Read Online Purity of Blood by Arturo Pérez-Reverte - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Tags: Fiction, Literary, General, Historical, Historical - General, Fiction - Historical, Thrillers, Action & Adventure, Spain, Swordsmen
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and stand before the portrait Diego Velázquez painted of her, and stay for hours looking at her in silence, painfully aware that I never truly knew her. But along with the scars that she inflicted, my old heart still holds the conviction that that girl, that woman who inflicted upon me every evil she was capable of, also, in her way, loved me till the day she died.
At the time of this story, however, all that lay before me. The morning that I followed her carriage to the Acero fountain, beyond the Manzanares and the Segovia bridge, Angélica de Alquézar was simply a fascinating enigma. I have already written that she used to ride down Calle Toledo on the way between her domicile and the palace, where she served as a menina, waiting upon the queen and the princesses. The house where she lived, an old mansion on the corner of La Encomienda and Los Embajadores, belonged to her uncle, Luis de Alquézar. It had been the property of the Marqués de Ortígolas until he—ruined by a well-known actress in La Cruz theater, who choked more life out of him than a hangman his victims—had to sell it to satisfy his creditors. Luis de Alquézar had never married, and his one known weakness, aside from the voracious exercise of power that had earned him his position at court, was his orphaned niece, the daughter of a sister who had perished with her husband, a duke, during the storm that lashed the fleet of the Indies in ’21.
I had watched her pass by, as was my habit, from my post at the door of the Tavern of the Turk. Sometimes I followed her two-mule carriage to the Plaza Mayor, or sometimes to the very flagstones of the palace, where I turned and followed my footsteps home. All for the fleeting reward of one of her disturbingly blue glances—which on occasion she deigned to grant me before focusing on some detail of the landscape, or turning toward the duenna who usually accompanied her: a hypocritical, vinegary old woman as worn and thin as a student’s purse. The duenna was one of those creatures of whom it could honestly be said,
Never without her scapular,
with more herbs and balms and flummery
than all the nostrums that line the shelves
of the city’s most bustling pharmacy.
I had, as you perhaps recall, exchanged a few words with Angélica during the adventure of the two Englishmen, and I always suspected that, knowingly or not, she had contributed to our being attacked in El Príncipe theater, where Captain Alatriste came within a hair of losing his hide. But no one is completely in control of whom he hates or whom he loves; so, even knowing that, the blonde girl continued to bewitch me. And my intuition that it was all a devilishly dangerous game did nothing but spur my imagination.
So I followed her that morning through the Guadalajara gate and de la Villa plaza. It was a brilliant day, but instead of continuing toward the palace, her carriage rolled down the de la Vega hill onto the Segovia bridge and across the river whose thin trickle was the eternal source of burlesque and ridicule from the city’s poets. Even the usually cultured and exquisite don Luis de Góngora—quoted here with an apology to Señor de Quevedo—contributed the pretty lines that follow.
An ass drank you in yesterday,
and today you are the piss it passed.
I learned later that Angélica had during that time fallen quite pale, and her physician had recommended outings among the groves and promenades near El Duque garden and the Casa de Campo. He’d also prescribed the renowned waters of the Acero fountain, widely believed to cure, among other things, ladies suffering from amenorrhea, or interruption of various delicate female functions. A fountain described by Lope in one of his plays:
Take a walk tomorrow,
if you can endure
a good half-dipper of
Acero-laced water,
the miraculous unblocking cure.
Angélica was still very young for that type of problem, but it is true that the cool shade there, the sun and the healing air, were good for her.
At the time of this story, however, all that lay before me. The morning that I followed her carriage to the Acero fountain, beyond the Manzanares and the Segovia bridge, Angélica de Alquézar was simply a fascinating enigma. I have already written that she used to ride down Calle Toledo on the way between her domicile and the palace, where she served as a menina, waiting upon the queen and the princesses. The house where she lived, an old mansion on the corner of La Encomienda and Los Embajadores, belonged to her uncle, Luis de Alquézar. It had been the property of the Marqués de Ortígolas until he—ruined by a well-known actress in La Cruz theater, who choked more life out of him than a hangman his victims—had to sell it to satisfy his creditors. Luis de Alquézar had never married, and his one known weakness, aside from the voracious exercise of power that had earned him his position at court, was his orphaned niece, the daughter of a sister who had perished with her husband, a duke, during the storm that lashed the fleet of the Indies in ’21.
I had watched her pass by, as was my habit, from my post at the door of the Tavern of the Turk. Sometimes I followed her two-mule carriage to the Plaza Mayor, or sometimes to the very flagstones of the palace, where I turned and followed my footsteps home. All for the fleeting reward of one of her disturbingly blue glances—which on occasion she deigned to grant me before focusing on some detail of the landscape, or turning toward the duenna who usually accompanied her: a hypocritical, vinegary old woman as worn and thin as a student’s purse. The duenna was one of those creatures of whom it could honestly be said,
Never without her scapular,
with more herbs and balms and flummery
than all the nostrums that line the shelves
of the city’s most bustling pharmacy.
I had, as you perhaps recall, exchanged a few words with Angélica during the adventure of the two Englishmen, and I always suspected that, knowingly or not, she had contributed to our being attacked in El Príncipe theater, where Captain Alatriste came within a hair of losing his hide. But no one is completely in control of whom he hates or whom he loves; so, even knowing that, the blonde girl continued to bewitch me. And my intuition that it was all a devilishly dangerous game did nothing but spur my imagination.
So I followed her that morning through the Guadalajara gate and de la Villa plaza. It was a brilliant day, but instead of continuing toward the palace, her carriage rolled down the de la Vega hill onto the Segovia bridge and across the river whose thin trickle was the eternal source of burlesque and ridicule from the city’s poets. Even the usually cultured and exquisite don Luis de Góngora—quoted here with an apology to Señor de Quevedo—contributed the pretty lines that follow.
An ass drank you in yesterday,
and today you are the piss it passed.
I learned later that Angélica had during that time fallen quite pale, and her physician had recommended outings among the groves and promenades near El Duque garden and the Casa de Campo. He’d also prescribed the renowned waters of the Acero fountain, widely believed to cure, among other things, ladies suffering from amenorrhea, or interruption of various delicate female functions. A fountain described by Lope in one of his plays:
Take a walk tomorrow,
if you can endure
a good half-dipper of
Acero-laced water,
the miraculous unblocking cure.
Angélica was still very young for that type of problem, but it is true that the cool shade there, the sun and the healing air, were good for her.
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