The Cavalier in the Yellow Doublet Read Online Free PDF

THE HOUSE IN CALLE FRANCOS
    The following morning, we, or, rather, Captain Alatriste, came under a hail of harquebus fire from Caridad la Lebrijana, upstairs in the Inn of the Turk, while we, downstairs, heard only their voices. Or, rather, her voice, because she was the one who spent the most powder. The matter under discussion was, naturally enough, my master’s fondness for the theater, and the name of María de Castro was uttered several times, attached on each occasion to a different epithet—“strumpet,” “trollop,” and “trull” being some of the milder ones—which was quite something coming, as it did, from La Lebrijana. After all, although she was, by then, almost forty years of age and still preserved the dark charms of her youth, she herself had worked unashamedly as a prostitute for several years before setting herself up with the money earned through her labors as the honest owner of that tavern situated between Calle de Toledo and Calle del Arcabuz. The captain had made her no promises or proposals of any kind, but on our return from Flanders and Seville, he had once again installed himself and me, as before, in the rooms above the inn; that winter, moreover, she had warmed his feet and other parts in her own bed. This was hardly surprising, for, as everyone knew, she was still madly in love with the captain, and had even waited for him chastely while he was in Flanders; for there is no more virtuous and faithful woman than one who leaves the profession in good time—be it via the nunnery or the cooking pot—before she ends up covered in buboes and left to die in Atocha Hospital. Unlike many married women who are honest because they have to be, but who dream of being otherwise, women who have walked the streets know what they are leaving behind, and how much they gain by that loss. La Lebrijana, as well as being exemplary, loving, still alluring, and voluptuous, was also, alas, a woman of spirit, and my master’s dalliance with the actress was more than she could bear.
    I have no idea what my master said on that occasion, if, of course, he said anything. Knowing my master, I feel sure that he simply stood firm under fire, without breaking ranks or opening his mouth, very much in the manner of an old soldier waiting for the rain to clear up. By God, though, it took a long time; indeed, the battle at Ruyter Mill and at Terheyden put together were small beer compared to that quarrel, during which I heard turns of phrase one wouldn’t even use against the Turks. When La Lebrijana resorted to throwing things—the sound of shattering crockery reached us down below—the captain picked up sword, hat, and cape and went out to take the air. I was sitting at the table next to the door, where I sat every morning, making the most of the good light there to study don Antonio Gil’s Latin grammar, an invaluable book loaned to me by my teacher Pérez—an old friend of the captain’s and mine—in order to further my education, which had been much neglected in Flanders. At sixteen, I was determined to pursue the profession of soldier, but both Captain Alatriste and don Francisco de Quevedo were most insistent that having a little Latin and Greek, a neat hand, and a knowledge of good literature would take any reasonably intelligent man to places that the sword never would, especially in a Spain where judges, functionaries, scribes, and countless other rapacious crows were always bombarding the poor and the uneducated—which was almost everyone—with mountains of paperwork, the more easily to strip and plunder them. Anyway, as I was saying, there I was, copying out Miles, quem dux laudat, Hispanus est , while Damiana, the serving wench at the inn, was scrubbing the floor, and the usual customers at that time of day, the Licentiate Calzas, fresh from the Plaza de la Provincia, and the former sergeant of horse, Juan Vicuña, maimed in Nieuwpoort, were playing ombre with the apothecary Fadrique, the spoils being