Purity of Blood

“My friends have made inquiries,” the poet reported after their first exchange of impressions. “It seems certain that don Vicente and his sons were being watched by the Inquisition. And it smells to me as if someone seized the occasion to kill several birds with one stone. Including you, Captain.”

Then in a low voice, turning away from anyone passing by, don Francisco brought Alatriste up-to-date on everything he had been able to find out. The Holy Office, persistent and patient, very well informed by its spies regarding the de la Cruz family’s intentions, had let them proceed, hoping to catch them in flagrante. The Inquisition’s intent had not been to defend Padre Coroado, just the opposite. Now that he was under the protection of the Conde de Olivares, with whom the Inquisition was waging an undeclared war, they hoped that the scandal would discredit both the convent and its protector. In the process, they would also seize a family of conversos; a burning at the stake never harmed the prestige of the Supreme Council. The problem was that they had been unable to snatch anyone alive. Don Vicente de la Cruz and his younger son, don Luis, had paid a high price, dying in the ambush. The older son, don Jerónimo, although badly wounded, had escaped and was in hiding.

“And what about us?” asked Alatriste.

Light glanced off the poet’s glasses as he shook his head. “No names have been revealed. It was so dark that no one recognized us. And anyone who was near enough to recognize us is in no condition to tell.”

“Nevertheless, they know that we were involved.”

“They may.” Don Francisco made a vague gesture. “But they have no legal proof. As for me, I am beginning once again to bask in the favor of the king and the king’s favorite, Olivares, and as long as I am not caught with my hands in the dough, it will be difficult to do anything to me.” He paused, preoccupied. “As for you, my friend, I do not know what to say. They hope to find something that will indicate your guilt. Or they may be quietly looking for you.”

Two ruffians and a prostitute walked by, arguing heatedly, and don Francisco and the captain moved out of their way, closer to the wall.

“And what has happened to Elvira de la Cruz?”

The poet sighed despondently. “Arrested. The poor girl will bear the worst of it. She is in the secret dungeons in Toledo, and I fear that there will be a burning.”

“And Íñigo?”

The pause stretched into silence. Alatriste’s voice had sounded cool, and void of emotion. He had left me for last. Don Francisco glanced around at the people chatting and strolling in the shadows of the alleyway. He turned to his friend.

“He, too, is in Toledo.” He fell silent, and shook his head with a gesture of impotence. “They caught him near the convent.”

Alatriste said nothing for a long while, watching the movement around him. From the nearby corner came the notes of a guitar.

“He is only a boy,” he said finally. “We must get him out of there.”

“Impossible. You should put your energies toward not joining him there. I imagine that they are counting on his testimony to incriminate us.”

“They would not dare mistreat him.”

Behind the heavy collar, don Francisco laughed his sour, mirthless laugh. “The Inquisition, Captain, dares all things.”

“Then we have to do something.”

He said it very coldly, obstinately, his eyes focused on the end of the passageway, where the guitar continued to play. Don Francisco looked in the same direction.

“I agree,” the poet put in. “But know not what.”

“You have friends at court.”

“I have marshaled them all. I have not forgotten that it was I who got you into this.”

The captain raised a listless hand, brushing away don Francisco’s guilt. It was reasonable that as a friend he expected the poet to do anything in his power to help; it was another matter to blame him for anything. Alatriste had collected his purse for the job, and I was, after all, his responsibility. He was silent for so long that the poet looked at him uneasily.

“Do not think of turning yourself in,” he murmured. “That would help no one, least of all yourself.”

Still Alatriste did not speak. Three or four of the refugees from justice had begun chatting nearby, with a lot of “ol’ frens,” “ol’ cumr’d,” “fine cab’lleros we”—things none of them had ever been in danger of being. They were tossing names around, fast and furious. Hellion, Devilspawn, Maniferro—a man with a hand of iron and famous in the world of Cervantes’s master criminal Monipodio. Then the captain did speak.

“Earlier,” he said in a low voice, “you said that the Inquisition wanted to get several birds with one stone. What more do you know of that?”

Don Francisco answered in the same low tone. “You. You were the fourth winged target, but they were only partly successful. The whole scheme was cooked up, it seems, by two close acquaintances of yours: Luis de Alquézar and Fray Emilio Bocanegra.”

“’Sblood!”