The place we had elected to start out for the races could scarcely have been worse. It was at the top of the Calle Mayor where stood the church of San Felipe el Real, where people of the arts—writers, painters, dramatists, and others of the theater—were wont to meet. Mingled with them were young gallants of the town, soldiers home from the war and many another who called himself soldier but who avoided any battle other than those found in taverns or boudoirs.
Standing there, awaiting Don Vicente’s arrival, I listened to the talk and laughter, the witticisms and attempts at such with only a piece of my mind. Rather, I wondered what it was I should do.
Don Vicente’s conduct toward me had been most courteous. Without his influence I should have been in prison or pulling an oar in a galley.
Suddenly I heard a strange voice behind me. “Luis? This is my friend Don Fernand Sarmiento.”
“A pleasure, señor!” said the man named Luis. “You are to be in Madrid for long?”
“A few days only. I regret, but it is true. A small mission here, and then I shall return to Malaga.” Another voice broke in. “Quiet now! He comes.” And indeed I saw Don Vicente approaching. They must have known of his coming, and been awaiting him here. He must often come this way … that might be it. But there might also be a spy in his household, someone in Vicente’s own establishment. Yet the servants whom I knew were fiercely loyal, or seemed to be.
Don Vicente came up the steps. “Tatt! You are here before me! I am sorry, for I would not have you wait.”
“Think nothing of it,” I said. “Down the street there is a place—”
Don Fernand had turned sharply, bumping into Don Vicente. Instantly, I stepped between them. “Señor!” I spoke sharply. “You are rude!”
For a moment he hesitated, his eyes going from Don Vicente to me. It was Vicente with whom he wanted to quarrel, not I.
He was a narrow-visaged man with piercing black eyes and a face somewhat pocked, a lean and savage man. “Out of my way!” he said. “I have no business with you!”
“But you do, señor. And you have a sword with which to conduct it.”
Trapped, he glared at me. Dropping his hand to the hilt of his sword, he spoke in what he meant to be a menacing tone. “Once more, señor, I command you, Step aside! I do not wish to kill you!”
25
“Have no worries, señor. It will be my pleasure to see that you do not.”
He frowned, furious, yet hesitant. It was Don Vicente whom he intended to kill. Who in God’s name was I, this interloper, this stranger?
“Who are you?” he said. “I know you not!”
“Captain Tatton Chantry, señor. At your service, if you are not a coward?”
“A coward? For that I’ll—!”
“But not on the steps of a church, señor. There must be a secluded corner where we can enjoy the festivities.”
“In the alleyway then, and I’ll slit your gullet.”
“What has come over you?” Don Vicente was astonished. “He sought to evade the quarrel!”
Another man, a slim and handsome fellow with red mustaches, had come to stand beside us. “It was you, señor,” he said to Vicente, “it was you I believe he wanted. The man is a famous maton, a killer for hire.”
Don Vicente’s lips tightened. “If it was I he sought, then it is I who must fight him.”
“I am sorry, my friend,” I said gently. “It may have been you he intended to fight, but it is I who named him a coward. Therefore, I must give him satisfaction.”
“That is the way of it,” our new friend said, and then he added, “I am Tomas O’Crowley, an officer in His Spanish Majesty’s service.” He bowed slightly. “I have heard your name spoken, Captain Chantry. We are to be brother officers in the Lowlands, I believe. If you please, I should like to be your second in this affair.”
“I accept the offer. Shall we go? I have no wish to keep them waiting.” Turning to Vicente, I said quietly, “Keep your back to the wall. It is you they wished to kill, and he may have others with him.”
The alley was a cool and quiet place, and secluded. As I approached, Don Fernand Sarmiento had drawn his sword and was waiting.
“Come! Let us have done with this!” he exclaimed impatiently. “You, Señor Whoever-You-Are! On guard!”
I was young, and he who faced me older. It was his mistake that he coupled my youth with the assumption that I must also be inexperienced and therefore impetuous. He was cool, adept, and disdainful. My whole intent had one purpose: to catch him out of tune, for timing is of the greatest importance.
My opponent was a killer, hired for the task, yet I was not his prey. Therefore he wished to be rid of me quickly. In several brief exchanges he seemed to have the better of me, yet I had learned to trust to my subconscious instinct for the proper moment of attack. When it came … he lunged. His recovery was a little slow, but my riposte was not. My cut was for the cheek but my point was a bit low—or perhaps he shifted his head at just the wrong instant. My point struck his jawbone and was deflected downward. He took four inches of my blade through his neck.
My withdrawal was instantaneous but already he was choking on his own blood. I stepped back, blade still on guard. And it was well that I kept it so, for in one wild, vicious effort he swung the edge of his sword at me with a wide cut, in a desperate effort to take me with him.
My blade caught his and deflected it, although the power of the cut was staggering.
He stumbled forward, his own point striking the pavement as he fell. Then he rolled over, face upward, his ruff stained red with blood, his eyes already glazing.
“I think,” O’Crowley suggested, “we had best be away from here.”
“Just one thing more,” I said, my naked blade still in my hand. “You, who came with him. Tell your master there is to be no more of this. If other matones are sent to do his bloody work, tell him that I shall seek him out, and he shall pay, not such as this.” I gestured toward Sarmiento.
A few minutes later we sat in a small bodegone or tavern. “A glass of wine?” O’Crowley suggested. “Or would you prefer some chocolate?”
Chocolate was a drink newly arrived from the Indies and one very popular in Spain, where they drank it at all hours. The Spanish also drank wine, I had noted, but rarely to excess.
“Wine first,” I said, “and then, perhaps, some chocolate.” I felt the need of nothing, and was shaken. What I wished for most was simply to be still, to recover myself a bit. For swordsman though I was—and certainly no novice to fighting and bloodshed—I liked it not.
“How did you know what he was about?” Vicente asked me. “For know you did.”
“I was forewarned, and so ready.”
“You risked your life for me.”
“You are my friend. You have been gracious. I knew that you would fight, but I also knew that the man was certain to be very dangerous.”
“Yet you fought him.”
“My training,” I commented dryly, “has been good. We Irish are an embattled race, and I have almost as many enemies as you have.”
“Nevertheless—”
“My friend,” I said to Vicente, “you are of great courage. This I saw when first we met. You would have fought bravely, but Sarmiento was a professional assassin and it needs more than courage against such a one. Courage, without the fighting skills, can get a man killed—and quickly.”
“I thank you, and my family will thank you also. Whatever you shall need, call upon us.”
“I am obliged, but what I need I can find. Although I appreciate your consideration and want only the respect and affection of your family.”
“This is all very well,” O’Crowley said, “but to live a life well, discretion is needed as much as courage. And in this case I would suggest that discretion would be a fast horse to Malaga where a ship is being laden for the Lowlands, and it is there that I myself am bound.
“There will be an inquiry, and it might well be that you would lie in prison until the problem is resolved. And that might be this year, or next, or the year after.”
I finished my chocolate. “Vicente, my thanks for your hospitality … Take care to guard yourself. I am off.”
The most-traveled road to Malaga was a busy one, so we took another, to be out of sight. The death of one maton in Madrid was not apt to attract notice, but that he had been killed by a foreigner was. Those who hired Sarmiento could ask questions.