Captain Alatriste

I shuddered, not knowing why. But my shudder would have been even stronger had I known that I had just been gazed upon by the Devil.

'We have no choice but to fight,' said Don Francisco de Quevedo.

The table was littered with empty bottles, and every time that Don Francisco was a little too liberal with the wine of San Martin de Valdeiglesias—which happened frequently—he was ready to call out Christ himself.

Quevedo was slightly lame, a poet, a fancier of whores, nearsighted, and a Caballero de Santiago. He was as quick with his wit and his tongue as with his sword, and he was famous at court for his good poems and bad temper. The latter was, all too often, the cause for his wandering from exile to exile and prison to prison. It is well known that though, like all of Madrid, our good lord and king, Philip the Fourth, and his favored Conde de Olivares appreciated the poet's satiric verses, the king liked much less being the subject of them. So from time to time, after the appearance of some sonnet or anonymous poem in which everyone recognized the poet's hand, the magistrate's bailiffs and constables would swarm into the tavern, or Quevedo's domicile, or a place where friends met to exchange gossip, to invite him, respectfully, to accompany them, taking him out of circulation for a few days or months. As he was stubborn and proud, and never learned his lesson, these occurrences were numerous, and served to embitter him.

Quevedo was, nevertheless, an excellent table companion and a good friend to his friends, among whom he included Captain Alatriste. Both went often to the Tavern of the Turk, where they would gather their friends around one of the best tables, which Caridad la Lebrijana—who had been a whore and still was occasionally for the captain, though free of charge—usually reserved for them. That morning, along with Don Francisco and the captain, the group was completed by habitues: Licenciado Calzas, Juan Vicuna, Domine Perez, and El Tuerto Fadrique, the one- eyed apothecary at the Puerta Cerrada.

'No choice but to fight,' the poet insisted.

He was, as I have said, visibly 'illuminated' by a bottle or two of Valdeiglesias. He had jumped to his feet, overturning a taboret, and with his hand resting on the pommel of his sword, was sending blazing glances toward the occupants of a nearby table. There, two strangers, whose long swords and capes were hanging on the wall, had just congratulated the poet on a few verses. Unfortunately, those lines actually had been written by Luis de Gongora, Quevedo's most despised adversary in the Republic of Letters—a rival whom, among other insults, he accused of being a sodomite, a dog, and a Jew. The newcomers had spoken in good faith, or at least it seemed so, but Don Francisco was not disposed to overlook their words.

'I shall grease my poems with the fat of the pig So that gnat Gongora cannot chew off a piece....'

He began to improvise there on the spot, weaving a little, hand still clutching the hilt of his sword, while the strangers tried to apologize and the captain and his table companions held on to Don Francisco to keep him from drawing his sword and going for the offenders.

'But by God, that is an insult,' the poet cried, trying to loose the right hand his friends were gripping so tightly, while with his free hand he adjusted his twisted eyeglasses. 'A bit of steel will make things, hic, right.'

'That is too much steel to squander so early in the day, Don Francisco,' Diego Alatriste sensibly interceded.

'It seems very little to me.' Without taking his eyes off his perceived tormentors, the poet ferociously smoothed his mustache. 'But we will be generous: one hand's breadth of steel for each of these hijosdalgo, who are sons of something, no doubt, but very certainly not sons of hidalgos.'

These were fighting words, so the strangers made as if to claim their swords and go outside. The captain and the other friends, helpless to prevent the confrontation, asked them please to make allowances for the poet's alcoholic state and simply quit the field, adding that there was no glory in fighting a drunk opponent, or shame in withdrawing prudently to prevent greater harm.

'Bella gerant alii' suggested Domine Perez, trying to temporize.

Domine Perez was a Jesuit priest who tended his flock in the nearby church of San Pedro y San Pablo. His kindly nature and his Latin phrases tended to have a soothing effect, for he spoke them in a tone of unquestionable good sense. The two strangers, however, knew no Latin, and the insult of being called sons of something or other was difficult to brush off. Besides, the cleric's mediation was undercut by the scoffing banter of Licenciado Calzas, a clever, cynical rascal who haunted the courts, a specialist in defending causes he could convert into endless trials that bled his clients of their last maravedis. The licenciado loved to stir things up, and he was always goading every Juan, Jose, and Tomasillo.

'You do not want to lose face, Don Francisco,' he said in a low voice. 'They will pay the court costs, defend your honor.'

So all those gathered round prepared to witness an event that would appear the next day in the sheets of Avisos y noticias, the city's purveyor of notices and news. And Captain Alatriste, failing in his efforts to calm his friend, but knowing he would not leave Don Francisco alone in the fray, began to accept as inevitable that he would be crossing swords with these strangers.

'Aio te vincere posse,' Domine Perez concluded with resignation, as Licenciado Calzas hid his laughter by snorting into his jug of wine. With a deep sigh, the captain started to get up from the table. Don Francisco, who already had drawn four fingers of his sword from its scabbard, shot him a comradely look of thanks, and even had the brass to direct a couplet to him.

'You, Diego, whose sword so nobly defends The name and honor of your family...'

'Do not fuck with me, Don Francisco,' the captain replied ill-humoredly. 'We will have our fight with whom we must, but do not fuck with me.'

'That is how a true, hic, man talks,' said the poet, visibly grateful for the friend who had just sworn his support. The rest of the gatherers unanimously urged him on, like Domine Perez, abandoning any conciliatory efforts and in truth delightedly anticipating the spectacle. For if Don Francisco de Quevedo, particularly in his cups, turned out to be a terrible swordsman, the intervention of Diego Alatriste as his partner at the ball left no shred of doubt regarding the results. Bets flew about the number of thrusts the strangers would pay for.

So. The captain gulped a swallow of wine and, already on his feet, looked over toward the strangers as if to apologize that things had gone so far. He motioned with his head for them to step outside, in order not to destroy