Purity of blood by Arturo Pérez Reverte

Author:Arturo Pérez Reverte [Reverte, Arturo Pérez]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Histoire
ISBN: 9780452287983
Published: 2006-11-28T04:19:32+00:00

VI. SAN GINÉS ALLEY

The gaming house was swarming with people betting their asses, even their souls. Amid the buzz of conversations and the coming and going of cardsharps and bootlickers hoping for tips, Juan Vicuña, a former sergeant of the horse guard wounded at Nieuwpoort, was crossing the room, trying to avoid spilling the Toro wine he was carrying in a jug, and looking around with satisfaction. On the half-dozen tables, cards and dice and money were changing hands, inspiring sighs, Holy Mothers! and flashes of naked greed. Gold and silver coins shone beneath the tallow lamps suspended from the domed brick ceiling, and business was all he could ask.

Vicuña’s watering hole was in a cellar on Cava de San Miguel, very close to the Plaza Mayor; and in it, deals of every sort allowed by the mandates of our lord and king were struck, and also, as Your Mercies may have adjudged, others, scarcely concealed, that were not. The variety was as diverse as the players’ imaginations, which in that day was considerable. They were playing ombre, polla, and one hundred—games that bled you slowly—as well as seven-up, reparólo, and others referred to as “quick and slick” because of the speed with which they left a man without money, speech, or breath. About them, the great Lope had written:

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.