Purity of Blood

“No one knows,” said the count, blowing smoke through his nostrils. “Perhaps Alquézar works for someone other than himself. What we do know is that he manages gold like a magician, and he is corrupting everything he touches. Including Olivares, who could have sent him packing back to Huesca months ago, but who now treats him rather gingerly. They say that the royal secretary aspires to be protonotary of Aragon, even minister of foreign relations. If he achieves that, he will be untouchable.”

Diego Alatriste appeared not to be listening. He set his whetstone on the straw mattress and ran one finger along the edge of the blade. Then, very slowly, he reached for the sheath and put the vizcaína back in it. Only then did he look at Guadalmedina.

“Is there no way to help Íñigo?”

Through blowing smoke, the captain could see the count’s friendly but pained smile.

“I fear not. You know as well as I that to fall into the hands of the Inquisition is to be caught in an efficient and implacable machine.” He frowned, pensively stroking his goatee. “The thing that amazes me is that they have not arrested you.”

“I am in hiding.”

“That is not what I mean. They have ways of finding out what they want to know…. Equally strange is that they have not come to your house. That means they do not as yet have evidence against you.”

“They could care less about evidence,” said don Francisco, taking possession of the jug of muscatel. “They fabricate it or they buy it. Money, after all,” and between sips, he recited,

“Can buy honor, and take it away,break any law, destroy any prey.”

Guadalmedina, who was lifting his pipe to his mouth, stopped in midair.

“No, with your pardon, Señor de Quevedo. The Holy Office is very punctilious, according to the circumstance. If there is no proof, no matter how fervently Bocanegra swears that the captain is in it up to his neck, the Council will not approve any action against him. And if they have nothing official, it is because the boy has not talked.”

“They always talk.” The poet took a long swallow, and then another. “And besides, he is still a boy.”

“Well, by my faith, I say he has not spoken, however young he may be. That is what I understand from the persons with whom I have consulted all day. I assure you, Alatriste, that with the gold I squandered today in your service, we could have peacefully settled that matter of the Kerkennahs. There are things that can be bought with gold.”

And Álvaro Luis Gonzaga de la Marca y Álvarez de Sidonia, Conde de Guadalmedina, grandee of Spain, confidant of our lord and king, admired of all the ladies at court and envied by no few caballeros of the finest breeding, gave the hired sword a look of sincere friendship.

“Did you bring what I asked of you?” asked Alatriste.

The count’s smile widened. “I did.” He set his pipe aside, and pulled from his waistcoat a small packet, which he handed to the captain. “Here you have it.”

Someone less knowledgeable than don Francisco de Quevedo would have been surprised at the familiarity between the aristocrat and the veteran. It was widely known that the count had more than once counted on Diego Alatriste’s blade to resolve matters that required a steady hand and few scruples, such as the death of the troublesome Marqués de Soto, and another, similar, problem. But that did not mean that the one who pays owes anything to the one he has hired, much less that a grandee of Spain, who had considerable influence at court, would meddle in the affairs of the Inquisition on behalf of a don Nobody whose sword he could have bought by merely rattling his purse. But as Señor de Quevedo knew very well, there was more between Diego Alatriste and Álvaro de la Marca than their dark business dealings.

Nearly ten years before, Guadalmedina had been a naive young blood serving on the galleys of the viceroys of Naples and Sicily. He had found himself in difficulty on that disastrous day in the Kerkennah Islands when Moors attacked the troops of the Catholic king as they waded through the shallow bay. The Duque de Nocera, with whom don Álvaro was serving, had suffered five terrible wounds when they were beset on every side by the Arabs’ curved-blade saifs, pikes, and harquebuses. The Spanish were being killed man by man; they were no longer fighting for the king but in defense of their own lives, killing in order not to die, in a horrifying retreat through water up to their waists. It had become, as Guadalmedina told it, a question of dining that night either in Constantinople or with Christ. A Moor stood in his way, and he lost his sword as he ran him through, so the man behind him struck twice with his saif as de la Marca whirled around looking for his dagger in the water.