But none came. He was inexplicably alone in the room dimly illuminated by the rectangle of moonlight falling through the window.
I do not know how long I waited outside, blending into the darkness, motionless behind the carriage guard on the corner post. I clutched the captain's cape and weapons closer, to borrow a little warmth from them—I was wearing only my doublet and hose when I ran after the coach of Martin Saldana and his catchpoles—and stood there a long while, clenching my teeth to keep them from chattering. Finally, when neither the captain nor anyone else came out of the house, I began to be concerned. I could not believe that Saldana had murdered my master, but in that city at that time, anything was possible. The idea truly alarmed me. When I looked closely I thought I could see a sliver of light escaping through one of the windows, as if someone were inside with a lamp, but from where I stood it was impossible to verify. I decided, despite the danger, to try to get near enough to peek inside.
I was about to step into the open, when, in one of those strokes of fortune to which we sometimes owe our lives, I caught a glimpse of movement some distance away, in the entry to a neighboring house. It was only a flicker, but a shadow had moved as the shadows of motionless objects do when they become animate. Surprised, I swallowed my impatience and stood there, undecided, keeping my eyes glued to the spot. After a while, it moved again, and at that same moment, from across the small plaza I heard a soft whistle that sounded like a signaclass="underline" a little tune, something like ti-ri-tu, ta-ta. When I heard that, the blood froze in my veins.
There must be at least two, I decided, after scrutinizing the shadows that covered the Gate of Lost Souls. One of them was hiding in the nearest entryway; that was the first shadow that had moved. The second, the one that had whistled, was farther away, covering the angle of the plaza that led to the wall of the slaughterhouse. There were three ways out, so for a while I concentrated on the third. Finally, when the clouds parted to reveal a crescent moon, I was rewarded: I made out a third dark shape, silhouetted against the moonlight.
The plan was clear, and boded ill for the captain, but I had no way to run the thirty steps to the house without being seen. I pondered these developments, and sat down and unrolled the cape, then placed one of the pistols on my knees. Its use was forbidden by edict of our lord and king, and I was well aware that if the law found me with them, my young bones would end up in a galley, and my youth would not excuse me. But, upon my word as a Basque, at that moment I did not give a fig. So, as I had watched the captain do so many times, I felt to see that the flint stone was in place, and trying to muffle the click with the cape, I pulled back the hammer to cock the pistol for firing. That one I stuck between my doublet and my shirt. I primed the second pistol, and waited with it in one hand and the captain's sword in the other. I put the now empty cape around my shoulders, and thus equipped, I continued my vigil.
I did not have long to wait. A light shone briefly in the enormous entry to the house, then was extinguished. I heard a carriage and turned to see it approaching from one of the exits of the small plaza. Along with it, I made out a black silhouette that entered the courtyard and for a brief instant consulted with two dark figures that had emerged from the house. The first shadow returned to its corner, and the other figures climbed into the carriage. As it started off, with its black mules and funereal coachman, it passed so close that it nearly brushed against me, then it rolled off into the darkness.
I did not have long to reflect upon the mysterious carriage. The sound of the mules' hooves was still echoing across the plaza when from the spot where the black silhouette was posted came another whistle, again that ti-ri-tu, ta-ta, and from the nearest corner the unmistakable sound of a sword being slowly drawn from its scabbard. Desperately, I prayed to God to part the clouds once more, and allow me to see. But it is a long way from thinking about the horse to saddling it. Our Supreme Maker must have been busy with other duties, because the clouds stayed where they were. I began to feel light-headed; everything around me was whirling. So I shed the cape and stood, meaning to run more quickly to the place where things were going to happen. That was when I saw Captain Alatriste come out into the courtyard.
Then everything happened with extraordinary speed. The shadow closest to me moved from its hiding place, starting toward Diego Alatriste at almost the same time I did. I held my breath as I followed it: one, two, three steps. At just that moment, God chose to shed his light on me, and parted the clouds. In the pale glow of the crescent moon I could clearly make out the back of a heavyset man moving forward with naked steel in his hand. I also saw the other two starting from their corners of the plaza. And as I held the captain's sword in my left hand and raised my right, armed with the pistol, I saw Diego Alatriste stop in the middle of the plaza, and caught the glint from his useless knife.
I took two steps more, and now the barrel of the pistol was nearly prodding the back of the man in front of me ... but he heard my footsteps and whirled about. I had time to see his face before I pulled the trigger and the pistol went off. The flash of the shot lighted features distorted with surprise. The roar of the gunpowder thundered through the Gate of Lost Souls.
The rest happened even more rapidly. I yelled, or thought I did, partly to alert the captain, and partly because of the terrible pain from the recoil of the weapon; it felt as if my arm had been torn from its socket. But the captain had more warning than he needed from the shot, and when I threw him his sword, over the shoulder of the man in front of me—or over the place where the man in front of me had been—he was already running toward it. He danced aside to avoid being hit, and picked it up the moment it touched the ground. Then, once again, the moon hid behind the clouds. I dropped the discharged pistol, pulled the other from my doublet, and turned toward the two shadows closing in on the captain.
I aimed, holding the pistol with both hands. But I was trembling so hard that the second shot went wild, and this time the recoil knocked me backward to the ground. As I fell, my eyes dazzled by the flash, I had a second's glimpse of two men with swords and daggers, and of Captain Alatriste, sword flashing, battling like a demon.
Diego Alatriste had seen them coming toward him before the first pistol shot. The moment he stepped outside he was watching for something of the sort, and he knew how futile it would be to try to save his hide with his ridiculous knife. The blast of the pistol had shocked him as much as it had the others, and for an instant he had thought he was the target. Then he heard my yell, and still not understanding what the devil I was doing there at such a late hour, he saw his sword flying toward him as if it had fallen from the skies. In the blink of an eye he had it in his hand, just in time to confront two furious, deadly blades.
It was the flash from the second shot that allowed him, once the ball went whizzing by between his attackers and himself, to size up the situation and prepare. Now he knew that one was on his left and the other straight ahead of him, forming an angle of approximately ninety degrees.
The role of the one was to keep him engaged as the other plunged a knife into his ribs or belly from the side.
Alatriste had found himself in similar situations before; it was not an easy task to combat one while protecting himself from another with only a short knife. His defense was to slash a wide swath from right to left, to cut into their space, although to protect his vulnerable left side he was forced to swing more to the left than to the right. The two attackers met move with move, so that after a dozen feints and thrusts they had traced a complete circle around him. Two oblique stabs had glanced off his buffcoat. The cling, clang of the Toledo blades sounded the length and breadth of the plaza, and I have no doubt that had the place been more inhabited, between that noise and my pistol shots the windows would have been filled with observers.