The Fencing Master

© Arturo Pérez-Reverte, 1988

English translation copyright © Margaret Jull Costa, 1998

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This is a translation of El maestro de esgrima.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Pérez-Reverte, Arturo.

[Maestro de esgrima. English]

The fencing master / by Arturo Pérez-Reverte;

Translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa.—

I. ed.

p. cm

ISBN 0-15-100181-2

ISBN 0-15-602983-9 (pbk.)

I. Costa, Margaret Jull. II. Title.

PQ6666.E765M3413 1999

863.'64—dc21 98-35536

eISBN 978-0-547-53946-1

v2.0215

For Carlota. And for the Knight of the Yellow Doublet.

I am the most courteous man in the world. I pride myself on never having once been rude, in this land full of the most unutterable scoundrels, who will come and sit down next to you and tell you their woes and even declaim their poetry to you.

—HEINRICH HEINE, Reisebilder

The plump brandy glasses reflected the candles burning in the silver candelabra. Between puffs on the solid cigar—from Vuelta Abajo in Cuba—which he was engaged in lighting, the minister studied the other man surreptitiously. He was in no doubt that the man was a scoundrel, yet he had seen him arrive at Lhardy’s in a superb carriage drawn by two magnificent English mares, and the man wore a valuable diamond set in gold on one of the slender, manicured fingers now slipping the band off a cigar. That, plus the man’s elegant self-assurance and the detailed report that had been drawn up about him, automatically placed him in the category of distinguished scoundrels. For the minister, who was far from considering himself a radical on questions of ethics, not all scoundrels were equal; their degree of social acceptability stood in direct relation to each individual’s fortune and distinction—especially if, in exchange for that minor moral violation on the minister’s part, large material benefits were to be obtained.

I need proof, said the minister, but these were empty words, for it was clear he was already convinced: he, after all, was paying for supper. The man merely smiled in the manner of one hearing exactly what he expects to hear. Still smiling, he tugged at his immaculate white shirt cuffs, revealing a striking pair of diamond cuff links, then slipped his hand into his inside jacket pocket.

Of course you do, he murmured in a tone of gentle irony.

The sealed but unstamped envelope lay on the linen cloth at the edge of the table, within reach of the minister’s hands. He did not touch it, though, as if he were afraid of some contagion; he merely looked at the man.

I’m listening, he said.

The man shrugged and gestured vaguely in the direction of the envelope; it was as if its contents had ceased to interest him the moment it left his hands. Oh, I don’t know, he said, as if it were a matter of no importance. Names, addresses . . . a rather interesting report, interesting at least to you. Something to keep your agents busy for quite a while.

Are all those involved named?

Let’s just say that all those who should be there are there. I have to manage my capital prudently. With those last words the smile reappeared. This time it was blatantly insolent, and the minister felt irritated.

Sir, I have the impression that you are taking this whole matter rather lightly. Your situation . . . He left the phrase hanging in the air like a threat.

The man seemed surprised, then made a face. Surely, he said, after thinking for a moment, you don’t expect me to come and collect my thirty pieces of silver, like Judas, furtive and sorrowing. After all, you leave me no option.

The minister placed one hand on the envelope. You could refuse to collaborate, he said, clenching his cigar between his teeth. That would be positively heroic.

I could, said the gentleman, finishing his brandy, then getting to his feet and picking up his walking stick and his top hat from a nearby chair. Heroes, however, have a habit of ending up either dead or bankrupt, and, as you know better than anyone, I have too much to lose. At my age and in my profession, prudence is more than just a virtue, it’s an instinct. So I have decided to absolve myself.

There was no handshake, no word of farewell, just a few footsteps on the stairs and the noise below of a carriage setting off in the rain. When the minister was alone, he broke the seal on the envelope, put on his glasses, and moved closer to the light. A couple of times he paused to take a sip of brandy while he considered the contents, and, when he had finished reading, he remained seated for a while, amid the smoke curling up from his cigar. He gave a melancholy glance at the brazier heating the small private room, then got up slowly and went over to the window.

He had several hours’ work ahead of him, and he swore under his breath at the thought. Madrid, on that December night in 1866, with Her Catholic Majesty, Queen Isabel II, still on the Spanish throne, was being drenched by a cold rain driving in from the icy peaks of the Guadarrama Mountains.

I

The Fencing Bout

A fencing bout between men of honor,

under the direction of a teacher inspired by the same feelings,

is a diversion proper to good taste and fine breeding.

