Captain Alatriste

'Oh absolutely, Your Eminence.' Alquezar's voice was trembling with rage.

'It would be very painful for me.'

'I understand.'

''Extremely painful. Almost a personal affront.'

Alquezar's contorted face suggested that bile was shooting through his system by the pint. The frightening grimace that distorted his mouth was intended to be a smile.

'Of c-course,' he stammered.

The minister raised a finger, as if he had just recalled something, shuffled through the papers on the table, plucked out one of the documents, and handed it to the royal secretary.

'Perhaps it would add to your peace of mind if you yourself expedited this matter. This paper is signed by Don Ambrosio de Spinola personally, and requests that Don Diego Alatriste be paid four escudos for services in Flanders. That will, for a time, save him from having to draw his sword to earn a living. Do I make myself clear?'

Alquezar held the paper with the tips of his fingers, as if it were coated in poison. He looked toward the captain, wild-eyed, as though about to suffer a stroke. His teeth gritted with anger and spite.

'As clear as water, Your Eminence.'

'Then you may return to your duties.'

And without looking up from his papers, the most powerful man in Europe dismissed the secretary to the king with a wave of the hand.

When they were alone, Olivares looked up and held Captain Alatriste's eyes for a long moment. 'I am not going to offer an explanation, nor do I have any reason to do so,' he said gruffly.

'I have not asked an explanation of Your Excellency.'

'Had you done so, you would be dead by now. Or on your way to being so.'

Then silence. The king's favorite had risen to his feet and was walking toward the window, where he could see clouds threatening rain. He seemed to be concentrating on the guards in the courtyard. Hands crossed behind his back, standing against the light, he looked even more dark and forbidding.

'Whatever else,' he said without turning, 'you can thank God that you are still alive.'

'It is true that it surprises me,' Alatriste replied. 'Especially after all I have just heard.'

'Supposing that in fact you heard something.'

'Supposing.'

Still without turning, Olivares shrugged his powerful shoulders. 'You are alive simply because you do not deserve to die. At least not for the matter at hand. And also because there are those who have your interests at heart.'

'I am grateful to them, Excellency.'

'Do not be.' The favorite moved away from the window, and his footsteps echoed on the parquet floor. 'There is a third reason. There are those for whom your being alive is the gravest blow I can impose at this moment.' He took a few more steps, nodding, pleased. 'People who are useful to me because of their venality and ambition. But at times that same venality and ambition causes them to fall into the temptation of acting in their own behalf, or that of someone other than myself. What can one do? With upright men, one may win battles, perhaps, but not govern kingdoms. At least not this one.'

He stood pensively regarding the portrait of the great Philip the Second above the fireplace; and after a very long pause he sighed deeply, sincerely. Then he seemed to remember the captain, and whirled toward him.

'As for any favor I may have done you,' he said, 'do not crow. Someone has just left this room who will never forgive you. Alquezar is one of those rare astute and complex Aragonese of the school of his predecessor, Antonio Perez. His one known weakness is a niece of his, still a girl, a menina in the palace. Guard yourself against him as you would against the plague. And remember that if for a while my orders can keep him in line, I have no power at all over Fray Emilio Bocanegra. Were I in Captain Alatriste's place, I would quickly heal my wound and return to Flanders as soon as possible. Your former general, Don Ambrosio de Spinola, is set to win more battles for us. It would be very considerate if you got yourself killed there, and not here.'

Suddenly, Olivares seemed tired. He looked at the table strewn with papers as though in them he saw his condemnation, a long and fatiguing sentence. Slowly he sat down and faced them, but before he bade the captain farewell, he opened a secret door and took out a small ebony box.

'One last thing,' he said. 'There is an English traveler in Madrid who for some incomprehensible reason feels he is obligated to you. His path and yours, naturally, will in all probability never cross again. That is why he charged me to give this to you. Inside is a ring with his seal and a letter that—well, would you expect otherwise?—I have read. It is a kind of directive and bill of exchange that obliges any subject of His Britannic Majesty to lend aid to Captain Diego Alatriste should he ever have need. It is signed Charles, Prince of Wales.'

Alatriste opened the black wood box with the ivory-inlaid lid. The ring was gold, and was engraved with the three plumes of the English heir. The letter was a small sheet folded four times, bearing the same seal as the ring, and written in English. When Alatriste looked up he saw that the favorite was watching him, and that between his ferocious beard and mustache gleamed a melancholy smile.

'What I would not give,' said Olivares, 'to have a letter like that.'

EPILOGUE

The sky above the Alcazar threatened rain, and the heavy clouds blowing from the west seemed to rip apart on the pointed spire of the Torre Dorada. Sitting on a stone pillar on the royal esplanade, I covered my shoulders with the captain's old herreruelo, the short cape that served me for warmth, and continued to wait, never taking my eyes off the gates of the palace from which the sentinels had already chased me three times.