The Cavalier in the Yellow Doublet (10 page)

As for the actor’s spouse, the look and the smile that she directed at the captain spoke eloquently of very different things—complicity and promise. She made as if to cover her face with her cloak, but then did not, a gesture that was somehow more provocative than if she had done nothing; and I noticed that my master slowly and discreetly took off his hat and stood there with it in his hand until the carriage had borne the actors away down the avenue. Then he put his hat back on again, turned, and met the hate-filled gaze of don Gonzalo Moscatel, who, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword, was watching us from the other side of the avenue, angrily chewing the ends of his mustache.

“Ye gods,” muttered don Francisco, “that’s all we need.”

The butcher was standing on the running board of a private carriage that was as elaborately decorated as a Flemish castle, with two dapple-gray mules between the shafts and a coachman on the driver’s seat; inside, next to the open door on which don Gonzalo Moscatel was leaning, sat a young woman. She was the orphaned niece with whom he lived and whom he wished to see married to his friend, the lawyer Saturnino Apolo, a base and mediocre man if ever there was one, who apart from taking the bribes proper to his profession—and which were the origin of his friendship with the butcher—frequented Madrid’s narrow little literary world and fancied himself a poet, which he wasn’t, for his only skill lay in bleeding money out of successful authors, flattering them, and holding their chamber pot, if I may put it so, like someone playing for free in the gaming den of the Muses. He and Moscatel were as thick as thieves, and he liked to boast that he knew everyone in the world of the theater, thus fomenting the butcher’s hopes with regard to María de Castro and wheedling more money out of him, meanwhile hoping to get the niece as well as her dowry. For that was his roguish specialty: living off other people’s purses, so much so that don Francisco de Quevedo himself, seeing that all Madrid despised the wretch, dedicated a famous sonnet to him, which ended with these lines:

Moscatel’s young niece was very pretty, her suitor the lawyer utterly loathsome, and don Gonzalo, her uncle, absurdly jealous of her honor. The whole situation—niece, marriage, don Gonzalo’s theatrical character and temperament, and his jealousy of Captain Alatriste regarding María de Castro—seemed more the stuff of plays than of real life; after all, Lope and Tirso filled the theaters with such plots. Then again, the theater owed its success precisely to the fact that it reflected what went on in the street, and the people in the street, in turn, imitated what they saw on the stage. Thus, in the thrilling, colorful theater that was my century, we Spaniards sometimes tricked ourselves out to play comedy, and sometimes to play tragedy.

“I bet
he
won’t raise any objections,” murmured don Francisco.

Alatriste, who was abstractedly studying Moscatel through half-closed eyes, turned to the poet.

“Objections to what?”

“To vanishing, of course, when he finds out he’s been encroaching on the royal domain.”

The captain smiled faintly but made no comment. From the far side of the avenue, the butcher, bristling with gravity and wounded pride, continued to shoot us murderous looks. He was wearing a short French cape, slashed sleeves, garters of the same vermilion red as the feather in his hat, and a very long sword with ornate guard and quillons. I looked at the niece. She was modest, dark-complexioned, and wore a full-skirted dress, a mantilla on her head, and a gold cross around her neck.

“I’m sure you’ll agree,” said a voice beside us, “that she is very pretty indeed.”

We turned around, surprised. Lopito de Vega had come up behind us and there he was, thumbs hooked in the leather belt from which hung his sword, cloak wrapped about one arm, and his soldier’s hat pushed slightly back over the bandage he still wore about his head. He was gazing adoringly at Moscatel’s niece.

“Don’t tell me,” exclaimed don Francisco, “that she is
she
.”

“She is.”

We were all astonished, and even Captain Alatriste regarded Lope’s son with a certain degree of interest.

“Does don Gonzalo Moscatel approve of your courtship?” asked don Francisco.

“No, on the contrary,” the young man said, bitterly twisting the ends of his mustache. “He says his honor is sacred, et cetera. And yet half Madrid knows that as the city’s supplier of meat, he’s stolen money hand over fist. Nevertheless, Señor Moscatel cares only for his honor. You know—grandparents, coats of arms, ancestry . . . the usual thing.”