Much later, when Jaime Astarloa wanted to piece together the scattered fragments of the tragedy and tried to remember how it all began, the first image that came to his mind was of the marquis and of the gallery in the palace overlooking the Retire Gardens, with the first heat of summer streaming in through the windows, accompanied by such brilliant sunlight that they had to squint against the dazzle on the polished guards of their foils.

The marquis was not in form; he was wheezing like a broken bellows, and beneath his plastron his shirt was drenched with sweat. He was doubtless paying for the excesses of the previous night, but, as was his custom, Don Jaime refrained from making any uncalled-for remarks. His client’s private life was none of his business. He merely parried in tierce a feeble thrust that would have made even an apprentice blush, then lunged. The flexible Italian steel bent as the button struck his opponent’s chest hard.

Touché, Excellency.

Luis de Ayala-Velate y Vallespín, the Marqués de los Alumbres, swore under his breath as he angrily removed the mask protecting his face. He was flushed with the heat and exertion. Large drops of sweat trickled down from his hairline into his eyebrows and mustache.

Devil take it, Don Jaime, he said, with just a touch of humiliation in his voice. How do you do it? That’s the third time you’ve hit me in less than a quarter of an hour.

Jaime Astarloa gave a suitably modest shrug. When he took off his mask, there was the hint of a smile beneath his grizzled mustache.

You’re not at your best today, Excellency.

Luis de Ayala laughed jovially and strode off down the gallery, which was adorned with valuable Flemish tapestries and collections of antique swords, foils, and sabers. He had a mane of thick, curly hair, and he radiated exuberance and vitality. Strong and well built, he had a loud, deep voice and was much given to grand gestures, grand passions, and easy camaraderie. At forty, single, good-looking, and—or so people said—possessed of a large fortune, as well as being an inveterate gambler and womanizer, the Marqués de los Alumbres was the very model of the kind of rakish aristocrat in which nineteenth-century Spain abounded. He had never read a book in his life, but he could recite from memory the pedigree of any celebrated horse at the racetracks in London, Paris, or Vienna. As for women, the scandals with which he favored Madrid society from time to time were the talk of the salons, always avid for novelty and gossip. He carried his forty years extremely well, and the mere mention of his name in female company was enough to provoke quarrels and arouse stormy passions.

The truth is that the Marqués de los Alumbres was something of a legend in Her Catholic Majesty’s pious court. It was said, amid much fluttering of fans, that during one particular drunken spree he had got involved in a knife fight in a cheap tavern in Cuatro Caminos—which, however, was entirely false—and that on his estate in Málaga, he had taken in the son of a famous bandit, after the bandit was executed—which was absolutely true. There was little gossip about his brief political career, but his love affairs were the talk of the city, for it was rumored that certain eminent husbands had ample reason to demand satisfaction from him; whether they did or not was another matter. Four or five had sent him their seconds more because of what people might say than for anything else and that gesture found them greeting the new day with their life’s blood draining away into the grass of some meadow on the outskirts of Madrid. Certain malicious tongues claimed that among those who might have demanded redress was the royal consort himself. Everyone knew though that the last thing one would expect of Don Francisco de Asís was for him to feel jealous of his august wife. However whether Isabel II had succumbed to the undoubted personal charms of the Marqués de los Alumbres was a secret known only to the alleged interested parties and to the queen’s confessor. As for Luis de Ayala he did not have a confessor nor in his own words did he have any damn use for one.

In his shirtsleeves, having removed the protective plastron, the marquis put his foil down on a small table, where a silent servant had placed a silver tray bearing a bottle.

That’s enough for today, Don Jaime. I seem incapable of doing anything right, so I’d better just haul down the flag. How about a sherry?

That drink of sherry, after their daily hour of fencing, had become a ritual. With his mask and foil under his arm, Don Jaime went over to his host and took the proffered glass in which the wine gleamed like liquid gold.

The marquis breathed in the bouquet. You have to admit, maestro, that they certainly bottle things well in Andalusia, he said, taking a sip and giving a satisfied click of his tongue. Look at it against the light: pure gold, Spanish sun. We have no reason to envy the insipid stuff they drink abroad.

