“It’s too late to be drinking,” said a voice nearby, “or too early.”
Startled, I turned round. In my anxiety, I had failed to notice the man sitting on the stone bench beneath the chestnut tree. He had no hat on and was wrapped in his cloak, with his sword and a demijohn of wine beside him. I realized it was Rafael de Cozar.
“I’m looking for Senor de Quevedo.”
He shrugged and looked distractedly about him.
“He left with you. I don’t know where he is.”
His words were somewhat slurred. If he had been drinking all night, I thought, he must be as drunk as a lord.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Drinking and thinking.”
I went over to him and sat down beside him, pushing his sword out of the way. I must have looked the very picture of despair.
“In this cold?” I said. “It’s hardly the weather for sitting outside.”
“I carry my own heat inside me,” he said and gave a strange laugh. “It’s good, that, isn’t it? Heat inside and horns outside. How does that verse go?”
And, taking two more drafts from the demijohn, he recited mockingly:
I fidgeted uneasily on the bench, and not just because of the cold.
“I think you’ve had too much to drink.”
“And how much is ‘too much’?”
I didn’t know what to say, and so we sat for a while in silence. Cozar’s hair and face were spattered with drops of rain that glittered like frost in the light of the lamp. He was studying me hard.
“You seem to have your own problems,” he said at last.
When I did not reply, he offered me some wine.
“No,” I said glumly, “that isn’t the kind of help I need.”
He nodded gravely, almost philosophically, stroking his long side whiskers. Then he raised the demijohn, and the wine gurgled down his throat.
“Any news of your wife?”
He gave me a vague, sullen, sideways look, the demijohn still held high. Then he put it slowly down on the bench.
“My wife leads her own life,” he said, wiping his mustache with the back of his hand. “And that has its advantages and its disadvantages.”
He opened his mouth and raised one finger, ready to recite something else. But I was in no mood for more poetry.
“They’re going to use her against the king,” I said.
He was staring at me hard, mouth open and finger raised.
“I don’t understand.”
This sounded almost like a plea to be allowed to continue in that state of incomprehension. I, however, had had enough of him and his bottle of wine, of the cold and the pain in my back.
“There’s a plot against the king,” I finally said in exasperation. “That’s why I’m looking for don Francisco.”
He blinked. His eyes were no longer vague, there was a frightened look in them.
“And what has that got to do with Maria?”
I pulled a scornful face. I couldn’t help it.
“She’s the bait. The trap is set for dawn. The king is going hunting with only two men as escort. Someone wants to kill him.”
There was the sound of broken glass at our feet. The demijohn had just fallen to the ground, shattering inside its wicker covering.
“Od’s blood,” he murmured. “I thought I was the one who was drunk.”
“It’s the truth.”
Cozar was staring thoughtfully at the mess on the ground.
“Even if it is,” he said, “what do I care whether it’s the king or his knave?”
“As I said, they’re trying to implicate your wife—and Captain Alatriste.”
When he heard my master’s name, he gave a quiet, incredulous chuckle. I seized his hand and made him place it on my back.
“Touch it.”
I felt his fingers on the bandage and saw the look on his face change.
“You’re bleeding!”
“Of course I’m bleeding. Less than three hours ago, someone stuck a knife in me.”
He jumped to his feet as if he’d felt a snake brush past him. I stayed where I was, watching him pace up and down, taking short strides.
“Come the Day of Judgment,” he said as if to himself, “all will be revealed.”
Then he stopped. The gusts of rain-filled wind were growing stronger, snatching at his cloak.
“They want to kill young Philip, you say?”
I nodded.
“To kill a king . . .” he went on, getting used to the idea now. “It has its comic side, you know. Yes, it’s like a scene from a comedy.”
“A tragicomedy,” I said.
“That, my boy, depends on your point of view.”
Suddenly my brain woke up.
“Have you still got your carriage?”
He seemed confused. He stood, looking at me, swaying slightly.
“Of course I have,” he said at last. “It’s in the square. The driver’s asleep inside; that’s what I pay him for. Mind you, he’s had his fair share of wine too. I had them take him over a few bottles.”
“Your wife has gone to La Fresneda.”
His confusion changed to distrust.
“So?” he asked warily.
“That’s almost a league away, and I can’t make it on foot. In a carriage, I could be there in an instant.”
“To do what?”
“To save the king’s life and possibly hers as well.”
He started laughing mirthlessly, but stopped almost at once. Then he stood thoughtfully shaking his head. Finally, he wrapped his cloak about him and intoned theatrically:
Before offense has even had its say.
“My wife can take care of herself,” he said, grave-faced. “You should know that.”
And with the same grave expression, he struck a fencing pose, albeit without his sword, which still lay on the bench beside me. En garde, attack, and parry. “What a strange man this Cozar fellow is,” I thought. Then he