“Well, given who he is and with a name like that, this Moscatel fellow must go back a long way.”

“Oh, yes, as far back as the Goths, of course. Like everyone else.”

“Alas, my friend,” sighed Quevedo, “Spain the grotesque never dies.”

“Well, someone should kill her, then. Listening to that fool talk, anyone would think we were still in the days of the Cid. He has sworn to kill me if he finds me loitering near his niece’s window.”

Don Francisco looked at Lopito with renewed interest.

“And do you or do you not loiter?”

“Do I look like a man who wouldn’t loiter, Señor de Quevedo?”

And Lopito briefly described the situation to us. It was not a caprice on his part, he explained. He sincerely loved Laura Moscatel, for that was the young woman’s name, and he was prepared to marry her as soon as he was given the post of ensign he was seeking. The problem was that, as a professional soldier and the son of a playwright—Lope de Vega may have been ordained as a priest, but his reputation as a rake placed the morality of the whole family in jeopardy—his chances of obtaining don Gonzalo’s permission were remote indeed.

“And have you tried every possible argument?”

“I have, but without success. He refuses point-blank.”

“And what if you were to stick a foot of steel through that turd of a suitor, that “Apollo”?” asked Quevedo.

“It would change nothing. Moscatel would simply engage her to another.”

Don Francisco adjusted his spectacles in order to study the young woman in the carriage more closely, then he said to the lovelorn gallant:

“Do you really wish to win her hand?”

“On my life, I do,” replied the young man earnestly, “but when I went to Señor Moscatel to speak honestly and seriously with him, I was met by a couple of ruffians he had hired to frighten me off.”

Captain Alatriste turned to listen, suddenly interested. This, to him, was familiar music. Quevedo arched his eyebrows in curiosity. He, too, knew a fair bit about wooings and sword fights.

“And how did you get on?” he asked.

“Quite well, really. Being a soldier and a swordsman has its uses. Besides, they weren’t up to much, the ruffians. I drew my sword, which they weren’t expecting; luck was on my side, and they both took to their heels. Don Gonzalo still refused to receive me, though. And when I returned that night to her window, accompanied this time by a servant who, as well as a guitar, was armed with a sword and a shield so that we would be equally matched, we found that there were now four ruffians.”

“A prudent man, the butcher.”

“He certainly is, and he has a large purse to pay for his prudence. They nearly sliced off my poor servant’s nose, and after a few skirmishes, we decided to make ourselves scarce.”

All four of us were now looking at Moscatel, who was most put out by our stares and by seeing in good company the two men who, from very different angles, were both hammering at his walls. He smoothed the fierce points of his mustache and paced back and forth a little, grasping the hilt of his sword as if he could barely keep himself from coming over and cutting us to pieces. In the end, he furiously fastened the curtain at the carriage window, thus hiding his niece from view, then gave orders to the coachman as he himself got into the carriage, drew up the running board, and drove off up the avenue, cutting a broad swathe through the crowds.

“He’s a real dog in the manger,” said Lopito sadly. “He doesn’t want to eat, but he doesn’t want anyone else to eat either.”

 

 

 

 

Were all love affairs so difficult? I was pondering this question that very night, while I waited, leaning against the wall of the Puerta de la Priora, staring into the darkness that extended beyond the bridge toward the Camino de Aravaca and into the trees in the neighboring gardens. The nearness of Leganitos Stream and the river Manzanares had a cooling effect. I had my cloak wrapped about me—concealing the dagger tucked in my belt at the back and the short sword at my waist—but that wasn’t enough to keep me warm. I preferred, however, not to move in case I caught the eye of some marauding group, whether curious or criminal, trying to scrape a living in that solitary place. And so there I stayed, like part of the shadow cast by the wall, alongside the door of the passageway that connected the Convento de la Encarnación, the Plaza de la Priora, and the riding school, linking the north wing of the Alcázar Real to the outskirts of the city. Waiting.