Don Jaime nodded, pleased. He liked Luis de Ayala, and he liked the fact that he called him maestro, although the marquis was not exactly one of his pupils. In fact, he was one of the best swordsmen in Madrid, and it was many years since he had needed to take lessions from anyone. His relationship with Jaime Astarloa was of a different kind. The marquis loved fencing with the same passion with which he devoted himself to gambling, women, and horses. To that end he spent an hour a day engaged in the healthy exercise of fencing with a foil, an activity that, given his character and interests, was also extremely useful to him when it came to settling debts of honor. Five years earlier, in order to find an opponent as good as himself, Luis de Ayala had gone to the best fencing master in Madrid, for that was Don Jaime’s reputation, although the more fashionable fencers considered his style to be too classical and antiquated. And so, at ten o’clock each morning, excepting Saturdays and Sundays, the fencing master would arrive punctually at the Palacio de Villaflores, the marquis’s home. There, in the large fencing gallery, designed and equipped according to the most demanding standards of the art, the marquis brought a fierce determination to their fencing bouts although generally speaking his teacher’s ability and talent won out. Though a hardened gambler Luis de Ayala was also a good loser and he admired the old fencer’s remarkable skill.

The marquis prodded his own chest with a pained look on his face and, sighing, said, You certainly put me through the mill, maestro. I’m going to need a good rubdown with alcohol after this.

Don Jaime smiled humbly. As I said, Excellency, you were not at your best today.

You’re right. It’s just as well that these foils have buttons on their tips, though; if not, I’d be six feet under by now. I’m afraid I’ve been a less than worthy opponent.

That’s the price you pay for these late nights.

Don’t I know it. At my age too. I’m no spring chicken, dammit, but what can I do, Don Jaime . . . You will never guess what’s happened to me.

I imagine that Your Excellency has fallen in love.

Exactly, sighed the marquis, pouring himself another sherry. I have fallen in love like some young dandy. Head over heels.

The fencing master cleared his throat and smoothed his mustache. If I’m not mistaken, he said, it is the third time this month.

So? The important thing is that whenever I do fall in love, I really do fall in love. Do you understand?

Perfectly. Even allowing for poetic license, Excellency.

It’s odd, but with the passing years I seem to fall in love more and more frequently. There’s nothing I can do about it. My arm is strong but my heart is weak, as the great writers of old might have put it. If I were to tell you . . .

At that point, the Marqués de los Alumbres launched into a description, laden with hints and eloquent innuendos, of the wild passion that had left him drained and exhausted as dawn was breaking. She was a lady, of course. And her husband was none the wiser.

In short—and here the marquis gave a cynical smile—I have only my sins to blame for the state I’m in today.

Don Jaime shook his head, ironic and indulgent. Fencing is like holy communion, he said with a smile. You must come to it in a fit state of body and soul. If you break that supreme law, then punishment is bound to follow.

Dammit, maestro, I must write that down.

Don Jaime raised his glass to his lips. His appearance was in marked contrast to the vigorous physicality of his client. The fencing master was well over fifty. He was of medium height, and his extreme thinness suggested fragility, but that was contradicted by the firmness of his limbs, which were as hard and knotty as vine stems. The slightly aquiline nose, the smooth, noble brow, his white but still abundant hair, his fine, well-manicured hands gave him an air of serene dignity, which was only accentuated by the grave expression in his gray eyes, eyes that became friendly and alive when the innumerable tiny lines surrounding them crinkled into a smile. He had a neatly trimmed mustache, in the old style, but that was not the only anachronistic feature about him. His modest resources meant that he could dress no more than reasonably well, but he did so with a kind of faded elegance that ignored the dictates of fashion; even the most recent of his suits were cut according to patterns dating back twenty years—and were in fact at his age in excellent taste The overall effect of someone frozen in time indifferent to the new fashions of the agitated age he was living through The truth is that he took pleasure in this, for obscure reasons that perhaps even he could not have explained.

The servants brought them towels and a basin of water so that both teacher and pupil could wash. Luis de Ayala took off his shirt; his powerful torso, still gleaming with sweat, was covered with the red marks left by the foil.

Good grief, maestro, these look like the welts of a penitent. And to think that I pay you for this.

Don Jaime dried his face and looked benevolently at the marquis.

Luis de Ayala was splashing his chest with water, puffing and blowing. Of course, he added, politics is even more bruising. Did I tell you that Luis González Bravo has suggested I take up my seat again? With a view to a new post, he says. He must be in deep trouble if he has to stoop to asking a libertine like me.

