Arturo Perez-Reverte - Captain Alatriste

"There is much at stake," he added.

The captain was in complete agreement. "My head," he murmured. "For example."

If the Englishman captured the irony, he paid scant attention. Again he struck his thoughtful pose.

"My friend needs to rest a little. And the man who wounded him could be waiting for us farther down the lane." Again he made a point of studying the man before him, attempting to measure from his attitude how sincere or how deceitful he was. In the end, he raised his eyebrows, suggesting that neither he nor his companion had many choices.

"Do you, sir, know our final destination?" Alatriste met his gaze without blinking. "I may." "Do you know the House of Seven Chimneys?" "Perhaps."

"Will you take us there?" "No."

"Would you take a message for us?" "Not a chance."

This man must take me for an imbecile, he thought. That was exactly what he needed: Walk right into the wolf's mouth and alert the English ambassador and his servants. Curiosity killed the cat, he reminded himself as he glanced around uneasily. Now was the moment to be thinking of saving his skin, which more than one person was eager to perforate. Yes, it was time to look after himself, time to put an end to the conversation. But the Englishman stopped him.

"Do you know of any place nearby where we might find help? Or rest awhile?"

Alatriste was going to say no for the last time, before fading into the shadows, when an idea flooded his mind like sunlight bursting from the clouds. He himself had nowhere to hide, for the Italian and others sent by the masked men and Padre Bocanegra would come to look for him at his lodgings on Calle del Arcabuz, where at that hour I was sleeping like a dormouse. But no one would harm me; his gullet, on the other hand, would be slit before he had time to pick up his sword. This might be an opportunity to secure protection for the night and help for what lay ahead. At the same time he would be aiding the Englishmen, finding out more about them and about the men who were so eager to see them leave this earth.

The card up his sleeve, one Diego Alatriste tried not to play too often, was named Alvaro de la Marca, Conde de Guadalmedina. And his palatial home was only a hundred steps away.

"This is a fine fix you have got yourself into."

Alvaro Luis Gonzaga de la Marca y Alvarez de Sidonia, Conde de Guadalmedina, was handsome, elegant, and so rich that he could lose ten thousand ducats at cards in one night, or squander it on one of his lady friends, without lifting an eyebrow. At the time of the adventure of the two Englishmen, he must have been about thirty-three or thirty-four, in the prime of his life. Son of the now deceased Conde de Guadalmedina—Don Fernando Gonzaga de la Marca, hero of the Flemish campaigns in the time of the great Philip the Second and his heir Philip the Third—

Alvaro de la Marca had inherited from his progenitor the title of grandee of Spain, along with the right to wear his hat in the presence of the young monarch, the fourth Philip, whose friendship he enjoyed, and whom, it was said, he accompanied on nocturnal amorous escapades with the actresses and beauties of low estate favored by both king and count.

Bachelor, womanizer, courtier, sophisticate, a bit of a poet, a gallant, and a seducer, Guadalmedina had bought from the king the sinecure of Master of the Post upon the recent and scandalous death of the previous beneficiary, the Conde de Villamediana (a point of caution here: he himself murdered over a matter of skirts, or jealousy). In that corrupt Spain in which everything could be bought, from ecclesiastical dignity to the most lucrative state positions, the title and the income of Master of the Post swelled Guadalmedina's fortune and influence at court. In addition, as a youth he had gained prestige in his brief but brilliant military career, when at twenty-some years of age he had served on the staff of the Duque de Osuna, fighting against the Venetians and the Turks on Spanish galleys that sailed out of Naples. It was precisely from those days that his acquaintance with Diego Alatriste dated.

"A devilishly fine fix," Guadalmedina repeated.

The captain had no response. He was hatless and without his cape, standing in a small salon decorated with

Flemish tapestries, and beside him, on a table covered with green velvet, was a glass of liquor he had not tasted. Guadalmedina, dressed in an exquisite jacket and satin slippers, was frowning and pacing back and forth before the fire, thinking about what Alatriste had just told him. It was the true story of what had happened, step by step— with only one or two omissions—from the episode with the masked men to the denouement of the ambush in the alley. The count was one of the few men the captain trusted blindly, though, as he had decided when he led the two Englishmen to the count's dwelling, that was an honor for which there was not much competition.

"Do you know these men you intended to kill?"

"No. No, I do not." Alatriste chose his words with supreme care. "In principle, one Thomas Smith and his companion. At least that is what they tell me. Or told me."

"Who told you?"

"That is what I would like to know."

Alvaro de la Marca had stopped before him and was looking at him with a mixture of admiration and reproach. The captain merely nodded slightly, and he heard the aristocrat murmur, "All the saints above," before he again paced the length of the room.

At that moment, the count's servants, who had been quickly mobilized, were attending the Englishmen in the best room of the house. While Alatriste was waiting, he had heard the sounds of scurrying footsteps, opening and closing doors, servants at the gate, and neighing in the stables, where, through the mansion's leaded windows, he could see the glow of torches. The house seemed to be preparing for war. The count had written urgent messages in his office before joining Alatriste. Despite his host's sangfroid and his habitual good humor, the captain had seldom seen him so agitated.

"So . . . Thomas Smith," the count said quietly.

"That is what they said."

"Thomas Smith. Just that, nothing more."

"Correct."

Guadalmedina faced him again.

"Thomas Smith, my left pinky," he spit out impatiently. "The one in the gray suit is named George Villiers. You have heard the name?" Brusquely he swept up the glass Alatriste had not touched, and downed it in one gulp. "Better known throughout Europe by his English title: the Marquis of Buckingham."

A man with a less even keel than Diego Alatriste y Tenorio, former soldier in the regiments that fought in Flanders, would have looked desperately for a chair to sit down in. Or to be more exact, to drop into. But the captain stood square, meeting Guadalmedina's eyes as if this had nothing to do with him. Much later, however, over a jar of wine and with only me as witness, the captain would acknowledge that he had had to anchor his thumbs in his waistband to keep his hands from shaking, and that his head had begun to spin like a whirligig at a fair. The Marquis of Buckingham; everyone in Spain knew who that was. The youthful favorite of King James the First of England, the cream of English nobility, famous gentleman and elegant courtier, adored by the ladies and destined for a leading role in His Britannic Majesty's affairs of state. Only a few weeks later, during his stay in Madrid, he would be made a duke.

"To sum up," Guadalmedina concluded acidly. "You were on the verge of murdering the favorite of the King of England. As for the other one . . ."

"John Smith?"

This time there was a note of resigned humor in Diego Alatriste's voice. Guadalmedina had clapped his hands to his head, and the captain observed that the mere mention of Mister John Smith, whoever the man was, had made the aristocrat turn pale. A moment or two later, Alvaro de la Marca ran his thumbnail through his goatee and looked the captain up and down once more, this time with admiration.