Arturo Perez-Reverte - Captain Alatriste

For his part, the captain kept his guard high, not admitting any act or divulging the identity of any person. He continued to maintain that Guadalmedina's intervention had been coincidental—although his questioners seemed to be convinced otherwise. Without a doubt, the captain reflected, someone inside the Alcazar Real had been informed of the comings and goings of the count that night, as well as the morning after the skirmish in the lane. But he held firm, sustaining that neither Alvaro de la Marca nor anyone else knew of his interview with the two masked men and the Dominican. For the most part, he answered in monosyllables, or by nodding or shaking his head. He was beginning to feel hot in the buffcoat, or perhaps it was only apprehension. He looked around the room, wondering which direction the executioners—who must be hidden somewhere—would come from, to take him prisoner and lead him in manacles to the anteroom of Hell.

There was a pause as the masked man took notes in a very deliberate and correct hand, that of a professional scribe, and the priest stared at Alatriste with that hypnotic, feverish gaze that would raise gooseflesh on the bravest of men. In the interim, the captain wondered when someone was going to ask him why he had blocked the Italian's sword. Apparently his personal motives in the matter were not worth a fart in a windstorm. At just that instant, as if he were able to read the captain's thoughts, Fray Emilio Bocanegra put out his hand and rested it on the dark table, with his waxy index finger pointed at the captain.

"What impels a man to desert the legions of God and pass into the iniquitous ranks of the heretics?"

It was nearly comic, thought Diego Alatriste, for the priest to qualify as God's legions the unit formed by him, the masked scribe, and that sinister Italian swordsman. In other circumstances, he would have burst out laughing, but this stage was not set for comedy. He choked back his laughter and, unflinching, met the Dominican's eyes, and then those of the scribe, who had stopped writing. The eyes glinting through the holes of his mask showed very little sympathy.

"I cannot say," said the captain. "It may have been because although the man was facing death, he asked for mercy for his companion, not himself."

The Inquisitor and the masked man exchanged incredulous looks.

"God save and protect us," muttered the priest. Eyes filled with fanaticism and scorn measured the captain.

I am a dead man, thought Alatriste, reading his sentence in those black and pitiless pupils. Whatever he did, whatever he said, his doom was written in that implacable stare and in the icy calm with which the man in the mask again put pen to paper. The life of Diego Alatriste y Tenorio, soldier of the Tercios Viejos in Flanders, hired swordsman in the Madrid of King Philip the Fourth, was worth only whatever those two men still wanted to learn. As one could deduce from the turn the conversation was taking, that was very little indeed.

"Your companion that night"—the scribe spoke without interrupting his writing, and his surly tone sounded a death knell for the captain—"did not seem to have as many scruples as you."

"I give faith to that," the captain admitted. "He seemed even to be enjoying it."

The writer's quill paused a moment in midair, as he flashed a look of irony toward the captain. "How wicked of him. And you?"

"I do not enjoy killing. For me, taking a life is a business, not a pleasure."

"Yes, so we noted." The man dipped the quill into the inkwell and turned back to his task. "And next, I suppose, we shall learn that you are a man given to Christian charity."

"You err, Your Mercy," the captain responded serenely. "I am known to be a man more inclined toward the sword than toward sentiment."

"That is why you were recommended to us as a man of the sword. To our misfortune."

"But in truth, it is so. Fortune has reduced me to this sad estate. I have been a soldier all my life, and there are certain things one cannot avoid."

The Dominican, who had been as quiet as the Sphinx during this exchange, sat straight up and leaned across the table toward Alatriste as if he would obliterate him on the spot. That instant.

"Avoid? You soldiers are offal," he declared with infinite repugnance. "Rabble ... blaspheming, looting, wallowing with women. What infernal 'sentiment' do you refer to? Taking a life is as easy as breathing to you."

The captain received the reproof in silence, and only when the priest had finished did he shrug.

"You are undoubtedly right," he said. "But some things are difficult to explain. I was going to kill that Englishman. And I would have, had he defended himself or sought mercy for himself. But when he pled for mercy, it was as I told you, he pled for the other man."

The round-headed man again paused in his writing. "Did they, by any chance, reveal their identity to you?"

"No, although they could have, and perhaps saved themselves. I was a soldier for nearly thirty years. I have killed, and I have done things for which my soul will be damned through eternity. But I know how to appreciate the gesture of a courageous man. And heretics or not, those men were courageous."

"You give that much importance to courage?"

"There are times when courage is all that is left," the captain said with utter simplicity. "Especially in times like these, when even flags and the name of God are used to strike deals."

If he had expected a reply, there was none. The masked man did nothing but continue to stare at him. "By now, of course, you have learned who those two Englishmen are."

Alatriste said nothing, but finally allowed a weak sigh to escape. "Would you believe me if I denied it? Since yesterday, all of Madrid has known." He looked at the Dominican and then the masked man with an expression that was easy to read. "And I am happy not to have that on my conscience."

The scribe made a brusque movement, as if attempting to shake off the thing Diego Alatriste had not wanted to be responsible for. "You bore us with your inopportune conscience, Captain."

This was the first time he had used that form of address. It was consciously ironic, and Alatriste frowned, not pleased.

"It matters little whether I bore you or not," he replied. "I do not like to murder princes without knowing who they are." Irritated, he twisted his mustache. "Or to be deceived and manipulated."

"And you feel no curiosity," intervened the priest, who had been listening closely, "as to why just men had determined to procure those deaths? Or prevent evil men from usurping the good faith of our lord and king, and from taking an infanta of Spain to the land of heretics as a hostage?"

Alatriste slowly shook his head. "No, I am not curious. Please consider, Your Mercies, that I have not even attempted to find out who this gentleman is who covers his face with a mask." Alatriste looked at his questioners with mocking, insolent seriousness. "Nor the identity of the one who, before he left the other night, insisted that I should merely frighten Masters John and Thomas Smith, take their letters and documents, but spare their lives."

For a moment the Dominican and his companion said nothing. They seemed to be thinking. It was the latter who finally spoke, staring at his ink-stained fingernails.

"Perhaps you suspect who that other caballero might be?"

"'Sblood! I suspect nothing. I find myself involved in something that is too rich for my fancy, and I regret it. Now all I hope to do is to leave with my head attached to my body."

"Too late," said the priest, in a tone so low and menacing that it reminded the captain of the hissing of a snake.

"Returning to our two Englishmen," the masked man put in. "You will recall that after the other caballero left, you received different instructions from the holy father and from me."