Then Fate, which like the winds of war, favors those who keep a clear head, came to the aid of Diego Alatriste. It was God's will that one of his thrusts went through the quillons of the sword guard and cut either the fingers or the wrist of the adversary at his left, who when he felt the wound, stepped back two paces with a "For the love of ..." By the time his opponent regrouped, Alatriste had already delivered three two-handed slashes, like three lightning bolts, against the other opponent, who had lost his balance and been forced by the violence of the attack to retreat.
That was all the captain needed to get his feet firmly set, and when the one who had been wounded on the hand advanced, the captain dropped the knife in his left hand, protected his face with his open palm, and lunging forward, thrust a good fourth of his blade into his opponent's chest. His victim's momentum did the rest: the sword drove through to the guard. The man cried out, "Jesus!" and dropped his sword, which clanged to the ground behind the captain.
The second swordsman, already on the attack, pulled up short. Alatriste leaped backward to pull his sword free of the first man—who had dropped to the ground like a sack of meal—and turned to face his remaining enemy, panting to catch his breath. The clouds had parted just enough to see, in the moonlight. . . the Italian.
"We are even now," said the captain, gasping for air.
"Delighted to hear that," the Italian replied, white teeth flashing in his dark face. The words were not yet out of his mouth when he made a quick, low thrust, as visible, and invisible, as the strike of an asp. The captain, who had studied the Italian carefully on the night of the attack on the two Englishmen, was waiting. He shifted to one side, and put out his left hand to parry the thrust, and the enemy sword plunged into thin air—although, as the captain stepped back, he became aware that he had a dagger cut across the back of his hand. Confident that the Italian had not severed a tendon, he reached to the left with his right arm, hand high and sword tip pointing down, parrying with a sharp ting! a second thrust, as surprising and skillful as the first. The Italian retreated one step, and again the two men stood facing each other, breathing noisily. Fatigue was beginning to affect both. The captain moved the fingers of his wounded hand, finding, to his relief, that they responded: the tendons were not cut. He felt blood, dripping warm and slow down his fingers.
"Can we not come to some agreement?" Alatriste asked.
The Italian stood in silence a moment. Then shook his head. "No," he said. "You went too far the other night." His throaty voice sounded tired. The captain could imagine that, like him, the Italian had had his fill.
"So now?"
"Now it is your head or mine."
A new silence. Alatriste's erstwhile accomplice made a slight move, and Alatriste responded, without relaxing his guard. Very slowly they circled, each taking the other's measure. Beneath the buffcoat, the captain could feel his shirt soaked in sweat.
"Will you tell me your name?"
"It has no bearing on this."
"You hide it, then—that is the sign of a scoundrel." Alatriste heard the Italian's harsh laugh. "Perhaps. Yet I am a live scoundrel, and you, Captain Alatriste, are a dead man."
"Not this night."
His adversary seemed to be taking stock. He glanced toward the inert body of his henchman. Then he looked at me, still on the ground beside the third of the figures who had been lurking in the plaza, and who was now stirring weakly. He must have been badly wounded by my pistol shot, for we could hear him moaning and asking for confession.
"No," concluded the Italian. "I believe you are right. This is not the night."
He seemed to be readying himself to leave, but as I watched, I saw him flip the dagger in his left hand from grip to blade. Then, all in the same movement, he flung it toward the captain, who somehow miraculously dodged it.
"Underhanded dog!" grunted Alatriste.
"Well, by God," the other responded. "You surely didn't think I would ask your permission."
Again the two swordsmen stood studying each other. The Italian ended that with a twirl of his blade, Alatriste responded with another, and again each cautiously raised his sword, and steel brushed steel with a faint metallic ching, before they lowered their swords again.
"Devil take it," the Italian sighed hoarsely. "There is no end to this." He began to back away from the captain, very slowly, his sword held horizontally between them. Only when he was safely away, almost at the corner post, did he turn his back.
"Incidentally," he called as he was fading into the shadows, "the name is Gualterio Malatesta. Did you hear? And I come from Palermo. I want that burned into your brain when I kill you!"
The man I had shot was still whimpering for confession. His shoulder was shattered, and splinters of his clavicle were protruding from the wound. Very soon, the Devil would be well served.
Diego Alatriste gave him a quick, impersonal look, went through his purse, as he had earlier with the dead man's, and then came over and knelt beside me. He did not thank me, or say any of the things one might expect would be said when a thirteen-year-old boy has saved a man's life. He simply asked if I was all right, and when I replied that I was, he tucked his sword beneath one arm and, putting the other around my shoulders, helped me to my feet. His mustache brushed my cheek for an instant, and I saw that his eyes, paler than ever in the light of the moon, were observing me with strange intensity, as if he were seeing me for the first time.
The dying man moaned again, again pleading for confession. The captain turned back, and I could see him thinking.
"Run over to San Andres," he said finally, "and fetch a priest for this miserable fellow."
I stared at him, hesitating; it seemed to me that I had glimpsed that bitter, ill-humored grimace on his lips.
"His name is Ordonez," he added. "I recognize him from Flanders."
Then he picked up the pistols and started off. Before I obeyed his orders, I went back to the carriage guard on the corner to look for his cape, then ran after him and handed it to him. He tossed it over one shoulder and lightly touched my cheek—with a show of affection unusual in him. And he kept looking at me with the same expression he had had when he asked if I was all right. Half embarrassed, half proud, I felt a drop of blood from his wounded hand drip onto my face.
IX. THE STEPS OF SAN FELIPE
A few days of calm followed that sleepless night. But as Diego Alatriste continued to refuse to leave the city, or hide, we lived in a perpetual state of alert; we might as well have been in a campaign. Staying alive, I discovered, can be much more tiring than letting oneself be killed, and requires all five senses. The captain slept more during the day than he did at night, and at the least sound—a cat on the roof, or the creak of wood on the stairs—I would awaken in my bed to see him in his nightshirt, sitting up in his, with the vizcaina or a pistol in his hand.
After the skirmish at the Gate of Lost Souls, he had tried to send me back to my mother for a while, or to the house of a friend. I told him that I had no intention of abandoning our camp, that his fate was mine, and that if I had been capable of getting off two pistol shots, I could fire
off another twenty if the occasion demanded. A position I reinforced by expressing my determination to run away from any place he might send me. I do not know whether Alatriste was grateful for my decision, for I have told you that he was not a man given to revealing his feelings. But at least I had made my point. He shrugged and did not bring up the matter again.