Arturo Perez-Reverte: The Cavalier in the Yellow Doublet

We found don Francisco de Quevedo polishing off a pasty as he sat outside a cheap restaurant called El León, which was next to the tobacconist’s, where Calle Cantarranas and the mentidero meet. He called for another pitcher of Valdeiglesias, two mugs, and two more pasties, while we drew up a couple of stools and joined him at his table. He was, as usual, dressed entirely in black, apart from the red cross of Santiago embroidered on his tunic; his neatly folded cloak lay on the bench beside him, along with his sword. He had come from an early appointment at the palace, where he was trying to resolve the seemingly interminable wrangle over who owned the fiefdom of Torre de Juan Abad, and was taking the edge off his appetite before returning home to correct the new edition of his book, God’s Politics, Christ’s Government , on which he was engaged at the time in an effort to stave off criticism from the Inquisition. Our presence, he said, suited him perfectly, as a way of keeping away undesirables; for now that his star was on the rise at court—he had, as I mentioned earlier, formed part of the royal entourage on the recent journey to Aragon and Catalonia—he was constantly being pestered by people hoping for some kind of favor.

“What’s more,” he said, “I’ve been asked to write a play to be performed at El Escorial at the end of the month. His Catholic Majesty will be there on a hunting trip and requires some form of entertainment.”

“Plays are not exactly your specialty,” remarked Alatriste.

“Hell’s teeth, if even poor old Cervantes could have a go at playwrighting, I reckon I can, too. Besides, it was the count-duke himself who asked me. So from now on, you may consider plays to be my specialty.”

“And is he actually going to pay you, or will he, as usual, set it against future favors?”

Quevedo gave a wry laugh.

“As to the future, I have no idea,” he said with a stoical sigh. “Yesterday is gone, the morrow has not yet come . . . But for the present, it’s six hundred reales , or will be. At least that’s what Olivares has promised me. As the poet says:

Ah, see what I have stooped to,

Obliged by his high station,

I to my painful duty,

While he cries inflation.

“We’ll see,” he went on. “The count-duke wants a play full of intrigue, which, as you know, is the kind of play the king likes best. And so, I’ll lock up Aristotle and Horace, Seneca and even Terence, and then, as Lope says, I’ll write a few hundred lines in the vulgar tongue, just foolish enough to please him.”

“Have you thought of a plot yet?”

“Of course. Love affairs, secret meetings, misunderstandings, sword fights . . . the usual thing. I’ll call it The Sword and the Dagger .” Quevedo gave the captain a seemingly casual glance over his mug of wine. “And they want Cózar to put it on.”

At that moment, there was a scuffle on the corner of Calle Francos. People rushed over to see what was happening, and we, too, looked in that direction. Afterward, various people walked past us, commenting on the incident: a lackey of the Marquis de las Navas had apparently knifed a coachman because he had declined to give way to him. The murderer had taken refuge in the church of San Sebastián, and the coachman, on the point of death, had been carried into a nearby house.

“As for the coachman,” declared Quevedo, “he deserved to die for belonging to such a wretched profession.”

Then he looked again at my master and returned to the matter in hand.

“Yes, Cózar,” he said.

The captain sat impassively, watching the ebb and flow of people on the mentidero . He said nothing. The sun accentuated the greenish light in his eyes.

“They say,” added Quevedo after a pause, “that our ardent monarch is laying siege to La Castro. Would you know anything about that?”

“Why would I?” asked Alatriste, chewing on a piece of pasty.

Don Francisco drank down his wine and said nothing more. The friendship they professed for each other excluded both giving advice and interfering in each other’s affairs. A long silence ensued. The captain was still turned toward the street, his face expressionless; and I, after exchanging a worried look with the poet, did the same. Idlers stood around in groups, chatting or else strolling about and ogling the women as if trying to divine what delights their cloaks might conceal. At the entrance to his shop, the cobbler Taburca, still wearing his leather apron and holding a hammer, was holding forth to his stalwarts on the merits, or otherwise, of the previous day’s play. A woman selling lemons passed by, her basket over her arm (“Fresh and tart as you like,” was her cry), and became the object of lewd compliments from two students in cap and gown who were munching lupine seeds as they walked along, bundles of verses stuffed in their pockets, both clearly on the lookout for someone with whom they could exchange some banter. Then I noticed a dark, scrawny individual, with the bearded face of a Turk; he was standing in a nearby doorway, watching us as he cleaned the dirt from under his fingernails with a knife. He had no cloak on, but he carried a dagger, a long sword in a baldric, and wore a much-darned, tow-stuffed doublet, the floppy, broad-brimmed hat of a ruffian, and a large gold earring dangling from one earlobe. I was about to study him more carefully when someone came up behind me, casting a shadow over the table. Greetings were exchanged, and don Francisco rose to his feet.

“I don’t know if you two have met before. Diego Alatriste, this is Pedro Calderón de la Barca.”

The captain and I both stood up to greet the new arrival, whom I had seen occasionally at the Corral de la Cruz. I immediately recognized the downy mustache and the pleasant, slender face. He wasn’t grimy with sweat and soot this time, nor was he wearing a buffcoat; he had on elegant city clothes, a fine cape and a hat with an embroidered hatband, and the sword he wore at his belt was clearly not that of a soldier. Nevertheless, he wore the same smile as he had at the sacking of Oudkerk.

“The boy’s name,” added Quevedo, “is Íñigo Balboa.”

Pedro Calderón looked at me for a while, as if trying to place me.

“A comrade from Flanders, I believe,” he said at last. “Isn’t that right?”

His smile grew broader, and he placed a friendly hand on my shoulder. I felt like the luckiest young man in the world and savored the astonished look on the faces of Quevedo and my master. Calderón was claimed by some as the heir to Tirso and to Lope, and his star was beginning to shine brightly in the theaters and at the palace.

His play The Mock Astrologer had been performed with great success the previous year, and he was, at the time, putting the finishing touches to The Siege at Breda . No wonder, then, that don Francisco and my master were so astonished that this young playwright should remember a humble soldier’s page who, two years before, had helped him save a library from the flames in a Flemish town hall. Calderón sat down with us, and for a while there was much pleasant conversation and more wine, which the new arrival accompanied with no more than a bowl of olives, for he did not, he said, have much appetite. Finally, we all got up and took a turn about the mentidero . An acquaintance, who had been reading something out loud to a group of guffawing idlers, came over to us with a few of his fellows in tow. He was holding a piece of manuscript paper.

“They say this was penned by you, Señor de Quevedo.”

Quevedo cast a disdainful eye over the writing, enjoying the expectant hush. Then he smoothed his mustache and read out loud: