Purity of Blood

The poet paused, believing that the captain was going to add something to his oath, but he had nothing more to offer. He was still facing the alley, motionless behind the shelter of his cape and the hat that hid his features.

“Apparently,” don Francisco continued, “they have not forgiven you that business of the Prince of Wales and Buckingham. And now they find a golden opportunity: Padre Coroado, the convent of the king’s favorite, the family of conversos, and you yourself. What a pretty package that would make for an auto-da-fé.”

Don Francisco was interrupted by one of the ruffians, who bumped into him as he leaned back to drink from a wineskin. He turned with a great clatter of the iron at his belt, and with a very churlish attitude.

“God’s bodkins! I fear you have discommoded me, compañero!”

The poet looked at him with contempt, and stepped back. With heavy irony he recited under his breath,

You, Bernardo among the Frenchand amid Spaniards, Roland. Marry!Your sword is as lethal as Galen,and your face an apothecary.

The swaggerer heard him, however, and made a great show of demanding redress.

“God’s bones!” he said. “None of this Galen, or Roland, or Bernardo. I have a perfectly good name, which is Antón Novillo de la Gamella! And I am a person of worth, with the necessary tools to slice off the ears of anyone who would crowd me!”

As he spoke, he fumbled conspicuously with his weapon, though he decided not to draw it until he was sure of his cards. About that time his companions stepped up beside him, also itching for a fight, planting their feet wide apart with great sword clankings and mustache twistings. They were the sort who so prided themselves on being cocks that to hear themselves crow they would confess to things they had never done. Among them they could have knifed a onearmed man in a breath, but that man was not don Francisco. Alatriste watched the poet pull his dagger from the back of his belt and gather his heavy cape to protect his torso. Alatriste was preparing to do the same—castanets were setting the rhythm for a lively dance—when one of the swaggerer’s comrades, a mountain of a man wearing a huntsman’s cap and a baldric a hand-width’s wide across his chest to support an enormous sword, said: “Two hundred slices off these señores, comrades. Here, men do not live to a ripe old age, but are picked green.”

He had more pips and pocks on his face than a music score, and he had the accent and look of the ruffians that hang around del Potro plaza in Córdoba—Valencian whore, Cordovan rogue, was the old saying—and he, too, was making a move toward lightening his scabbard, though he did not carry it through. He was waiting for yet one more colleague to join them, for even though they were four against two, he still did not seem to feel it was an even match.

Then, to everyone’s surprise, Diego Alatriste burst out laughing.

“Here, now, Cagafuego,” he said, with festive sarcasm. “Grant us some slack. Do not kill this caballero and me outright, only a little at a time. For old times’ sake.”

Stupefied, the hulking brute stood staring at Alatriste, abashed, trying in the black of night to recognize the speaker in the dark cloak. Finally, he scratched his brow beneath the cap he wore pulled down to eyebrows so thick they seemed one straight line.

“By our Blessed Virgin,” he murmured finally. “If it’s not Captain Alatriste.”

“The same,” he replied. “The last time we met it was in the shadow of a cell.”

The reference to that “last time” was accurate. The captain had been sent to the city prison for debts, where as his first bit of business he had held a slaughterer’s knife to the throat of this Cagafuego named Bartolo, who passed as the toughest among the prisoners. That had confirmed Diego Alatriste’s reputation as a man with something substantial between his legs, along with the respect of Cagafuego and the other prisoners. A respect he turned to loyalty when he shared with them the stews and bottles of wine Caridad la Lebrijana and his friends sent to comfort his stay in his inhospitable lodgings. Even after he was free, Alatriste had continued to offer a helping hand from time to time.

“You were clubbing sardines for a while, were you not, Señor Cagafuego? At least, if I remember correctly, that is where you were heading.”

The attitude of Cagafuego’s companions had changed—including Antón Novillo de la Gamella’s—and now they were listening with professional curiosity and a certain consideration, as if the deference their friend in crime showed this cloaked man was a better recommendation than a papal brief. As for Cagafuego, he seemed pleased that Alatriste was so well informed about his recent honors.