing soldiers as far as the eye could see, Vicuna said.
And in the midst of the disaster, under the blazing sun reflecting dazzling light off the dunes, amid howling wind and swirling sand that cloaked them in smoke and gunpowder, were the companies of the Tercio Vie jo, bristling with pikes, standing in square formation around flags shredded by gunfire, and spitting musket balls in all four directions. Amazingly, they were retreating at a measured pace, without breaking ranks, dauntless, closing every breach opened by an enemy artillery that did not dare come any closer to attack. On higher ground, the soldiers calmly consulted with their officers, and then resumed their march without missing a beat, terrifying even in defeat, as tightly organized and collected as if they were on parade, moving at the tempo set by the slow tattoo of their drums.
'The Cartagena
They did not come looking for him at night, as I expected, but in the late afternoon, and more or less officially. Someone knocked at the door, and when I opened it I saw the substantial figure of the head constable, Martin Saldana. His bailiffs were stationed on the stairs and in the courtyard—I counted half a dozen—and some had their swords unsheathed.
Saldana came in alone, his belt sagging with the metal it held, and closed the door after himself, keeping his hat on and his sword in his baldric. Alatriste, in shirtsleeves, had jumped up and was waiting in the center of the room. As the constable entered, he took his hand from his dagger, which he had quickly grasped when he heard the knocking.
'Christ's blood, Diego, you are making this difficult for me,' said Saldana with bad humor, pretending not to see the two pistols on the table. 'You should at least have left Madrid. Or moved to new lodgings.'
'I was not expecting you.'
'Yes, I can believe that I am not the one you were expecting.' Saldana finally looked at the pistols, walked a few steps into the room, took off his hat and set it over them, covering them. 'Although you were expecting someone.'
'And what am I supposed to have done?'
I was watching from the doorway to the other room, uneasy about this development. Saldana looked at me a moment and then walked the other way. He had also been a friend of my father's, in Flanders.
'May I be struck by a thunderbolt if I know,' he told the captain. 'My orders are to arrest you, or kill you if you resist.'
'Of what am I accused?'
The lieutenant was evasive. He shrugged and said, 'You are not accused of anything. Someone wants to speak with you.'
'Who gave the orders?'
'That is none of your concern. Those are the orders I was given, and that is enough for me.' Again he was looking at Alatriste with annoyance, as if chastising him for creating this mess. 'May I know what is going on,
