There was very little day left in the sky of Madrid, barely a glow outlining rooftops and bell towers toward the Manzanares River and the Royal Palace. And so, at dusk, with shadows slowly creeping over the streets, I followed behind the closed carriage pulled by four mules, in which Martin Saldana and his catchpoles were transporting the captain. They drove past the Jesuit school, down Calle Toledo, and into La Cebada plaza—undoubtedly to avoid busy streets—then turned toward the small hill of the Rastro fountain before again bearing right. They were almost at the outskirts of the city, very near the Toledo road, the slaughterhouse, and a site that had been a Moorish cemetery long before, but now, because of its bad reputation, was called the Portillo de las Animas. Given its macabre history and the gloomy hour, this Gate of Lost Souls was not the most comforting place in the world to be.
Night had definitely fallen when the carriage stopped before a deserted-looking house with two small windows and a large carriage courtyard that seemed better suited for horses than for anything else. I guessed that in the past it had been an inn for cattle traders. I stood at the corner, panting, hidden by a large carriage guard, with my bundle beneath my arm. I saw Alatriste, resigned and calm, get out of the carriage, surrounded by Saldana and his bailiffs. They all went inside, and after a while I watched them come out without the captain, climb into the carriage, and leave. That disturbed me, for I did not know who else might be inside the house. I eliminated the idea of going any closer because I would run the certain risk of being caught.
And so, twitching with anxiety, but patient, 'as every man-of-arms must be'—as I had heard Alatriste himself say—I squeezed back against the wall to blend into the darkness, and prepared to wait. I confess that I was cold and afraid. But I was the son of Lope Balboa, a soldier of the king who had died in Flanders. And I could not abandon my father's friend.
VIII. THE GATE OF LOST SOULS
It looked like a tribunal, and Diego Alatriste did not have the least doubt that it was. One of the masked men was absent, the corpulent one who had insisted that there be little blood. His companion, however—the man with the round head and coarse, thin hair—was there, wearing the same mask and sitting behind a long table on which there were a lighted candelabrum and writing materials: goose quills, paper, and inkwell. His hostile aspect and his attitude would have been the most disturbing thing in the world had it not been for someone more disturbing seated beside him. That person wore no mask, and his hands were bony serpents slithering from the sleeves of his habit: Fray Emilio Bocanegra.
There were no other chairs, so Captain Alatriste stood as he was questioned. It was, in fact, a standard interrogation, a task with which the Dominican priest was well acquainted. It was obvious that he was furious, worlds away from anything remotely related to Christian charity. The wavering light from the candelabrum deepened his sunken, badly shaved cheeks, and his eyes glittered with hatred as they bore into Alatriste. His entire person, from the way in which he asked questions to the least perceptible of his movements, conveyed distilled menace; the captain glanced around, looking for the rack on which, very soon, he would be tortured. He was surprised that Saldana had left with his men, and that there were no guards in sight; it appeared that only the masked man, the priest, and he were present. He sensed something strange, a discordant note in all this. Something was not as it should be. Or seemed to be.
The questioning by the Inquisitor and his companion, who from time to time bent over the table to dip a feather pen into the inkwell and jot down some observation, lasted half an hour. In that time the captain had woven together a fabric of places and circumstances, including why he found himself there, alive, able to move his tongue and articulate sounds, instead of sprawled on some dumping ground with his throat cut like a dog.
What most concerned his interrogators was the question of how much he had told, and to whom. Many questions were directed toward the role of Guadalmedina on the night of the adventure of the Englishmen, and especially toward establishing how the count had become implicated, and how much he knew about the matter. The inquisitors also showed special interest in learning whether other parties had been informed, and the names of any who might have partial knowledge of the affair.
For his part, the captain kept his guard high, not admitting any act or divulging the identity of any person. He continued to maintain that Guadalmedina's intervention had been coincidental—although his questioners seemed to be convinced otherwise. Without a doubt, the captain reflected, someone inside the Alcazar Real had been informed of the comings and goings of the count that night, as well as the morning after the skirmish in the lane. But he held firm, sustaining that neither Alvaro de la Marca nor anyone else knew of his interview with the two masked men and the Dominican. For the most part, he answered in monosyllables, or by nodding or shaking his head. He was beginning to feel hot in the buffcoat, or perhaps it was only apprehension. He looked around the room, wondering which direction the executioners—who must be hidden somewhere—would come from, to take him prisoner and lead him in manacles to the anteroom of Hell.
There was a pause as the masked man took notes in a very deliberate and correct hand, that of a professional scribe, and the priest stared at Alatriste with that hypnotic, feverish gaze that would raise gooseflesh on the bravest of men. In the interim, the captain wondered when someone was going to ask him why he had blocked the Italian's sword. Apparently his personal motives in the matter were not worth a fart in a windstorm. At just that instant, as if he were able to read the captain's thoughts, Fray Emilio Bocanegra put out his hand and rested it on the dark table, with his waxy index finger pointed at the captain.
'What impels a man to desert the legions of God and pass into the iniquitous ranks of the heretics?'
It was nearly comic, thought Diego Alatriste, for the priest to qualify as God's legions the unit formed by him, the masked scribe, and that sinister Italian swordsman. In other circumstances, he would have burst out laughing, but this stage was not set for comedy. He choked back his laughter and, unflinching, met the Dominican's eyes, and then those of the scribe, who had stopped writing. The eyes glinting through the holes of his mask showed very little sympathy.
'I cannot say,' said the captain. 'It may have been because although the man was facing death, he asked for mercy for his companion, not himself.'
The Inquisitor and the masked man exchanged incredulous looks.
'God save and protect us,' muttered the priest. Eyes filled with fanaticism and scorn measured the captain.
I am a dead man, thought Alatriste, reading his sentence in those black and pitiless pupils. Whatever he did, whatever he said, his doom was written in that implacable stare and in the icy calm with which the man in the mask again put pen to paper. The life of Diego Alatriste y Tenorio, soldier of the Tercios Viejos in Flanders, hired swordsman in the Madrid of King Philip the Fourth, was worth only whatever those two men still wanted to learn. As one could deduce from the turn the conversation was taking, that was very little indeed.
'Your companion that night'—the scribe spoke without interrupting his writing, and his surly tone sounded a death knell for the captain—'did not seem to have as many scruples as you.'
'I give faith to that,' the captain admitted. 'He seemed even to be enjoying it.'
