The Cavalier in the Yellow Doublet

“Captain!” I shouted.

I didn’t want him to run me through in the darkness, before he could recognize me. I saw him stop, sword raised, staring at me, and saw his opponent do the same. I pointed my blade at the latter, who, finding himself attacked from behind, drew aside, evidently confused, but still defending himself as best he could.

“For the love of God, Alatriste,” he said, “what are you doing getting the boy involved in all this?”

I froze when I heard that voice. I lowered my sword, staring at my master’s opponent, whose face I could now see in the moonlight.

“What are you doing here?” the captain asked me.

His voice sounded as sharp and metallic as his sword. I suddenly felt terribly hot, and beneath my doublet my sweat-drenched shirt stuck to my body. The night was spinning around and around inside and outside my head.

“I thought . . .” I stuttered.

“Just what did you think?”

I fell silent, embarrassed and incapable of saying another word. Guadalmedina was watching us in astonishment. He was clasping his sword under his right arm and painfully clutching the upper part of his left arm.

“You’re mad, Alatriste,” he said.

I saw the captain raise the hand holding the dagger, as if asking for time to think. From beneath the broad brim of his hat, his pale, steely eyes drilled into me.

“What are you doing here?” he asked again.

The tone in which he spoke was so murderous, I swear I felt afraid.

“I followed you,” I lied.

I swallowed hard. I imagined Angelica hidden in the arcade, watching me from a distance. Or perhaps she had left already. My pathetic thread of a voice grew stronger.

“I was afraid something bad might happen to you.”

“You’re mad, both of you,” commented Guadalmedina.

Nevertheless, he seemed relieved, as if my presence offered him an unexpected way out of this episode, an honorable solution, whereas before the only one had been for them to cut each other to pieces.

“It would,” he said, “be in everyone’s best interests to be reasonable.”

“And what do you mean by that?” asked the captain.

The count glanced over at the house, which was still silent and in darkness. Then he shrugged.

“Let’s leave things as they are for tonight.”

That “for tonight” spoke volumes. I realized, sadly, that, for Guadalmedina, the house in Calle de los Peligros and the reason for the dispute were of little importance now. He and Diego Alatriste had exchanged sword thrusts, and that brought with it certain obligations. It broke certain rules and implied certain duties. The fight was postponed for the moment, but not forgotten. Despite their long friendship, Alvaro de la Marca was who he was, and his opponent was a mere soldier who possessed only his sword and not even a patch of ground to call his grave. After what had happened, anyone else in the count’s position would have had the captain clapped in irons and thrown in a dungeon, or else consigned to the galleys, if, that is, he managed to resist the impulse to have him murdered. Alvaro de la Marca, however, was made of sterner stuff. Perhaps, like Captain Alatriste, he thought that once words or blades have been unsheathed it was impossible simply to return them to the scabbard. It could all be sorted out later on, calmly and in the appropriate place, where they would have only themselves to consider.

The captain was looking at me, and his eyes still shone in the darkness. Finally, and very slowly, as if mulling something over, he put away both sword and dagger. He exchanged a silent look with Guadalmedina, then placed one hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t do that again,” he said sullenly.

His iron fingers were gripping my shoulder so tightly they hurt. He brought his face close to mine and looked at me hard, his aquiline nose prominent above his mustache. He smelled as he always did, of leather and wine and metal. I tried to free myself, but he did not loosen his grip.

“Don’t ever follow me again,” he said. “Ever.”

And inside, I writhed in shame and remorse.

5. WINE FROM ESQUIVIAS

I felt even worse the following day as I watched Captain Alatriste where he sat at the door of the Tavern of the Turk. He was perched on a stool beside a table laid with a jug of wine, a plate of sausages, and a book—it was, I seem to remember, The Life of Squire Marcos de Obregon— which he had not opened all morning. He wore his doublet unfastened and his shirt open and was sitting with his back against the wall; his sea-green eyes, paler still in the morning light, were fixed on some indeterminate spot in Calle de Toledo. I was trying to keep my distance, for I still felt bitterly ashamed of having so disloyally lied to him, something that would never have happened had it not been for that woman, or girl, or whatever you wish to call her, who could so addle my brains that I no longer knew what I was doing. With my teacher Perez—to whom the captain continued to entrust my education—I was, appropriately enough, currently engaged on translating the passage from Homer in which Ulysses is tempted by the Sirens. In short, I spent the morning avoiding my master and running various errands: buying candles, flint, and tinder for Caridad la Lebrijana, some sweet almond oil from Tuerto Fadrique’s pharmacy, and visiting the nearby Jesuit college to take my teacher a basket of clean linen. Now, with nothing to do, I was loitering on the corner of Calle del Arcabuz and Calle de Toledo, watching the passing carriages and the carts carrying merchandise to the Plaza Mayor, the heavy-laden mules and the water-sellers’ donkeys tethered to the railings at windows—both mules and donkeys, of course, depositing their excrement on the roughly paved street that was already running with filthy water from the sewers. I occasionally glanced over at the captain, but found him always in the same pose—motionless and thoughtful. Twice I saw La Lebrijana—bare-armed and in her apron —peer out at him, then go back inside again without saying a word.

As you know, these were not happy times for her. The captain responded to her complaints with only monosyllables or silence, and if the good woman ever raised her voice to him, my master would simply take hat, cloak, and sword and go for a walk. Once, he returned from such a walk to find the trunk containing his few possessions at the foot of the stairs. He stood looking at it for a while, then went upstairs, closed the door behind him, and, after much talk, La Lebrijana finally stopped shouting. Shortly afterward, the captain, in his shirt, appeared on the gallery that gave onto the courtyard and told me to bring the trunk up to him. I did as he asked, and things appeared to return to normal, for from my room that night, I heard La Lebrijana moan like a bitch in heat. After a couple of days, though, her eyes were once again red and tear-filled, and the whole business started again and continued thus until the day I am describing now, the day after my master’s fight with Alvaro de la Marca in Calle de los Peligros. The captain and I both suspected that a storm was brewing, but neither of us could have imagined how seriously things were about to go wrong. Compared with what awaited us, the captain’s rows with La Lebrijana were like one of those frothy interludes penned by Quinones de Benavente.

A burly, broad-shouldered shadow in hat and cape loomed over the table just as Captain Alatriste was reaching for the jug of wine.

“Good morning, Diego.”

As usual, and despite the early hour, Martin Saldana, lieutenant of constables, was armed with sword and dagger. Both his profession and his own nature had taught him not to trust even the shadow he himself had just cast over the table of his old comrade from Flanders, and so he had about him, as well as sword, dagger, and poniard, a couple of Milan pistols, too. This panoply of arms was completed by a thick buffcoat and the staff of office