I was, as I said, pondering the problematic nature of love affairs,
all
love affairs it seemed to me then, and thinking how strange women were, capable of captivating a man and leading him to such extremes that he would risk money, honor, freedom, and life. There was I, no mere foolish boy, at dead of night, armed to the teeth like some lout from La Heria, exposed to all kinds of danger and not knowing what the devil the devil wanted of me, and all because a girl with blue eyes and fair hair had scribbled me two lines:
If you are gentleman enough to escort a lady
. . . Every woman knows how to look after herself. Even the most stupid woman can apply those skills, without even realizing that she is. No astute man of the law, no memorialist, no petitioner at court can better them when it comes to appealing to a man’s purse, vanity, chivalry, or stupidity. A woman’s weapons. Wise, experienced, lucid don Francisco de Quevedo filled pages and pages with words on the subject:

The angelus bell at the Convento de la Encarnación rang out, and this was immediately followed, like an echo, by the bell from San Agustín, whose tower could be seen among the dark rooftops, bright in the light of the half-moon. I crossed myself and, before the last chime had even faded away, heard the door to the passageway creak open. I held my breath. Then, very cautiously, I pushed back my cloak to free the hilt of my sword, just in case, and turning in the direction of the noise, glimpsed a lantern which, before it was withdrawn, lit up from behind a slender figure that slipped quickly out, shutting the door behind it. This confused me, because the figure I had seen was that of an agile young man, with no cloak, but dressed all in black and with the unmistakable glint of a dagger at his waist. This was not what I had expected, far from it. And so I did the only sensible thing I could at that hour of night and in that place: quick as a squirrel, I grabbed my dagger and pressed the point to the new arrival’s chest.

“Another step,” I whispered, “and I’ll nail you to the door.”

Then I heard Angélica de Alquézar laugh.

“We’re getting close,” she said.

We were walking along in the dark, guiding ourselves by the moonlight that filled the way ahead with the cutout shapes of rooftops and projected our own shadows onto the rough ground that ran with streams of grubby water and filth. We were speaking in whispers, and our footsteps echoed in the empty streets.

“Close to what?” I asked.

“Close.”

We had left behind us the Convento de la Encarnación and were approaching the little Plaza de Santo Domingo, presided over by the sinister bulk of the monastery occupied by the monks of the Holy Office. There was no one to be seen near the old fountain, and the fruit and vegetable stalls were, of course, bare. A guttering lamp above an image of the Virgin lit up the corner of Calle de San Bernardo beyond.

“Do you know the Tavern of the Dog?” asked Angélica.

I stopped and, after a few steps, so did she. By the light of the moon, I could see her man’s costume, the tight doublet concealing all feminine curves, her fair hair caught up beneath a felt cap, the metallic glint of the dagger at her waist.

“Why have you stopped?” she asked.

“I never imagined I would hear the name of that inn on your lips.”

“There are, I’m afraid, far too many things you have never imagined. But don’t worry, I won’t ask you to go in.”

This reassured me somewhat, but not much. The Tavern of the Dog was a place even I would tremble to enter, for it was a meeting place for whores, ruffians, louts, and other passing trade. The quarter itself, Santo Domingo and San Bernardo, was a perfectly reputable area, inhabited by respectable people; however, the narrow alleyway where the inn was to be found—between Calle de Tudescos and Calle de Silva—was a kind of pustule that none of the neighbors’ protests could burst.

“Do you know the inn or don’t you?”

I said that I did, but avoided going into further detail. I had been there once with Captain Alatriste and don Francisco de Quevedo when the poet was in search of inspiration and looking for fresh material for his lighter verse. “The Dog” was the illustrative nickname given to the owner of the tavern, who sold hippocras, an infamous and extremely expensive cordial whose consumption was forbidden by various decrees, because, in order to make the drink more cheaply, its manufacturers routinely adulterated it with alum stone, waste matter, and other substances harmful to the health. Despite this, it continued to be drunk clandestinely, and since any prohibition brings wealth to those tradesman who flouts it, the Dog sold his particular brand of rat poison at twenty-five
maravedís
for half a quart—which was very good business indeed.