The Cavalier in the Yellow Doublet

Soon after the pass, where the broom and the rocks gave way to oak woods and the path grew flatter and straighter, the horse began to hobble. Diego Alatriste dismounted and looked at the creature’s hooves, only to find that one of its left shoes had lost two nails and was coming loose. Cagafuego had not attached to the saddle a bag containing the requisite tools and so he had to fix the shoe as best he could, hammering the nails back in with a large stone. He had no idea how long this repair would last, but the next staging post was less than a league away. He remounted and, doing his best not to ride the horse too hard, and bending over every now and then to check the loose shoe, he continued on his way. He rode slowly for nearly an hour until—in the distance, to the right and with the still snowy peaks of the Guadarrama in the background—he could make out the granite tower and the roofs of the dozen or so houses that made up the little village of Galapagar. The road did not go into the village, but continued on, and when he reached the crossroads, Alatriste dismounted outside the coaching inn. He entrusted the horse to the farrier, took a quick look at the other horses resting in the stable and noticed in passing that two mounts were tethered outside, ready and saddled up. Then he went and sat down on the vine-covered porch of the village inn. Half a dozen mule drivers were playing cards near the wall; a man dressed in country fashion and with a sword at his belt was standing nearby, watching the game; and a cleric accompanied by a servant and two mules laden down with various bundles and trunks, was seated at another table, eating pigs’ trotters and brushing away the flies from his plate. The captain greeted the cleric, lightly touching the brim of his hat.

“The peace of God be with you,” said the cleric, his mouth full.

A serving wench brought Alatriste some wine, and he drank thirstily, stretched out his legs, and put his sword down on one side while he watched the farrier work. Then he estimated the height of the sun and made his calculations. It was a further two leagues, more or less, to El Escorial; this meant that, with the horse newly shod and making good speed, and as long as the intervening streams—the Charcon and the Ladron—were not running too high and could be forded on the road itself, he would be at the palace by midafternoon. Pleased with this thought, he finished off the wine, put a coin down on the table, buckled on his sword, and went over to the farrier, who was finishing his task.

“Oh, forgive me, sir.”

Alatriste had not noticed the man coming out of the inn and almost bumped into him. He was a burly, bearded fellow, dressed country style, in gaiters and a huntsman’s hat, like the man watching the muleteers’ card game. Alatriste did not know him. He judged him to be a poacher or a gamekeeper, for he wore a short sword in a leather baldric and a hunting knife. The stranger accepted his apology with a curt nod of the head, but looked at him long and hard, and while the captain was walking over to the stable, he was aware that the man was still watching him. This, he thought, was odd, and it made him feel uneasy. As he was paying the farrier amid the buzz of horseflies, he glanced back out of the corner of his eye. The man was still watching him from the porch. Alatriste felt even more worried when, as he put his foot in the stirrup and hoisted himself up onto the horse, he saw the man exchange a look with the other fellow standing next to the muleteers. For some reason he aroused the man’s curiosity, and he could think of no reason that augured well.

Thus, cautiously looking over his shoulder to see if they were following him, he dug his spurs into his horse’s flanks and set off for El Escorial.

“There isn’t a stage in the world,” said don Francisco de Quevedo, “to compare with this.”

They were sitting in a niche in the wall beneath the granite colonnade of the Casa de la Compana, watching the rehearsals for The Sword and the Dagger in the magnificent El Escorial gardens. These were at least a hundred feet wide and planted with lush clumps of flowers as tall as a man and with topiary hedges and mazes, all of which provided a setting for the dozen small fountains in which the waters sang and from which the birds drank. Protected from the north wind by the palace-monastery, whose walls were covered with trellises thick with jasmine and musk roses, the gardens formed a pleasant terrace along the south-facing facade of the building, a broad mirador that gave onto a large pond full of ducks and swans. Not far off, to the south and west, one could see the imposing mountains in tones of blue, gray, and green, and in the distance, to the east, the vast fields and royal forests that extended all the way to Madrid.

“In matters of the heart

When you very least suspect it,

From a bow flies a dart,

With your honor as its target.”

We heard the voice of Maria de Castro rehearsing the opening lines of the second act. Hers was, without a doubt, the sweetest voice in Spain, skillfully trained by her husband, who, in that respect, although not in others, always ruled with a firm hand. The sound of her voice was interrupted occasionally by hammering from the scene- shifters, and Cozar, who was using don Francisco’s script as a prompt, would call for silence as majestically as an archbishop from Liege or a grand duke from Moscow, characters whose mannerisms he had honed on the stage. The play was to be performed there, in the open air. To this end, a stage had been set up as well as a large awning to protect the royal personages and the main guests from sun or rain. It was said that the count-duke was spending ten thousand escudos on feting the king and queen and their guests with both play and party.

This is truly not a lie:

When in love, we who die

Live, and in living,

We as yet are dying.

These, by the way, were not lines of which don Francisco was particularly proud, but as he himself remarked to me in private, they were worth exactly what he was being paid for them. Besides, such plays on words, verbal sleights of hand, and paradoxes were very much to the taste of the public who attended the theater, from the king himself down to the most insignificant rogue, including the innkeeper Tabarca’s mosqueteros. And so, in the opinion of the poet—who was a great admirer of Lope de Vega, but who liked to put everyone in his proper place—if the Phoenix could sometimes allow himself such knowing jokes to round out an act or draw applause in a particular scene, he saw no reason why he should not do the same. What mattered, he said, was not that a man of his talent could produce such lines as easily as a Moor could make fritters, but that they amused the king, the queen, and their guests, and, more especially, the count-duke, who held the purse strings.

“The captain should be here soon,” Quevedo said suddenly.

I turned to look at him, grateful that he should still be thinking of my master. I found, however, that he was watching Maria de Castro as impassively as if he had not spoken a word, and indeed he said nothing more. For my part, I could not stop thinking about Captain Alatriste either, still less after my interview, given most reluctantly, with the king’s favorite. I was hoping that once the captain arrived and met with Guadalmedina everything would be resolved and our lives would return to normal. As for his relationship with La Castro—she was asking now for some cooling water to drink, and her husband solicitously had some brought for her—I had no doubt that he would cease to play the gallant to that very dangerous leading lady. As for the lovely actress herself, I was surprised how at ease she seemed to be in El Escorial. I understood then how an arrogant, self-confident woman, raised to such heights, might grow quite puffed up with vanity when she enjoyed the favor of a king or some other powerful man. Needless to say, the actress and the queen never met; the actresses only entered the palace garden for rehearsals and none were actually lodging on the palace grounds. It was also said that the king had already made the occasional night visit to La Castro, this time unmolested by anyone, still less by the husband, for it was well known that Cozar slept very soundly indeed and could snore like a saint even with his eyes wide open. All of this was