Captain Alatriste

'And also,' Saldana added, seeming to follow the thread of the captain's thoughts, 'this job will put you in contact with important people. Good for the future.'

'My future,' the captain echoed, absorbed in his thoughts.

II. THE MASKED MEN

The street was dark and there was not a soul to be seen. Swathed in an old cloak that Don Francisco de Quevedo had lent him, Diego Alatriste stopped beside an adobe wall and took a cautious look around. A lamppost, Saldana had said. In fact, a small lamp stood on a pole in the hollow of a postern gate; beyond it, through the branches of the trees, could be seen the dark roof tiles of a house.

It was the winding-down hour, near midnight, when the neighbors call out a warning, then empty their chamber pots out the windows, or hired cutthroats stalk their victims through the unlighted streets. But here there were no neighbors, nor did there seem ever to have been any; everything lay in silence. As for possible thieves and assassins, Diego Alatriste was prepared. At a very early age he had learned a basic principle of life and survival: If you are

stout of heart, you can be as dangerous as anyone who crosses your path. Or more.

As for the appointment that night, the instructions said to take the first street to the right after the old Santa Barbara gate, and walk on until coming to a brick wall and a light. So far, everything was going well. The captain stood quietly for a moment to look the place over, careful not to look directly at the lamp on the pole, so that it would not blind him and keep him from seeing into the darkest corners. Finally, after running his hands over the buffalo-hide buffcoat he had put on beneath his doublet in case of an untimely encounter with a knife, he pulled his hat lower and slowly walked toward the gate.

I had watched him dress with great care an hour earlier in our rooms.

'I will be late, Inigo. Do not wait up.'

We had dined on soup, with a few crumbs of bread, a small measure of wine, and two boiled eggs. Later, after washing his face and hands in a basin as I mended some ancient hose by the light of a tallow lamp, Diego Alatriste prepared to go out, taking all the necessary safeguards. It was not that he suspected a trick on the part of Martin Saldana, but high constables themselves may be the victims of deceit... or be bribed. Including constables who are old friends and comrades. And had that been the case, Alatriste would not have been too resentful. In that day, anything within the ambit of the young, pleasant, womanizing, pious, and lethal-for-poor-all-the-Spains Philip the Fourth could be bought; even consciences. Not that things have changed that much since then.

In any case, the captain took every precaution on his way to the rendezvous. He tucked the vizcaina that had served him so well in the town prison into the back of his belt, and I saw him slip his short slaughterer's knife into his boot. As he made these preparations, I sneaked glances at his grave, absorbed face. The light from the tallow lamp deepened the hollow of his cheeks and accentuated the fierce line of his mustache. He did not seem very proud of himself. For a moment, as he looked about for his sword, his eyes met mine, and then instantly he looked away, his eyes avoiding mine, as if fearful that I would read something in them he did not want to reveal. But only for an instant, and then he looked straight at me again, with a quick, open smile.

'A man has to earn his bread, lad.'

That was all he said. He buckled on the belt with the sword—he always refused, except in war, to sling it over his shoulder, as the common swaggering, strutting good-for-nothings did—testing to be sure that he could easily draw it from the scabbard, and donned the cloak he had borrowed from Don Francisco that same afternoon. The cape, aside from the fact that we were in March and it was too cold at night to be without one, had another use: in that dangerous Madrid of narrow, badly lighted streets, the garment was very practical in a sword fight. Folded across the chest, or rolled around the left arm, it made a handy buckler for protecting oneself, and thrown over the adversary's sword, it hampered him long enough to get in a good blow. In the end, fighting a clean fight when risking one's hide might have contributed to the salvation of the soul in the life eternal, but insofar as life on this earth was concerned, it was doubtlessly the shortest path to giving up the ghost, and looking like a fool with a handspan of steel in one's liver. And Diego Alatriste was in no damned hurry to go.

The lamp shed an oily light on the postern gate. The captain knocked four times, as Saldana had told him to do. That done, he freed the hilt of his sword and kept his left hand behind him, near the vizcaina. From the other side of the door he could hear footsteps. The door opened silently, and the silhouette of a servant filled the opening.

'Your name?'

'Alatriste.'

Without a word, the retainer started off, preceding the captain along a path that wound through the trees of a garden. The building the captain was led to seemed abandoned. Although he did not know the part of Madrid near the Hortaleza road well, he fitted some pieces together and thought he could recall the walls and roof of a decrepit old house he had once glimpsed as he passed by.

'Wait here, Your Mercy, until they call for you.'

Alatriste and his guide had just entered a small room with bare walls and no furniture, where the flickering light from a candelabrum set on the floor played over the old paintings on the wall. In one corner of the room stood a man muffled in a black cape; a wide-brimmed hat of the same color covered his head. He had not moved when the captain entered, and when the servant—who in the candlelight was revealed to be of middle age, and wearing livery that the captain could not identify—retired, leaving the two of them alone, he still stood motionless, like a dark sculpture, observing Alatriste. The only signs of life visible between the cape and the hat were dark, gleaming eyes, which the candlelight picked out among the shadows, lending their owner a menacing and ghostly air. With one experienced glance, Diego Alatriste noted the leather boots and the sword tip that slightly lifted the back of the man's cape. His aplomb was that of a professional swordsman, or a soldier.

Neither spoke; they merely stood there, still and silent, on either side of the candelabrum lighting them from below, studying each other to ascertain whether they found themselves in the company of a comrade or an adversary. Although in Diego Alatriste's profession, it could be both at the same time.

'I want no deaths,' said the tall masked man.

He was heavy-bodied, broad in the shoulders, and he was also the only one who had not removed his hat, which had no plume, band, or adornment. Visible beneath the mask covering his face was the tip of a thick black beard. He was dressed in dark, fine-quality clothing, with cuffs and collar of Flemish lace, and beneath the cloak draped across his shoulders glinted a gold chain and the gilded pommel of a sword. He spoke as one accustomed to commanding and being immediately obeyed, and that was confirmed in the deference shown him by his masked