Captain Alatriste

own country, when some years later a Puritan lieutenant named Felton—upholding, they say, the honor of a certain Milady de Winter'—gave him what he deserved: more stabs in the gut than a missal has prayers.

Well, to sum up: Those particulars are plentiful in the annals of the epoch. I recommend them to the reader interested in more details, for they have no direct relation to the thread of this story. I shall say only, in regard to Captain Alatriste and myself, that we neither participated in the festivities, to which it had been thought best not to invite us, nor had any desire to do so, should the invitation have been given. The days after the altercation at the Gate of Lost Souls went by, as I have said, without incident, undoubtedly because the puppeteer pulling the strings was too occupied with the public comings and goings of Charles of Wales to tend to such small details—and when I speak of small details, I am referring to the captain and me.

We were aware, however, that sooner or later the bill would be delivered, and it would not be inconsequential. After all, however cloudy it may be, the shadow is always sewn to one's feet. No one can escape his own shadow.

This is not the first time I have referred to the mentideros devoted to gossip— meeting places for the idle and centers for all the news, rumors, and whispers that traveled around Madrid. There were three main mentideros—San Felipe, Losas de Palacio, and Representantes—and among these, the one in front of the Augustinian church of San Felipe, between Correos, Mayor, and Esparteros, was the most crowded. The steps were at the entrance to the church, and because the building was not on a level with Calle Mayor, they were higher than the street, leaving room beneath for a row of small shops, cubbyholes where toys, guitars, and trinkets were sold. Their roofs, in turn, formed an area paved with large flat stones: a kind of elevated promenade protected with railings. From that theater box one had a wonderful view of people and carriages passing by, and could comfortably stroll from one group to another.

San Felipe was the liveliest, noisiest, and most popular spot in Madrid. Its proximity to the Estafeta, the building that housed the royal mails, where letters and notices from the rest of Spain, indeed, the entire world, were received, as well as its location overlooking the principal street of the city, made it an ideal site for the great public party in which opinions and gossip were exchanged, soldiers preened, clergy spread tales, thieves pilfered purses, and poets aired their talent and wit. Lope, Don Francisco de Quevedo, and the Mexican Alarcon, among others, were regulars. Any news, rumor, or lie that originated there rolled like a ball gaining momentum; nothing escaped the tongues that knew everything, that shredded the reputations of everyone from king to lowest of low.

Many years later, Agustin Moreto mentioned San Felipe in one of his plays, when a countryman and a gallant military man meet:

'I see these steps are something you cannot leave!'

'These knowing stones have me bewitched,

My friends and I invariably leave enriched,

For nowhere in all the world have I

Encountered such a fertile ground for lies.'

Even the great Don Miguel de Cervantes, may he sit forever at the right hand of God, wrote in his Voyage to Parnassus:

Farewell, San Felipe, the grand paseo,

Where if the Turk descends or the English menace,

I read of it in the gazette of Venice.

I quote these lines that Your Mercies may see just how famous the place was. In its cliques, the state of affairs in Flanders, Italy, and the Indies were argued with the gravity of a meeting of the Council of Castile. Jokes and witticisms were traded; the honor of ladies, actresses, and cuckolded husbands was besmirched; foul obscenities were directed toward the Conde de Olivares; and the amorous adventures of the king spread in whispers' from ear to ear.

It was, all told, a most pleasant and sparkling place, a font of wit, news, and wicked tongues that drew a gathering every morning about eleven. That lasted until the pealing of the church bell one hour after the noontime Angelus had stirred people in the crowd to remove their hats, stand respectfully, then drift away, leaving the field to the beggars, students, slatterns, and ragamuffins waiting for the soup from the charitable Augustinians. The steps came back to life in the evening, at the hour of the rua on Calle Mayor, where rumor- mongers and tale-bearers could watch the passing parade of coaches: fine ladies; women of questionable reputation who gave themselves the airs of ladies; and 'schoolgirls' from nearby brothels—there was a notorious one, actually, right across the street—all of them a source of conversation, flirtation, and jest. That lasted until the call to evening prayer, when, after praying with hat in hand, people in the crowd again dispersed until the following day, each to his own home—and God to all of theirs.

I stated earlier that Don Francisco de Quevedo frequented the steps of San Felipe; and in many of his paseos he was accompanied by such friends as Licenciado Calzas, Juan Vicuna, or Captain Alatriste. His fondness for my master was based, among other factors, in practicality. The poet was always involved in quarrels rooted in jealousy and exchanging obscenities with various rivals—something very typical in that day, and in all epochs of this benighted country of ours, with its Cains, calumny, trickery, and envy, where words offended, even maimed, as surely as or more surely than the sword. Some, like Luis de Gongora and Juan Ruiz de Alarcon, were always belittling each other, and not merely for what they wrote.

Gongora, for example, said of Francisco de Quevedo:

Muse that babbles inanities

Can earn no ducats or hope to inspire;

His fingers know better to rob my purse

Than pluck at that unmelodious lyre.

And the next day it would be the other way around. Don Francisco would counterattack with his heaviest artillery:

This Gongora, who blasts a mighty fart,

This acme of vice and fanfaronade,