The fencing master adopted a look of friendly interest. In fact, he did not care about politics in the slightest. And what will you do, Excellency?

The marquis shrugged disdainfully. Do? Absolutely nothing. I have told my illustrious namesake that he can go shove his post, not in those exact words, of course. My forte is dissipation, a table at a casino and with a pair of beautiful eyes close by. I’ve had enough of politics.

Luis de Ayala had been a deputy in congress and had briefly occupied an important post in the Ministry of the Interior in one of Narváez’s last cabinets. His dismissal, after three months in the post, coincided with the death of the minister, his maternal uncle Vallespín Andreu. Shortly afterward, Ayala resigned, this time voluntarily, from his seat in congress and abandoned the ranks of the Moderate Party to which he had always given rather lukewarm support anyway. The phrase I’ve had enough, uttered by the marquis at a gathering at the Athenaeum, had caught on and passed into political vocabulary to be used by anyone wishing to express his deep disgust with the state the nation was in. From then on, the Marqués de los Alumbres had remained on the sidelines of public life, refusing to participate in the deals between civilians and the military that went on under various cabinets during the monarchy, merely observing, with the smile of a dilettante, the unfolding of the present political turmoil. He lived life at a hectic pace and lost huge sums at the card table without batting an eye. According to the gossipmongers, he was permanently on the brink of ruin, but Luis de Ayala always managed to recover his fortune, which seemed bottomless.

How’s your search for the Holy Grail going, Don Jaime?

The fencing master paused in buttoning up his shirt and gave his companion a sad look. Not too well. Indeed, I think badly would be the right word. I often wonder if the task isn’t perhaps beyond my abilities. To be honest, there are moments when I would gladly give it up.

Luis de Ayala finished his ablutions, dried his chest with the towel, and picked up the sherry glass which he had left on the table. Flicking the glass with one of his fingers, he then held it to his ear with a look of satisfaction, listening to the ringing.

Nonsense, maestro, nonsense. You are more than capable of such an ambitious enterprise.

A melancholy smile flickered across the fencing master’s lips. I wish I shared your faith, Excellency, but at my age so many things begin to break down, even inside. I’m beginning to think that my Holy Grail doesn’t even exist.

Rubbish.

For years now, Jaime Astarloa had been working on a Treatise on the Art of Fencing, which, according to those who knew his extraordinary gifts and his experience, would doubtless constitute one of the major works on the subject when it was finally published, comparable only to the studies written by great teachers like Gomard, Grisier, and Lafaugère. Lately, though, he had begun to have serious doubts about his ability to set down on paper the thing to which he had dedicated his whole life. There was another factor that added to his unease. If the work was to be the non plus ultra on the subject he hoped it would be, it was essential that it deliver a masterstroke, the perfect, unstoppable thrust, the purest creation of human talent, a model of inspiration and efficacy. Don Jaime had devoted himself to this search from the first day he crossed foils with an opponent. His pursuit of the Grail, as he himself called it, had proved fruitless, and now, on the slippery slope of physical and intellectual decline, the old teacher felt the vigor of his arms beginning to ebb, and the talent that had inspired each movement beginning to disappear beneath the weight of years. Almost daily, in the solitude of his modest studio, and hunched beneath the light of an oil lamp over pages that time had already yellowed, Don Jaime tried vainly to excavate from the crannies of his brain the key move that some stubborn intuition told him was hidden somewhere, though it refused to reveal itself. He spent many nights like that, awake until dawn. On other nights, dragged from sleep by a sudden inspiration, he would rise in his nightshirt in order to snatch up one of his foils with a violence bordering on desperation and stand in front of the mirrors that lined the walls of his small fencing gallery There trying to make real what only minutes before had been a lucid flash in his sleeping brain he would immerse himself in that painful pointless pursuit measuring his movements and intelligence in a silent duel with his own image whose reflection seemed to smile sarcastically back at him from the shadows.

DON JAIME went out into the street with the case containing his foils under his arm. It was a very hot day. Madrid languished beneath an unforgiving sun. When people met, they spoke only of the heat or of politics. They would begin by talking about the unusually high temperatures and then begin enumerating, one by one, the current conspiracies, many of which were public knowledge. In that summer of 1868, everyone was plotting. Old Narváez had died in March, but González Bravo believed himself strong enough to govern with a firm hand. In the Palacio de Oriente, the queen cast ardent glances at the young officers in her guard and fervently said the rosary, already