Saldana, however, drawing back to gain space, parried the thrust, then sprang forward. Alatriste had to move away from the wall—which had gone from being refuge to obstacle—and as he did so, momentarily lost sight of his opponent’s sword. He whirled around, lashing out violently, searching for the other blade in the darkness. Suddenly he saw it coming straight at him. He parried with a back-edged cut and retreated, cursing to himself. Although the darkness made them equal, leaving a great deal to luck, he was nevertheless the better swordsman, and it should simply be a matter of wearing Saldana out. The only problem with that strategy was that there was no knowing how long it would be before, despite Saldana’s intention to act alone, a patrol of catchpoles heard the sound of fighting and rushed to the aid of their leader.
“I wonder who your widow will hand the constable’s staff of office to next?”
He asked this as he was taking two steps back to recover his advantage and his breath. He knew that Saldana was as placid as an ox in all matters but those concerning his wife. Then passion blinded him. Any jokes about how she had got him the post in exchange for favors granted to third parties—as malicious tongues would have it—quickened his pulse and clouded his reason. “With any luck,” thought Alatriste, “this will help me resolve the matter quickly.” He adjusted his grip, parried a thrust, withdrew a little to draw his opponent in, and, when their blades clashed again, he noticed that Saldana already seemed less confident. He decided to return to the attack.
“I imagine she’ll be inconsolable,” he said, striking again, every sense alert. “She’ll doubtless wear deepest mourning.”
Saldana did not reply, but he was breathing hard and muttered a curse when the furious barrage he had just unleashed slashed only thin air, sliding off the captain’s blade.
“Cuckold,” said Alatriste calmly, then waited.
Now he had him. He sensed him coming toward him in the dark, or rather he knew it from the gleam of steel from his sword, the sound of frantic footsteps, and the rancorous roar Saldana let out as he attacked blindly. Alatriste parried the blow, allowed Saldana to attempt a furious reverse cut, then, halfway through that maneuver —when he judged that the constable would still have his weight on the wrong foot—turned his wrist, and with a forward thrust, cleanly skewered his opponent’s chest.
He withdrew the blade and, while he was cleaning it on his cloak, stood looking down at Saldana’s body—a vague shape on the ground. Then he sheathed his sword and knelt beside the man who had been his friend. For some strange reason, he felt neither remorse nor sorrow, only a profound weariness and a desire to blaspheme loudly. He moved closer, listening. He could hear the other man’s weak, irregular breathing, as well as another far more worrying sound: a bubbling of blood and the whistle of air entering and leaving the wounded man’s lung. He was in a bad way, that foolish, stubborn man.
“Damn you,” Alatriste said and, tearing a clean piece of cloth from the sleeve of his doublet, he felt for the wound in Saldana’s chest. It was about two fingers wide. He stuffed as much as he could of the handkerchief into the wound to staunch the bleeding. Then he rolled Saldana onto his side and, ignoring his groans, felt his back; he found no exit wound, however, nor any blood other than that flowing from his chest.
“Can you hear me, Martin?”
Martin replied in a feeble voice that he could.
“Try not to cough or to move.”
He lifted Saldana’s head and placed beneath it the wounded man’s own cloak, folded up by way of a pillow, to prevent the blood rising up from his lungs to his throat and choking him. “How am I?” he heard Martin say. The last word was drowned in a thick, liquid cough.
“Not too good. If you cough, you’ll bleed to death.”
Saldana nodded weakly and lay still, his face in shadow, his pierced lung making an ominous noise each time he breathed. He nodded again a moment later, when Alatriste glanced impatiently from side to side and announced that he had to go.
“I’ll see if I can find someone to help you,” he said. “Do you want a priest as well?”
“Don’t talk such . . . nonsense.”
Alatriste stood up.
“You might pull through.”
“I might.”
The captain moved off, but heard the wounded man calling him. He went back and knelt down again.
“What is it, Martin?”
“You didn’t mean . . . what you said . . . did you?”
Alatriste found it hard to open his mouth to speak. His lips felt dry, as if stuck together, and when he spoke, his lips hurt him, as if the skin on them were tearing.
“No, of course I didn’t.”
“Bastard.”
“You know me. I took the easy path.”
Saldana was gripping his arm now, as if all the strength of his battered body were concentrated in his fingers.
“You just wanted to make me angry, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“It was just . . . just a trick.”
“Of course. A trick.”
“Swear that it was.”
“I swear.”
Saldana’s wounded chest was racked by a painful cough, or perhaps laughter.
“I knew it . . . you bastard . . . I knew it.”
Alatriste stood up and wrapped his own cloak around him. Now that his blood had cooled and after the physical exertion of the fight, he was conscious of the chill night air, or perhaps it wasn’t just the night air.
“Good luck, Martin.”
“The same to you. . . Captain . . . Alatriste.”
Dogs were barking in the distance, along the San Isidro road. The rest of the nighttime landscape lay in silence, and not even a breath of wind stirred the leaves on the trees. Diego Alatriste crossed the last stretch of the Segovia bridge and stopped for a moment by the washerwomen’s sheds. The waters of the Manzanares, swollen by the recent rains, lapped against the shore. Madrid was just a dark shape behind him. On the heights above the river, the dark outline of its belfries and the tower of the Alcazar Real stood silhouetted between sky and earth, and everywhere else was utter blackness apart from a few stars above and a few faint lights below, behind the city walls.
Having checked that all was well, he set off toward the Ermita del Angel just as the damp was starting to penetrate his cloak. He encountered no further problems, although, making sure to keep his face covered, he did first call at a house near the Rastro, hold out four doubloons, and ask them to find a surgeon to tend to a man lying wounded near the abattoir. He was very close to the hermitage now and determined to take no more risks. He therefore took out one of his pistols, cocked it, and pointed it at the shadow of the man waiting there. The horse neighed anxiously at the noise, and Bartolo Cagafuego’s voice asked: “Is that you, Captain?”
“It is,” he said.
With a sigh of relief, Cagafuego sheathed his sword. He was glad, he said, that everything had gone well, and that the captain had arrived safe and sound. He handed him the reins of the horse: it was a bay, he added, good- tempered and soft-mouthed, albeit with a slight tendency to pull to the right. Otherwise, he was fit for a marquis or a Chinese emperor or any other lofty personage.
“He can keep going for miles, this one. He’s got no scabs on his flanks and no spur marks, either. I’ve checked his shoes, and there’s not a nail missing. I had a look at the saddle, and the girth, too . . . I think you’ll find him very much to your likin’, sir.”
Alatriste was patting the horse’s neck: warm, firm, and strong. He felt the horse toss its head contentedly at
