Captain Alatriste

This asshole, in flesh and also in art,

Is a man even buggerers seek to evade.

And along with these lines, he fired off other verses, as famous as they were ferocious, that flew from one end of the city to another, portraying Gongora as filthy in both body and lineage.

In person—and breeding—so far from clean,

In fact, so precisely the opposite,

That never, as far as I have heard,

Did a word leave his mouth that wasn't shit.

Such sweet sentiments. He also turned out cruel lines aimed at poor Ruiz de Alarcon, whose physical impediment—a hunchback—he loved to deride with pitiless wit.

Sacks of meal on back and chest.

Who's the one with those effects?

Alarconvex!

Such verses circulated anonymously, in theory; but everyone knew perfectly well who had composed them— and with the worst intentions in the world. Naturally, other poets did not hold back: sonnets and decimas flew back and forth. To sharpen his claws, Don Francisco would read his aloud in the mentideros, attacking and counterattacking, his pen dipped in the most corrosive bile. And if he wasn't defiling Gongora or Alarcon, it might be anyone at all; for on those days when the poet woke up spewing vitriol, he fired randomly at anyone who moved.

In regard to those horns you are forced to wear,

Don Whoever You Be, who put them there?

Your unfaithful wife, and if they are trimmed

She will help you grow them all over again!

Lines of that nature. So many that even though Quevedo was courageous, and skillful with the sword, having a man like Diego Alatriste beside him when he strolled among prospective adversaries was comforting for him. And it happened that one morning when Don Francisco was out with Captain Alatriste, Senor Whoever You Be of the sonnet—or someone who saw himself so portrayed, because in God's Madrid the cuckolded walked in double lines —escorted by a friend, came up to seek an explanation on the steps of San Felipe. The matter was resolved at nightfall with a taste of steel behind the wall of Los Recoletos, so thoroughly that both the presumed betrayed husband, as well as the friend—once their respective chest wounds had healed—turned to prose and never looked at a sonnet for the rest of their lives.

That morning on the steps of San Felipe, the general topic of conversation was the Prince of Wales and the infanta, alternating with the latest rumors from court on the war, which was reviving in Flanders. I recall that it was a sunny day, and that the sky was very blue and clean above the roof tiles of the nearby houses, and that the mentidero was a beehive of activity. Captain Alatriste continued to show himself in public without apparent fear—and now the hand that had been bandaged after the affair at the Gate of Lost Souls had healed. That day he was unobtrusive in dark hose, gray breeches, and a doublet fastened to the neck, and although the morning was warm, he was also wearing a cape to cover the grip of the pistol stuck in the back of his belt, in addition to his usual dagger and sword. Unlike most of the veteran soldiers of the period, Diego Alatriste was not fond of colorful adornments or trim, and the only bright note in his ensemble was the red plume in the band of his wide-brimmed hat. Even so, his appearance contrasted with the sobriety of Don Francisco de Quevedo's dark clothing, brightened only by the cross of Santiago showing beneath the short cape, also black, that we called a herreruelo.

I had been allowed to accompany them, and had just run some errands at the Estafeta. The rest of the group had already gathered: Licenciado Calzas, Juan Vicuna, Domine Perez, and a few acquaintances who chatted at the railing of the steps overlooking Calle Mayor. The bone they were chewing was the latest impertinence of Buckingham, who—they had on good authority—had the brass to be disporting himself with the wife of the Conde de Olivares.

'Perfidious Albion!' declaimed Licenciado Calzas, who had not been able to abide the English for years. Once, returning from the Indies, he had come close to being captured by Walter Raleigh, a corsair who had splintered a mast and killed fifteen men.

'Harsh treatment,' opined Vicuna, making a fist with his one remaining hand. 'The only thing those heretics understand is harsh treatment. So that is how he repays the hospitality of our lord and king!'

Those grouped around him nodded circumspectly, among them two purported veterans with fierce mustaches who had never heard a harquebus fired in their lives; two or three idlers; a tall student from Salamanca named Juan Manuel de Parada, or de Pradas, who was wrapped in a threadbare cape and whose face spoke of hunger; a young painter recently arrived in Madrid and recommended to Don Francisco by his friend Juan de Fonseca; and a cobbler from Calle Montera named Tabarca, famous for leading the mosqueteros—the rowdy hoi polloi at the theater who stood in the open space at the back of the yard to watch the play, applauding or whistling their disapproval and thereby determining its success or failure. Although of lowly birth, and illiterate, this Tabarca was a man to be reckoned with. He presented himself as a supreme authority, an old Christian and hidalgo down on his luck—as nearly everyone was—and because of his influence among the rabble in the open-air theaters, he was flattered by authors attempting to make their name at court, and even by some who already had.

'At any rate,' Calzas put in with a cynical wink, 'I have heard that the wife of the favorite is not a bad judge of blades. And Buckingham is a fine specimen of a man.'

Domine Perez was scandalized. 'Please God, Senor Licenciado! Curb your tongue. I know the lady's confessor, and I can assure you that Sefiora dona Ines de Zufiiga is a pious woman. A saint.'

'And saints,' Calzas impudently replied, 'always get a rise out of our king.'